One bad engine, one old Subaru and one too many cars in the driveway.

Good news--we finally have a name for the blue bus. We're calling it BB. The naming process was accelerated out of necessity by the fact that we now have--yes, count them--two blue buses.
Intoducing BlueBell:




Craig sends me a craigslist posting for a car approximately once per every 1.65 days, so it was no surprise to me when the morning after we got the news about BB's engine I got the craigslist link for BlueBell. She is a 1970 deluxe transporter--mostly original, right down to the radio, and gas
cap.

We took BB's engine down to our mechanic to get his opinion on the motor's condition--long story short--he informed us that the engine was completely shot. This was a posibility that we were somewhat expecting, but not fully prepared to deal with. Our greatest hope was that there were simply missing hoses...and our realistic hope was that the case would be solid and everything would be rebuildable, but as it is, the case is cracked, pistons are shrunk, and we're back to square one.

Ultimately we aren't sure what our plans are at this point other than we are still going to fix BB up, but we don't know what to do about the large cavity in the engine compartment. We're painting her on July 11th. We're about ready to get rid of the red bus frame (which my grandma has lovingly named "Doris"). We are having a really good time having four VWs at our house, but I think our neighbors are getting concerned. We've got the Subaru on craigslist, but apparently no one is interested in an old--but not old enough to be cool--Subaru with over 200k miles...should have seen that one coming.

Oh, AND, the extra bonus to buying BlueBell is that her previous owner is a painter and we had been wanting to paint our house. Thank you Lawrence for the beautiful bus and the beautiful paint job--seriously, it is gorgeous.