history of the Green Turd

When we first bought the Big Green Turd we knew we bought it off an Idahoan family that told us they bought it from an old couple that used to live in it fulltime. We’ve always wanted to find that couple and thank them for such a great bus and maybe even show them what we’ve done to it, well…….thanks to Google, they found us! I’d love to share what the “old couple” had to say:

Hello, 
We had a lot of great times in the bus as well. Some not so great ones too... LOL. 
We were told that the bus was originally a school bus in the City of Mission, BC, which was really neat because that's where we lived when we first got married. A man from the Vancouver area started the conversion and then passed away before it was finished. A family from Mission purchased the bus and finished converting it. 
We were newlyweds and I was an Associate Pastor in a small church in Mission and my wife and I wanted to find a large motorhome to live in and to use to take groups on missions trips. After looking at hundreds of motorhomes (and dragging my new bride all over the place to many RV lots) we found the bus. 
We moved in and did a few renos to make it more useable for ourselves. We took the bunkbeds out and put in the closet. We also put on the awning, replaced the existing driver's seat with one of the two teal chairs (that had been where the couch is now), and put the couch in. 
We started taking groups to Mexico twice a year to work in orphanages, build churches, run children's camps, etc. I think we took close to 100 people down over the 5 years that we lived in it. 
We also did lots of traveling on our own time. Most of our personal travels were in BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. 
A few years into living in the bus, my wife flooded the back half by overfilling the bathroom sink. That was when we decided to put in the laminate flooring, enlargen the bathroom, (it used to be half as big with a sliding pocket door closing off the hallway,) recover the doghouse, and remove the old style dinette which had matching teal cushions. 
Everywhere we went people asked us about the bus. Usually we were asked if it was our parent's unit since we were so young. We were 21 years old when we moved in. 
I should tell you the story about when we put in the rebuilt 3208 Cat motor. The original Cummins Diesel was tiring out and we wanted to continue the long trips to Mexico. We purchased a rebuilt Cat motor and a friend and I installed it over a month. Finally, we were to take the maiden voyage and headed out down the road. After about 2km I heard a loud "swoosh" and wondered what had happened. Another km or two down the road the bus shut off and we smelled a burned smell. As it turned out, the manufacturer had put in the incorrect oil gasket and the oil leaked out all over the road which fried our new and long awaited motor! We got it hauled back to their shop and they installed a new rebuilt Cat within a week. 
I read in your blog that you had a line break or freeze... we only ever had one line freeze and it was between the shower and the wall. Once I finally figured that out I just put a hair dryer back there (underneath the sink) and it thawed it out within minutes. 
Eventually, we wanted to start having kids and our deal was that my wife would live in the bus but not with kids. That was when we put the bus up for sale. We advertised locally and quite a few people came to look at it. The right people just never came along and it seemed that they always found something wrong with it. We decided to put it on ebay for a few weeks. The day before the posting was to finish we received an email from the family in Idaho. They were interested but needed more time to arrange financing. They gave us half of what we were asking and we agreed that they would fly up to look at it in a few weeks time. We picked them up at the airport and gave them the tour of the bus. After about an hour they gave us the remainder of the money and they drove away, leaving us with nothing more than our lawnchairs and welcome mat. (They never even took it for a test drive!) 
Shortly after that we moved to Kelowna in the Okanagan and purchased a townhouse. We have a four and a half year old son and a five month old boy as well. We wanted to start camping with our kids and a year ago we purchased a camper van made by Pleasureway. It's a pop top van and is a lot better than sleeping on the ground... we could never go to tenting after living in the bus for 5 years. One day we hope to have a bus again but for now my oldest son and I enjoy looking at pictures of buses on the internet. That was how we came across our old bus. 
We always wondered what happened to it and we are excited to see another family enjoying it. Have you sold it? Where is it now? Are you living in a new bus? 
Thanks for responding to our email. It sort of brought some closure for us to see where the bus had gone. 
Dustin and Heidi & boys

We’re getting ready now to make our final trip in the old bus so it was great to finally put all the pieces together and with a bit of luck, any future Green Turd owners will find this and we’ll all learn it’s future. It’s been a good bus, and I hope will make just as many memorable adventures for the next family!