From a thread called "Why did you buy your Bluebird"

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Strong as an ox, comfortable, excellent tank capacities, and plenty of
generating capacity are the things that come to my mind. But that's
getting ahead of the story.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were looking at motorhomes and were
debating about getting one. My impression had always been that all of
the Class C motorhomes that I had seen were overloaded and flimsy, but
that the newer ones build on a small truck chassis like the GMC Kodiak
chassis seemed like they would do the trick.

Alas, those things were expensive enough that they were getting close
to a diesel pusher in price, so we looked at a few diesel pushers. We
almost, and I mean almost, started to buy a slightly used Winnebago
pusher.

We had discussed some of the places that we wanted to see and what we
wanted to do. Mexican travel and disaster relief and other charity
work were high on the list of priorities.

I had a motorcycle trip planned for that fall so I took off with a pal
for the northeastern corner of Mexico. One of the dirty little
secrets of traveling in Mexico is that, depending on where you are
going, you can stay on Interstate-quality roads for most of the way.
Not this time. The roads between Matamoros, Victoria, and Tampico
were frickin' unreal. My motorcycle, with aftermarket shocks and
almost an inch more travel than stock, was bottoming out and the whole
thing was riding like an angry prey mantis.

I remember thinking that roads like this would have shaken that pretty
Winnebago to pieces.

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On the way back I got deathly ill and wouldn't ride a bike again for
about 3 months, never mind missing quite a bit of work.

Bike Week rolled around, and I am riding down to Daytona and as I pass
an exit south of St. Augustine I spot this big, rusty, dusty,
monstrous brown Bluebird among all the lessor RVs at an RV
dealership. So I stopped for a look.

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The sales dweeb bragged that he used to work for a big name dealer
that sold Bluebirds but it became obvious pretty quickly that he knew
less about the 'bird than I did. It was on consignment, they had let
the batteries run down, and it was pretty dusty.

And the interior - lots of brown vinyl - was sobering, to put it
nicely.

But I saw promise. My first dream was always to do a bus conversion,
and I could see the potential in this thing. It was rugged enough to
take on Mexican secondary roads, and as I later discovered the tank
capacities and generating capacities put most modern Class A
motorhomes to shame.

I called the girlfriend up and she happened to be in the area
(actually coming up on that exit, which was kinda prophetic actually
since this was pretty far away from home).

She dropped by, took a look at the thing, and basically said something
to the effect of how she was worried that my illness had fried my
brain. But that she loved me anyway.

Well, one of her friends was with her and told Deb that her family had
once had a Bluebird and loved it, so that got my girlfriend to a'
thinkin'

A few days later we went through my brochure collection and found the
original factory brochures from Bluebird for an 80's 'bird so she was
able to see how the thing should look once it was cleaned up.

So we bought it and started cleaning the old girl up. She's still a
work in progress but immensely liveable and strong as a house. We
have been trailering a 5,500 lb. Land Rover on a 2,500 lb. trailer and
the old 'bird hauls that thing around like nobody's business.

Last year was tough financially with the Florida real estate crash and
all but right now we are more than just being back on track. In the
two years or so that we've had our 'bird back on the road we've made
several 1,000 mile trips, numerous smaller trips, and used the old
girl as a base for several charity cookouts. We've tailgated at two
Buffett concerts and done so many other things with the 'bird that I
pinch myself as to how lucky we've been.

The Wanderlodge was something that I was always aware of (hence the
reasons that I had the brochures after all these years) but I didn't
realize just how liveable one of these things could be until I was
older and was actually facing the prospect of semi-retiring,
traveling, and living extensively in one.

So why did we buy the Wanderlodge? It's as tough as nail, can tow
more than anything out there, and it's a bus but without the
irritations of converting a bus to an RV or re-engineering someone
else's bus conversion systems/mistakes. Heating and cooling are
exceptional by RV standards, and the systems are redundant. The
generator has plenty of capacity. It's not particularly cheap to
operate but our cost of purchase and our costs to improve and restore
the old girl are a bargain compared to a new Class A with anywhere
near the capacity. A PT-40 is spacious and whereas it would be sorta
nice to have a living room slideout the reality is that I probably
wouldn't trust most slideouts under the conditions that we plan to
operate.

When I hear other RV owners talk about the leaks that they have, the
lack of power or poor handling, how they are too hot in the summer or
too cold in the winter, etc., Deb and I just look at each other
because our 'bird has proven to be exceptionally comfortable.

There are adjustments to be sure but compared to the other lifestyle
that I considered - living aboard a sailboat - the Bluebird is
sinfully comfortable.

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