THE HISTORY OF THE  BICYCLE BUS, part 4

In the spring of 1990 we began heading east for the Minnesota Rainbow Gathering. We stopped on the Nez Pierce Reservation near Lewiston Idaho and fixed bikes for a week. All the Indian people were very kind to us like they are everywhere.

Some reservations have a history of "problems" with some of their white neighbors... There is a neighborhood bar on this reservation. After working on bikes all day I rode over and sat down to have a beer. There were a lot of sullen eyes looking at me. One of the Indian folks came over and sat with me and explained. He said that all the white people in Idaho knew better than to come into that Indian bar. Normally it would be extremely dangerous to do such a thing, Fortunately for me they appreciated the work I was doing on the kid's bikes. (Lapwei Rez picture on left).

Driving a fifty year old vehicle cross country on a  four thousand mile trip over mountains and plains is risky business. The old International seemed so reliable after all the years we had lived in it that I thought it would make it just fine. Nonetheless it was slow going at times, as the old bus would take the steeper grades only in first gear. That meant we would be way over as far to the right side of the road as we could get so traffic could move along past us as safely as possible. We had a sign on the side of our bus explaining what the Bicycle Bus was all about and underneath there was another sign that said "Donations are always appreciated".

Frankly, we traveled on a wing and a prayer. Something always came our way, often just in the nick of time. Maybe we sold a bike. Maybe someone handed me a hundred dollar donation out of the blue. Maybe I had to sell something we'd accumulated that we really didn't need, a spare generator, an opal gemstone, an antique camera. But somehow we always managed to put gas in the tank and oil in the engine.

We really got broke in eastern Montana and were quite desperate when we pulled into the tiny town of Custer which only had one small store. The lady who owned the store got on her phone and called around to her friends and they brought bikes to me that needed repair. We managed to fill our tank and had a little money left over. And so we made our way east slowly but surely to Minnesota. There was something I had been dreaming of doing for a long time that I was going to finally see come true. I wanted to drive my Bicycle Bus to Newport Minnesota and park it next to the house my dad built, where me and my four siblings lived the first years of our lives in the 1950's.

Earlier in the year Ellie and I had ridden the cycle to Southern California for a rare visit with my family.

The picture above right is of me and my brother and 3 sisters. --So in June we made it to Minnesota and if you look close you will see there is my Bicycle Bus parked beside our old family home.

I met the family  who lives in the house now and the mom gave me a tour. It sure brought back memories.... Newport didn't know quite what to think of the Bicycle Bus. I wonder --if I had been raised in Newport instead of my family moving to California in 1962 -- would I still have created the Bicycle Bus? Do you think so?

The Minnesota Rainbow Gathering was held way up in the northern part of the state not all  that far from Canada. There were some steep hills up there. Minnesota doesn't have anything remotely resembling mountains but I was really surprized by the long grade leading to the Gathering. The old Bike Bus had to struggle in first gear for about five miles up the winding road -- worse than any stretch we had even encountered in Montana!

Nothing is sold, ever. Some people had beefs with me on that account. They PRESUMED I had brought the bikes so I could SELL them at the Gathering. I had to explain over and over that the Bike Bus was our HOME, our only home, and that is why it was at the Gathering. I didn't have any intention of selling bicycles there. I gave many away. In fact I specifically brought many bikes there to give away. Most Rainbows loved the Bicycle Bus...

Oh gosh, I don't know quite where to start to tell you why I love Rainbow Gatherings. I will tell you that I had to do quite a bit of searching to find photos for this website where we were all wearing clothing.

In the picture on the left I am getting a foot massage from a sweet sister named Kim while another sister is braiding my hair. A brother is playing the harmonica and another girl is playing guitar. I look happy don't I? Kim's bus was parked right beside ours. The bus on the other side of us held a very nice "Coffee Kitchen" where we spent a lot of time. Rainbow Coffee Kitchens serve free coffee 24 hours per day to all commers. Everyone pitches in, running for water, washing pots and pans, chopping firewood.

Technically the vehicles were supposed to be kept at least two miles from the Gathering site. Bus village was slightly different -- being reserved for vehicles that are the actual year round homes of people. Some of the best meals were cooked in bus village, because the buses held all the best spices of some pretty excellent cooks and bakers. But still it wasn't the Gathering.

To get to the actual Gathering each person had to pack his bags and walk in along the trails. Running supplies in to the eighty kitchens was always a problem. I had located six good sturdy one-speed army bikes. I rebuilt each one of these, and painted each one yellow with a Rainbow, and donated them to Rainbow Supply on the condition that whoever gets one, brings it back to each National Gathering year after year. The picture below on the left shows one of the yellow bikes I donated to Rainbow Supply --  being put to good use by a couple of brothers. The photo beneath is something I extracted from a video I shot. It just shows the good feeling that comes from a good Rainbow hug.

The picture below on the right is of my friend "Steps" an Athabascan Indian. He is sitting in the Bike Bus. That painting on our ceiling is painted on velvet. When the Gathering was over Steps needed a ride west and we brought him along with us.

Steps is an exceptionally understanding and compassionate human being. But when he gets drunk he becomes... well let's just say he becomes impossible to live with. We parted ways in South Dakota. But over the years that followed we met many times in Eugene and are still good friends.

We'd stopped in Lake Preston South Dakota on our way out to Minnesota and I looked up some of my cousins who still lived there. My great grandfather Torsten Uglem came over from Selbu Norway and settled there in 1880. He and his wife Johanna had twelve children. In their spare time they farmed. A fair number of their descendants still live in the area. I kinda figured they might get a kick out of seeing the Bicycle Bus. The little South Dakota farmng community looked very carefully at our weird machine as we rolled through town. And my long hair and beard was a bit odd too. I didn't see a single other "long-hair" in that town. The sheriff just parked and watched us like an owl. It was really funny when I noticed his name tag and realized he was married to one of my cousins. He was somewhat surprised... He was a good fellow though.

So after the Rainbow Gathering we stopped in Lake Preston again. We needed to put on a new exhaust gasket and get a new tire and that was as good a place as any. While we were there my cousins threw a picnic for us. I drove the Bike bus right over on the grass next to the picnic tables. Gosh those women are good cooks. That picnic reminded me of the way my grandmother cooked. Nothing like it. Steps and Ellie and I were all accepted and treated real well. This was one of the best experiences of our journey.

A few days later in Montana we happened upon a  Crow Powwow in progress in a small town east of Billings and we stayed a few days. All the Indian kids gathered around our bus when we pulled in. We parked overnight.

I had traded a bicycle for a large stuffed deer head with a huge rack of antlers. For lack of any other place to put it we had lashed it to the rear exterior of the bus. During the night Indian folk would be walking along together talking when their flashlights would suddenly cross the deerhead and they would jump back with an oath, thinking it was real. Then they would laugh and laugh. This was repeated over and over all night long. Our bed was right there in back of the bus with a window that opened outwards so we could laugh with them and tell them about all the people the deer head had freaked out so far that evening.  Happiness is good for people...

All the way to Minneota, and all the way back, newspaper reporters came out to interview us for their local papers. We managed to get some copies for our scrapbooks. Several people said the'd seen us on television. Below are links to newspaper articles. We made two color front page photographs In large city newspapers in the summer of 1990. Pretty good for amatuers...

I am very glad I was able to take the wonderful old 1941 International Bicycle Bus on this trip back to Minnesota, even if it did turn out to be the last trip of the valiant machine. If we hadn't gone on that trip the bus might have lasted another ten years. Maybe another fifty. But it was asking too much of an old machine to make such a strenuous journey -- especially fully encumbered as it was.

Near Moses Lake Montana the old Bike Bus spun a rod bearing on the freeway.  We were just flying along without a care in the world -- and BLAM! There it was. We got towed into Moses Lake and rented a trailer space for a few days. The Black Diamond is a rather unusual industrial engine, and practically an antique. All the parts are five times as expensive as a normal engine. Rebuilding it would cost over $2000. We were nearly broke. Plus we were on the wrong side of the Cascade Mountains. We were in snow country. If we got stuck there all winter we would be cold. And we sure wouldn't be making any money with our bikes. We needed to find a way to get the bus over the mountains at least and maybe to the Olympic Penninula, where we stood a chance of getting through the financial ordeal that lay ahead of us.

I dropped the engine's oil pan and removed the bad piston rod from underneath -- and hand filed and sanded the journal and miked it till it was as close to perfectly round as I could get it. Then I put in a new oversize bearing and reassembled everything and started the engine. It knocked some, but it would roll. It was a twenty buck temporary fix. No one knew how long it would last. We headed west. We had to do the entire job again 200 miles later on the Columbia river. But after that we were able to finish our journey. Towards the end the knocking got louder and louder AND LOUDER until finally the engine just came to a stop in Quilcene, Washington, on the Olympic Penninsula, deep in the forests, --and three miles from friends we knew who had a Christian Community there -- Faith Farm.

They towed us in and invited us to stay until we got 'er fixed up again. The picture above on the left shows us parked in their driveway a couple weeks after we first arrived. Little did we realize that we would be stuck there for about three years. But it was providence too, I am sure. For our hearts had longed to be in one place, with families, and create some good strong friendships. And that is what happened.

Photographer Mike Venso did this photograph of me in the Bike Bus early in the summer of 1990. He spent a day with us, on the Lapwei Reservation, and wrote a rather large story about us for his newspaper. Here I am, sitting rather comfortably. It's plain to see how little room there is inside the old Bike Bus. On a rainy day we might want to squeeze three or four friends inside to get them out of the rain. It was a real crunch. But for just Ellie and me it was cozy.

Our bedroom was in the back. This area pictured is what might be called the living room. The kitchen area is in between, compete with fridge and stove and cupboards. The fridge worked sometimes and sometimes it didn't. One thing that never worked was the hotwater heater. But we did have a real nice woodstove.

It proved to be an impossibility to get the money together to repair the engine while we were living at Faith Farm. We eventually got a different bus and got back on the road again but it didn't happen very quickly. In fact it took several years.

I spent a lot of time writing a book, COMPORTING ROADWISE, about Ellie and me and the loss of our children, thinking that if I could publish it I would have the money to fix the bus. But, funny how things go, the book has been finished ten times in the last eleven years but I still keep rewriting it and it still isn't ready to publish. It is almost 600 pages long though. --If you would like to read the preface to COMPORTING ROADWISE  click this image:

To go on to chapter 5 of the history of the bicycle bus click Next.