Justin and Christy work to get their bus road-ready for a driving test, troubleshooting a broken interior latch with help from a locksmith and Lowe's. They schedule a DMV appointment and plan one-on-one instruction before attempting to drive it the next day.
I'm gonna climb up there. Big day today. Gonna drive the bus for the first time. You ready for this? No. It's gonna be an exciting day no matter what happens. You are gonna try to drive or not? Oh yeah! There it is! Hey, again, Maple! There she is! Trying to keep compete with the big trucks! There she is! And there she stays! We are not able to drive today for various uninteresting reasons. But what we will be able to do is see if we can't put our tag on here. I'm gonna make sure it's got the— oh yeah, it's still got the screws. That's good. But what we can do today is go over to the DMV and make sure we get a driving appointment for tomorrow. We've lined somebody up to give us one-on-one instruction tomorrow morning. So instruction in the morning and then take our test in the afternoon. We are at the DMV. Hopefully we can get an appointment. It's been this story, hasn't it?
It's crazy.
It's crazy what's all involved.
It really is.
But trying to enjoy the adventure along the way and the journey.
Exactly.
Pulling out of our driveway, hopefully February 8th.
Hopefully.
These are the kindest people here. So kind. We don't have to get an appointment. We just have to show up and we might have to wait a little bit. He gave us some hours that are best. It looks like we might— are we gonna try to come in the morning?
I guess it depends on how well we're doing.
Yeah, if we're doing really well, we're gonna come here in the morning by 11:00, and if we're not, we're gonna come here after 2:30.
Yep.
So that's good. Look at him out playing, enjoying the day. It's been nice weather for him. It has been. What'd you find, Josie? A dandelion. A dandelion? And it's still winter. How did it grow? Maybe because it's been warm. You love the dandelion? Yeah, it's dark. Papa's bringing some bananas. The biggest vlog fan of all time. Hey guys, you having a picnic? This is nice. Very nice, Christy. I bet they're enjoying this. Here we are in the car again. We spent a couple of great hours with the kids, but when I was there at the bus, I noticed that the latch wouldn't open from the inside. Side. That's gonna look bad when we go take our DMV test. Yeah. Hey sir, let me go out the emergency door and come open the door for you from the outside. Oh, and I need that key to do it. No, that's not gonna look good. So we're gonna go, uh, fix that, replace that latch. Hopefully that will go well. We're at Lowe's now looking for the latch. Jeff must have gotten that thing at Gentry's because they don't have anything like that here at Lowe's. So they've referenced some of the local hardware. Yeah, the local hardware, mom-and-pop or Ace. Our menu has changed. We've been in the car looking for one of these locks for about 30 minutes. Apparently these locks are not all that popular. For directions and hours of operation, please call 6. That place said they have hundreds of those locks that claim to be that. They're not sure if it's the same thing we're talking about, but we're gonna go see. If anybody's gonna have it, it's gonna be this locksmith shop. Shop. Good thing we stopped in there. They're gonna go out there and fix it for us, right? Get it temporarily fixed so it can go good tomorrow, and they're gonna look at it and maybe help us for a long-term—
yeah, they're gonna take pictures of it and then have a brainstorming session to come up with the best, best, best solution for our bus situation.
And that'll be good because that's one less thing Jeff has to worry about. Yeah, we're now at the bus checking it out. It looks like it's gonna be an easy fix for for him. He's gonna look in and fix this old lock. That's why. You already see the problem? Ah, that little piece of metal got bent down there. I gotta run inside real quick, get the keys to it. He needs the keys to try it, obviously. Got the keys. Here you go. He's gonna secure that in more somehow. It's lining up now, but we think because of the shim in there, the rubber's actually hitting and not letting it come in. When I pushed down, it ripped right through. Oh no, but it was shutting. Oh, it was shut. Oh, WD-40, but now it's stripped in there and now it's ripped out. Because it's just stripped. We've had to screw it in and out so many times. Trying a bit thicker screw here. Not catching on anything. Or did it catch? What we're going to try to do is hammer this shim down further so that we can get fresh wood. You think you can do it from there? I'm gonna climb up there.
You make me nervous. How was that?
Crazy. I was barely able to stand right here on this stuff. Did it hit? Just barely? It feels like I can pull it though. It's probably because we're not into the wood. We're probably just into the rubber. What do you think? Trying a longer screw. Yeah, it's not— it's not getting to the wood. What about those? Those are longer. You going into something now? Yeah, caught something now. Yeah, it's not coming through. Good. Hmm, it's not coming in hard far enough, right? Is We got that. Oh yeah, we gotta pull it out a little bit. Okay. You know, binding it. Yeah, if you push— put it lined up, it binds. Yeah. It works at that point. Okay, we're just gonna have to be careful with it. We got it secure. Hey, we're home again! They're getting used to this now. We're all back. Tomorrow, guys, we drive the bus and we drive it home and we bring it home. When we come home tomorrow, we're gonna be coming down the road, we're gonna give it a big honk. Are you ready? And the first one to see or hear it says bingo. Okay.
You ready to see the bus tomorrow?
Yeah. Yeah, you excited? Yeah. What time is it? Honk. Honk. I'm gonna honk. Yeah. Can you say honk? Honk! Honk! Come on, who can give the loudest honk? Honk! Whoa!
How about yours?
It's more like honk! Honk!
No, it's pretty loud. We had an amazing evening together as a family and the kids are now in bed. And Justin and I are enjoying a little bit of a break before we get working again. And I just want to thank you for the outpouring of love for the Jamison family. They have just really appreciated all of the love and support that you guys have sent them. Many of you asked for a way that you could support them financially. And so I set up a YouCaring site. So that you guys can go and donate to the funeral expenses and time off work. So we'll link it below. They want to just say thank you for the love, support, prayers that you guys sent their way. They are just so appreciative, and so am I.
If I had to start my Homestead all over again, it could only pick one animal… 
