Boyd Lake and the Double Decker Bus

Camping at Boyd Lake with the Brits and Their Bus

May 2013

I'm not being a very good blogger when I forget to write about the most interesting camping trip of the year ... when we went to Boyd Lake and met the Brits with the bus!

Boyd Lake, Loveland CO, is a nice quiet campground in the Spring. There were only a few campers there, and we had a great spot as close to the lake as we could get. The showers and bathrooms were great - really big and clean. Being a state park we had to feed a machine with quarters to take a shower, but the water was hot and had great pressure.

We set up the Aliner, went for a walk, and when we came back we saw, of all things, a double-decker London bus parked by the shower building. Driving the bus across America for an adventure were two young British guys from Kilburn, London. They showed us around the bus which had already been set up for camping when they bought it on the East coast. 

I assumed that they would be blogging about their experiences, but no, they had thought about it, but not actually done anything. One of them said he thought he would write a book when he got back to the UK, but I'm not sure he was even journalling or taking any notes. I encouraged him to write and make some money off this very expensive trip. Even though the bus ran on diesel, it still used plenty of fuel, especially going up some of the passes they had to negotiate. They had come over Raton and of course the dreaded Monument Hill.

The top of the bus had been chopped off, and they told us all double deckers had to have this done to meet U.S. height requirements for bridges, etc. Even so, they had to consult a guide that let them know which roads and highways had bridges that they could actually go underneath without getting stuck! They had a specially made tarpaulin that hooked over the top of the bus, but they discovered it didn't really stop the driving rain during a really bad storm in Atlanta. They said there was a river running down the spiral stairs! 

We drove the 'boys' into Loveland for a couple of hours. We met them for coffee before going back to the campground. It wasn't exactly easy for them to explore the local towns when they were camping. A double decker isn't the easiest vehicle to get into a parking lot! They told us that when they reached Seattle they were going to try and sell the bus before going home.

I had a phone no. for a while, but then changed phones and lost it. I often wonder what happened to them ... if they made it all the way, if their money held out, if they felt like it was all worth it. Did they get to a stage of being sick of the sight of each other? Did they feel unsettled when they went home? Did anyone ever start on that book?

We had a snowstorm in May in 2013, so it was still quite chilly at Boyd Lake. I don't think we used the heater though. But we did wear layers of warm clothes, and plenty of comforters and hot coffee!

It was an interesting trip - almost surreal for me, a Londoner by birth, to wake up in the morning, look out of my window, and see that London bus in the middle of Colorado. Quite nostalgic really.