Sally Patterson Tubach

It Isn't a Bus: Pioneering Motorhomers Cross the USA Sally Patterson Tubach

Pat Patterson wants to travel. His wife, Martha, predicts bedlam with three kids cooped up in the back seat of the car, especially if they have to tow that unsightly, cigar-shaped trailer Pat put together from an airplane fuselage. Neighbors' complaints about the Patterson's growing mechanical collection persuade the family to move to Potrero Canyon-out of sight. Pat doesn't give up on his travel dreams and in 1950 buys a damaged Flxible bus. He fixes the engine and converts the interior into a prototype motorhome. In the summer of 1951 the Pattersons take off from Pacific Palisades, California and head east. Approaching Las Vegas, the engine overheats. With Martha at the wheel, the clutch housing explodes on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Arizona. In the desert heat, Pat picks up a fur-clad, female hitchhiker who turns out to be a proselytizing evangelist, only to give her the slip when he rescues two vacationing schoolteachers whose hearse is stuck in the Kansas mud. Written by Pat's wife and daughter, the memoir is full of colorful characters and adventures that confront this pioneer motorhoming family. How do they manage this 7,500-mile journey? What do they learn? Grab a seat on the bus that isn't a bus for a ride that will tickle your funny bone and touch your heart.