Family of 6 Left Everything | Lives in a Luxury Double Decker Bus

Hey everybody, my name is Dane Ierle. My kids call me Big Papa. I've got six kids and my wife. We live here in our double-decker tour bus that we've converted. Come on in and let's check out my house. All right, walking in the front door, we have my home office slash cockpit of the bus. This is just where I do all my work. We've got my computer screens that we set up whenever we get stationed somewhere, and all my GPS, things like that, right up here up front. Moving from the office back in the bus, we've got our kitchen area. Starting off, we have our fridge and freezer. Fridge on one side, freezer on the other, and then we've got our full kitchen back here. On the driver's side is really just the cabinetry with our countertop and then storage below it. Then on the passenger side of the bus, we have our sink. It's a 30-inch sink, and we've got a two-burner stove and an oven there as well, and a little bit of storage on this side. We did this whole farmhouse style, and we chose to do an induction oven just because we didn't have any gas in the bus other than that would have been anyways. We went ahead and just did the induction oven. We did a two-burner because, frankly, we do a lot of things in our Instapot, and then we do a lot of cooking outside. We knew we weren't going to be using it very frequently, so we just did a two-burner stove, and then we did a pretty deep sink, so it's the 30-inch, and it's actually pretty deep with the cutting board and the rack on top of it. Back behind the kitchen, we have our dining area, and one of the things we really love about this space is really all the windows. We've got these big, giant windows that was one of the reasons why we bought the bus in the first place. We get all the natural light in here. The backs of these seats fold up to create a dining room table, and dinner as a family is really, really important to us, so that was a big deal. Then we've got this whole area that's just full of storage where the kids have their cereal and things in here in the mornings. We've got a lot of the food that stores in there, and that goes pretty much all the way down to the floor. And then above it, we've got our air conditioning, and we have two air conditioners here. We've got one for while we're driving and another one for when we're parked. So one of the things with these two AC units right here, we don't really feel like this one is sufficient while we're driving, so we really wish we would have gone with something a little bit bigger for this driving AC. And for the one here, going back and doing this again, I probably would have put a second unit down here in the downstairs, probably one up closer to the front, rather than just having this one. Well, I mean, it does keep this area cool. It has to be pumping all the time, so it's just kind of a learning curve there. We've never done something like this, so that's a learning curve for us. So here towards the back of the first level of the bus, we have our bathroom. It's a smaller bathroom, obviously. The toilet sits really low. That's because we've got some access panels there that need to be able to open. And with the bathroom, we've got a macerating toilet. That just basically means that it pumps everything up to the black tank that sits higher than the toilet is. So this is our little bathroom down here, sink, pretty basic stuff. And one of the things here is that this is not the only bathroom we have in the bus. So we decided to have two separate bathrooms and then an entirely separate shower. With eight people living in this space, we wanted to make sure that everybody has access to what they need when they need it, right? So we didn't put the shower in any bathroom area. That's a totally separate space. And aside from this small bathroom, we've got another small bathroom upstairs as well. Yeah, so I mean, the real reason that we wanted to try something new, something so drastically different than we'd ever done before, is just that we were, we felt so tied down to chasing money for happiness, thinking the more money we made, the better job title I had, the happier we'd be. But ultimately, chasing that money meant spending more and more time away from the family. And we realized, you know, we were actually on a road trip, and we were driving back from Utah. We were just with, we had all the kids in the van, and we'd driven up to Utah, just to kind of see some of the sights up in Utah. And then as we were driving back, we drove past the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. And at that point, I just got really upset because I looked in my rearview mirror and I see all my kids. They're all really well behaved. They're all doing really, really well. And my wife and I are really happy. And I just, I immediately knew in that moment, like, this is, this is happiness. This is what we want. And so what are we rushing home for? What are we rushing back to Texas for when this is really the happiness? And ultimately, we were rushing back to sit behind a desk to get two hours a day, maybe with the kids, maybe get two days a week with them and two weeks a year. Right. That just seemed like such a small amount of time to spend with my family over the course of the next few years as they're, they're really young and growing. That seemed like such a small amount of time. So as we passed the Great Sand Dunes, I kind of had this conversation with my wife and we were chatting with the kids and I just said, screw it. The next thing we pass, we're going to stop there. I don't care what the roadside attraction is. We're going to stop and we're going to do it. And if I'm late getting back to my job, who cares? Right. Like I no longer like, I don't know, there's a switch in my mind that I just didn't care about that money anymore. And so we, we, you know, we kept driving. We were, we were a little ways past the Great Sand Dunes at this point. And I saw a sign for Capulon Volcano in New Mexico and I've driven Utah to Texas plenty of times before. Um, I went to, I went to college up in Utah. Um, so I mean, we've, I've been back and forth up there, but I never seen Capulon Volcano, I didn't even know what it was, but sure enough, we decided it's a few miles down this road. So we took the road. We went over there to this ancient volcano, walked around the rim of it, walked down inside it, you know, we just had a really great time. And when we got done doing that and we got back in the car and immediately I looked at my wife, Dina, and I said, you know, why don't we do this all the time? I work in software. I, if I want to, I could make my job go anywhere with me. And so we talked about it a little bit more. And before we'd even gotten, you know, two hours away from Capulon Volcano, we were researching RVs and what it's like to be full-time RVers, um, living on the road all the time. So we had, we immediately joined some Facebook groups before we even got home, joined some Facebook groups about full-time living, um, and started looking at RVs, class A's and, and fifth wheels. And we quickly decided, you know, a schoolie would be super cool to do. So we were looking at some schoolies, we were looking at entertainer coaches, cause they already have bunks in them. And then maybe about two weeks after we had gotten home, we saw a double-decker and we just knew right when we saw it, we were like, that's, that's what we want to do. A double-decker would really like be different. And at the same time, you know, it would be everything we want to do. We would be able to go around the country, towing our van and seeing all the sites, giving this life to our kids and also spending all this time with our kids and some of the most precious years that they have. All right, so now that we're done with the downstairs, we're going to go ahead and walk upstairs and I'll show you everything around up there. So about halfway up the stairs, we have our shower and it's a full-size shower. I'm a little bit of a bigger guy and I've got plenty of room to move around in here and take my shower. It's got the Nautilus door on it that we really love because it just hides out of the way really easy. And this, you know, we cut this door or the shower into the storage area of the bus so that we'd have a full seven foot shower. So the shower head is above me and we can get, you know, all the, all the shower we need without scrunching over and having too tight of a space. So the other thing with this shower is that we chose to do a cedar shower. And cedar is water and mold resistant. And we've sealed it with some oil to make sure that it's going to last a long time longer than we'll even have the bus. So it's a, it's pretty nice and it actually smells real nice in here too. All right, so up here at the, at the top level of the bus we have our washer and dryer. This is a ventless washer dryer combo unit. We actually, we wanted something a little bit bigger, but we ended up with this one and it, it's just really nice to not be able to not have to switch out laundry and things like that. Just to have the one unit in the bus, it doesn't take up as much space. So with this smaller washer and dryer, this is a 2.5, it's LG 2.5 cubic washer dryer, which is a lot smaller than what we were used to in our house before. And the unit we wanted was 4.5 or something like that. And this definitely is smaller. And because it's smaller, it means that we're either running it all the time or we'll have to go to, you know, laundromat periodically. We try to avoid that as much as possible and just, just try to use this. But it means that it's running all the time. And it really means that we've got to be hooked up to water a lot. And just cause you know, it is using water. So there's some pros and cons in, in, in this washer and dryer for sure. So another unique feature with this bus, and I don't think we've showed this to anybody. But one of the things we wanted to make sure is just cleaning the bus with six kids. Obviously we're going to have a lot of dirt moving around in here and stuff. And we didn't just want to sweep that all down the stairs. And so up here, we actually put a, a, it's called a sweep OVAC underneath the washer and dryer. So right here under this washer and dryer, we just sweep everything right to it, push this button and it gets everything in there and it's easy to clean out. It takes all of our makes, makes cleaning the upstairs much easier and we're not just brushing everything downstairs for a bigger mess. All right, so moving back in the bus at the top of the top of the stairs, we have the kids bunks. Each of the kids has a, essentially it's a twin size bed. It's an RV twin. And then they've got these shelving units at the end of their bed as well. And this is the only one that actually has a window. And that's just because this is the child that we feel most comfortable having a window without, without sneaking out, you know? So this, this one's got a window and each of the kids kind of picked their own space as we go along, they'll be modifying and kind of personalizing their own space right now. They all look fairly similar though. So moving back a little further, this is the second bathroom was just as small as the one downstairs, maybe a little bit smaller even. And but that's the one that the kids primarily use because it's right here next to their beds. So back here at the back of the bus, there's this seat. I use this, my wife uses this to read the bedtime stories to them when they're going to bed at night. And then on either side here is closet space. So they've, they've all got their stuff hung up here. Being that there's eight of us in this bus, we've minimalized a lot. So it's not like they have a ton of clothes to put back here, but we've got, you know, the towels and things like that back here as well. And the kids will use these hooks to hang whatever they feel like they need to. All right. So as we move to the front part of the bus upstairs, we've got a little bit of a bench here and then we've got, this is really our living area. The backs of the chairs do the same as downstairs where they fold forward. And we've got one bench that's full of all of their schooling stuff because we homeschool the kids. And then another one that's full of all of our board games and fun stuff here, this one. And then we come forward, we've got another mini split unit again, just like downstairs. I wish we had a second one of these up here. I think it would have just made things a little more comfortable that upstairs in this bus gets really, really hot. Um, I don't spend as much time up here. It is a little bit shorter of a roof and uh, but, but the kids are up here quite a bit. So this area, I wish, wish we maybe would have had a second mini split unit up here, but this, this suffices for now. And then as we move forward from here, we have our, uh, our King bed and, and kind of our area. We use this area. Obviously my wife and I, this is our bed that's in here. Uh, this folds up with a headboard and a footboard at night. But during the day, we wanted the kids to have area that they could play. So it folds down where they can play with anything that they need to. We store a bunch of their toys up there in the front, uh, in front of the dresser. And I mean, you can see the Nerf blaster hanging out over there and whatnot. So this is kind of the kids area during the day. And then at night we convert it into our bedroom. We really wanted to make sure that the kids areas didn't have to, you know, most RVs, the kids areas have to be converted, especially when there's a big family. We wanted the kids to have their own very private personal space where they can kind of get their own retreat. So we decided to make our area, the area that would be convertible as we go. So, so all of that took place, um, in 2020, that was July of 2020 when we were headed back from Utah. Uh, we, we typically spend 4th of July up in Utah. So that was July of 2020 as we were coming back to Texas. Uh, we bought the bus in August of 2020, dropped it off at the builder in September. And, uh, and then we actually picked the bus up from the builder in December of 2021. It was not completed at that point, uh, when we picked it up, but we picked it up in December of 2021, brought it back down to Texas to finish the build. And we actually will be hitting the road full time in three days. Uh, so we'll be hitting the road full time really soon. So, so the kids aren't in here right now. And this probably looks a little cleaner than it will in a few days. Um, but that's, that's kind of where we're at right now with it. We have spent a total of seven nights in the bus as we've just been testing things out. We've gone to a few different places and just tested stuff with the kids in tow and had a really good time. So got a little bit of a taste for it so far, but not much. We're really, really new rookies to all of this. Um, but we're, we're enjoying the experience of learning everything as we go kind of our plan as we go is just, well, a chase 70 degrees. Um, we don't like cold weather. We don't like hot weather. So 70 degrees is kind of where we set up like that's, that's ideal. And that's what we're going to chase. So we're going to chase 70 degrees wherever that takes us with the plan of spending on average two weeks in each of the lower 48 States. And we've, we've told our kids that if we can manage the two weeks per state, if we can do that over the next two years, then we will fly to Alaska and Hawaii so that they'll have all 50 States under their belt. So that's kind of the plan for the next two years. And then beyond that, like we don't really have a plan. We've talked about a lot of different things, uh, continuing on in the double decker going on a, you know, a world, world cruise going, just country hopping, you know, doing Airbnbs and just taking airplanes, uh, doing some country hopping or just settling down. You know, we don't, we don't know. We think that it's really important to involve our kids in all of our decision making. This is obviously a really big life change, not just for us, but for our kids, it's going to have a big impact on them. So we've talked about just reassessing every six months reassessing, is this what we want to continue doing? Do we want to change this? And that's kind of where, what our goal is right now. And so for our six first six months of travel, um, that the first six months will take us back here to Texas, which is kind of home base for us. And we will reassess again, kind of at Christmas. Um, just if this is what we want to continue doing, I mean, the plan is two years, but if, you know, if the kids are really not into it or if my wife is really not into it, if I'm not into it at that point, then we'll totally reassess and make some changes. Um, you know, it's one of the things with this lifestyle I feel like is you can, you can make those adjustments. It doesn't have to be permanent. Um, but it allows us that opportunity to get out and explore and do things that we otherwise wouldn't be doing. Um, you know, and, and the proof of that is that we've, we lived in Texas, we owned a home here and, and you know, we, we started a family here and never did anything but travel to Utah and back. So like, that's just the proof that a lot of people get stuck in that routine and you do the same things. You take the same vacation every year cause you get two weeks off and two weeks is not a lot every year to spend with your kids and in their youngest ages. So that's kind of the plan we've got now is to go around two weeks per state. All right. So that's it for this level of the bus, the second level of the bus. Let's go ahead. We set the ladder up. So let's go ahead and go up to the roof deck up here on the roof of the bus. We have our deck. This is really just an area we like to lounge. The kids like to put up a hammock between the two rails. Uh, when we're driving, these rails are down and it makes us, you know, 13 and a half foot tall. So, so we're, we have no problem driving it. Uh, but when we get where we're going, we put up the rails and the kids can come up here and hang out. They love hanging out up here. We do movie nights up here quite a bit. Uh, the kids like lounging around on the hammocks or, or in the, uh, the trippy outdoor chairs that we use. And this is just really, uh, just kind of more of a private outdoor space for us. We don't have any slide outs or anything like that on the bus. And so this kind of gives us that little bit of extra space that we need. And, uh, and it's kind of a cool space cause we're up so high and we've also got our solar panels front and back. We've got four, uh, 355 solar panels. So they work really well for us and get us some, uh, some power when we're off grid. So one of the things about building this deck up, up here, you know, the top of a bus is not reinforced and it's actually really slippery as well if it was just the bus top. So we went ahead and we put down boat decking and it's just adhesive boat decking that makes it so it's just not, it's more anti slip. And it's, that's a little, got a little bit of a cushion and it's not very thick. That was the other issue we saw. And we had when we see all these other schoolie builds that have like wood decking and that just, it was going to be too much. There wasn't enough space to put something like that up here. So this, you know, faux decking, it's just, it's boat decking and it comes in all sorts of different patterns and colors. We went with this one that looks like wood, but it really works out really well to make it safer for the kids. They're not slipping around up here and things like that. And then the other thing we do just for safety for the kids when we come up here, uh, it's usually I come up by myself through the front hatch and then I'll come, you know, I'll work my way through the, through the solar panels and set up these rails. We set up the rails on either side. Those are held up by some gas shocks. And then we have, and we don't have them up right now, but normally we've got these rails down here that we then pick up and, and, and they actually pin into either side so that it makes it a lot more secure. We've got those front and back and that just gives the kids a little bit better of, of a area they know to stay in and we're not having kids walk towards the front or back of the bus where they shouldn't be messing with solar panels and falling off the bus. All right, so here we are on the outside of the bus. Um, we have, we have a little bit more work to do on the outside. We're going to put graphics and stuff on it. So it looks more like an RV class a RV and less like a bus. Um, one of the things we most recently did is, is we replaced all eight tires on the bus. I actually did that yesterday. Um, so not a cheap, not a cheap thing to do, but, uh, the tires that were on it were had some sidewall cracking. They were seven, eight years old. And you know, when it comes to the safety of the family, there's, there's nothing that, uh, no, no amount of money that would prevent me from, from doing that. So we went ahead and put, uh, put the new tires on there. It's $10,000 worth of new tires. And, uh, all the way around we've, we've got eight new tires. So that's probably the biggest expense we've had on the exterior of the bus. So far, we're going to redo this wrap. It's this gray wrap is really, really terrible job that's done on it. So we're going to redo all that and get the, get the whole graphics going on here. We've got some, some seals and things to do as well. Um, one thing that some people may notice is that our front tires and our back tires are the same, but these drive tires in the middle are different. So the front and back are Michelins and they are three 65, 70 are 22.5. Uh, these center ones, um, these are the drive tires. These are actually Yokohamas. And that's just because the company that we built, we bought the bus from before we did the build had converted the front and back. Uh, they'd already changed them over to this size of tire. And Michelin is the only one that makes this size of tire. So we went ahead and did that. And then the bus company, um, had us do these and, and we've made sure that all the weight ratings are correct. The bus itself is just over 47,000 pounds. We went and weighed it. We weighed all three axles on the scales and made sure that the tires that we put on here are safe for the weight that we have going down the road. And then we've also got an outdoor shower, um, and in this area here, as well as this is where we open up to get into our black tank. So we do, we can drain everything from here. And there's just a big storage area, um, that we've got back here. So our, all of our tanks are back here and just anything that we need, all our storage, everything we carry along with us while we ride is back here in the storage area and doesn't have to be accessed through there. We can also access it through this door where we can just walk in to the bus. So back here, this is where I was saying we can walk into the bus. We have our blackwater tank that sits up high, and then we've got our freshwater tank kind of in the middle and our graywater tank down here, a little lower. Um, the, the blackwater 70 gallon and then the other two are 75 gallons each. So it gives us kind of plenty of water as we go. Um, you know, we try to stay hooked up to water wherever we are, but if we're not, we've got plenty of water on board with us. And that works pretty well. But the one tank that you don't see back here is actually our fuel tank, which is 166 gallon diesel fuel tank. Common question we get is about the fuel mileage we get and fully loaded. We're getting about six and a half miles a gallon, uh, depending on headwinds, right? I mean, if I'm getting a wind coming straight at us, we're obviously getting a lot less because it is a brick. Um, so, but I mean, typically we're running about six and a half miles a gallon. All right, over here on this side of the bus, this is a really kind of our power bank, uh, where we've got eight lithium ion batteries. These are from lion energy. They're the safari UT 1300 batteries. Um, I think they're each 105 amp hours. And so carrying all this back here and we've got our 6,000 watt, uh, um, inverter. And then we've got just our, all of our power stuff back here. We do carry a generator with us just in case, but we've never had to use it. And I don't expect we really ever will, but I didn't want to be without, without that if we really got into a situation where we needed it. So this is kind of where all our solar comes in and this is what powers our bus when we're stopped at any place. We just hook up to shore power, 50 amp shore power. Um, and then we've also got our water hookups here and back, back in here, you would see we've got a, a, uh, 20 gallon residential hot water heater. So, yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people are interested in those travels and in our two weeks that we're going to spend in every state and all the things that we're going to be doing. Obviously a big part of this is to also inspire others to get out there, maybe make it, take it, take that leap. Uh, that, that, that huge risk in your life. Uh, it'll be worth it. You know, I, I'd never set foot in an RV before doing this. And so it's totally new life to me, but the, I think the reward is well worth the risk that we've taken. Um, and so, you know, if anybody wants to follow along on our journey and see the things that we're up to and the activities that we're doing and the, you know, the parks we're visiting or the hikes we're going on, anybody can follow us like across social media, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK, um, YouTube, anything. We go by double Decker family or double Decker fam. Uh, we also have a website that has nothing to do with, uh, our travels at this point. We'll probably put stuff on there, but it's just DBL DKR stands for double Decker. Um, the same as our license plate. Um, we've got that website that we just ultimately it's a blog with a whole bunch of troubleshooting stuff for different appliances and whatever. But, uh, we will at some point start blogging about our travels. So across the board, if somebody wants to follow us, that's where to find us. Um, but we'll be out on the road. We typically are going to be posting obviously for the safety of our kids and safety of our family, we're going to be posting delayed. Uh, it's not like, if you see a video, it's probably not going to be from today. It's going to be, you know, four or six weeks delayed. And that's just for the safety of our kids. But certainly if, if we roll into your RV park, uh, if we roll into town and you see us, don't be afraid to come say hi. We're definitely up for meeting people and, and, uh, and sharing our adventures with you. So anything, any questions you have, feel free to ask, uh, here on this channel or, or visit one of our channels, ask us any questions that you've got. We're happy to answer them.