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Austin and Ginnie Miller have shared a lot over the past few years.
Both have the same job as personnel specialists in the army.
Both love music festivals.
And when the couple retires from the military in February, they’ll share even tighter living spaces aboard a renovated school bus they’ll call home.
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Meet the millers
Originally from Georgia, Ginnie Miller met her husband in basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Her husband is originally from Fayetteville but joined the Army in Fort Polk, Louisiana.
After joint individual training, both were stationed in Fort Bragg in 2018 and married.
Ginnie Miller is currently assigned to the 82nd Sustainment Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, and her husband is with the 20th Engineer Brigade.
“We were just lucky that both of them were stationed here,” said Ginnie Miller. “His family lives 20 minutes away.”
Bus life
As the couple discussed what they would do after their four years in the Army, travel and recreational vehicles became part of the discussions, Austin Miller said.
They started looking at RV prices when they saw the documentary “Expedition Happiness,” which was about a couple renovating a bus to adopt a minimalist lifestyle when traveling, known as “skoolie”.
“We started looking at this and had no idea what we were doing, but we just decided to take a school bus and go,” said Austin Miller.
Ginnie Miller said she was on board with the idea because RVs in their price range were from the 1990s and were already torn apart.
They found a 2001 Freightliner Blue Bird on Facebook Market Place for $ 4,000 in Pennsylvania.
It was able to make the nearly eight-hour drive back to Fayetteville in October, Ginnie Miller said.
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To build a house
The couple’s budget for the bus and renovation is around $ 20,000.
To keep costs down, they have spent their free time and weekends working on the bus themselves, learning from video tutorials on YouTube.
The process is documented on their own Instagram page – Bumpin Bus – which references the Millers’ love for music and plans to take them to music festivals after the renovation.
“We’re building, screwing up, and redesigning and rebuilding,” said Austin Miller.
Your goal is to get it ready in time to take it to a music festival in September.
The fixed deadline is February when they get out of the army, Ginnie Miller said.
So far, they have gutted the bus by removing the seats and flooring and fixing leaks.
Insulation is built in.
Ginnie Miller built a storage room at the front of the bus that includes an area for a litter box for her cat.
Some of the bus windows were removed and Austin Miller removed the top emergency exit hatch to replace it with a skylight.
Most of the electrical wiring is ready and there are plumbing connections.
Ginnie Miller said they bought a 100 gallon water tank and plan to use a composting toilet.
The framework for the areas in which there is room for the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen is as good as complete, together with a construction couch that serves as storage space and a pull-out bed.
The design, layout, installation of sanitary facilities and equipment as well as the repainting of the yellow bus with faded black lettering with the words Bricker Transport have yet to be completed.
“We want it to be totally sustainable,” says Austin Miller. “We really want to be able to go out in the middle of nowhere without electricity and the like, because we intended like solar panels. It’s going to be a whole thing. ”
Miller said they want it to be a self-sufficient house with space for friends to stop by.
They don’t want it to look like they’re copying other Instagram bus houses, but they want it to appear in full, he said.
Ginnie Miller said they plan to live in it full-time once they’re both out of the army.
Austin Miller said they don’t have the full plan of what to do during the time they’re out and about, but they are trying to include stops around music festivals and visits to national parks.
The two also agree on a goal.
“We definitely want to go to Alaska and Canada,” said Ginnie Miller.
She said they plan to get their human resources degrees online while traveling.
“I mean, we have the perfect opportunity to just drop out of the military and get paid to go to school. So why not now when we don’t have kids? ”Said Ginnie Miller.
The representative Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
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