In 2001 when we sold the business and decided to built a new coach, it was with the idea that maybe, if we really enjoyed building coaches, we might start a business in building custom coaches.

By the time we were about 1/2 done building this coach, we had decided that we really did not want to build custom coaches for a living. This one would be our last custom coach. (It was #3 after all!). We would enjoy it for the rest of our travelling lives.

At the time, we didn't know what the future held in store for us.

Noel got seriously ill just after Christmas 2006 and ended up spending 2 full months in the hospital. There were times when the doctors didn't give me much hope that he would recover, but Noel pulled through and when he was well enough, we decided that we'd better do all the things we always said we wanted to do before another disaster happened.

So, the first thing on our list was to go to Alaska. We loaded up the coach and took off for 2 1/2 months. We enjoyed every minute of our trip of almost 12,000 miles as we travelled from Ontario through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, The Yukon, Alaska and then down into Oregon & South Dakota as well as all the states in between on our way back to Ontario.

Little did I know at the time, that Noel was thinking of another thing he always wanted to do before he died. That was to build another coach!

After days and days of arguing that we would be totally nuts to build another coach when we had a perfectly good one sitting in the driveway, I was told that he was going to do it whether I liked the idea or not! Knowing Noel, it was better to go along than to go against - so, that's what we're doing, building another coach.

But that is another story - one you can follow on Buckhorn Express IV (BuckhornExpress4.blogspot.com).

The story of how this coach was built can be found here.