The next day, I slog out in the mud, hefting each of the three batteries and rewiring them in the underside of the bus. I can feel electric clicks, hear them in the stop arm. There’s juice. I slip behind the wheel and turn the key, holding my breath. The diesel engine coughs a couple times, then turns over and roars, a slumbering giant roused for battle. I roll out of my cabin path through the mud and onto the road. Almost immediately, hope is restored, sitting 7 feet above the asphalt and feeling like a king of the highway again. I feel like a fish that had been plucked from a lake and flipped around lost, panicked, then placed gently back in the cool, life-restoring waters.

We named our bus “True North”.