So this is kind of a more in-depth summary just to get me going but I'm still in the middle of trying to figure out like the route and trying to make it factually correct and everything so bare with me and please let me know if this is something you would consider reading.
When Raven was around one or two years old her father had got a big old worn yellow school bus into one of his garages as a lost cause and made it his project to renovate and modernize the bus for family purposes for Raven's fifth birthday when he aimed to be done. That was the idea.
However, little Raven's first thought when she received the renovated bus was to invite her six friends over to play inside it. That very first night the six fell asleep on the pull out sofa beds lining the sides where the seats used to be, laughing, chatting, making plans for the future with the bus and one thing stuck. After high school they were going to take their bus, old even back then, defer from college for a gap-year, and travel across the whole country for a year, every sight, every state visited and remembered. That was the dream.
Since then the bus had been like a second home to the six, it wasn't the Reyes family bus it was theirs, every wall covered in some form of memorabilia from one of the many excursions the bus had managed. The back wall was covered in Polaroids of their most memorable moments, one wall held a map with pins on every location they had visited on their travels, they'd personalized their own spaces, even the bathroom walls were covered in license plates from every state they'd been to and were spaces for the others they would visit.
Jasper and Monty always took to the back because back then on the real school bus they were never cool enough to sit there and saw it as an act of rebellion, their first and definitely not their last; Octavia and Raven took to the middle, partly because they wanted to keep the boys in check but mostly because the front two were already taken by Bellamy and Clarke. The two biggest control freaks known to man always liked to be in control of the bus, they had always stayed near the wheel even when they had a chaperon but now they'd grown up it was Bellamy behind the wheel and Clarke sat right there next to him, the worst backseat driver in history, with a clipboard and a map breathing down his neck. If they weren't arguing about which way they should be going, it was who had the higher IQ or one time, what color the sky was, they would argue about anything under the sun, literally. Basically, they'd each do anything to get on another's nerves.
When they were younger they would have adults ferry them around like a chauffeur here there and everywhere but as the Blake twins hit sixteen, the joint eldest of the group though Bellamy would argue he was actually born two minutes prior to Octavia making him the actual eldest, they were finally able to drive alone so it was goodbye parents and hello freedom.
Though they now all had their licenses, apart from Jasper who was still trying two years later, there was a strict rule that Bellamy was the only one insured and allowed to drive the bus. This was partly because after teaching Bellamy how to correctly drive it he had said 'it was a pain in the ass trying to teach him how to drive it properly, never mind the rest of you know it all dimwits' and partly due to the fact that it took Octavia four tries to gain her license and Raven's parents weren't letting her anywhere near the wheel of their precious bus.
Now don't misinterpret this, the bus had it's far share of cuts and scrapes, like the dent from when Bellamy had first gotten behind the wheel and he reversed into a lamppost, or when Jasper and Monty in their younger years had taken to the outside of the bus with sharpies to claim their territory, leading to everyone else grabbing a pen in attempt to make it look less stupid (it made it look even worse).
However this trip was different, it was the trip of their dreams that had finally arrived, the last hurrah before college. Though they had been going out in it almost every weekend and school vacation to various locations for various events there was still so much to explore. So, with fourteen months; Clarke's excruciatingly detailed and meticulously budgeted planning; and everyone's life savings pooled together, which was a lot because every spare cent the received or earned went into this ever since the first night they claimed the bus they headed out on the biggest road trip yet.
Now here they are, at 6:00 am on a Saturday morning, sat in their claimed seats, about to head out for the gap year of their childhood dreams in a crappy, beat-up, seven year old 'we are cool, you all drool' sharpie graffiti-ed school bus, and yet they couldn't be happier.
So that was longer than anticipated, more of a prologue than a summary and for that I apologize but if you have any requests for where they should visit on their trip of the states just let me know and review any thoughts, helpful pointers, queries, anything.
I've also been thinking about having them live in a world where other TV/book/movie characters and towns e.g. Vampire Diaries/Teen Wolf/The Secret Circle are actually real rather that our own boring world of fiction so if you would prefer that to them seeing the places they film it on tours and stuff let me know and I'd be happy to add that in but I'm not too sure other people would. Thank you for taking the time to read this story and thank you extra if you are taking even more time and brainpower to review and I love you the most. Stay tuned.