Now What? Buying More Stuff

We've owned a van for a week or two now, and we're slowly coming to terms with what that'll mean this summer. One of the big things is trying to figure out what kinds of things we'll actually need to have with us, which means browsing REI's website every couple of hours, then looking for lower-priced versions of those things on Amazon, then just going to REI so we can actually see what the things look like.

Mobile toilets, collapsible 5-gallon water jugs, poop shovels, blind-spot mirrors, headlamps, outlet converter/inverters, biodegradable soap, bag-showers, packing cubes, a mobile safe-box, and some more normal things like new hiking shoes or long underwear have all popped up on the list in the last few weeks. Plus dozens of other things. 

It's weird to be living in a house and realizing that we're trying to get rid of most of the things in that house, but also knowing that some day we'll be back in a house (I guess we can't guarantee this, but it's at least our assumption) so we maybe shouldn't get rid of all of it. But also knowing that our entire lives are going to fit inside the square footage of roughly 2/3 of our bedroom. And then compound that with the realization that we need to add stuff to our list of things we'll need. It's a little intimidating.

But! When we then consider that figuring these things out means we can wake up in places like this? Seems pretty OK. 

The truth is that we're somewhere between blissful ignorance and general excitement. We know that there will be difficult times and we know that there will be long or boring days. We know that we're going to have to figure out some way to pass the time when we get stuck in a 36-hour rain storm, even though we will literally be stuck in a 100 square foot (ish) van. We know that we're going to get on the road and by the 3rd day realize that we forgot something important. 

All of these things can be true, and they can be true while the freedom of not knowing where we'll be in 24 hours lets us dream. 

No one wants to spend all day every day driving from place to place. We know that part. And we know that we'll feel like we just want to stay put for a few days at a time. But imagine the feeling of waking up in Montana and knowing that the forecast is 3 days of rain and being able to say "screw it, let's go to the Oregon coast for a few days" and then actually being able to do that. That's what we're signing up for. And if it's sunshine and clear every day in Montana? Then we stay in Montana. Tough break, right??

Like I said, a lot of this is blissful ignorance. We're going to need to figure out the best way to store food (we have a small fridge, but it's small). We're going to need to figure out laundry. We're going to need to figure out a bike rack. And if/when we can get electricity into the van to charge any electronics we'll have. And how to safely and consistently start fires, even with damp wood. And how to find the most-likely-to-be-clean bathrooms. And how to stay vegetarian while in cowboy country. And how to not draw the attention of bears if we're gonna be cooking in our van. 

But man...to wake up in the mountains and have nowhere to be? For weeks or months?

Sign us up.

We Bought a Van

The first post here was in present tense, this one is in past tense. We bought Pegasus, the van.

I'll explain the warehouse in a minute, but we don't have a good photo of us with the doors open and the bells and whistles all in action because there's a trailer parked on the other side of the van and there's just no space for that. But that's the van. We bought that.

Honestly our biggest hesitance about Pegasus is the name, and we don't even mind the name. It's starting to feel a little more natural, but it just takes some getting used to - like adopting a dog that's pre-named. And while there are a million reasons to be excited about owning this van, one of the biggest is that we are overflowing with van puns.

It'll be the advanture of a lifetime. If we loaded Pegasus with people it'd be a real Pegabus. Stuff like that.

Anyway, we signed the papers and delivered the check, so it's real. Terry, the previous owner who is impossibly sweet, greeted us with flowers. When that wasn't enough, she gave us a little envelope that we were to open later. As we talked about the possibility of adding stickers or magnets from all the places we visited, Terry sheepishly told us that maybe we should check the envelope. 

Not only did she give us a very sweet card with a lovely little pin of a campervan, she also added a very thoughtful (personal) note inside and the magnet below to get our collection started. I like how proverbs of different cultures are fairly similar - this one reminds me of the "may the wind be always at your back" one of Irish lore - because it makes me think that maybe there is some universal truth out there in the world. Maybe not, but it's nice to think that independent cultures, cut off from each other by oceans or mountains or languages or religions all end up figuring out that connecting with nature is part of what makes you whole and full as a person. That's what I want to feel over the next several months.

Anyway. We took the additional step of taking my parents to see it/her/him at the storage facility* yesterday and that went swimmingly. The advantage of parents looking at this kind of thing is that they'll look at things that a younger person won't notice or think of. In short, my parents won't be blinded by the excitement. And to be honest, they had nothing to complain about. It was pretty thrilling.

*(The van is at a storage facility because Cleveland winters can be pretty rough. But even worse than driving in the snow is that the van can get undercarriage rust damage from the salty roads. This van has apparently never seen road salt, or has at least seen so little that previous owners can claim that it's never seen road salt, which is effectively the same thing.)

So now we're in a bit of a holding pattern. It's February 21st, the van has never seen road salt, and the roads are caked in salt until it starts raining in Cleveland, which should be mid-to-late March. We're planning to take Vanna White (this feels like a common one that I'm sure a million people have thought of already) out of storage at the end of March and do a little trip for Jenna's April 4th birthday, but exact dates are not something we really have to think about just yet. 

That last paragraph was my way of saying that I don't expect a lot of action on the blog over the next couple of weeks because I don't know what kinds of things we'll be looking into and/or doing. Although I do expect to write at least 1,000 words about portable toilets.

Oh, also we watched Nomadland last night and it was not very interesting.

We're Buying a Van

It's hard to know where to start a story like this, so maybe we just start today, right now, at 8 p.m. on February 15, 2021. Jenna and I just got back from looking at a camper van affectionately named Pegasus.

Pegasus is a 1999 Econoline 350 with 131,410 miles and two previous owners who maintained her (I'm told that Pegasus is a gal, though I have some moral concerns about gendering possessions as feminine, but that's another issue for another day) in A+ condition. We, Jenna and I, are going to spend this summer driving Peg around and exploring the USofA. 

To backtrack a little, we've had wanderlust for a decade or so. We taught ESL in Italy and traveled all around the continent. When we moved back to the States we started going on multiple big trips per year - sometimes to other countries, sometimes not. COVID really put a damper on our big-trip plans, obviously, so we started dreaming. A lot. 

Starting when the calendar flipped to 2021 we really started to get it in our head that we might spend a summer on the road. But how? I wanted to get to places like Yellowstone or Glacier National Park, but the combination of social distancing, early-booked hotels, and schedule uncertainty weighed on us. If we got a drivable RV we'd be limited to places without vehicle-length restrictions. If we got a towable RV/camper we'd be limited to places with sturdy roads. If we tried to live out of our Ford Escape we'd just be...limited. There is no perfect solution.

We put in our notices at work. We sold our house. We scoured the internet for the best options among drivable, towable, or even just a combination of using the Escape + tent + AirBnBs - this last one was the most promising. But then we called Devo, a friend who has been in a van for 7 months, and she helped us realize a few things. 

• The people she has traveled with that had trailers have been unable to go the same places as her 
• Trailers mean you can't easily stop at every scenic overlook
• Trailers fall apart really often (we knew this one)
• Anything that you regularly hook up to water/electric needs to be in a real campground with water/electric 
• Trailers and RVs are conspicuous if you decide to sleep in a parking lot en route to some other places
• RVs - even the small ones - are enormous
• This experience isn't about the comforts of an RV/trailer, it's about being outside as much as possible and enjoying the world around us

Reinvigorated, we dove into the van search. Dev had bought an empty van and put a bed and whatnot in it. We're not handy, and though these steps are probably not that difficult, we lack some confidence. Empty vans need to be insulated, or need to be deep-cleaned and then tiled, or need to be sided, or need to be re-built. Pre-converted vans are expensive. This was our dilemma.

RVtrader, Craigslist, AutoTrader - we had multiple tabs open and refreshing every couple of hours to see what might come up. We planned to go look at a van from a dealership on Saturday, but after seeing it Friday night, it was gone by 9 a.m. It was frustrating. The ones we liked the most were in Texas, Florida, or were $53,000. 

But then Pegasus came along.

There is currently a stark disagreement about who found this van first and showed the other, but here's the nitty gritty. 

• Relatively low mileage on a very high mileage friendly engine
• Impeccably maintained
• Has a queen sized bed that converts to a couch and neither is wildly uncomfortable
• Includes a 2-burner cooktop
• Has a bigger sink than almost any RV we've ever seen (including much larger ones)
• Has a lofted space above the bed for additional gear storage
• Drives like a dream
• Has back doors and windows that open to whatever scenery we've decided to sleep near
• About a million other things

It's just...right. 

So we're about to buy it. 

We haven't committed yet, but we've said "we want it" to the current owner. And I would like to tell you about that current owner now.

Terry is wonderful. If I had to guess, she's in her 50s. She was a whitewater rafting guide for a while, having lived in Seattle, San Francisco, and Ohio. She is very...earthy, I guess? She strikes me as the type to believe in an energy rather than a deity, and I mean that in a very good way. She babied this vehicle. She cries a lot, but mostly about good things. She keeps Pegasus stored indoors over winter because Peg has never seen road salt. She is a massage therapist (or something similar) so body energy and universal energy are definitely a meaningful part of her existence. She is just wonderful. I think she's done with Peg due to some health-concerns, but I didn't feel like it was my place to confirm that.

After spending 40 minutes on the phone with Terry this afternoon, we were able to find a time to go see Pegasus together, and ohhhh my goodness is that vehicle exactly what we want. The high ground clearance means we don't have to worry about awful roads in parks and national forests. The new marine battery means we can run a water pump and fridge for a couple of days if we need it. The size means we can hide in plain sight for a night of sleep. The knobs work. The dials work. The lights work - except for 1, and there was a replacement bulb waiting to be put in.

So after a 90 minute visit with this definitely-no-longer-a-stranger, we are sold. We're buying a van. We will likely make it official tomorrow, but we are buying a van. We're ecstatic. It will cost us probably $5,000 more than an empty van that we self-convert, but that self-convert will have been stressful and only included a portion of what we will have in Pegasus. 

We're buying a van.