The Van is An Upgrade

The van is an upgrade.

It's one of those things that you don't need, but it's pretty damn nice to have. Like toilets. Not necessary to life, but lets you deal with less shit. Speaking of that, I'm going to finally install one this month.

I thought that I was going to buy the van November 2024. When I got it this past summer in a sudden rush to Salt Lake City and a missed work shift for claims on it, I found myself more than a year ahead of schedule. I don't take out loans, just a personal rule for myself. Being nomadic and in debt aren't the best combo. So great deals don't get passed up.

Anyway, van is mine. So, like, I can take those Instagram photos. Pretend that I'm clean and special and have this perfect tidy bed with a white bedspread and cookies on a pull-out table.

Just kidding. I'm the kind of person that can never take pictures of my hands because the dirt under my fingernails is an aesthetic. My pull-out table is currently broken off and stored under my climbing gear. Life is a process. 

My Subaru Outback is abandoned in a Utah town waiting for me to swing back through, pissed that I chose the van. He haunts my dreams with 25 mpg and words of mechanical loyalty. 

I have been on the road for almost two years now. It's nice to have a real true home with tires attached. And that's not counting the years I spent before that popping around like a ping-pong ball working as a raft guide or in a warehouse (never work in a warehouse).

I just finished two seasonal jobs that I was working simultaneously. Which means I have a pocketful of cash and a blank slate of where to end up next. The dreaming is the best part. Do I take the next four months off? Get another job immediately so I can guarantee myself a summer of freedom? Get a plane ticket overseas? Stay in Arizona in the desert? ADHD is great.

But at the moment I'm chilling on the highways in the van, introducing myself awkwardly to strangers in case one becomes a friend for life.

Somehow the conversation always hops to where I'm from. Sometimes I say Montana; it's my legal residence after all. Or I let them know I grew up in Pennsylvania. Or, usually, I say, "Everywhere!"

And then I get the questions about how I could possibly feel safe traveling alone.

I shrug. "I gave a goat an emergency C-section on a prairie with no experience. I'm nobody's first choice to kidnap."

It's a great icebreaker. They then either run away or we go climb a mountain together.