The Maiden Voyage and the Power of Intentionality

Journal Entry #5

September 9th, 2021

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks but we are officially without a stationary address to call home for now. We said goodbye to our local NJ friends and caravanned north with my car and the van to Robert Treman State Park (outside of Ithaca, NY) for our maiden, shake-out van camping trip, meeting up with my Brother Adam, his wife Sasha and their two kids M and Z. 

Having kids and tents pitched on a Labor Day weekend camping trip also pretty much guaranteed that least one of the days would be a washout. Our first day was glorious. Then the dark clouds rolled in on day two and it bucketed down. We had a low, heavily shaded spot which made for juicy, muddy puddles. My sister-in-law had read the tea leaves and just prior to the deluge made it to Tru-Value and invested in a 10’x10’ tent to cover the picnic table and various supplies. It was one of those perfectly memorable days, though, in the worst, best kind of way-- all of us laughing and racing about to keep things dry, taking turns covering our campfire with an umbrella to keep the flames alive (which we managed to do) for our campfire dinner. I will say, a sipping a pinch of good bourbon helped. 

Here’s what Tom and discovered in our first few shake out days/nights in the van: 

1. Sleeping is REALLY comfortable. This was actually a surprise as the space is small. I had set my expectations low. We are glad we invested in a 8 inch memory foam mattress which we carefully cut to fit in our bed area. The two Maxxair ceiling fans we have are quiet and efficient. We can set one to pull air in and one to pull air out for a good flow. They have a rain setting/cover so they can work even in rainy conditions.  Our multilayered insulation layers (noise deadening, microcell and thinsulate) make for a very quiet night, even at a packed campground.

2. We will have an abundance of hot water for our recirculating shower. The tank heated by the engine coolant super heats the water! We have a cold water tank that mixes with our hot water. In order to run a shower that is hot but not scalding, we just keep our shower lever all the way over to the coldest setting. Leisurely hot showers are a nice luxury. 

3. Our house battery power drained a little faster than we thought. The biggest offender is our UV filters for our recirculating shower which we had set to run all the time. We adjusted them to run only when we turn our shower pump on, and this saves about 20% of our battery power per day. Much better. 

4. Several of our bigger sliding storage drawers need positive latches. We used fairly heavy duty magnetic latches for drawers but on rougher roads and hard turns the magnets aren’t enough. We will install push latches this coming week.

5. We found a little leak in our access hatch flange glue line on the top of our potable water tank. We are fixing it today. 

6. We need to hang hooks for jackets, hats, towels etc. This was always in the plan but we wanted to spend a couple of nights out to see where we would prefer to hang them. Space is limited! 

We are in Akron at the moment (Tom’s Grandmother’s house) to do a little of this work, and store my car for the year. We are lucky that Tom’s Mom has held onto the family home (no one lives here currently) It can serve as our base for some storage and we can make a few of the van tweaks here. 

I think the biggest discovery over the past few initial days of van living is that everything is a “process.” What do I mean by this? An example is making coffee in the morning. First there is making sure the sink pump is on. Then getting out the electric kettle and getting it set up. Then getting the coffee grinder out and getting the coffee from our vacuum container. Open another cabinet to get the mugs from our dish basket. If we want toast, I need to pull out our bakeware from the oven and set those on the bed or bench to use the oven. And there is also the physical dance we must do; for example, only one of us can get to our clothing drawer at a time. While one is getting dressed the other might be at the kitchen sink brushing their teeth. To do very simple things there is a series of steps or moves, sort of like a Rubik’s cube, where you are shifting and adjusting things (and yourselves!) to align well. You are in a constant state of taking out and putting away, moving and removing, so that you can effectively use the space. It takes longer to do everything. But there is also an intentionality about these processes that we find sort of zen-like. You take greater care, focusing on the activity itself and the process of accomplishing it. There is a sense of “calm” that comes from the act of focusing.

Now, I imagine as we get more adept at these various daily processes, we will focus less on them. Even so, I like the way it is forcing us to transition and to slow down. We have been making vast changes and big decisions at light speed over the past few months and the van itself is literally demanding we stop and take a breath.

Our last night at Robert Treman park after the family had headed out was a good example of a much needed pause. We lit a campfire (process). I made a meal with produce from a local farmers market (process). We took out the ladder and lantern and climbed up to our roof deck (process). Tall stately evergreens were silhouetted under a purple-blue blanket of twinkling stars and the night had a crispness which hinted at fall. I felt as if I was in a Maxfield Parrish painting. We stopped and marveled at the scene. Even this was a process —to slow our minds enough (after the constant go-go of the past months) to experience the quiet beauty of it. 

Next stop, Bloomington, Indiana. Tom’s Dad and Stepmother are there. It’s an important visit.