Life Adjustments

Yesterday while I was biking back from the grocery store, I tiredly motivated myself to go the last half mile by thinking “you’re almost home”. At that moment it hit me… I already consider the van – wherever it is – home. All I need is a place where I feel comfortable to just relax, and the van is giving me that.

With our friends’ wedding wrapped up, our decidedly non-van lifestyle of staying in a hotel, hanging out with friends, and going out for every meal took an abrupt turn. I have already referred a couple of different moments as the ‘official’ start to our trip, but I think we may have a few more before this is over. At this point, I believe we have reached our third ‘official start’, which consists of the complete lifestyle change required when you don’t have a firm place to sleep or spend your daylight hours.

We discovered that some casinos in Phoenix allow overnight parking, and we have been taking advantage of that, sleeping in between semis for the past three nights. It works wonderfully until the sun comes up and the van turns into an oven by 7am. Not having a job to wake up for is supposed to leave you well-rested. Instead the early morning bake-up call (see what I did there?) left me tired and grumpy until I managed to start going to sleep earlier.

We spend the majority of our days camped out at the TechShop in Chandler, working on van renovations for 15+ hours a day. Besides sleeping at the casino, the only time we leave TechShop is when we head to the hardware store, gym (showers!), or grocery store, all conveniently grouped together approximately 1.5 miles away.

In order to have space to work, we’ve been cramming all of our extra stuff into an outdoor locker at TechShop, which has been consistently filled to the brim. Yet there is still always a pile of stuff heaped in the center of the van whenever we head to the casino to sleep. The moment we completed the back shelves, we were excited to move a lot of our stuff into their now permanent positions in the van (but still filled the entire locker).

The van full of stuff

Our new shelves, painted and filled

So far, the transition has been much smoother than I expected on a mental front. I think I have just been way too busy for it to really sink in. I imagine that in a few weeks, when I am missing my friends, an income, and a readily available bathroom, it will really hit me. But for now, I am just enjoying the ride.