Preparing the van for 100 days on the road

We're on the road for the summer! It was a big change to get ready to be mobile compared to our stationary life in the state park the last few months.

We are going to travel this summer around the western U.S. with a couple of main goals and motivations. First, we are in the process of writing a book about permaculture and self-resiliency in the context of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Second, we have a goal of visiting all 50 states together and we have a big gap in the Pacific Northwest we need to hit! And finally, we have a goal of visiting and hiking in all the national parks and spring/summer is the perfect time to visit the parks in northern states. In order to reach these goals, we had to batten down the hatches in the van.

The first major change we made in the van was the potentially excessive use of velcro. We have a lot of smaller objects in the van that we use frequently but will break if we didn't put them away. Instead of having to put away the GoalZero lantern and the trash bin and the bin with our headlamps and headphones, we purchased a big roll of velcro and stuck them all down to the counters and cabinet tops. It's worked really well so far and we can still easily move the objects if we can't reach (mostly if Madi can't reach) or need to charge something.

We also had to bring the bikes in the van. We left our big bike rack grate in Colorado last Thanksgiving because we didn't anticipate needing it anymore. Turns out our bikes don't fit under the bed... so they currently live in the van. Yes, inside the van where we (and Acadia) also live. It's crowded - see for yourself in the above picture. It's been a little bit of a logistic and movement nightmare, but we're spending a lot more time outside, which is a great benefit! It's actually been really good for us in that context because we're kind of being forced to explore more small parks and outdoor coffee shops in order to maintain our sanity.

Other small changes we had to make from our state park life was filling up all our water hugs and maintaining a better watch over our greywater tank. We have a 2.5 gallon sink, a 5 gallon water jug in the back of the van, a 1 gallon water jug for cooking under the sink, and four Nalgene/Hydroflask water bottles that stay up front for drinking and making tea/coffee. This much water should last us two or three weeks if we fill up our water bottles whenever we pass a drinking fountain. We had a small mishap with the greywater overflowing right before we left, so we are on hyper-alert lifting the jug to test for fullness every day. We no longer have constant access to water so cleaning dishes, doing laundry, and brushing teeth have moved to minimum water use. It's a good thing our backpacking experiences have made us pros at cleaning up with very little water!

Keep up with our weekly blog posts to see where we're traveling to this summer! We'll be posting once or more a week with updates and photos.