The snow chills my back as I squint up into the guts of the van, once again looking for something wrong. This morning we’ve fixed the plumbing (again) and are now dealing with a diesel heater that’s leaving black soot on the ground outside and stinking up our cabin. This isn’t the #vanlife of countless Instagram posts, but rather the #realvanlife that nobody talks about: van maintenance in exotic locations.
Flipping through Instagram posts before leaving, I had built up rosy expectations. I imagined days playing outdoors capped off by relaxing beneath expansive vistas at scenic campsites. Instead, we’ve finished long days of driving by searching for parking spots near public restrooms, before walling the van in with black-out curtains and worrying about local regulations against overnight parking.
Free time gets eaten by transitions, van work, and chores: of twenty days on the road, there have been six days driving, two days working on the van, and at least two days running errands around town. Even when the plumbing, heater, and electric system work well, a dozen details add speedbumps to our road. Rather than the free-spirited ideal of ‘just pick up and go,’ every morning is a time-consuming list of chores: pack away the clothes which were drying overnight, wash the dishes, empty the pee bottles, check the graywater, take out the trash, pack away the cooking equipment, secure everything for driving, clean the ice from the inside of the windows, and then finally start the van.
More than the time, each of these taxes our mental resources. The little routines which simplify life are broken by our constant movement, and without them we spend time and mental energy on the questions of where to park, where to get water, where to use the bathroom, whether to pack everything up before starting the engine, and so on- until we’re drained at the end of the day.
At home we might relieve these frustrations by grousing to colleagues or unwinding with friends over a beer. On the road, we’re thousands of miles away from familiar faces, and most people we meet give us a quizzical look when we say we’re living out of a van. Instead of finding a community of fellow vagabonds at the ski resorts and crags we visit, the other van dwellers we’ve seen are also searching for parking spots or have their own blackout curtains up- and our Sprinter is just another van passing in the night.
C’mon, it’s not that bad ;P (…Says not the one laying on the snow under the van!)
Only 50 more weeks to hold on! I am sure you’ll get used to it very soon! The van looks amazing! Where are you ?
Caroline & Francois, still overwhelmed by rosy #vanlife posts although our van is back to the garage for the 3rd time in less than 2000 miles driven!!!!
We are currently in Nelson, B.C. Laundry day 🙂 Hope your van gets better soon!
Try not to be hard on yourselves. You jumped right in to the deep end–winter, a foreign country, untested equipment, etc. It will all become smoother & easier in due time!
Wow, an encouraging coming from Evan ;P Thanks man, we are working out the kinks for sure. Summer would have definitely been easier and we are finding that Canada, though it feel very much like home, is indeed a foreign country (health care, auto repair, etc.)
Ah, reality. But to be fair, you guys are moving through pretty fast.
Yeah, we have a couple deadlines coming up – my grandmother fell and had to have surgery so we’ll need to be in Fremont the second part of February to take care of her to give my parents a break for a couple weeks. Then to Mexico for a wedding. So, it feels like we need to pack winter in before it ends. We were originally thinking to spend a week, maybe 10 days, in Canada – but here we are, almost a month later 🙂