October 21st, 2016: Part One

(Writing from my “campsite” in White Pocket. Not sure if this is Arizona or Utah)

Tidbit/Life-tip of the post: You, and for the most part only you, create the problems that you encounter. As a capable human, you will find the solution….eventually. That’s not the issue. The problem it seems is inducing the right problems.

I think I started exactly two weeks ago. I’m going to be completely honest: it wasn’t until a few days ago that I found my rhythm. Before, I’ll admit that I was not having fun. All of the shit breaking and just being out of my comfort zone made me consider quitting and calling this a failure. This van shit turned out to be much harder that I initially realized. Starting from before I left LA, I’m going to bullet all of the awful things that happened that made the first two weeks brutal, interspersed with the beautiful amazing parts that got me to keep going:

· 6 days of 12–14 hours a day getting the van together. Upholstery, repairs, electrical, smog, registrations….and nothing is easy when driving around a 16 foot lifted van in LA.

· Seeing Lexie’s face change as the van came together. I could tell she didn’t quite see it when I brought it over. But by the, I could tell it was her vision as much as mine that was guiding the interior design of the van.

· Getting to Vegas at about 2am and, while looking for somewhere to park the van in the Rio, scraping the top of the garage, and completely ripping open my rooftop bag. Mind you, this is still day one. Safe to say, I did not end up going out that night.

· Dropping Lexie off at the airport sucked the next day. I was now alone, in Vegas, with nowhere to sleep and no one to keep me company. This was it, and I didn’t like it. I did not like being in an urban environment. I did not feel safe and didn’t really know what to do. I was still figuring out my routine and how to get comfortable. All while having a shit ton of things to fix. I had to stay in Vegas to do a few things (this list kept on growing, and it was so annoying): 1) Install kill switch 2) wait for Amazon shipments to arrive at the locker 3) Fix whatever leak was coming from the front (turned out to be steering fluid) 4) Get leaf springs checked out.

· Finding a place to sleep was brutal, and quite scary if I’m going to be honest. My first night alone, I went out to see an artist at one of the hotels for a few hours, but when I got back, I was not allowed to stay in the oversized-lot where I had parked. I was told that just around the corner was a street I could park at. Didn’t sleep for one minute at all. The next day was going to be hot, tired, and full of shit to do.

· Battery wasn’t working. It would charge, but would lose power so fast that I could barely run my fridge. Just fucking beautiful. It wasn’t until two days later when I had a guy at AutoZone check it out that I realized that my battery was busted.

· The real man of the hour: Clarence. See, at about 5am I realized I wasn’t going to get any sleep so I hit up CouchSurfer to see if I could crash outside of someone’s house. Clarence was the only one to respond, and this guy was literally an angel. Clarence may be the nicest, most hospitable man I’ve ever met. You really appreciate it when someone helps you when you’re really down and was there. He even checked up on the me the following few nights. Although we only hung out for less than 24 hours, I’ll forever be indebted to this guy. Can’t wait til our paths cross again

· At 3:30am, I get a loud knock and a bright tactical flashlight in my window. Now, every Vanlifer knows this is a part of living in a vehicle (especially one that looks like mine), but it’s still scary the first time. It turns out, the neighbors were a bit worried when a giant 4x4 militant looking van parks outside their house unannounced. The cop just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t some random guy, although he admitted that I was not breaking any laws by doing so. Just out of respect, I complied and after Clarence didn’t pick up or answer the door, I showed him our messages that indicated that he had indeed told me I could stay. He let the neighbors know the next day that I was his friend so no issues there.

· Gotta love waking up and finding another leak under your car. Turns out the bottom seal of the steering box was leaking. Not great, but can be temporarily fixed with some Stop-Leak. I obviously do that instead of getting it inspected.

· After another full day of running around in the heat getting things together (AutoZone x2, rear leaf springs (4 hours at a mechanic), Amazon locker to pick up and return some stuff, getting a high-life jack, and other stuff).

· I know exactly when things turned and I finally got in my rhythm that I had been searching for: I got the lights set up. It just made the place feel so much cozier at night instead of cold and dark (it was still cold, though). I finally feel like I know what I’m doing, I can stop being a noob, and I can start enjoying this beautiful adventure.