For the past week, I’ve been back in the van full-time.
For the month of April, I stayed with family in New York and I spent over two weeks of May staying with friends and family on the road (as well as an impromptu hotel trip.) Is there anything like being away to make home feel even better?
When I first got in the van last year, I had a hard time seeing it as “home.” My bed was there, as were my clothes, dog, and husband, but it just didn’t feel quite like home. Perhaps it was the compost toilet, perhaps it was the 30 square feet of inside space. Though my nights in the van quickly began to add up, something was missing.
A year passed and I got more comfortable, but when I dreamt of home I still dreamt of somewhere else.
And then I spent 6 weeks in other people’s houses. Enjoying someone’s hospitality is wonderful, but there’s a feeling of discomfort I can’t ever shake in other people’s homes – it’s not my space. I had a bed and access to showers and laundry facilities, but I was living out of duffle bags and reusable grocery bags.
When I got back in the van again, a weight was lifted. A tenseness in my muscles relaxed. And now, nearly 14 months after I started this, the van truly feels like home. My home.
My home has been parked in the desert of Southern Utah for several days. A mountain range looms, far but clear, on the passenger side, and hills lined with turquoise strips of rock reach to the sky on the driver’s side. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. The sunsets and sunrises are clear and bright. On Tuesday, I watched lightning crash down on the mountains, miles away yet close enough for the winds to shake the van.
This weekend I am headed further into the desert to explore trails and rivers, with several hikes and one very exciting rafting trip planned. It is the dream of Western van life.
In the US, the western side of the country is considered far superior for van life over the east coast. An east coaster through and through, I spent my first 12 months of nomad life exploring up and down the Eastern time zone – but after a few weeks out west I have to admit – it is easier. Easier to find places to park for days on end. Easier to find BLM land, dispersed camping, and dump sites. Easier to hike to an epic view and easier to find an isolated spot. So I’ll give the west this – it certainly is bigger out here.
How much farther West I’ll go depends on how well the van holds up. If I’ve made it out of the pit of van repairs, I plan to trek the entire west coast north. But if things go as they have been, then I may be calling it quits sooner than I’d hoped. But it does no good to dwell – I’ll find out what happens when I get there.
In the meantime, I’m off to explore more of this wild landscape. There’s allegedly dinosaur tracks in the hills above my van and class IIII rapids to raft. It feels good to be home again.
