Single #Vanlife

As I sit here drinking a camp cup filled with red wine, alone, I am left to contemplate vanlife as a single individual. Tonight I spent a couple of hours with my vanfriend Amy, with whom I am doing some work with down here in San Juan Capistrano. The topic of love and relationships was the main course tonight, and we delved into it fairly deep. Her and I have different problems, but in some […]

Read more

Solar Power

There are two major aspects of living in a Vanagon that appealed to me. One, the shear adventure of being able to roam as desired. The second is the freedom of living simply. The past year I had lived in a tiny house I helped build in Terrebonne Oregon, and at 240 square foot, the place felt quite a bit bigger than necessary. The next logical step, take it to the road and move into […]

Read more

Wanting

This is not a post about self help, at least not one that will guide you out of wanting and into some higher state of being. Rather, this is a post about my personal battle with it and confronting it. Thank you for reading part of catharsis. Eckhart Tolle, author of the Power of Now, would likely describe it as part of the ego. I say likely as, to be honest, I have yet to […]

Read more

Say Yes

Life is full of forked roads, vanlife is no different. I often find myself thinking about where I am and how I got here, and how little decisions, made by me or for me, have led me to the place I am today. The other night I was thinking about college. In 2006 I was on the path to get my B.S. in Finance, but then when it came time to take my first finance […]

Read more

Strangers

Some people come into our lives just as quickly as they leave. Passing through a moment in time where, for whatever reason, our paths cross and conversation is started. These brief interactions bring so much to our lives, if even for a minute. People that know me would likely classify me as an introvert. At a party, I am more likely to be hanging out with those I came with, rather than mingling around the […]

Read more

Joshua Tree

Towards the end of February I had made my way down to southern California, in hopes of warmer weather and connecting with friends in Joshua Tree. I connected with my friends, but the weather surrounding my stay in the park was wet and questionable at first. Coming down the 101 from Santa Barbara south, and then cutting across around LA, was like driving in a tropical storm. While everyone was experiencing the monsoon like rainfall, I […]

Read more

Working From The Beach

When I lived in my last Vanagon and traveled all over the US for 6 months, Santa Cruz, one of the first places I stayed, was my all time favorite. Sure, it is a beautiful little city and the coffee and cookies at Verve Coffee are so good I went out of my way to stop there this time around; but the best part of Santa Cruz was the “office”. In 2012 it was the […]

Read more

Old Time Saloons

Whenever I drive through an old town I instantly scan for a saloon. I don’t know why, but there is something about sitting in an old saloon and drinking a beer that is deeply satisfying. It’s as close as I will probably every get to time travel. I just sit there and look around and try to imagine being there 100 years earlier. Today was no different. On a sunny day drive out west of […]

Read more

And Just Like That It has Begun

Last time I moved into a van I feel like there was more planning, more projects, more everything, before I headed out. Today I left the tiny house I helped to build a little over a year ago. In a whirlwind of packing and ultimately just throwing things in a box and saying I would figure it out in the coming days, I rushed out of Terrebonne in hopes of missing the snow storm that […]

Read more

The Chaos of Simplification

My tiny house, with everything in its place, looks to be far more room than necessary. There are numerous drawers and shelves with nothing in them or on them. Sometimes I even move things that could all fit on one shelf to another, just so that it doesn’t look so empty. The opposite of that is happening right now, however. Most of my stuff is out of the drawers and cubbies, strewn all over the […]

Read more