Van Buildout: Trial Trip Debrief

We left last Tuesday for week-long visit to Washington. We packed up the van, put the rabbit in her carrier, and set off. We spent a night in an Idaho RV park, followed by three nights outside of a friend's house in Bellevue, three nights outside of our house in Port Angeles, and then our last night was at a rest stop outside of Boise. During the trip we socialized a bit, I went into the office for a few days, we emptied out our long-standing storage unit, tested out our composting toilet, drove through and parked in downtown Seattle, and we finally got to try Buena Luz Bakery. On our last day out, we spent a few hours skiing at Sun Valley. Overall, I thought it was a very successful trip, and it was a good reinforcement that I can live in a moving box. 

Since you read enough of my thoughts, let's see what Cameron thinks. Below is a transcript from an interview I recorded at a diner in small-town Idaho:

Aisha: Ok Cameron, how did this trip go?

Cameron: It went well. 

Aisha: What about it was 'well'?

Cameron: We had heat – the van heat stayed up pretty well. Most nights we had a 40 degree temperature difference, so it was 20 out but we stayed above 60.

Aisha: Was that your biggest worry?

Cameron: It was one of my biggest worries because it's something we still have the most to improve on of the systems that are ready. 

Aisha: What were other worries that you had?

Cameron: About finding places to stay, which always went fine. And about parking in Seattle, which also went fine.

Aisha: As far as the places to stay, what did you learn for future trips?

Cameron: There are a lot of RV parks that are either all long-term stay and are not really places we would want to be staying, or are right in the city center. 

Aisha: I know that you download a new app related to finding stays. What was that app and what do you think of it?

Cameron: It's called AllStays and it looks like it has a lot of data but it's not exactly the best-made app or easiest to use.

Aisha: Yeah, it seemed like my app, Overlander, was probably a little bit more useful.

Cameron: It looks like it has most of the same information. This one [AllStays] probably has more data because it has a bigger community working on it. 

Aisha: Tell us about the last night. Where did we stay our last night?

Cameron: We stayed at a rest stop in Idaho. We pulled up where the semis were and pulled up in that area – not in a semi spot, but nearby. It was comfortable. You could definitely hear the semis, traffic, and road noise but it wasn't that bad. It was nice to be right on the road. We pulled in around 9:30 and then left about 8:00.

Aisha: Will you make a habit, you think, of staying in these free stops?

Cameron: I think if we're on the road it will make a lot of sense. Not if we're staying in that town.

Aisha: What are you most proud of? 

Cameron: I'm very happy about the heating system. I think that the window covers that are finished and have the fabric on them are working really well. I still would like to potentially insulate them but I don't know for sure on that. Then also put more magnets in and make the magnets a little more elegant within the windows. I think the layout is working but we need more storage.

Aisha: What are some things you knew you had to add and then what are some things that you've newly discovered are needed.

Cameron: There's not really anything that's new, but we know we need to finish the walls and insulation and redo all of the walls, basically, with something permeant. I think it might make sense in some areas of the walls to go a little thicker than we were planning just because there are some areas where it makes sense to; there's not really a reason for the walls to be as thin as possible. I definitely – oh! One thing that I might end up changing – ok, other things that we haven't done yet: we need to finish the whole bench seat. That will be really nice because having a place to sit that you don't have to use the swivel seats for will be good. I need to do all of the storage and stuff: countertops, sink, all of that stuff, plumbing. 

One thing that I think might end up happening, which I kind of knew about, is I'm probably going to take the ends of the beds three quarters [inches] back, so I'll have to cut off some 80/20, which means I'll have to buy more tools. But, in order to actually get the beds to be liftable, or to have an end on them, we have to put that wood on the end and in order to have room for that we have to bring it back, which there is space for. I just haven't been able to think of a way to actually mount the wood on top of the aluminum, not against the aluminum since that would also leave the aluminum visible, so I don't really want to do that. I'll probably end up doing that [mount the wood on top], which to get clean cuts I will actually have to do some work. But that will be fine, and then we'll be able to put a nice end on each side of the bed which will help hold the mattress together. We also might be able to put handles in to lift it up in. That will be nice.

I definatley want to do hydraulics on the bed lift. Definatley want to close off the batteries compartment area. We also want to put slides in to get stuff in and out from under the bed – the garage area – easier. We still have quite a bit of work. Oh – insulating the door. I don't really know how that's going to end up looking, putting a wall on the door. I need to do that. And cutting out the step is something I want to do kind of as soon as possible because it's easy to step on accidentally.

Aisha: Now tell me about having a rabbit in the van.

Cameron: Well, it was going really well, but then the rabbit tried to pee on my shirt, which I think was her being kind of territorial and me not paying enough attention to her. So I had to deal with that, but that wasn't too bad, but then she started using the underside of my pillow as a potty, so we found poops there a couple of times, and then she peed off the end of the bed. She was not trying to pee on the bed; she was trying to pee off the bed but that obviously caused a bunch of mess because there was splatter down below. 

Aisha: Why was she on the bed in the first place?

Cameron: Well she figured out how to get on the bed. First she was getting up by jumping on the box and then jumping on the bed, so we moved the box. Then she was jumping on the toilet, going across the counter, and then getting on the bed. Then she just was jumping straight up [from the floor] on to the bed. We don't really have a way of blocking her off unless we lock her in her area, which we don't really have a permanent way to do right now. But she was being great on the bed, normally. She was just lying down, sleeping, laying out. She really liked it up there, but I think she just got too comfortable with the space. Her area, we need to make sure stays her area, and the rest of the area needs to be a little bit novel. So we'll see. I think we just need to go slower with the introduction process so she's not picking her spot for the litter box in the whole van but knows it's in the under-cabinet area.  

Aisha: At one point you called her a "diva." Explain that. 

Cameron: Did I call her a diva? Why did I call her a diva?

Aisha: I think it was because she was snuggling up next to me while we were going to bed – 

Cameron: Yeah! And she was getting a lot of room in the bed. But she was being really sweet. I think she's really good. She doesn't like being locked in her carrying crate at all; she gets upset and tries to get out, but she seems pretty comfortable in her little area, even if the van's moving, and she's been doing really well sitting on our lap, at least for a certain amount of time. She does get antsy eventually and wants to go down, but she's been doing really well on laps.

Aisha: So you let her stay on your lap while you are driving? 

Cameron: Aisha! I never let her stay on my lap while I was driving! 

Aisha: You started this!

Cameron: No, I never let her stay on my lap while I was driving. I let her stay on the passenger's lap while we were driving, but Aisha let her stay on her lap while she was driving once, I think. 

Aisha: Is she living her best life living in a van?

Cameron: She's doing pretty well. I think she'd like more space, but we were also able to let her out in the garden of my parent's house and the backyard of our house and she really has a lot of space to explore. As long as she's getting out she'll be fine. She did flop a couple of times.

Aisha: Overall, do you think that living out of a van for a year will be a doable and comfortable situation?

Cameron: Yes, it will be. Once we get storage it's going to be way better because we won't have just stuff moving around and all over the place. And once we have counter tops that will be really nice. 

Aisha: Speaking of counter tops, what was the food situation in the van?

Cameron: We don't have a stove or a sink, so it was Jet Boil-based food. We do have the fridge so we could put stuff in there, but no way to heat things up. 

Aisha: Any further commentary on this test van trip? 

Cameron: It went pretty well. There's still a lot of work but I'd like to get things feeling more finished. 

Aisha: What's the timeline for getting everything fully finished and on the road? 

Cameron: By April is the hope. 

Aisha: Sounds good, thanks for your time.

"Working from home."

Although we didn't stop to assess any of our Goldilocks Project cities along the way, I feel very positively towards Idaho after this trip. It was beautiful!

With the rabbit, we had to stop every 2-3 hours to give her an extended (30+ minute) break from the carrying cage. That typically aligned with a potty and snack break for us, too.

After trying three other places (another RV park and two truck stops), we ended up paying $30 to stay at Rivers Edge RV Park in Wilder, ID for our first night. We decided to pay extra to have hook ups, only to find that our charging cord was the wrong type for their outlets. 

We did true 'living' in the van, including making tea and oatmeal for breakfast. 

The main reason we drove up to WA, despite having a limited time frame available, was to empty out our storage unit, cram it all into a U-Haul, and transition it to our house in Port Angeles. 

Baby Bunny had a fun time running around the Little's garden, meeting chickens, ...

 

... running around our yard, 

... and eating carrots straight from the garden. If that's not living your best life, I'm not sure what is.

One of the better side effects of coming up last week was seeing my mother-in-law for her birthday and checking out my sister-in-law's bakery.

I mean, look at these tasty treats!

Another side effect was checking out our new house and doing some maintenance, such as clearing bush from the side of the house and cleaning out the gutters.

We learned that rest stops often can serve as a good overnight stop. That's what they're named for, after all, right?

I was wondering how long it would take before we started letting the rabbit out while driving. The answer was less than two days. Now, for some more bunny pictures:

From left to right: Cameron's sleeping space, Aisha under the yellow covers, Pancake taking up over 1/3 of the bed space. 

Upon Cameron trying to get into bed, Pancake decided to switch sides and claim that small sliver of space as her own, too. 

This is why Cameron called Pancake a "diva."

But she's my sweet snuggle bun!

More "working from home." I was able to listen into a work meeting from the top of Sun Valley (as evidenced by the headphones). 

Van Buildout: Pre-Trip Problems

Remember when I said this van would be perfect? It may still get there, but at this point that goal feels overly ambitious. We expected to hit the road on January 21^st but due to a series of troubles our start date was postponed by over one week. 

The main delay was Covid. Cameron started to feel unwell on Tuesday the 18^th and by Thursday he was testing positive. Despite keeping my distance and wearing masks when we were in sightlines of one another, I also tested positive about a week later (starting Tuesday, January 25^th). We were definitely not going to hit the road until both of us were negative.
 
Even though one or both of us were feeling unwell, over that week and a half of isolation we tried to keep working on the van. The heater system proved to be quite troublesome. 
 
For close to a week, it seemed like every day we uncovered a new leak. First, they seemed to be because of the type of clamps we were using (worm clamps instead of continuous tension clamps). Then some of the brass fittings had trouble. Then, we realized the air handler itself had a leak, so we had to wait a few days for Rixen’s to send us a replacement. 
 
As you can imagine, it’s quite frustrating to repeatedly think you’ve fixed a problem only to wake up the next day to splatter of antifreeze dripping onto the driveway. Good Cameron overcalculated when he sent me out to buy seven gallons of antifreeze! 
 
There were at least two days when I thought “well, I guess we’re giving up on this project.” The first was a few days into the series of heating-related leaks when Cameron was in the van and I was working upstairs. I got a call from him shouting “you need to come down here NOW! Bring towels and a bucket!” I ran as fast as I could with a pile of rags to a scene of yellow fluid bubbling over from the furnace and Cameron trying to keep a yellow puddle in check. Not long after I left the scene Cameron came into the house on the verge of tears with a red swollen hand. He had tried to pull some hose from one of the pipe fittings and it suddenly released, smashing his hand into the metal frame. That stopped van operations that night. 
 
The second project-stopping concern was a dead battery. Apparently, if you are regularly using the interior lights but not regularly driving your Sprinter it is possible to fully drain the battery. It’s scary when you press the start engine button and absolutely nothing happens – no noise, no lights, nothing.
 
We brought out the jumper cables and hooked up the van to the Toyota. After a few minutes Vanjie’s dash lights came on and things seemed to be promising. We waited about 30 minutes to fully disconnect, and as soon as we did everything went blank again. We attempted to jump it for at least another half hour with no further success. Cameron figured that since the van is so big, it might not be jumpable from a regular car battery, so he set out to buy a battery charger (we were testing negative for Covid by this point). 
 
We went through the same process with the battery charger – after a few minutes the van seemed to respond, but once the charger was disconnected everything went dark. Of course we were reading the owner’s manual and searching online for a solution, but with very little success. 
 
Eventually, Cameron opened the battery compartment directly, which sits under the driver’s seat, instead of hooking up through the auxiliary access point under the hood. He connected our inverter/charger as a trickle charger, but that would have taken more time than we had before we wanted to hit the road. He was finally able to start the van with a temporary connection to our battery isolation manager, which allows starting the car from the house batteries.
 
We let the battery charge for a few hours, and as it did the van seemed to go through a reboot: the windshield wipers activated unprompted, the windows rolled down on their own, and numerous maintenance messages came up on the dash screen. All of these were unnerving – you don’t expect your brand-new Mercedes vehicle to go through this level of crisis – but it seemed to do the trick. After three days of troubleshooting, we were able to start the ignition, drive the van around the neighborhood, turn it off, and then (and this is key) turn it on again!
 
Ultimately, we think the van’s battery had drained to the point that the battery charger didn’t think it was chargeable. Running the van for a bit brought the voltage up to the point that the charger worked.
 
This was Monday, January 31^st, and we had already committed to spending that night in the van as a test with the hope of setting out for our modified Washington visit the next day. While the van charged we worked on adding extra insulation, walls, and ceilings (a much more difficult task than expected). We took a break to drive 45 minutes south to pick up our van fridge so we wouldn’t have to rely on coolers to keep our bunny veggies fresh on the road. 
 
By the time we got back home (near 6pm) we found a fully working van (huzzah!) but we could not find Cameron’s wallet (uh oh). Turns out Cameron had left it at a Walgreens we stopped at to pick up at-home Covid tests, so that gave us an excuse to take the van down for a mini trial trip. I’m happy to say that we had no issues, but by the time we grabbed the wallet, dinner, and gas and made it back home it was nearly 9pm. 
 
9pm is my bedtime, and I had a long tiring day, but we were committed to sleeping in the van. We didn’t need to do much set up, just bring out our sleeping clothes and toiletries, but we did need to bring down the bunny. In case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I recommend not giving your pet rabbit free roam of a brand-new space moments before going to bed in that same small space. 
 
Pancake was amped on adrenaline and curiosity. Anything in reach was hopped on and nibbled on, and although her space was relatively bunny-proofed, she managed to squeeze into the few areas that she shouldn’t go to. We kept getting up, adding another layer of restriction (mostly cardboard to block off spaces), turning off the lights, and then being started by some suspicious sound minutes later and starting the process over again. Needless to say, it took me a while to fall asleep. 
 
Overall, it was a successful night. The rabbit settled down, and although it was a little cold we were relatively comfortable. As planned (if you can count Plan D “as planned”), we are now on the road for our first van trip. I’m working from the passenger’s seat and we’re making regular stops to ensure Pancake gets exercise and ample food/potty stops. Other than those, we won’t be making many stops to check out the scenery or assess any of the towns on my list that are along the route, but nonetheless there is lovely scenery between Utah and Washington. I’m sure I’ll tell you all about it in the next edition of the Goldilocks Project. 

Packed and ready to go, only to have to wait another ten days.

Working late nights to try and get it all together in time. 

This is our heating system. You can see there are a lot of fittings that all could cause leakage if not tightly clamped together. 

Waking up to a wet spot under the van was a sure sign of another leak.

Trying to untangle the maze of wires below the drivers seat in order to access the battery.

On the plus side, the delay gave us time to better insulate the van. Based on the morning frost in this picture you can see what part of the roof was insulated overnight.

It also allowed us to pick up our refrigerator. The place we bought it from does van build outs – how cool is this shop?!

All's well that ends well. The interior is feeling cozy and perfectly satisfactory for a week-long test trip.