South Jordan, UT

South Jordan is in the Salt Lake Basin, south of Salt Lake City and it is the first spot that we officially visited with the van! We were in southern Utah last week for another practice trip (more on that in a later post) and had enough time on our drive back north to stop in to South Jordan for a walk, some bubble tea, and a late lunch. Since South Jordan has plenty of parking lots, and since it was a Sunday (which are typically pretty slow in Utah) we had no issue parking Vanjie. 

I must admit that I went into this visit already somewhat dismissive. From our few months in Mountain Green I've stated to form some unfavorable options about Salt Lake suburbs. Despite some preconceived misgivings, I wanted to give South Jordan a fair shot. Not to foreshadow too much, but arriving on a somewhat gloomy Sunday after a week of strenuous hiking may not have been the ideal conditions for our visit.

The Good

• Great views of the Wasatch Mountains and only 30 minutes to Alta Ski Area.
• Seems like an active community; despite the pending rain we saw multiple people of all ages going on walks and jogs along the river trail. 
• Lots of walking trails along the river + many parks. 
• Close enough to SLC, which opens up lots of activities and restaurant options. Plus, I really like the SLC airport.
• Being so near to SLC and skiing means that we could reasonably expect regular visits from friends and family.
• Based on an internet search, there are lots of annual community events (e.g., egg hunt, outdoor movies, a pumpkin promenade, and hosting the state fair). 

The Bad

• There is no downtown. Leading up to our arrival I was trying to find the town's hub but with limited success. There were two main areas, however one was just a business center and the other was an extended strip mall.
• The businesses and homes all seem very cookie-cutter.
• It's white suburbia. The LDS temple is by far the most prominent building in town and virtually every business includes a reference to being family-focused in their names. 
• The top recommended activities in town are golfing, Mulligan's mini golf and batting cages, and the Megaplex movie theater. Oh, and to break up the white suburbia just a teeny bit, you can also visit the Hindu temple (yes, that actually pops up as a top-10 activity). 
• The top two rated restaurants in town are a sushi place which is closed on Sundays (because, Utah) and the Pie Pizzeria which we went to and I found to be mediocre. This town relies very heavily on SLC for any modicum of interest and culture. 
• Although we didn't experience during our visit, the Wasatch front can have bad pollution during the winter.

The Verdict

Absolutely not. Actually, I hated it so much I had to run out of the restaurant to cry in the car. If this is the sort of place my research resulted in then I clearly have missed something very fundamental about what it is that I want in my permanent home. 

Because of this, I have added a new column to my research: "is there a downtown?" Based on that, I've removed four towns: Milton, MA; Sharon, MA; Grosse Point Woods, WI; and Grosse Point Park, WI. There was one other (Russel, Ontario) that didn't seem to have a downtown but I'm giving it a pass since it is described as a rural farming community outside of Ontario proper. I think as we continue through this project I may be more cautionary about suburbs as a whole, but for now I can still appreciate the benefits of living just outside of "the big city." For now, I consider it good news to bring our total number below 40!

The river walk was nice, but it was surrounded by office buildings and apartments.

The mountains are also lovely, but this side of the mountains can be rather polluted. If we end up in Utah I'd like to focus our search to the Wasatch back. 

Plenty of parks to cater to all of those stereotypical white families with 2.5 children each.

This is truly what the whole town looked like – mega commuter roads with franchised family-focused businesses.

This bubble tea shot was truly the best part of our experience in South Jordan.

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.

Van Buildout: The Necessities

Welcome to 2022 – time to jump back on the vanwagon (get it, like bandwagon, except with a van?!). We are planning a test trip at the end of the month, which means Vanjie needs to meet some minimum living requirements: flooring, bed, toilet, electricity, heat, lighting, and water. None of these elements will be in their final state, and there are a lot of components not yet in the picture: walls, ceiling, shower, sink, stove, cabinets, tables, and likely many others that we'll discover on the journey.

Flooring

The radiant heat tubing went in, as well as the support beams that all of the furniture gets bolted to, which means we were able to put in the final top layer of flooring. The floor was our first aesthetic decision, but since I don't intend the floor to be the center point of beauty in our tiny home we decided to go with something relatively neutral. After meandering around the flooring store, we found some waterproof luxury vinyl flooring in a mock-hickory texture. Bonus – it was on sale and since the van isn't too big (less than 100 ft²) we only needed three boxes.

If you've ever installed a floor before, it is the common tongue-and-groove locking mechanism. Most of it went it without issue. For the odd-shaped perimeters, Cameron used a combination of a table saw, jig saw, and utility knife to get the right shape. We aren't doing anything to secure the edges (at least not at this point), since most of them will ultimately be covered by permanent furniture.

Installing the floor.

Despite the many rows of options, we were able to pretty easily pin-point the best luxury vinyl flooring for us.

With just the floor in there, it looks rather spacious.

Bed and Other Permanent Furniture

The bed frame has been built out for weeks now, and with the top floor finally in we were able to secure it. We still don't have a mattress (the one we want from IKEA has been perpetually out of stock) and we also don't have a way to secure the hinged ends in upright positions, but we can throw some camping gear on there and make do for a few weeks. 

Our latest order of 80/20 (the aluminum framing that we're using) came in, and allowed us to build out the skeletons of what will eventually be our counters, sink space, and stove top. It's unlikely that we will have any shelving or exterior covers for this first trip, which will make the van seem bigger than it is, but it at least gives us the general floorpan. As of now, we don't have any flat surfaces in the van, so we may bring along a piece of plywood or heavy cardboard that we can set atop these frames and use as a makeshift standing table.

The bed is sturdy!

The cabinet frames were built in the garage and then moved into the van. We moved the van into the driveway for easier access. 

Toilet

Our composting toilet from Nature's Head came in and I expect we'll bring it along to test it out. We need to buy some filler material (coconut fiber or peat moss) for the poo section, and it's recommended to add a vinegar solution to the pee section. I have been practicing on regular toilets because the poo and the pee process need to happen separately after the turn of a lever on the composting toilet. 

The toilet comes with a ventilation tube, which means cutting a hole in the van exterior. Cameron's already had to add some holes to the van floor, which of course makes me nervous, especially when he comes in and tells me that the initial hole might not work, which may be a reason to keep the toilet at home for this trip and rely solely on public restrooms. It would be a real shame the drill a hole in the side of the wall only to decide that the toilet needs to be moved elsewhere.

The interior workings of the toilet. You can see there is a pedal inside to mix up the solids.

Electricity

You've already read a bit about the electricity process. Since my last post, Cameron has constructed a power wall under the bed to house all of electrical component, including an inverter/charger, solar charge controller, bus bar, and battery fuse. I'm a bit uneducated about this process, so forgive me if any of these descriptions lost their meaning once they went through me as a filter.

First step was installing a shore power plug under the van (this was the hole that wasn't quite right, but Cameron made it work). Wiring cables from under the van into the interior was a two person job, and both of us hit our heads on something in the processes, but nonetheless it was easier than expected and this will allow us to feed off of a permanent building's electricity when we are parked nearby. This is hooked up to an inverter/charger (connected to an information and temperature sensor) and ran to the AC/DC distribution board and DC bus bar. 

The batteries still need to be individually charged before everything gets connected together, but the main battery shut off, main battery fuse, and shunt (which measures batter capacity and power usage) have all been installed and everything that needs grounding is connected to the chassis. Although it is the least interesting component for anyone who understands electrical engineering, I am most excited for the outlet that now hangs from our future stove counter. We'll likely add a few more outlets before we hit the road, even if they will need to be rearranged at a later date.

All of the critical measurements are fed into a phone app so that we don't have to necessarily disassemble the garage (under bed space) to check how much power we have. That said, we do have to disassemble everything at least one more time so that the platform that everything rests upon can be painted (to avoid mold and other deterioration). 

Drilling holes into the floor of the van.

The end result. This is underneath the van and allows us to connect to shore power.

The power wall. The lights are on, which means things are working!

The AC/DC distribution board plus our working outlet!

Testing the DC current before we hook up the batteries. 

Heat

Although the radiant heat tubing is in place, the rest of the heating system still needs to be started. We have all of the main components – a kit from Rixen's including furnace, expansion tank, heat exchangers – but we need some of the smaller components, such as valves, plumbing fittings, and antifreeze, before anything gets permanently placed. The heating system is another one of those processes that needs to happen all at once, so until we make a few more purchases the installation date will remain TBD. 

Cameron is considering adding a ceiling this week to help with insulation, but I doubt that will happen, partially because we haven't given much thought to the look, partially because the ceiling and upper cabinetry should be installed together, but mostly because we won't get our act together in the next two weeks to actually get it done. However, for heat and black-out reasons, I've started to create window fittings out of a huge roll of insulation. It's the same material that most car window covers are made out of – essentially bubble wrap covered in a reflective silver material. To finish those up we'll want to sew on some magnets and dark cloth.

Partially- done insulation window covers.

Lighting and Water

What will be in the van for this test trip will not be our final setup. Water may just be a five-gallon jug from the grocery store plus other refillable water bottles. We have some magnetic battery lights that will be slapped around the van walls and we may re-install some of the factory lighting. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up relying on headlamps for this trip.

Food

We haven't given any thought to the meal plan for this trip. We won't have a proper stove, but we'll likely bring our Jetboil, some just-add-water meals, and a plan to rely on restaurant food for a few days. 

~~~

So what's the trip itinerary? The main destination is Washington. We'll spend a week in Seattle saying hello to friends and making an appearance at our respective offices, then we'll unload our Bellevue storage unit and lug everything over to our new house in Port Angeles. We'll be in PA for a week checking in on our family and property, before heading back down to Utah. Since we get 5 free days of skiing at Sun Valley with our Snowbasin season passes, we'll be making a detour through Idaho for at least one leg of the trip. 

If you want to see us, and live in Idaho, Oregon, or Washington, let me know! We'll be working but this is intended to be a social trip as well. Also, if you live in the Seattle/Bellevue area and don't mind having Vanjie parked outside your house could I invite myself over for a shower and potentially as an overnight guest for a night or two? 

Sneak peak: there may be a future post on having a van bun. Final decision is still TBD.

Port Angeles, WA

Port Angeles is another town with a bit of an unfair advantage, given that Cameron grew up here and we've spent many holidays visiting the Littles and exploring the Peninsula. When Cameron and I first started dating (almost 10 years ago!) I asked if he would consider moving back. Back then, it was a hard "no," but since then PA has gotten more hip. The downtown is expanding and young people are moving back into the area. 

PA has great access into the Olympic National Park, and even excluding the outdoor aspects, there is a lot going on given how small of a town it is (population just at 20,000). There are a growing number of bars and restaurants, a great walking/biking trail along the Salish Sea, there are regular festivals and activities around town, and you can easily ferry to Victoria, Canada. Since we've seen most of the tourist highlights, we took this trip as an opportunity to experience residential life. Rather than staying with the Littles in their mountain home, we rented a tiny house in town (both for practical reasons, but also to practice for van life).

The Good

• Really close to family. Cameron's parents, sister, and grammy live in town; his other grandparents are an hour away, and his brother and all of our Washington friends are within 3 hours.
• The Olympic National Park literally boarders the town. I love this park! Almost all of our backpacking trips have been here and the Hurricane Ridge skyline (which is only 30 minutes from downtown) is represented on our wedding bands.
• Although the downtown is a little worn down, it's growing into a young hip community with a strong local vibe. Every time I go back there's something new and nice that's been added. The most recent cool spot is Buena Luz Bakery (owned by Emily Little).
• The town has a year-round farmers market and plenty of annual festivals/activities. 
• Great views: Olympics, the Puget Sound, the Salish Sea, Victoria, and the Cascades. On a clear day there are even views of Mount Baker. Plus, because it's on the north end of the Salish Sea you see both the sunrise and sunset along the water.

The Bad

• Really close to family. Yes, I know this is also on the good list, but my ideal distance to family is a 1-3 hour buffer – close enough that you can visit for a day but not so close that we have no autonomy. I want to move to a place that feels like it's my town, and not my in-laws' town.
• Far from an airport (about 3 hours from SeaTac, which includes a light rail ride and a ferry ride, which add to the transportation costs). However, it seems promising the the regional airport might start offering daily flights between PA and Seattle.
• The main road leading in and out of the town is also the main peninsula highway, which means to drive into town you have to go through fringe dumpy highway businesses.
• Far from good/reliable skiing. There technically is a Hurricane Ridge ski area, but the road is rarely open and it does not meet my minimum lift and vertical drop qualifications to consider it a "real" ski area.
• The weather, especially in the winter, can be dark and dreary, and even being back for just a week reminded me of my seasonal affect disorder (SAD).

The Verdict

Yes? I guess it has to be considered a definite "yes" since we bought a house while we were there.

"What? You bough a house?!" you ask incredulously. "Does that mean the Goldilocks Project is already over?" 

"No," I respond. "It just means we will have a secondary home base. We're still moving forward with the original plan, and renting the house to family while we get in on those sweet sweet first time homebuyer tax credits."

But in all actuality, I do like Port Angeles, and would say it is currently tied for the top position with Mountain Green, UT. Although being close to family is both good and bad, since Cameron's vetoed everything in the Southwest I'm more inclined to seriously consider the locations in the Pacific Northwest. The draw of being near my closest friends is also pretty immense, and I've considered PA as a potential future home for a long time. If I had to make a short list prior to starting the Goldilocks Project, PA probably would have been in the top five. Now we'll just have to see if it can stay there as it stacks up against the less well-known future contenders.

The views are the best part of Port Angeles. Of course the whole time we were there it was pretty gloomy, which is typical for fall/winter.

Port Angeles has a really nice community college. If we moved her I might toy with the ideas of becoming a professor.

It's very lush. Part of the Olympic Peninsula is taken over by the Hoh Rainforest.

One of the plus sides of all that moisture is fungi. We harvested and cooked up this lovely cauliflower mushroom.

This is one of the two streets of downtown. It's nothing special, but it's getting better.

There are some really nice spots in town, and plenty of sculptures and murals.

This was our cute tiny house for the week. It was a great stay.

Hopefully this place is even greater, since we went ahead and bought it! Yep, this is our house. It's a cutie, isn't it?

~~~~~

For those of you who are regular readers, please note that there may be longer gaps between posts as I do not have any immediate travel plans. There will still be periodic van buildout updates, but we are on pause until some key pieces get shipped (which may still be a month more of waiting). Thank you for your continued readership and have a happy new year!