Updates and Thoughts

It's been some time since I've had time to update blogs.

Today I've been thinking about some of the common terms in use and our lifestyle as vandwellers.

What we do isn't new or revolutionary. A lot of the ways i live in my van go back only two generations ago.

My family had outhouse, running water is reasonably new, and electricity in house not that old either. Someone made a comment online and it reminds me that many people...Amish and Mennonite...still don't use electric in the house.

In recent old days, people had a stand with a pitcher and a bowl on it for cleanliness. They still do. You'd wash up in privacy of your room. Saturday the big tub would be put in the kitchen, it was filled by hand, and emptied into the garden or flowers. Waste not want not.

So...why when converting a van do you need running water, showers, hard wired electric.

We overthink things making our van into a pale imitation of a house.

Why not look back and learn simpler less consumerism ways?

What really are needs...what are wants? I enjoy a few simple decadent luxuries. The majority of my life...is very simple, freeing me from things and allowing me to focus on friends and people and nature and of course my dog.

I don't need a large kitchen, with running water and many appliances to cook good meals. I've turned out a fancy Sunday dinner in a sand covered desert near the Mexican border. No running water, no electric, just me and my propane stove. I've cooked same type of meal in the pouring rain in Michigan in the Manistee National Forest.

I don't own a tv. I do enjoy shows via streaming video and saved on my 1T external hard drive.

I'm not homeless making do. I'm truly a nomad, living as many peoples have for countless untold years. My war pony is gasoline driven. My tipi has wheels. But it's the same as generations back where people roamed within an area living much more gently on Mother Earth.

Many pay lip service to this life style or half step their way though it. I raise my pot of coffee made the Old way in a stove top percolator on an open fire to those who truly understand and live this life.

A typical day as a vandweller

I'm in a town for at least another month or two while I deal with medical/dental issues. So...here's a day in my life.

Parked last night in a quiet cul-de-sac. It's legal here to sleep in your vehicles.

Woke up to a nice sunny morning. Of course Mona has to potty immediately...Then where's her breakfast. Dog Pottied, Fed, fresh water and then she's off for her morning nap.

I put the backpacking Coleman stove out beside the van, heated water, made coffee, washed the few dishes.

The stainless steel cup was easily cleaned, a wet paper towel and a tablespoon of baking soda. Swipe, wipe, and hang it on its hook.

My two small phone solar chargers are busy charging auxiliary phone battery chargers. They are both propped up inside the van on/near the steering wheel so no looking like a homeless person.

I'm enjoying my morning coffee in a glass mug instead of the travel cup. Breakfast will be muesli cakes with peanut butter and jam.

Hair is brushed and in a pony tail.

The passenger side faces a canal and a cemetery so I'm able to open side barn doors for fresh air and a breeze.

Two vehicles have used the cul-de-sac to turn around, I smile and lightly wave

One blog published, another about to be, and then just a product review or two and it's relaxation time.

Just Musing On A Cloudy Windy Day

i have to laugh. I'm not that unusual or unique.

There are quite a few of us who grew up during the sixties and the seventies. We were very much influenced by the rebellion & protests of the sixties. We watched the fight for civil rights unfold before our very eyes.

We loved words like antidisestablishmentarism.

We watched the moon landing on TV. We saw people changing the world, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, The American Indian Movement.

We smoked cigarettes in the bathroom at school. Most of us went on, got jobs, became the establishment.

Let us hear one of our songs from the seventies and all the memories come flooding back. It was a time of hope & change, George Carlin and Cheech & Chong. It was a good time to grow up.

Now, I feel as if I've gone full circle. I'm an environmentally conscious person living and traveling in my van. My youthful dreams are now my reality.