April 30, 2022
We are about three months away from our “summer shakedown” trip and things are moving along. The van is about 75% finished. The bed, benches, power system, bug screens, cupboards, sink and fridge are all in.
The Maxxair fan is sitting on our dining room table waiting for a spell of dry weather for installation.
Aside from the fan, the current van “to do” list includes door panels, insulated window covers, one more storage unit (I am optimistically calling this one my “bookshelf”).
Maybe we will order some recovery gear, outside storage of some kind, such as a swingaway hitch and cargo carrier, or rooftop carrier, if we can find an affordable option. So far we have been striking out on “affordable”.
Incremental Progress on Many Fronts
We are also working hard at figuring out what to do with our house and getting rid of things in the house…. But there’s only so many things that can go while we are still living here. Especially as we are expecting two of our young adult children, a nephew, and two of their friends to stay with us for the early summer before taking off on their own adventures.
We are boxing up things for a May garage sale (In Massachusetts, we say “Tag sale”), cleaning up and cleaning out everything we can part with, and daydreaming…. A lot of day dreaming. We are also watching lots of how-to videos on youtube 🙂
So much to do, and yet so much is on hold
I feel overwhelmed when people ask me where we’ll be going and what we’ll be doing. I want to shout “everywhere!” and “something!” But instead, I am sharing our very vague plans: The Pacific Northwest for our “shakedown trip” (and to celebrate my mother’s 81st birthday!) and then, back to settle things with our house (finalizing, deep cleaning etc.)
and then…..
We think we’ll head to Colorado (which we love and know pretty well!) then to Utah, which was always too hot during our school vacation months to explore. We plan to hike canyons, try our wheels on desert roads, maybe do a longer backpacking trip….
Vague right?
But wait, it gets even more vague: We plan to head further south with the weather. I (Perri) want to see Big Bend in Texas and Death Valley. True to form, Dan says he’s up for anything.
We imagine we’ll be in Arizona or California a bit. Maybe the Baja Peninsula, maybe back to the Pacific Northwest.
In May, we have to be back in Massachusetts for Dan’s work, and will get our medical and dental chores done, check in about our house. Then up to Dan’s hometown, Montreal, to visit with our two of our three kids, who are in school there. Then we’re off to Michigan for our nephew’s bar mitzvah.
My dream is that we head northeast from there, to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. They say you can see beluga whales right from the shore, and I have always wanted to check this out. We are maybe going to continue east along the coast of Quebec to Labrador…..
Maybe. Not sure. It’s possible we’ll end up doing totally different things, in totally different places. To us, this is plan enough.
Living Looking Forward
But for now, their are slow steps to take… clean out this, get rid of that, finish out the school year.
We are living looking forward which is sort of the opposite of what we are hoping for our Crazy/Brave Adventure. Once we go ahead and get gone, we will have to (re)learn to live in the present
I think we can do it… but we sure aren’t there yet!