December 5^th, 2022.

Location/Setting:  7am, Walmart parking lot outside of Wilmington, NC.  Chilly low 40s outside and a nice 70 degrees inside the van.  Smartless podcast is playing in the background, guest Sigourney Weaver.  Drinking my morning coffee, a blend of grassfed butter, monk fruit sweetner, half and half, and Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides chocolate flavor.  Generator is purring off the back of the van, powering the ceramic heater (was 61 when I woke up, no heater), lowering the temp in the Dometic cooler/fridge, and topping up the batteries.

Sitting propped up against the cushions that form my bed I type my first blog post.  My plan is to say “Hi!” introduce myself, touch on a few points, and set a direction for expectations.

My vanlife origin story will be approached in more detail later.  Small intro, I have been rolling around in my van for about 20 months.  Primary drivers for choosing vanlife were mental health and financial reasons.  Midwest is were I am originally from.  The west coast has been home, Orange County CA, Northern Cali in the mountains, Portland Oregon.  Hawaii for 7 years, Kauai, Big Island, and Maui. Summerlin NW Las Vegas for a short period.  I was in Malaysia for a year, then returned to build the van. The east coast has been a place I passed through, so, my vanlife journey has been completely east coast.

My van build was a full time 6 month process, averaging 60 hours per week.  I will shoot a video and post pics soon. Writing an article about the build process, my thoughts and reflections, will be on the to-do list as well.

I recently assembled this website.  I appreciate a good resource hub that collects the “best of.”  I am trying to distill what I want to contribute to the website / platform.  Do I want to shoot videos and start a vlog?  Regular blog posts? 

My focus is on the nature of consciousness and cultural narratives that influence our individual perspective and shapes culture and society.  That project is happening while I am living vanlife, so, can I contribute to both in a way that is interesting?  Maybe.

Off the top of my head I think the following blog posts would be coming:

• How I got into vanlife
• My design build process
• Where I have been
• Thoughts / revelations from the road
• How to vanlife
• Budget building
• Budget travel
• Parking lots

There is a ton of stuff to talk about it. 

I wouldn’t mind picking up the camera more to snap pictures, if there was an audience to share them with.

Ok, seems like a quick introduction.  

I will be driving the next leg of my journey down to Myrtle Beach today.  Thinking I might try to hit Jacksonville, Florida around mid-December.  Sign up with a coworking location for 2 months and crank out some work, get these projects established. When the temps start to climb again in February start working my way back north.

I appreciate your time, if your eyeballs have worked their way through the page.  Feel free to leave any thoughts or comments.  If you have any questions or would like to see a particular type of content, let me know.  I would value any insight about what direction to take with this platform.

Perspective influences our attitude and actions, it is the cornerstone to our personality.  Perspective colors how we present ourselves and receive others.

Vanlife, and traveling, offer a wonderful opportunity to explore who we are, what life is, how others live, how similar we all are in our unique expressions.  A gracious humility and a bold empowerment are both aided and further developed within vanlife.  Peace of mind, comfort within our own skin, an acceptance for what is and drive to improve where we can; this is vanlife. If you choose to make it so.