Or another way of putting it, a piece of the puzzle presented itself and made the picture come together. We arrived at the State Park in Westport, Washington on this Friday evening after work. It was my youngest daughter's, Cassandra's, birthday event to go surfing and camping on the coast. There were going to be several folks dropping in during different parts of the weekend, but Cassandra, Jeannie and the kids were already there and so was Caren with her van.
Such beauty never had such a plain wrapper. The van, that is. 2001 Dodge one-ton extended van. A workman's van with hand-sprayed care of random rust areas, sufficiently oxidized plastic pieces, a nice dent in the front bumper, a random scrap on the driver's side where a bollard jumped out to kiss it. What was hardly noticeable was the solar cells on the roof rack. This could have been just my perspective, but I don't think it would have been noticed by someone a head taller. All's that were visible really were the edges of aluminum that almost blended into the sturdy full-length rack. The dark window tinting made it even more uninteresting. Uninteresting is where her beauty began.
After we set up our tent and settled into visiting, Caren introduced Pam and I to her van. She showed us the inside and talked about her heart and soul. This van was ready for living. The whole interior was custom configured. Not in disco lights and velour chairs, but configured for stealth living. The two solar arrays on the roof rack supplied four 6-Volt deep-cycle batteries through a well-designed charge controller. There was a large inverter to supply 120-Volt AC power that Caren used to run her crock pot while driving down the highway. A simple, yet effective bucket toilet with nice seat. The shelving provided a good deal of ready-accessible storage with ridges at the front of the shelves to keep stuff from sliding off. In the back was the bed with an expensive piece of 8-inch foam on a plywood base. More storage under the bed, which was split into front and back portions. In the back portion was a set of water bricks for about 25 gallons of water. Opposite the shelving was the refrigerator with the water storage and pump for the sink below. Plus, a little storage nook. Next to the doors is the sink cabinet with grey-water tank and more storage. On the side of the sink cabinet is a swing-up table. All the walls have major insulation and a nice 1/4" plywood finish. Functionality is where her beauty shown brightest. And, Caren was putting it up for sale the next day.
Pam and I were smitten. She was perfect. We lay awake that night trying to determine what was wrong with this situation. We were blinded and could not see beyond her beauty. The next day we toyed with the idea of living in a van, listened to more of Caren's stories about traveling about in her, and finally told Caren that we would take her. We never even started it.
