Friends near and far! We are so excited to share our little corner of the internet with you!
Before we get into the nitty gritty, not always sexy deets of our current van life, we wanted to formally introduce ourselves. Only polite, eh? (We're not Canadian, by the way.)
As I am writing this, I (Allie) am sitting at a grocery store in the pouring rain waiting for Peter (our van) to get a brand new face. Aka a new windshield.
And as we have a little pup, Charlie, our inside destinations are fairly limited. So under an umbrella we sit! (Van life, right?)
Tyler and I set out on this crazy alternative lifestyle on May 1st, 2016.
And here's where it began.
Tyler, an energy consultant and badass extreme sport-ist, had moved out to Southern California through his corporate job and was spending every spare moment out on the bike trails or surfing the good ol' Pacific. And while the OC life was meeting his necessary requirements of ample playtime, he desired altering his life toward new inspiration.
Thus his decision to direct his focus toward applying to business school.
Meanwhile, I was finishing my Vocal Arts Masters degree, running my own business of teaching private lessons, and performing all over Orange County and the greater LA area. I had been living in Southern California for the last 8 years, and though I had certainly cultivated an amazing networking (as a freelance musician), I was feeling that itch.
You know the one.
The "is there more?" itch. The one that makes you spend hours on your computer looking at apartments, places to live, and how much money was necessary to take a month long trip to London.
So while both of us were stuck in, what I lovingly like to call, "quarter century purgatory," we were set one thing:
Something needed to change.
So while Tyler's applications were being processed, we spent our evenings (in our tiny ocean view apartment in Laguna Beach - we're crazy, right?) dreaming of what the 'next chapter' (according to his choice of school) would be.
There was just one thing.
If any of you have ever gone to school, let alone graduate school, you'll know this:
Shit ain't cheap.
He knew that going to school would be the most indebted experience he would ever have in his life. The cost of tuition + the cost of living without a full time job = major major debt.
So, being a smart cookie, he began saving for this new venture right from the get-go.
But deep down, Tyler had a plan B.
A if-grad-school-doesn't-work-out-how-about-going-in-the-complete-opposite-direction kind of plan B.
And unbeknownst to me, he was secretly planning this 'plan B' life for us, dropping subtle hints with "check out this van" and "want to test ride a Eurovan down the street?"
I'm kidding. Kind of.
It was actually a fairly strategic move on Tyler's part. (He just has a very ambiguous way of showing it.)
So while enjoying his new hobby of coming home from work and searching for vans for sale, suddenly...
he found it.
Peter. Peter Van, that is, though at the time, he was nameless, 10 years old and residing with a lovely retired couple in Orcas Island, WA.
By this time, Tyler had heard the news. He had been placed on the waitlist at several top 10 business schools. And while he certainly could have pushed his way onto the acceptance list, we decided that being in debt with no steady income stream for 2 years just didn't feel right.
(Not yet at least.)
So, we talked, I agreed (what?), and we bid.
And within just a few short weeks, we're flying out to Orcas Island (on a sea plane, might I add) to pick up our new home.
It's funny. This would not have been possible had we both not felt that itch.
I had finished my degree and was working tirelessly doing my music thang. Knowing that I was to accompany my man in this next (somewhat fuzzy) chapter, I, too, saved up any spare change I could for the inevitable unsteadiness of what was yet to come.
With both of our savings accounts ready for the next move, bidding on the van felt right. And by January 2nd, we officially became van owners.
We spent the next five months planning and practicing the life of a van dweller. Tyler took Peter Van "out for a spin" (I say this half sarcastically, half begrudgingly) snowboarding for 2 months while I stayed home to finish teaching and singing out the rest of the season.
Prep work ain't no joke.
The two weeks prior to our departing date were probably the hardest two weeks of our lives. Working, selling, moving, cleaning, disposing, beautifying (Peter), and of course, goodbye-ing our (amazing) life as we knew it ran our schedules into the ground.
But somehow or another, we downsized our entire life to a 5x7 storage unit and hit the road accordingly.
And even though we're currently meandering around (with a pretty mapped out schedule, which I'll get to in another post) semi-jobless and (as Tyler likes to say) homeless, we knew one thing going into this:
We would never regret it.
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