Van Life Chronicles
Welcome to Dan and Van Blog! This is the place to learn all about the every day adventure and struggles of living the nomadic life on wheels.
I hope to share some insights and keep you entertained. So, sit back, relax and enjoy some chronicles of yours truly
-Dan
Blog Seven - Thankfulness
11/28/24 - Home, Lodi
Frost blankets the grass. Discarded leaves crunch underfoot. The sky is balancing between grey and white. Pumpkins sit on every porch, but none of them are carved. Everyone seems to have a scarf around their neck, a beanie on their head, and some sort of furry footwear. I stride down the street in my hoodie and sweats. My breath looks like little ghosts. Hands searching my pockets for any residual warmth. The muscles in my back tense against the cold. It’s beginning to feel like Christmas season, but it isn’t quite there yet. No, today is better than that. As I stop by a beautifully multicolored tree, I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with crisp, fresh air. Today is a beautiful day, and my favorite day of the whole year. Today is Thanksgiving.
There is no season of the year better than the fall going into winter season. The leaves are beautiful. Air is cool and fresh. Winter clothes are coming out. People are bundling up and hunkering down. Fires are crackling. Hot cocoa is warming the hands of the masses. Folk music is a must before Christmas music takes over. The year is coming to an end, and we are taking time to be thankful before we wrap it up with a season of giving. SO I’d like to take a moment to do yet some more reflecting.
I am currently sitting in my parents kitchen at 6:25 pm, on Thanksgiving, all alone. I am full on Thanksgiving food and eyeing the pecan pie sitting across the counter. My folk playlist is playing through the house. Riley sits at my feet while Barbs is curled up under the dining table. I’m wearing sweats and drinking a nice hot cup of hot cocoa. The house is warm and decorated. I am home. I am happy. I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams. I am thankful.
I could write for a long time on all the things I am thankful for. Instead I am going to focus on this year and mention some things I am thankful for. This year I was thankful for family. Giving me a place to stay and pushing me to figure out what I wanted. For reminding me of what is important and encouraging me to pursue a life of purpose, adventure, and fulfillment. I am thankful for friends. For the friends I made, the ones I lost, and the ones who remained for another year. I am thankful for the opportunities I was given as far as work goes. From seasonal jobs that showed me what I wanted to a more permanent fit. For the opportunity to travel. Whether it was a local beachside adventure or a trip to another country. I am thankful for my hobbies. Falling in love with climbing again, reading new books, and starting the process of writing my own. I am thankful for space.
I’m thankful for this space to sit and be alone. To reflect on a beautiful day full of love, family, food, and memories. I attached three photos that highlight my day at the bottom of this post. In one photo, my grandpa pulls my nephew in his plastic car. The next photo, my grandpa, my dad, my brother, and my nephew stand shoulder to shoulder. Four generations in one frame. Lastly, my grandpa warms up my grandma's feet. Today, I am especially grateful for my grandparents. For the life they built for themselves and the family. I am grateful to have these moments with them.
I always have a hard time concluding my posts and bringing it all back together. So I will end with thanks. I am thankful this is not a graded project and that I can end it in whichever manner I want. I also want to thank you for reading this post and for contributing to my life. Happy Thanksgiving from Dan, Vanessa, and Barbara.
See you on the road,
-Dan
Blog Six - Alchemy, Responsibility, and Empty Clutter Part 3
11/17/24 - Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Tustin
I wrote the original version of this post almost a month ago to the day. As I was editing and revising it, I realized how judgmental I sounded in that particular post. I didn’t enjoy the read and felt I had missed the whole point of what I was getting at while writing the post. I decided to step back to figure out and clarify what I want this book to be about.
Over the last month, I realized this book isn't going to be a self-help book. It certainly won't be a judgment of the way other people are living their lives. I want this book to be about my life, or at least this specific time in my life. I want to capture and record the things that changed my life for better and worse during this period of minimization.
In my original version of this, I got cynical and became judgmental of how other people lived their lives. The third part of this miniseries was supposed to be about how I saw the way people tend to fill their living spaces with things and then move to larger living spaces just to repeat the cycle. While that is still the overarching message, I want to shift the focus back onto myself. I found a pattern in my life and realized that I needed to break it.
When I started reading, I had nowhere to store the books. I stacked them on my floor, windowsill, desk, nightstand, and any other flat surface I could put them on. Naturally, I decided to invest in a book shelf. I spent an hour or so building the shelf and then a solid twenty to thirty minutes organizing my books. What seemed like a lot of books at first suddenly felt like none at all due to how many empty shelves I had. Of course the only logical thing to do was to go buy more books. Not much later, and I had a beautiful bookshelf full of books, as well as stacks of books on the floor, windowsill, desk, nightstand, and every other flat surface in my room.
A second, third, and fourth bookshelf followed suit in the past few years. Guess what? I have bins of books under the bed, boxes in the closet, and a few on the desk, nightstand, and window seat at my parents house. The point I am making is that this pattern showed up in several aspects of my life. I’d fill up my limited space with stuff, find a way to store it, have some leftover space, and start the cycle all over again. This cycle of filling up space was apparent in more areas than just the physical space in life. The big space I was cluttering a lot over the last year was my time—the most important space.
It's a great thing to keep busy, as a busy mind does not wander or whatever the old saying is. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop,” and all those other proverbs all speak to this. The problem is, I wasn’t filling my time with things that brought me any sense of fulfillment or purpose. I was out of a job, and the only friends I had in Lodi were busy often. I spent a lot of time watching TV and movies and playing video games. Spending time doing those things isn’t bad. The problem was that I had nothing else going on, and the things I filled my time with were keeping me stagnant in life. I couldn’t grow in any capacity or experience anything because all of my space was occupied by a screen. So, I decided to make a change.
Now, anyone who knows anything about me knows that my strongest opinions and passions are on the topics of movies. I won’t tell you I just removed those things from my life because that would be dishonest. But they absolutely do not take up nearly as much space in my life as they once did. In many ways, that has made me value those things so much more. I don’t feel the need to watch every popular show or movie that everyone raves about. I don’t have to play every new game either. I have become very selective.
In this selectiveness, I have found a deeper appreciation for these things. The time I do make to sit and watch TV or to play games on my switch are very intentional times now. Last weekend I made time to go see some movies in theaters. I haven’t done that in forever, but this time I didn’t feel guilty or “I could have used my time better.” The idea of "less is more" was something I wrestled with before van life but has been much more prevalent since.
Less clutter and distractions means more experiences and fulfillment. I don’t think I could ever go full minimalist, because I love my books and my DVDs, but I most certainly could get rid of a lot of things I am storing at my parents. Not having the distractions of social media, a TV, or the ease of playing games whenever I want has allowed me the space to start taking climbing seriously, build my own community, hang out with friends, write a book (or two), and go out and make memories and experiences.
In the first draft, I was so focused on what everyone else was or wasn’t doing. I filled my emotional and mental spaces with what everyone else was doing, and it didn’t leave space for me to focus on what I was trying to write. I had to let go of what everyone else is doing so I could write about what is working for me.
I am hoping to write smaller and more frequent blogs and to turn this into a timeline of events or a journal of sorts for when I am ready to put the whole book together. I would also love to write a horror anthology or novella at some point. I have made some minor changes to the site and will hopefully be posting some other of my writings in a different section. I would like to do some community highlights where I talk a little about people who have been influential in this journey and getting me here.
Thank you for once again tuning in to my little adventure. If you have an idea for a creative short story or some sort of writing prompt, feel free to email it to me, as sometimes my mind doesn’t know where to start writing.
See you on the road,
-Dan
Blog Five - Alchemy, Responsibility and Empty Clutter Part 2
10/13/24 - Sender One, Santa Ana
I picked up reading during the COVID shut down when there was nothing else to do. My eyes were bloodshot and dried up from all the blue lights thanks to gaming and binge watching. I didn’t know it at the time, but reading would ultimately change the trajectory of my whole life.
It started with the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. There was something so captivating in the writing. There were a handful of quotes that seemed so applicable to my own life. It didn’t stop there, though. It happened in new books or ones pulled from my shelf. Of course, the more I paid attention to them, the more I found them. All those books were like breadcrumbs leading me to one particular book, The Alchemist.
My close friend Meg had raved about it to me, and I was interested enough to put it on my ever-growing To Be Read list. It sat on my TBR for a year until the universe thought it was time for me to read it. Fast forward to January or February of this year, when I finally decided to read The Alchemist. Meg, you were absolutely right. This book is a beautiful piece of literature, and I am very grateful that you put it on my radar.
This is a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it, but that isn’t quite the point. The point is that it was the perfect book for me, and I read it at exactly the time I needed to. It took some hindsight to realize how much impact this book really had. It made clear the phenomenon of finding quotes directly related to my life in everything I read. When I read The Alchemist, I was directionless and had no clue what I wanted to do. I was jumping back and forth between career ideas, and I was sinking into depression. Everyone kept telling me what they thought I would excel at or what I should do for work. I knew they meant it with love and support, but I wasn’t in a place to hear it that way, and it made things worse.
Then a quote jumped out at me: “Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” A year prior, that quote would have been less impactful and significant to me. That was how I felt. Everyone else seemed so sure of what I should be doing, but I wasn't. All I knew was that I wanted a small and simple life.
That didn’t answer the question as to what I was going to do for work, but it did give me a newfound desire to figure it out and look outside of the ideas that others were giving me. Fast forward a month or two, and I found myself working a seasonal job at OG Cherry Packing. It was the most fun job I had ever worked, and I wanted to stay there full time. Unfortunately, there were no positions available, and the season came to an end.
Despite not getting to stay at OG, I did get a lot of insight as to what kind of work I wanted to do. I realized that I wanted to work on my feet and not sit at a desk. I wanted to work with my hands and get them dirty. I wanted mental stimulation—something that made me think. I remembered that “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it," and I knew what I wanted. I was holding on to the hope that this quote would be true.
A month later, the “universe” (John Fuller) drops an opportunity in my lap. John called me and said that his company was hiring. He asked if I was interested in an interview. I wasn’t working at the time, so I figured I would check it out even though I had no idea what he did for work. I drove down to Anaheim a week or so later and found myself in a warehouse that reminded me of the same work environment as OG. The job would require a lot of manual labor, attention to detail, and organizational skills. It was everything I loved about cherry season, plus it was full-time with benefits.
The only thing left to figure out was where I was going to be able to afford to live. For those who have been following this blog, you know I ended up buying a built-out van and have been living in that for a couple months now. My quality of life has been higher than it has been for some time. Now that I have a steady job, a place to live, and more of a routine, I have the opportunity to do the things that bring fulfillment to my life. I get to read more, climb, spend time with friends, go to museums and galleries, travel, and write this blog and book. My life is a simple one, but it’s the one I chose. Like Paulo Coelho said in his book, “The simple things are also the most extraordinary things (...).”
I am beyond grateful to those who have helped me get to where I am. I am also grateful to be able to take responsibility for the direction of my life and to begin to build the life I want at a young age. My life has been so fulfilling the last few months, as I have been intentional about my time and been making spaces for the things most important to me.
“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.” Like finding quotes in books, focus on the important things and you'll find them more often.
See you on the road,
-Dan
Blog Four - Alchemy, Responsibility and Empty Clutter Part 1
09/21/24 - Philz Coffee, Mission Viejo
It has been almost a month since my last post. Part of that was intentional and part of it was simply not making the time to sit and write. I got into a routine of writing a lot or focusing on journaling. I realized I was not applying any of my ideas to my life because, all of my time was spent writing about them. This led me to taking a step back to go out and experience things and test my beliefs and ideas and ultimately fall into a time of not writing at all. I want to find a good balance between experiencing and enjoying my simple life, while also making the time to write about and share my experiences.
The best way to find balance and some semblance of control in life is to take responsibility for your time. Time is the most important thing we have. I talked a little about how limited time is in my last post. We do not, however, know what that limit is. Despite how cliche it has become, I have have grown attached to the sentiment of “memento mori.” The meaning of the phrase is simple and powerful: “remember you must die.”
This can seem very cynical or depressing, but that is where responsibility comes in. We are responsible for our outlook and reactions to things. I don’t see that phrase as sad, cynical, half empty or anything like that. It is a reminder to make each moment of your life meaningful. Originally it was used to remind Roman generals, in times of celebration, that it won't last forever. It was a way to remind them that even the best of times end. It reminds me to take responsibility for my time and stop watching the clock tick life away.
Over the years, many great men and women have spoken on similar ideas as memento mori, but none have said it as eloquently as Nickelback; one of the great modern poets. In 2008, they said, “If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late, could you say goodbye to yesterday and live each moment like your last?” Again, it could be negative or positive, depending on how you look at it. But at the end of the day, it is your responsibility to decide. It is also your responsibility to decide how your time is used.
Many people, myself included, are in the habit of making excuses for our time management. The biggest and most common excuse I hear over and over again is “I don’t have the time.” To be blunt, it’s a terrible excuse. You have the exact same amount of time as anyone else does. The number of minutes in a day are the same for all of us. The problem isn’t that you don’t have the time, it's that you aren't taking responsibility for your time.
Sure, sometimes life has a lot going on, and there are seasons when it doesn’t make sense to make time for things. Ultimately, though, it comes down to a lack of responsibility. We avoid taking responsibility by acting like life just happens. "Life is too busy" or "there aren't enough hours in the day" and other sayings are ways we shift blame onto life instead of taking responsibility for our time. Your time belongs to you. You choose how you spend it.
Take responsibility for your time. Make time for the things that are important to you. Don’t sit and let life happen; go live it. I have been working hard to stop using “I don’t have time,” and for the last couple months my response has been “I didn’t make time.” This is my way of taking responsibility for my actions and my life. Life isn’t just happening to me, anymore. I will not sit on the sidelines and watch it go by or going through the motions. For the last month, I didn’t make time for writing. Instead, I made time for museums, for libraries, for getting back into climbing, for making connections and for community. I changed my priorities then followed up by making time for my priorities.
This weekend, my priorities are to write and read and go to some bookstores; and that is what I plan to do. Last night I read for a few hours, slept in this morning, and am sitting at Philz Coffee writing this post. It is 10:26 AM. I am responsible for my time and life. You are responsible for yours. Stop making excuses as to why you can’t or won’t do things that are important to you. Make the time; it won’t be there forever.
See you on the road,
-Dan
Blog Three - Essential Space
08/24/24 - Crowell Public Library
I have written and rewritten this blog a dozen times. I cannot organize my thoughts well enough to get them all into a single blog post. So, this will serve as an introduction to the idea for the book I am writing. I wanted to start it off by telling you the title of my book, Essential Space.
This phrase came into my head about a month and a half ago and has been at the forefront of my mind ever since. In this one phrase, I have found everything I could not put into words for my whole life. It explains every thought and feeling I have ever had. This idea of essential space is like a spider that spins the web that connects every aspect of who I am, what I want and who I want to be. Without writing about van life and how it relates to that idea, I could already write an entire book on this one phrase.
This isn’t a new idea; it has been written about in numerous ways and by numerous people. One of my favorites is Barry Schwart’s paradox of choice. He talks about how too many options limit freedom. My goal is to dissect this idea. I want to touch on all the ways in which we have limited space and unlimited options. I also want to touch on the numerous ways in which we waste our essential space on non-essentials.
Essential Space is about our limits and how they add value to our lives. We are limited in all aspects of life. We have limited capacity to care about things, space to have things, and, most importantly, time to achieve the life we want. It’s about how life is beautiful. Achieving the life you want is the same as sculpting. It’s about how chipping away the excess leaves you space to pour into what is essential for creating a fulfilling life.
I am excited to talk about all the ways I will be removing “non-essentials” from different spaces in my life and seeing what life looks like after. I am excited to share my views and experiences on Essential Space and would love to hear about the ways you’re making space for your essentials.
See you on the road,
-Dan
Blog Two - Hot Box
08/08/24 - Alternative Hose Parking Lot
“Persistent heat wave in the U.S. expected to shatter new records as it bakes West and swelters in East” - NBC News “100 Million in U.S. Under Heat Alerts as First Summer Weekend Arrives” - NYT “Heat wave sets in on West Coast with worst yet to come” - ABC News “‘Oppressively hot’: Record-breaking heatwave engulfs western US” - Al Jazeera
In the darkest corner of the van, Barbara is stretched across the floor. Her chest rises and falls in rapid cycles. Her tongue is bobbing to the rhythm she makes while panting. I fill her water bowl and lay it next to her head so she doesn’t have to move to drink. I am painted with perfectly rounded sweat drops that are colored cloudy like watered down milk. The sweat flows steadily from the base of my head, down my back and into my beltline. My hair, damp and matted, sticks to my neck. It itches, but scratching it is more energy than I can spare. I am in a constant battle to unstick my pants from my legs so I can move. My beard acts as a damn; gathering all the sweat that runs down my face. Some of the sweat creeps into the corners of my mouth, flooding my taste buds with the dry, sticky taste of salt. I check my cupboard of a pantry in the hopes of a snack to distract me from the sweat filling mouth. My peanut butter is closer to the consistency of juice. The loaf of bread I just bought is crisp, as if freshly toasted. I try the fridge, hoping for some cold bliss. As I open the door, I am slapped by hot air. The fridge isn't humming anymore; it screams as it tries to fight against the heat. Poor little thing; it’s the refrigerator that couldn’t. The milk is boiled. Bubbles curdle and explode into a sour fragrance that fills the air. Water spills out of the ice tray and evaporates on the floor. I watch as the grapes slowly shrink into raisins. There is no reprieve. I lay down next to Barbs. "F*%#, it’s hot,” she says as we lay side by side in a puddle of my sweat.
Clearly, that was just a tiny bit of dramatization for writing practice. A lot of that really did happen though. The talking cat might have been a trick of the heat (or too much bad milk). In all seriousness, I wrote about the heat because it is something I have been struggling with. It is very hot, and I run very warm, so the van is constantly a hot box. I find myself sitting idle in a parking lot with the car on just to run the AC. Being hot and sweaty is something I have always hated because of how uncomfortable it is. Normally I would complain about how hot it is. I am not saying that I don't complain about that because I do. But I am practicing the art of changing my perspective. The heat has lent way for some very cool perspective for me, especially in this busy time in life for me.
The heat has been fairly oppressive but my tolerance for it is also low. In the moments of being in the van while the sun is still up, I have found myself just laying down in order to move as little as possible and to stay as cool as I can. There is no scrolling on my phone, no listening to music, no reading a book. There is just me, the heat, and my thoughts. It has created a time of rest and quiet in a time where I am constantly doing something or going somewhere. It has given me the space to gather my thoughts and be at peace for a few moments.
I still don't like the heat and I will take a cold day over a hot one anytime. That being said, I am grateful to find something positive in a situation I have only ever seen as negative. I am making it a top priority to put myself in situations that are usually uncomfortable for me because I think we grow when we leave our comfort zones. So, as I finish this post hot and sweaty, I am thankful for the heat. I'm grateful to be uncomfortable and the opportunity to try to find some growth in that.
Here is to growth and learning to be grateful.
See you on the road,
-Dan
Blog One - A weird kid and his weird dream
08/04/24 - Anaheim Central Library
I was a pretty weird kid. Well, actually, I still am a weird kid; I just happen to be a bit taller, wider and heavier than I was. I wonder what it was like for my parents, never knowing what to expect from me. One day I was running around in a diaper, climbing rocks and getting absolutely filthy in the dirt. The next day I am strutting around the house in a princess dress and some plastic high heels. I played with power rangers just as much as I played with my sister's Poly Pockets. If there was an art project at school that required coloring, you bet it was colored in full rainbows even if it was a Thanksgiving turkey. I wore tutus to school on spirit day, rocked a catwalk in a dress in front of my entire high school and think Legos and cartoons are still the coolest things ever.
I never really cared if the things I like are seen as childish or weird, or if no one else understood them. The truth is, the world is a weird place and everything out there is weird to some and normal to others, so I figured I might as well enjoy what I enjoy. That being said, I have some memories of when I was younger that, looking back, even I think are kind of weird and silly.
It must have been the third or fourth grade, maybe earlier, when they started asking us the "big" questions: What do you want to do/be when you grow up? Me, being the weird kid I was, thought it was so funny to say things like; "I want to live in a box behind Target" or "I just want to live in a box" or some other similarly goofy line. I made myself laugh more than I did anyone else but that was fine with me. I don't think I was cognizant enough to understand that the sentiment I was feeling was a very genuine desire I had for my future self. That idea was a deeply seeded desire taking root at an early time in my life and never really went away.
As I grew, so did this idea of "living in a box." I never wanted to live in a big house or have a ton of land. I always found it to be a waste of space and, frankly, a lonely existence. So I got to thinking about what kind of home I really wanted—a tiny one. Something that I could be comfortable enough in but that would allow me to go out into the world, to exist in community and not just wither away like I tend to do when left to my own vices in a normal-sized house.
I kept growing, and so did this idea. Somewhere around the age of thirteen, I discovered the greatest car to ever exist: the 1969 Volkswagen Bus. It has been a dream of mine since that day to own one. The more I looked into them, the cooler they became. People were tearing out the seats and building mini-homes in their cars. It was a simple idea but I knew that I was meant for that life.
Of course, life has a way of getting busy, and we have a way of putting our dreams on the backburner and telling ourselves, "Maybe tomorrow." Well, years passed, and I felt stuck in life. I dropped out of school. I couldn't stand any of the jobs I was working. I had no direction and no drive, so I came home to try and sort my life out. Little did I know that this last year would lead me to where I have been trying to get to for so long.
I found the first job I could see myself doing for a long time and of course, there was no opportunity for salary or full-time. Then another opportunity presented itself, thanks to some family and close friends. The only problems were that it was located in Anaheim and rent was crazy. So, as I weighed my options, a long forgotten path was presented to me through the words of my older brother.
"Why don't you just van-life it?"
At that moment, my dreams were attainable. With the support of my parents and friends, I was able to make my lifelong dream of living small a reality. I am writing this post two and a half weeks into my life on wheels and I have loved every second of it.
So, now I'd like to share my weird little life with you and I think the best way to start is with an introduction of my companions on this journey.
She may not be the VW bus of my dreams, but Vanessa is a great car and a cozy home.
Now that you know the crew, it's time to wrap this one up. Thanks for reading and go subscribe or let me know if you have questions or want to see anything else in the blog.
See you on the road
-Dan
Welcome Blog
08/03/24 - Yorba Linda Public Library
I have been wanting to get into creative writing again as it was something I really enjoyed back in school. Since several people have asked me to keep them updated on my life as I transition into a modern nomad, I have decided to create a space where people can come and go as they please to stay updated.
Ultimately, this is a space for me to write about my adventures and unload my thoughts, experiences, struggles and everything else that comes with this new adventure. My goal is ultimately to write and maybe publish a book one day and include a lot of what will be posted here.
In order for me to get the most out of this blogging, I am going to have to be honest and open in my struggles and experiences, which may be uncomfortable for me (and maybe you) since I have never really been the most open individual.
With all that being said, I am super excited to be starting this part of my journey and I hope you will stick around for whatever adventures roll my way!
Thank you for tuning in and I will be posting again either tonight or tomorrow with my first real blog posting!
-Dan
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