In the pre-pandemic days, there were so many great ideas and plans. Maybe some day we get the dog a puppy. Wouldn't it be cool if we had a camper van some day? They seemed like reasonable thoughts and as Washington was entering Stay Safe Stay Home territory it additionally seemed like good timing for some of these things to happen. Turns out that bringing home a puppy the literal minute that she qualified for separation from her litter was maybe not the slam dunk awesome timing that it might have seemed at the time. When you can't get away from her and she from you, it poses a unique challenge. That, however is a different story.
Early in the days of COVID, I took advantage of a puppy nap to go to the grocery store. My car's battery was long in the tooth and – especially with the lack of driving – was struggling with life. Long story short, the battery full-on died and I had to replace it. I'm not the finest mechanic out here so accomplishing the feat was challenging and rewarding when the car actually started. It turns out, however, that the starting was a fluke. Feeling accomplished and proud, I parked behind Laurie secure in the fact that my car started and I could move out of her way when she needed to get out of the driveway to go and be an essential worker. Cue the lack of starting again. This is also not the point, but does get us toward the big point, so cut to the chase, through a small amount of google searching, I decided two things: the first being that I had an ignition problem and the second that I had no interest in learning how to fix it. Oh... three things. The third, I need a new car. Here is where we connect to the point (I know). "If you're going to get a new vehicle, let's get a van". Naturally. I had been monitoring the van market in Seattle (and Portland because it would have been easy to train down and collect the van if it came to that), so stepping up the efforts was not a big deal, but it does bring us to the point. I learned several lessons that I mean to share with you (and anyone who may find themselves in the market for a camper van and find themselves looking for advice of someone who has done it.)
Before we get to the good stuff, I think it may be prudent to establish what the print Companion is *not* going to be. As near as I can figure, Laurie and I will not at any point be selling our house to become full-time van lifers. That's cool and all, but definitely not for us, especially now with 5 cats and 2 dogs. And one 1989 Ford Econoline 250 framed Coachmen Class B RV. As such, this will be more about enjoying the benefits of part-time "bug-out" type camping and definitely not be another of the "WE'RE LIVING IN OUR RV" type sites. There will be no YouTube component. There may or may not be regular #content, there may or may not ever be a twitter account associated with this blog and there is not likely to be a lot of "van tutorial" kind of stuff. The van that we purchased is in good repair and has been refinished to a certain degree inside (by design). As such, this will not be a "LOL We got a van now we have to fix it! LOL" type thing. We're going to make blackout curtains for the van. We're going to install a fancy CarPlay compatible stereo for navigation. And a backup camera. But there are no plans to do any appliance changing or anything like that. We're just going to put together a bug-out bag so that we can leave at the drop of a hat and hop in the van and get out of the house occasionally. Cool? Cool. So let's start at the very beginning:
