Living The Dream

 

There might be something that we missed. But, looking back, I can’t think of an angle that Shirli and I didn’t study when we began laying our plans to spend our retirement years just rambling. We even considered camp-hosting but decided that would become just another noose keeping us tied.

We bought two pull-behind campers. A small vintage one and a 25’ Dutchmen with a slide-out. We used the little vintage camper quite a bit. The Dutchmen? I pulled it once to bring it home from the dealership. It just sat there hogging space in our yard. We bought three tents. The first one on the smaller size. Two big ones that we enjoyed a lot. I still have the smaller one. I gave away the two big ones.

I can still hear Shirli’s voice when we were planning camping trips … “We’re going camping. It’s the greatest thing ever!” Shirli loved to camp.

Somewhere along the way Shirli stumbled upon Bob Wells. I think of him as the Van Dweller Guru. It was through watching his videos that we discovered there is a huge sub-culture of really good people living full-time in vans, RV’s, and other vehicles. Some are doing it because they got fed up with the hamster wheel imposed by the rat-race. Some are doing it because living in a vehicle became their only means of not being homeless. Others have other personal reasons.

We sold the original Fred a few years ago … a gas hungry ’93 Chevy G-20 with a high top. We got our money back out of it but we both felt like we gave up something of ourselves. We kept looking at vans and talking about getting another one. We went back to camping out of that little Corolla and had that trick down pat. In fact, before Shirli’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis and prognosis, we were readying to pull out on a LONG extended camping tour with no certain return date.

Two months ago, I realized that my personal health was in jeopardy. My physical health was breaking down. My headspace was messed up and growing worse. Too much stress. Not that I didn’t have enough of my own to deal with after Shirli died but a lot of unwanted responsibilities had been leveraged upon me. A lot came crashing in on me all of a sudden. Realizations. One of the realizations is that I was beginning to feel “old” inside. I was losing the kid in me. I turned 69 in March. None of us can help aging. But none of us have to grow old inside.

Back before Spring sprang, I had begun to think about finding a small van to trick out. It had to be the right one though. And this little 2021 Transit Connect? It had to be a God thing the way it came about. The first thing I did when I drove it home was to put that Fred name plate on the front bumper. The name is special. Shirli wrote a piece for this blog about the name.

I’ve made three short trips in Fred over the past month. Partly to keep from sitting here listening to the clock tick. Partly to decompress and absorb the healing that comes from the sights and sounds of nature. Partly to study on what I honestly “need” to solo weeks on end in such a small living space. Cubic inches matter. Every trip is fruitful where these matters are concerned. Study long. Build once.

I’m living the dream that Shirli and I had. Partly because it’s the best way that I can possibly honor her memory. But this isn’t just our dream. It’s also my dream. I’ve got to do this for me as much as I’ve got to do it for us. If I was doing this just to honor Shirli’s memory, I’d be stuck in the past. The past can easily become a heavy ball and chain. I refuse to wear a ball and chain. There’s life to be lived.

Solarizing FRED

We have owned a generator for quite a few years. 

We bought it not long after Hurricane Ivan blew through this part of the world in 2004.

The purchase was a good move. Though it wouldn’t supply all our electrical needs down at the other place, it will power everything in our small cabin. This ability to supply all our electrical power needs, especially for air-conditioning during the hot months, is the major benefit of keeping the generator.

There are a few downsides to owning and using a portable gasoline powered generator.

They are terribly noisy. The big store out of box varieties tend to be fuel hungry. Fuel to run the generator must be stored and rotated. Pull the starter cord and all your neighbors know you have electricity and gasoline at your place. A carbon fuel powered generator … because of the hassle involved in dragging the heavy thing out of the shed, listening to the noise it generates while making electricity, then doing the chores to properly store it away … really isn’t practical for the frequent short-term power outages that are part of ordinary life.

The LAST thing we want on the road is a generator disrupting the peace and quiet. Even the smaller and more costly versions make more noise than we care to listen to and it would be terribly rude to subject others to the noise.

Our getting set up to go on a long adventure in FRED, our 1993 Chevy van that we have converted into a home on wheels, prompted us to investigate and pursue a solar powered generator. After considering our alternating current needs, we purchased a 100 Watt solar package from Renogy. The package came with the 100 Watt panel, charge controller, and the necessary cables to hook it up. Apart from the contents of the Renogy package, we purchased a 122 amp-hour deep-cycle marine battery and a 400 Watt Pure Sine Wave inverter. The small mobile system is complete and supplies us with ample and clean alternating current for our life on the road purposes.

It is also quiet.

Other than the almost inaudible fan on the inverter, or the beeping sound the inverter makes when you turn it off, the system is silent as it goes about its business of harvesting free sunlight, converting free sunlight into 12 Volt energy, storing it in the battery, converting 12 Volt DC into 120 Volt AC, then supplying clean electrical current to the few electrical devices that we consider essential.

We talked about installing the panel on top of the van but opted to not. The 100 Watt panel, when not in use, rides safely in a compartment beneath the queen sized bed.

There are a couple of reasons for not installing the panel on the roof. The first is to eliminate any possibility of leaks. It can be done and is done a lot. I personally don’t want to have that one more thing to worry about out on the road. The second is that we can park FRED in the shade and set the panel in the sun. As the earth rotates, we simply adjust the angle and direction of the panel to make maximum use of the free energy being provided to it by the sun.

We carry three candle lanterns with us that are designed to burn the smaller sized votive candles. The lanterns give off a little light. They are better for ambiance than anything else so some exterior lighting was in order.

Amazon to the rescue.

The magnetic solar lights stick onto the outside of the van. Each unit supplies 70 lumens of light. The package tells us that each unit will provide 4 to 8 hours of light from a full charge. The two units … 140 lumens … attached to the outside of the van under the awning will provide plenty enough light to illuminate our outdoor living room. They can also be brought inside and hung to provide additional lighting inside if needed.

We have yet to decide on exactly what we will do for fixed inside lighting. This is one of the tweaks that we need to take care of. The decision on the fixed lighting will be made after making a few more short tweaking trips in FRED.

Finding our way around inside in the dark with flashlights is doable but just barely. Our J5 Tactical flashlights are great lights but they leave a lot to be desired inside the van. Our old Coleman battery lantern that uses 4 D-Cell batteries is antiquated. It was state of the art at one time and was used on many camping trips. It gives off some light but not nearly enough light to use it as a house light. There is also the issue of having to regularly replace the batteries.

Amazon to the rescue again.

The solar lamp has 12 super bright light emitting diodes, provides 9 to 20 hours of light from a full charge, comes with a remote to turn it on, off, and select the light output, and the 6 Volt panel. The lamp also has a USB port for charging a cell phone. It can also be screwed into a 120 Volt light socket to charge the battery. It’s quite a neat little package that delivers 80 lumens of light.

Something that we are considering is some type of motion activated light for outside that will have a dual purpose. One is that it will provide outside light if we need to go outside at night for some reason or another. The other is for security. Any uninvited or unannounced visitor will be illuminated when their movement activates the light.

We have a great little motion activated solar light on the front of the cabin. We also ordered it from Amazon. It works amazingly well to light up the small area in front of the cabin and the cabin steps when motion activates it. The model is made to be attached to something solid with a small screw. A couple of stick-on magnetic strips will easily modify one so it can be magnetically attached to the outside of the van.

Pursuing A Fresher Course

Our life has gotten a lot simpler over the course of the past year.

Getting to the point of a lot simpler has been a heck of a process. It hasn’t been an easy one but it has certainly been worth it. It takes a lot of work to go from what was to what is, especially when what is follows a direction that is so contrary toward the ideals of what was. It has also taken time … a good bit of time … to get all the proverbial ducks swimming in a straight row.

The only major thing that is running interference with our quest for simplicity, at this point in our adventure, is finishing up the remaining weeks of employment at the far side of the county. The long commute is winding down in a hurry. Spinning the hamster wheel is very soon to be a thing of the past where we are concerned.

We will, once the commute is behind us, retire into what we call the perpetual camper lifestyle.

The lifestyle suits us. It may not be the preferred cup of tea for everyone but it suits us like finely tailored clothes.

The 12’ X 24’ tarp makes a great awning for Fred.

I pondered for a while on the best way to attach the tarp. The idea that kept sticking in my head was to use eye-screws on the driver’s side as attachment points. We tried it but didn’t like it. The easiest, and best, way we discovered was to simply stake the tarp to the ground on the driver’s side and pull it over the top. I stake the tarp a few feet out from the van. That allows for ventilation, makes for privacy, and keeps the sun off the side windows.

The awning poles are made from 2” Schedule 40 PVC pipe. 

The center pole is 7’ tall. The two side poles are 6’ tall. The coupler is glued only onto the bottom half so the poles come apart for storage when traveling. I drilled the top caps and inserted and nutted stainless steel carriage bolts to make the pins. The caps are glued on. I thought about saving a few nickels and leave off the bottom caps but decided the few nickels would be nickels well spent. The bottom caps keep dirt from getting clogged in the bottoms then making its way into the van.

The last thing to setting up, and the first thing to taking down, is to attach the tie-down ropes to the front and back bumpers. The tarp can’t flap on top of the van when the wind blows. The added contour to the tarp assists in water running off when it rains.

Our solar generator is a 100 Watt package deal that we got from Renogy.

The solar thing isn’t complicated unless you are trying to understand the ins and outs of the technology. Nor is it expensive. Not in comparison to the cost of solar in the early days.

I think there are two primary issues regarding a solar set-up for a van.

The first is to determine just how much of the sun’s free power you need. 

Our need is simple and easily supplied by the solar set-up we’ve chosen. The 100 Watt panel converts sunlight to 12 Volt current then feeds it through the charge controller to the 122 Amp Hour deep cycle marine battery.

The second is the power inverter. 

Modified Sine Wave or Pure Sine Wave? 

Modified inverters are quite inexpensive. Pure costs significantly more. Our need involves powering sensitive electronic devices. Considering the devastating effect that Modified Sine Wave can have on sensitive electronic devices, it made good sense to go ahead and spend the bucks for a Pure Sine Wave inverter. What we have is a 400 Watt inverter that supplies more than enough clean AC current to meet our need.

We had a real treat last week.

Dan and Brenda spent a few days with us.

We crossed paths with Dan and Brenda on Facebook. The crossing was one of those events where a life-long relationship budded. It was great to finally be able to spend some quality face-to-face time with them and we look forward to meeting up with them again out there on the road somewhere once we pull the trigger and take the big leap.

Freddin' It - Maiden Voyage

We’ve already done some camping in Fred.

A couple of times.

It was really bare bones though … cots and sleeping pads rolled out on the floor.

Fred, in real Fred-Time, really took its maiden voyage this weekend though.

We were in desperate need of a quiet weekend getaway. Things have been pretty hectic the past several weeks. We also had a little repair project that we needed to complete on a historic structure that was vandalized in the recent past. With Shirli’s appointment to get her second bionic knee coming up quick … and with this ideal weather … we made the best of it that we possibly could.

One of the major touches that needed to be added to Fred was the in-house power supply. We bought the 100 watt Renogy package last summer. It came with the 100 watt panel, charge controller, and the necessary cables to hook it up. Thinking about the small amount of power that we need, we settled on a 400-watt inverter to convert DC to AC, ordered a Wagan Pure Sine Wave Inverter, and it arrived Tuesday. A 122-amp hour deep cycle battery came from the automotive department at our neighborhood Walmart.

Sure.

There’s a lot of “discussion” about batteries and some batteries are “better” than others. You pay a lot more for the better ones for this purpose and even more for the best ones. If we get a couple years out of this battery, I figure it will have been well worth the price we paid. I feel reasonably certain that it will last at least that long. I had really good service from one with less amp-hour capacity that I used with my electric trolling motor. I bought that battery in ’07 and it still holds a charge.

This solar thing?

It’s really an interesting concept. I’ve read about it for decades and have always thought it was an idea that makes good sense. It took some smart folks to figure out how to convert light to electricity. The neat thing about solar is that I don’t have to understand how those components do what they do. It’s enough to know that they do and it doesn’t take a library of knowledge to hook up a small system that will accomplish all that you need for it to accomplish. Red to red and black to black end to end.

Plug your AC thing into the inverter and voobaa. The dang thing works.

One of the primary things about it has to do with the inverter.

Modified sine wave or pure sine wave?

All that I’ve read and listened to insists that powering sensitive electronic devices is best accomplished using pure sine wave. A pure sine wave inverter costs more than a modified sine wave inverter but the additional cost is well worth it when considering the cost of replacing sensitive electronic devices that are ruined by using modified sine wave. Delicate circuitry doesn’t like the rough edges of the modified sine wave.

We didn’t do the whole solar thing this weekend. 

The panel stayed home. 

I put the battery on the charger to insure that it was fully charged and we used it with the inverter all weekend to charge our electronic devices and power Shirli’s CPAP. We don’t have a meter to monitor the battery yet so there’s no way to know for sure how many amps we pulled from the battery. A little simple arithmetic could figure it out though. The inverter has a built in protection system that will shut it down if the power supply to it is low. It never shut down.

Having good clean AC on board without parking by an AC outlet was a real treat!

It’s been a couple of years since we last did an easy camp. That was with one of our modern tents. We’ve done quite a lot of outdoor stuff though. Quite a lot of the stuff has been teaching outdoor skills to youth and a few adults. We’ve done quite a lot of open-fire cast iron cooking. But to just go and honestly smooth it after a modern fashion? Cook on a propane burner and sleep on a real bed? It’s been a while. Too long a while. That was the last time we pulled our vintage Sprite camper up to Little River State Park.

With our Where’s Fred Now? direction taking shape and fast coming together … with Fred equipped as it is at this point … we needed a good weekend for a test run to see what tweaks are needed and to enjoy what we have accomplished so far in getting Fred ready to roll out for this long FRED adventure that’s been in the thinking and planning stages for so long now.

Our good friend Beau and his sidekick Trooper pulled in Friday evening and spiked camp for the weekend. Saturday morning we did the repair work … a little paying it forward project … on a gazebo built by the CCC during the Dirty Thirties. Saturday afternoon we were joined by one of the founding members of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society and talked about the trails and trail work at the Little River State Park and elsewhere in Alabama. That was quite informative. There was even a fortuitous meeting with the local Scout Troop and the opportunity to introduce them to a representative of the Trail Society. 

A lot of good can potentially develop where that sort of working relationship is concerned.

It was a great weekend Freddin’ it.

Now for a little tweaking and then get on down the road.

One Step Closer

This is not an all of a sudden thing.

No. Not hardly. Far, far from it!

What we have going on here are some last steps being taken to realize the fulfillment of something we have been dreaming about, planning, and working toward for quite a long time.

What we have going on here is a definite personal statement regarding life and lifestyle choices in an age where too many others … some of them well-intentioned … some of them players in the scheme of things that Orwell wrote about … work hard to keep us inside some corral that defines their own agendas and comfort zones and denies our own.

It’s about attaining and exercising levels of personal freedom and independence unknown by most and dreamt of by only a pitiful few. It’s about living life rather than life living us while we yet have life to live.

We, the two of us involved in this living adventure, have always been free spirits.

We have both experienced some pretty hard knocks walking the road of life. The two of us have, as well, known and yielded to the rigors, commitments, and compromises involved as parents rearing little ones and eventually letting go of them once they arrived at the point where they thought their wings were strong enough to carry them.

We’ve made all the normal rites of passage except the final passage. We have no control over the time and place where it finds us. What we do have control over is what we will do with ourselves between now and then as long as we have the health and will within us.

It has been a struggle … a real fight … to get to this point in our adventure.

There has been a tremendous amount of detaching and letting go … a lot of Golden Calves evaluated and tossed into the flames ... a lot of priorities examined and adjusted ... a lot of establishing boundaries and perimeters. Careful. Calculated. Meticulous. Avoiding knee-jerk reactions that hamstring objectives.

Most of the people in our concentric circles that we initially told about our plan looked at us like we had developed some sort of deformity. A few of them … well-intentioned of course … seemed to undertake some sort of personal ministry to pull us out of the depths of our despair and heal our ugly deformities. Others simply wrote us off and ceased to have anything to do with us since we no longer fit into their life schemes. A few look at what we are doing, wish they could do what we are doing, but are still wearing fetters that secure them to their own choices.

This is a dream that we began exploring and planning quite soon after we signed the mortgage papers on this house twelve years ago. We considered a lot of options and alternatives that would compliment the inherent nature of free spirited people. We did a lot of reading and studying on the subject. There are options and alternatives that had to be waded through … something of a sifting process … to finally arrive at the best solution to satisfy our needs.

Was signing those papers the right thing to do? It seemed so. It was socially correct and provided a roof over our heads. It also quickly became a stark realization that we were fettered to something that controlled us to the Nth degree, kept our noses to the grindstone laboring for the man, kept us greasing the gears of the social and economic machinery, kept us playing the game, and kept us from living from the heart with spontaneity and creativity.

Signing those papers kept our bodies within the realm of humans doing when everything in our hearts … everything in our spirits … wanted the freedom to live as humans being.

There are a lot of how-to guides on how to build a bed in a van. We looked at a lot of them. Some of them are complicated contraptions. When it came time to do the bed build I simply figured a little material list to build something solid that would accommodate the queen sized mattress. I’m not going to go into detail on the construction in this blog. I did post an album of pictures on my FB page that gives something of a little step by step detail on the construction. The actual building of it can be accomplished in good day if you want to bow up and get after it. I split that good day up over two days and went about it more casually.

We are just a few more steps away from doing some roaming and wandering.

Two interesting words.

Roam and wander.

Roamers and wanderers are given a bad rap when you take the dictionary definitions at face value. Those definitions apply bad connotations to folks like us. The definitions make it sound like our roaming and wandering is purposeless.

Bunk.

Poppycock.

Roaming and wandering is replete with assorted levels of purpose and experience.

Freedom ..... Spontaneity ….. Creativity ..... Watching sunrises and sunsets ….. Unencumbered ….. Unrushed ….. Unharried ….. Babbling brooks ….. Starlit skies ….. Snowcapped mountain ranges ….. Sights galore …. No uninvited and unwelcomed drama and bullshittery ….. Rubber Tramp Rendezvous' ….. Owning time rather than time owning us …..

Just to name a few.

Yes.

This is PURPOSE. This is purposeful roaming and wandering.

Progress Update 081015

It took some time to finally get back going on Fred.

The thing that was holding up progress was inside the fuel tank. The fuel pump decided to bite the dust. Not a surprise. It was acting hinky when we bought it so it was on the list of items to deal with anyway before becoming too adventurous with Fred.

The “normal” way to address an in-tank fuel pump issue is to drop the tank. That’s not an easy project unless you are set up with the equipment to do it that way.

So we’re thinking … What if we need to do this out on the road somewhere … out there … way out there … one of those out there situations where you are doing good to bum a lift into town to an auto parts house then back out there somewhere to the van?

Brian brought his little battery powered reciprocal saw over and we cut a hole in the floor. The spots where the floor was spot welded were drilled through, the floor plate now converted to an inspection plate removed, the fuel pump replaced, and the inspection plate set back in place and secured with metal duct repair tape. Done deal. And if ever we need to get at that fuel pump again … doing so will be as simple as opening the inspection plate.

Oh. If you do this yourself … be careful not to cut through the fuel and electrical lines that run to the in-tank pump. Cut those and you’ll create unneeded work. Cut through the fuel line and you’ll likely have a lot gas fumes looking for a spark to set them off.

Ripping the old carpet from the floor didn’t take long. I didn’t go all the way to the front of the cab but stopped behind the front seats. The floor was full of holes where seats, the chair lift that was in the van when we bought it, and seat belts were bolted in. Little squares of the metal duct repair tape covered the holes.

So what do we do for flooring in Fred?

First is an underlayment of insulation. It’s the closed cell foam type that comes in 4 x 8 sheets. It has an R-Value of 3. My main concern with the insulation isn’t temperature oriented. It has more to do with quietening the tin can rolling down the road sound that vans are noted for. Once the old carpet was removed it got a little noisy inside Fred.

Thin plywood goes on top of the insulation. I’ve got a little cutting and fitting to do to have the plywood finished. Maybe an hour of playing around with it before installing linoleum on top of the plywood.

Once the lino is down I can start building the bed and other furnishings.

Speaking of bed …

The mattress for Fred is on the way to this address. They call it a short-queen size. It is the same width as a regular queen sized mattress but it is a couple inches shorter. 60” x 74” x 9”. That’s going to be a really good sleeper and it’s just long enough that my feet won’t hang over the end.

Also on its way to this address is a 100 Watt solar kit for Fred.

I thought about doing a roof mount system but decided against it. I’d rather the panel be portable so we can move it around. The van can be sitting in the shade and the panel can be set out in the sun where it does its thing converting sunlight into somewhat FREE electricity. I say somewhat FREE because there is an investment up front for the solar system.

What kind of investment for the solar? Around $350 for the solar panel, charge controller, and wiring from Renogy, a sealed no-maintenance deep cycle battery, and a 400 Watt inverter. That’s enough solar to keep our phones and laptops charged and to run a few LED lights at night.

We are getting closer by the day as we slowly set aside old life-consuming modes and replace them with new life-liberating ones.

Things are about to really start popping.

Removing The Lift

Where’s Fred Now?

Still here in the yard but a little closer to where we need it to be.

I stopped by the court house Friday to take care of the registration and get the tag. Fred is road legal now.

After a couple of really good rains that have come down, since redoing the screws and weather seal on the top, it appears the awful leak has been remedied. Finishing that part of the project now simply involves getting out to the RV place for the rubber molding trim and attaching it.

I started working on getting the wheelchair lift out a couple weeks ago. I removed the stabilizers that attached over the door, removed the cover where the power cable attached, and unhooked it. The bolts that attached it to the floor needed an extra set of hands … somebody up top holding one wrench and somebody underneath to get the self-locking nuts off the LONG bolts. Shirli and I tackled that part of the project over the weekend and removed the lift from the van.

Removing the lift exposed a project that has to be addressed … some holes in the floor that will have to be repaired. I am still pondering the simplest yet best way to address that issue. One route would involve bending some plate, attaching it with self-tapping screws, and employing some spray-in foam to plug the holes. A simpler route that I can think of would be to use a little fiberglass material and resin. I am leaning toward the fiberglass route.

The back seat, along with the middle and rear seat belts, and the side consoles are the next “removal” project. Once those are out I’ll shoot a little silicone into the bolt holes to weather and critter seal them. Then we’ll be ready to begin turning the interior into what we need for it to become … a micro-home on wheels.

Shirli has been wanting to take Fred for a spin ever since it gained a spot in our yard. That happened as soon as the lift was out. Of course she can handle it. Never doubted it for a second. The gal used to drive a jacked up Suburban and could put it into tight parking spots in a way that would make a country boy jealous. The Jersey Girl certainly impressed the heck out of this Alabama country boy and did it with regularity.

She still does.

We were not back at the house but a few minutes before Shirli was online ordering a color coordinated vanity plate for the front bumper. What does it have on it?

Couldn’t be but one thing … FRED.


Yeah.

I’ve been anxious to get behind the wheel myself and took Fred for a little spin Monday down to the corner gas stop and then to check on one of my lawn care customers.

It was on that little jaunt that I noticed a mechanical problem that has to be fixed before we take Fred out again. It is a pretty serious steering fluid leak. I am not certain, at this early point in the discovery, if the problem can be remedied by tightening the lines or if something will need to be replaced.