The first day in the van…

June 12, 2018

Day One.

Charlottesville, VA to Knoxville, TN

450 miles. 8 hours.

Excitement boiled as we left my parents’ house in Charlottesville to begin our journey back to Albuquerque. We had a van. We were newly married. We had no jobs, no agenda. It was magical and thrilling as we headed west towards Tennessee. It was also incredibly hot and humid and we were sweating immediately. No air conditioning, no power steering, no registration or license plate and no air bags. What could possibly go wrong?

As we chugged along in the little yellow van we began to settle in. Maybe a little too much actually. We didn’t really bother to check anything until five hours in to the drive. We pulled over to use the bathroom and for me to take a phone call. As I walked around, talking on the phone with a potential employer, I noticed something splattered all over the back of the van. With a wipe of my finger I could easily tell it was oil. Trying not to panic we started doing our research. We talked to our parents, and consulted the ever so trusty web online about oil leaks.

We were stopping every 100 miles to check the oil and refill. When we were not driving we spent most of our time in Walmarts. But spirits were still high. Ben’s were higher than mine I admit, but one of us has to worry at least a little bit, right?

Evening rolled around and we were sticky and sweaty and stuck in stand-still traffic on I-40. The thick air felt suffocating. We sat there in our leather seats uncomfortable and weary. We decided to exit off the interstate to avoid traffic and grab a sub. I’m not pointing fingers, but obviously someone was a little hangry and a little forceful when he shut the door. Instant shattering sounds cracked the silence. The window behind the driver’s side door was in millions of pieces. 

My spirits dropped. My frustration mounted. Shards of glass sliced my hands till I bled as I angrily tried to clean up the glass. Another call to my dear parents. I will take a moment to say that both of our parents have been so supportive of our crazy ideas, which we greatly appreciate. My dad, sympathetically, gave us ideas for how to temporarily patch the gaping hole in our van. Another Walmart trip was in the itinerary.

Tarp, duct tape and ice cream in hand we set to work in the Walmart parking lot to MacGyver a window. Our plan, at that point, had been to just sleep in the Walmart parking lot since camping around Knoxville is non-existent. After a sketchy (yes, I can say sketchy because we don’t have a “sketchy van” we have an “antique van”) car drove by and gave a disrespectful cat-call I decided we were not going to stay there. We ended up finding a not-free campground around 11pm, but we were safe and grateful. Spirits were lifted after a good, first night sleep in the van.