3 Month Check-in + Coronacation

Nearly 3 months have passed since our last post. The world has changed significantly along with everyone’s plans. We shared our last post on March 2, it was our 2 month update and in it I mentioned that the two months felt like 2 years. Oh sweet early March Anna. She didn’t know how long a few months could feel (no one did). Now looking back to March 2 is like a different world. Jeremy and I were chatting on our walk today and he said “I’m trying to think what it was like back in early March.” This is something you say about a decade ago, or several decades ago. Trying to recall what the societal norm was and how it impacted your choices. How bizarre to live in a time where we say that about a date 3 months ago. But there we were. 3 months ago we both went to our full time office jobs 5 days a week, our kids were in school, we went to work on the van on the weekends at our friends shop that they so graciously let us take up space in. It was cold. We talked about when we would decide to move the van home – when it’s going to consistently be in the 40’s sounded good. It looked like the weekend of March 14 would be the weekend we bring the van home, we were in a good place in the build and the weather looked like it was turning. We didn’t realize just how good that timing was. On Thursday March 12 Ohio closed schools. By the following Monday they decided all restaurants would be closed to dine-in customers, movie theaters, gyms, the list went on and on. It felt like with each passing day there were more and more closures. In that same week Jeremy and I both began working from home. Our kids began schooling from home. (Like seemingly everyone else, 2 and a half months later we’re still at it.)  It goes without saying that having the van with us at home was a great move. We could pop in and paint something for 10 minutes then return to work while it dried. Things got done on weeknights, weekends were productive, and we didn’t have to pack a lunch to do it. Our kids could entertain themselves in their own house and not feel uprooted every Saturday. We did a lot of work. We crossed a lot off the list. You know what we didn’t do? Turn on the camera to take a video of any of it.

Turns out when you are working at home and popping in the van to work it’s so much harder to remember to push that little button on the Go-Pro than it was when it became routine at the shop. Goodbye dreams of a complete time-lapse recap video. We did document quite a bit on our Instagram story, so if you follow along there, I hope you enjoyed keeping up to date with all the goings on. But I regret to inform you I will not be sharing a 3-month update look at all the work we have done in under 2 minutes video. I’m sure you will forgive us, thank you in advance.

So, let’s get to it. What got done in the past 3 months? Well, just about all of it. SURPRISE! As of today, all our essential items we needed in the van for it to function have been completed. I know. I’m sorry I didn’t keep you more involved in the process on here. Trust me when I say I had every intention. But we’re all adjusting to a new normal and turns out 2 and a half months is what I needed to learn how to juggle working from home, coordinating school from home, and building a van from home. (It was not pretty in the beginning, but was it for anyone?) While the ‘Coronacation’ as our kids call it gave us more time to focus on the van which was great, it brought it’s share of struggles as well. Any orders we placed on Amazon were a minimum of 1 month for delivery. In a country where we’ve become accustomed to receiving things in less than a week it was a reality check. When we were ready to order parts for the cabinets, we had to wait to receive hardware, specially tools, and the latches. But lucky for us Home Depot remained open through it all. We worked around delayed orders and completed what we could. All in all corona-virus has not impacted our build a whole lot. We might have been able to move a little faster if shipments weren’t delayed but as it turns out that would have been completely unnecessary.

I had predicted early on that we could be completed by April 1. Jeremy stood firm on May 1. If you are keeping score that makes perfect sense. He’s practical, I’m overzealous always. His first race was scheduled to be May 28, all along we said even if it takes longer than anticipated as long as we are done by May 23 (one week before we needed to use it) we will be happy. I am here to tell you that on Sunday, May 24 we declared M/M Van completed. 5 months of  hard work, deep thinking, heavy planning, sweat, time, a few arguments, so many laughs, mistakes, and victories. Right on schedule.

But, corona-virus happened. Jeremy’s first race was postponed. And the remainder of the season (much like everyone’s plans and events) was unclear. I do think it’s hilarious that we actually finished it more or less by our drop dead date, with no foreseeable need in the future. But if the past 3 months have taught me anything it’s that I know nothing about what is going to happen. A private racing event came up the first week of June and Jeremy is actually going to use M/M Van for the first time in just a few days without the rest of us. We also just found out that his favorite race of the year at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course has not been cancelled after all. It is still on! We await further direction on what the protocols will be, but for now we look forward to seeing what the van has to offer for a racing weekend. And if anything, I think we are more grateful for the opportunity to have our van as a respite and safe place. I’ll sort out how I feel about going to an event (even though it’s outdoors) once I understand the guidelines we need to follow. But all in all, we do feel confident we can segregate easily from others and keep more than enough distance. Strange times we live in, strange times.

We don’t know what the plans are beyond the two racing events we have on the calendar. We had hoped to visit some National Parks this year and possibly do a trip to South Dakota to checkout fossils (we’re all pretty into dinosaurs). But as of right now we are holding off on making any decisions regarding those trips. We will reassess end of June to see where our heads are at. So how is it building a van to explore the country in a time when we are told to stay home? Its fine and disappointing. I think those are two feelings we have all settled into these days.

In lieu of a list I have shared some progress pictures in the gallery below. I would encourage you to jump back here and read where we were back in March, I found it funny to see what we thought would get done when. In short – 3 months ago we came home with a van that had the floor installed, bed frame built, bathroom and fridge framed out, and electrical run. Since we brought M/M Van home we installed the water system, built and installed the kitchen, upholstered and installed wall and ceiling panels, finished the bathroom, and finally engineered, built and installed the kids beds (those deserve an entire post in themselves and I’m betting they just might get one). I have committed myself to updating our build page with all of the current pictures so please check back there soon for more process images. We’ve been sharing lots on our Instagram, that’s also a great resource to get caught up, and if you feel the need to see more we would love to have you follow us there! But wait, there’s more! We tested the van for one night in our backyard. Won’t it be fun to find out how that went? Stay tuned, that post is going up on Monday. Thank you all for following along! We can’t wait to share more of our adventures with all of you!