The “Why”
The date: May 20, 2017.
The scene: 1:10 am. Michigan International Speedway for Jeremy’s first race of the year. It is 45 degrees. We are camping in a tent, on concrete, under a shelter that has lights that won't turn off, next to Jeremy’s parents who are also camping in a tent.
1:10- Awake to a deflated air mattress. This is not comfortable.
1:15- Whispers of not so sweet something's in my ear. We have three options: 1. Remove air mattress from tent and blow it back up on the other side of the shelter so we don't wake everyone up. Try to patch it while we're at it. 2. Blow it up in the tent and risk waking everyone. 3. Get over it and to sleep anyhow.
1:20- Option 1 is chosen. My smart husband says I should stay in the tent because I'll be worthless in the cold. I'm too cold and tired to be offended. And he is right.
1:22- I attempt to roll over entangled in sleeping bags and blankets. I am stuck. I feel like a whale. A cold beached whale.
1:25- Husband removes mattress, blows up mattress. Informs me he has found the leak. Patches leak. Re-inflates mattress....
1:40- P O P. I already know what just happened.
1:41- Husband approaches tent to confirm what I already know.
1:45- Silence.
1:50- Husband decides to get a mat- think a drawer liner- to layer on top of two blankets. It's minimal but I'll take what I can get.
2:00- We test out new bed but we already know how this ends.
2:02- Husband is searching on his phone. There's a 24 hour Walmart 22 miles away.
2:05- Silence. We're trying to deal. We are not comfortable.
2:10- Calculations. If we leave now we could be back around 3:15 and If we're lucky asleep by 4. Is this worth 2 to 3 hours of sleep? Can we steal his mom’s car so we don't have to unhook the trailer from the truck? Her keys are probably with her in the tent. I begin to concoct an Oceans 11 scheme... It's not feeling worth it. I'm too cold.
2:20- Should we sleep in the truck? What if we get the folding chairs and just sleep in those?
2:22- We decide to fold everything in half for double the cushion and double the snuggles. We slept in a twin bed together in college. It's only been 13 years and two kids and lots of ice cream later. What could go wrong?
2:30- Bed is prepared but husband thinks we're cozying inside one sleeping bag together. I try to get in. This is how I die. This is not comfortable. (see image 3 above)
2:35- I will sleep on top of the bag. Husband will not let me. Husband knows this is a test. Husband passes.
2:37- We will sleep on top of the bags and use the blanket. The same blanket that is folded and interwoven in layers underneath us. I am cold. But we must press on. We unfold the layers.
2:38- Kid 1 awakes. She has to pee. Of course she does. We walk down to the bathrooms.
2:45- We have our cushioned paradise prepared. Husband lays down. I cuddle in. This actually may work. Of all the options it's warm and I can only kind of feel the asphalt. I snuggle in and try to slee---
2:47- Like a freaking spider monkey Kid 2 bounds over husband over to my side of the bed, rips the covers off and try's to snuggle in. There is barely room for us. I say no.
2:48- Spider monkey retreats to hide behind his bed. I have scared him. I must coax spider monkey out.
2:55- Spider monkey is coaxed out by me threatening to use his sleeping bag as another layer of cushion for me. My parenting game is strong, no?
3:00- Spider monkey tucked in, Kid 1 tucked in, we're tucked in.
3:05- I break into a fit of laughter so strong tears run down my face. This continues for a solid 5 minutes. Then we drift off to sleep. Let the karting season begin!
If you made it through all of that, you’ve got a pretty good glimpse into our family dynamic. But you also know the moment we decided a camper van was in our future.
Jeremy’s hobby is racing, along with his dad and some of his best friends. For the past 13 years we have been camping at race tracks in a tent. Kid 1 went to her first race when she was 3 months old and Kid 2 when he was 2 months old. We do about 5 races a year and are well versed in our routine. In 2018 his mom decided we should get a new racing trailer with a fridge and cabinets for food storage. Admittedly we were resistant. We always used a cooler and large bin to hold dry goods, what do we need a fridge for? Well, we were wrong. That fridge and those cabinets were the most convenient addition to our race weekend routines. Solidifying that building a camper van was in our future.
We looked at several options. A toy hauler so we have an RV and trailer in one that we can tow with our truck. But our truck doesn’t quite have that towing capacity and we just got the new trailer so that didn’t make much sense. We considered a traditional RV, but we wanted something more compact and the kid’s safety is very important to us. The thought of them bopping around in the back of an RV did not sit well, mostly due to the time we came upon an accident where an RV was absolutely shredded on the highway. Belongings everywhere and the RV itself was almost unrecognizable. I can’t shake that image from my head so that’s a no from this gal. A pop up or tow behind camper would be great but we have to be able to tow the racing trailer and I’m pretty sure towing a trailer with a trailer like some bizarre centipede with an engine is frowned upon. Converting a van gives us safety, mobility, the ability to tow, and the luxuries that we would like all in one.
Then came the doubt – this is a big investment for something we are only looking at using 5 times a year. But wait! In October of 2016 we did a family road trip from Ohio down to Austin, TX to see the Formula 1 race. We stopped at Dinosaur World, we visited the Lost River Cave, ate hot chicken in Little Rock, AK, and visited The Silos in Waco, TX. We camped in our tent at McKinney Falls State Park in Austin and still talk about the hike we got a little lost on while looking for the tree called “Old Baldy” that we joked must have been named for us even though they spelled it wrong. The only part of the trip we didn’t like was loading into a hotel room at midnight just to wake up and leave again at 7 am. What if we didn’t have to do that, what if we could just pull off at a rest stop and sleep in our vehicle? It opens up a much less intimidating world of travel for us. We’ve always been independent souls, preferring to drive places instead of fly because we want to be on our schedule. Suddenly the camper van we would use 5 times a year became an investment in our time together as a family.
M/M van is the answer to all of it. Racing weekends will be easier to prepare for, taking off for a long weekend to experience an adventure will be easier, and showing our kids the beauty of nature will be easier. And I don’t mean to sound lazy (though I would almost never pass up a lazy weekend on the couch watching a Harry Potter marathon), but our lives are so complicated as it is that I need this to be easy in the end. Pack a bag, jump in the van, and lets go where we go.
So there you have it, our “why.” There will be lots of work to get to that “easy” getaway vehicle. But we’re no strangers to hard work, DIY, and enjoying a finished product. We’ve been renovating our home steadily the past 6 years and have been enjoying many a HP marathon in our cozy space. We’re hoping for a shorter timeline on this project, maybe more like 3 months?
…I’m going to read that and laugh in April aren’t I?