Vanlife Archive
I woke up on the beach in the middle of Nebraska. Didn't expect to read that, did you?
Lake MacCaughnahy? Omfg spelling?? wth. Or Lake Ogallala? I'm really not sure. It has two names neither of which I have any hope of spelling correctly. And god forbid I walk over and look at the sign that says where I am in which it will be clearly spelled. Why am I like this? lmao
Either way, it looks like the Dead Sea right smack dab in the middle of the USA and it's beautiful and tranquil and awesome.
We paid $20 (again, the "we" in any of the Vanlife Archives is Mars and me) in the Ranger collection box. Totally could have NOT paid, but that's really not the person I'm trying to be. If there's an honor system to uphold you better believe I'm about seriously uphold it. Wanted to support the park, too.
Before I begin recounting Ogallala or Lake Matthew McHonaghuay or wherever the fuck I am (LOL) I do want to make sure I remember:
- on 09/16/20 I was at Cold Springs Campground in Colorado. At about 7:40pm I filled my water bottle at the spigot and began walking toward the outhouse. While I do have the C-Head toilet contained within the van, I very much prefer the outhouse during the day if it's an option (because then I don't have a bucket of my own pee sitting in the van 👍 👍 👍 👍 👍 ). At this formal campsite, it was an option. So I'm doubling back past my van campsite from spigot to outhouse. It's very dusky, light is very low. I hear a snort or like a breathy grunt of some sort. I see the leaves in the trees above me shake, and a flash of brown fur. My heart goes into overdrive, beating one full cartoonish beat out of my chest. It's a god damn bear. I'm exactly midway between outhouse and van. I look at both. Which should be my sanctuary? Outhouse? Van? AHHH! Van. I sprint. It starts fucking RUNNING TOO. Then all in a one millionth of a second I realize it's humongous. It's a woolly mammoth what the hell. It's for real a MOOSE. It's really huffing and puffing. My heart has yet to re-center in my chest. I make it back to van and whip myself inside. Mars is oblivious (which is kinda shocking for his hypervigilance). I throw open the back door or the can in attempt to glimpse the creature again from the safety of the van and ensure it's running away. Mars and I both lay on our bellies, I'm still breathing uncomfortably hard. We don't see the beast but definitely hear him. Is he hurt? I mean he's REALLY huffing and puffing. Anyway. I stayed high for about 45 minutes after that encounter, riding out the fight or flight reaction and trying to shove my heart back into my ribcage. Catch some O2 now, please. Oh! And I had already been jogging from the spigot to the outhouse to try to get warm. It was about 56 degrees in the mountain air. I was COLD. After the moose situation, I was NOT COLD.
- on 09/14/20 I shattered my ASUS desktop after setting it on my mattress pad (STUPID I KNOW) and it went tumbling to the gravel outside the van. I was working for both Starbucks and cars.com that day, and WFV (working from van) for only like the third day ever. And the only reason I even had my desktop in the van in the first place was because Mom's cat knocked over that granite elephant carving I have and it broke my damn laptop screen before I hit the road. I mean come on hahahaha. So AFTER the desktop also went down and shattered and now I had no way to work (I'm also at a remote campsite in the mountains......) I decide to:
Pity party for 5 minutes aka be "Kriley," which is what I call myself when I'm crying over something stupid
Go back to my brother's apartment down in Boulder? No.
Do the rest of the workday from my iPhone? Impossible.
Leave camp, find a store and buy a laptop.
I decided to find a Walmart. There's one in Evergreen, CO. It's a stressful, LONG 36 minute drive through the mountains. I'm worried about either of my clients needing me at this time. I HATED that drive but that's the decision I made to address the problem and I had to see it through. I buy a laptop and two new pairs of underwear. Oh yeah because I'm also on my period. I feel sad, stressed, and gross.
On the drive home from the Walmart, new laptop in tow, ready to work, I finally start to calm down. You did it. It sucked but you have a solve. If felt like a 10 minute drive home— crazy how the anxiety on the way there made time seem frozen. It sucked.
I stop on the way home for a Strawberry Cheesecake Double Scoop of ice cream to celebrate surviving the last seven days of crippling anxiety. When I walk into the ice cream shoppe in this little touristy mountain town, I must have been properly wearing my newfound peace and calm because the guy working says, "Oh, now this is a girl with some time to kill."
He was wearing a goddamn face shield. God the planet is so fucking weird right now. He asked where I'm from, what I do. I add a CBD seltzer to my ice cream purchase. You better believe I needed the Ginger Chill.
He follows me outside? Y tho. He has a GIANT vape. lol. He never hits it though. Face shield and the subsequent conversation somewhat subconscious deter him from finding a moment to hit the giant vape, I guess. He says, "little girl, big van!" I absolutely hate it, but whatever.
He sees Mars and we talk about some of the challenges that come along with having rescues. We connect genuinely over that. I feel like me again, post desktop-shattering. He wishes me well. If that was the come-up, I'm through it. I survived. Van life out West, Week One, Done. Earned. We're here. Time to cruiseeeeeeeeeee.
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