Late in the winter of last year, I took Haley to the city we fell in love in and proposed to the most beautiful thing in its art museum. It was the absolute best. I cannot fathom that the sheer cosmic happiness of that day in Milwaukee was only an introduction to our banner year.
We had been following Pete and Tay of @alwaystheroad for months, resonating with their colorful style and fearless philosophy. When they announced their project to build and deliver a second campervan conversion, we promptly spilled our souls into a lofty message...and they chose us! The lifestyle we never imagined viable was suddenly, squarely in front of us.
Ferdinand, our 2005 Mercedes Sprinter home on wheels, is nothing short of a personal revelation. He has permitted us months of Americana we forgot to permit ourselves. We’ve greeted foggy Atlantic sunrises and chased countless Pacific sunsets. We’ve made neighbors of far-flung friends and made friends of lovely Vermont townies. We’ve beheld impossible colors in Niagara, broken down on exquisite Rocky summits, painted our chrome with desert and mud. Our creativity has erupted and our cynicism has melted and the world feels bigger and more intimate all at once. I feel healthy and stoked and ready, and that is a categorical anomaly of a year.
I’m not sure what this blog will be, but I reject that we’re even qualified to speak on behalf of vanlife; we’re rookies at this. No, I think I just want a space to articulate this grand anomaly, however long it lasts. A space to record an era Haley and I hope to look back on fondly, proudly.
To another year.