Sprinter van: 4,858 miles later…

Since we found our Sprinter van back at the beginning of June, our deadline to finish converting it has always been mid-September. We were set to head out on a four- or five-week trip to the desert Southwest. K had never been. It was her sabbatical, after all, celebrating fifteen years working for REI. For mine a few years ago, we had headed north to the Canadian Rockies. The desert in autumn would make for a nice contrast to ginormous mountains in spring.

Four thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight miles later, she -- and we, honestly -- got what we went looking for. Amazing sunsets. Expansive views. And a bed to curl up in every night.

At some point, she named our van TinT1n. He did awesome. His struts are a little tired, I'll replace them soon. But he got a kick out of being free from the shackles of hauling tiling equipment to worksites and, instead, driving free on desert dirt roads. 

The thing was… Two weeks before we were set to head out, TinT1n looked like this…

Seventeen days, actually. There was a lot to do. The wiring was only roughed in, the flooring was done, Sefton had a seat to sit in, and we had installed a pair of swivel seats. I guess we had also cleaned it, installed a couple windows and a Maxxair fan, did some bodywork, changed the fuel filter, and installed a roof rack with an awning. Regardless, there was still so much to accomplish in those seventeen days. We were working until midnight most nights. For the final week, outside looked like this…

Whatever. We couldn't stop, so we strapped on N95 masks and worked through the smoke and the air quality that approached 500, whatever that means besides being really bad.

In those remaining two weeks, those seventeen days, from that photo above and pulling away from our house, we somehow wrapped up just about everything. A few overhead cabinets still needed door fronts. I didn't get to the glow plugs, which was okay because the dash light wasn't on warning me to replace them. Somehow, magically but more honestly by an awful lot of hard work and persistence, we pulled away with a finished campervan. In hindsight, I'm not sure how we did it. 

Without thinking too much about that, we grabbed our trusty new atlas, fired up our van, and drove across the George Sellar bridge, the mighty Columbia River, and headed east.

For the next thirty-one days, TinT1n drove a lot of miles. 4,858, in fact. Just shy of five thousand. K and I took turns driving, off and on every single day.

We passed through small towns.

  

When we crossed the Snake River for the first time (we'd cross it many times, drive next to it for many miles, as well as come just about within sight of its headwaters), we smiled and turned south on US-95, to the desert.

On the way, we camped on the side of windy roads along meandering creeks in the forest.

We camped along the street in front of a friend's house.

We drove through sunsets on bumpy gravel roads.

We raced against the daylight trying to find spots to camp.

Speaking of spots to camp and trying to find them, we found some cool ones. Like atop Nevada mountain passes.

And under the full moon and stars somewhere in western Utah.

Even our campsite in Great Basin National Park was cool.

We filled up TinT1n with diesel in lonely desert towns.

And we drove the loneliest road in America.

We took cheesy selfies with TinT1n.

And photos of the rearview mirror.

We made lots of coffees with our Rok espresso machine.

We drove windy roads down down down, then up up up as we traversed the Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau.

Dusty roads.

Curvy roads.

Really, really curvy roads.

We cooked amazing food under the warm desert sun.

That's right, pizza night on Fridays did not stop just because we were living in our van. It went on, and it was legit.

We watched the sunset.

We read stories.

Someone loves The Magic School Bus!

That certain someone also loves reading his Highlights magazine!

TinT1n, then, found some incredible views.

He loved being in the desert, but every once in a while we'd find him somewhere to camp among the trees, the beautiful aspen turned delicious, golden yellow in the cold air of autumn.

He loved being under the stars.

And keeping an eye on The Watchman.

He loved the twisting dirty roads as much as the straight-as-an-arrow ones.

Even though we didn't spend much time on straight-as-an-arrow interstates, TinT1n loved going fast on them, too.

We camped with friends.

And happened to run into family!

We were stunned with scorching sunsets.

Shivered under a light blanket of snow.

Had campfires in the shadow of mountains.

Sunrises in the shadows of trees.

And, on our final night, we found much to our surprise a forest of glorious, golden larch.

After crossing the mighty Columbia once, twice, and at last a third time, we found… home.

It felt good. Really good. What a crazy busy summer. What a wonderfully beautiful trip. These are of course a handful of photographs. There are thousands and thousands more. Of canyons and rivers, mountains and skies. Stars. Summits. Smiles. Of K and S, hiking through canyons, playing in rivers. We'll have those and put them into a book that we'll leave lying around our house, to pick up every once and a while when we want to remember. But we'll always remember. Nothing can ever erase our memories of the summer we spent converting an old tile van into our camper that would faithfully take us five thousand miles through the desert and across the mountains and back home again.