A New Chapter

The past seven months have certainly been a bit different than the rest of my van life journey. With few exceptions, I’ve been moochdocking in Melissa’s front yard, rarely moving the van anywhere. It’s been a much different life than my previous three years of continuous travel. But I’m extremely happy with this life, and particularly with her. We fit extremely well together on numerous levels. We agree on the important things and want the same things for our future. And now we’ve committed to building a future together. We’re engaged!

What does this mean for my… I mean, our life on the road? Well, I’m not about to ditch her to spend my usual winter in Quartzsite. She still has a local job here, and I’m going to continue to stay here with her. I didn’t build this van for anything colder than an Arizona “winter,” but my diesel heater is powerful, so we’ll see how it does with slightly colder temperatures of Arkansas. It shouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as the New England winters I ran away from.

Even before I entered the picture, Melissa already had plans to build a tiny house up on the hill where we camped when we first arrived. It’s a great plan, and a tiny house on my own land was also my long-term goal, though I assumed I’d be doing it alone. Now, I don’t have to worry about buying land. Melissa already has it, and we’re already living on it. I’m going to join her on her tiny house plan and intend to make it happen next year, much earlier than I ever thought possible. This will give us a more comfortable home than my van, which is a bit small for two people without some major design revisions that are impossible to make while we’re still living in it. We’re making it work, but I’m sure she’s tired of hearing me grumble about the lack of flat space and how only one of us can move around and do things inside at a time. A larger living space will work much better for us. After making it work in a van, even a tiny house will feel like a mansion!

That’s not to say we’re done traveling, though. She still wants to see many places where I’ve been and can show her around, as well as some that both of us are interested in but have never visited. We’d like to get out there again, part-time, with our tiny house up on the hill to come back to as a home base. Once we’re living in the tiny house, we could conceivably tear down and rebuild the interior of the van in a different configuration better suited for two people. I’m certainly not getting rid of the van, since travel is still in the plans. In fact, we’ll be taking the van to Texas to visit her parents next week. It still has its uses as a home on wheels as well as simply a small home while it’s parked. We bring our own guest house with us.

It’s a new chapter for both of us. It’s a big change for me, committing to giving up my previous life of solo travel. But it’s totally worth it, because I get to be with Melissa. These past seven months, moochdocking in her front yard, my thought process has always been, “I’d rather be here with her than traveling alone.” That remains true, and I’ve never wavered in that belief the whole time I’ve been here. Of course, I would very much enjoy having it all and being able to travel with her! But I’ve been happy here and with her, and I don’t see that changing, even if we don’t get to travel for a while. There’s a lot to do here first, like build our new home together.

Updates here will continue to be sporadic, pretty much only when there’s some van or travel-related news to share. I’ll keep posting about our adventures when we have a chance to travel, whether by van (such as to Texas next week) or by motorcycle. I’ll also post about changes or repairs to the van. Posts just won’t happen as frequently as they used to.