Starting Off
Well, I really wanted to make a "Before I Go" post to start things off, but the last few days, not to mention the last entire 2 months, before I left Pittsburgh were a total whirlwind and I could not find the time and/or focus. This is the best I can do, y'all.
I left Pittsburgh on Saturday, July 28th to begin what I hope will be a 4-month life-changing adventure. I'd been thinking about epic road trips since I was in high school and I had a few decent ones: New York to Florida in college, Pittsburgh to Massachusetts/Maine looping through New York, moving to San Francisco from Pittsburgh and then moving again from SF to Denver, but I wanted to LIVE on the road. I wanted to get settled on the road, visit cities I hadn't been to, see the beautiful parks and do some major hiking, stop at quirky roadside attractions, eat lots of farm stand fruit, collect things, and take many many photographs.
About two years I got really serious about a longterm road trip. I tried the old RV way, but shopping in Denver for what I could afford left me with 30-year old campers in rough shape and I'm sure would've been money pits. I postponed, and after my move back home to Pittsburgh last summer, inspired by Instagram and Pinterest feeds of converted vans, decided that buying a cargo van and custom-converting it was the way to go.
Luckily, in Pittsburgh I knew a guy who was a master carpenter and didn't have a lot going on in the early summer months. I bought my 2008 Chevy Express 1500 in March, and starting in June, John took on my project and, guided by my designs for aesthetics and function, built me a tiny home on wheels. This was not the adorable process that Pinterest and bloggers make it look. I was working 2 jobs to save money for my epic adventure, and John - well, I'm not sure exactly what John's process was really like - researched and executed the conversion process. We planned on the end of June being the deadline because I knew that my last month would be just enough time for me to work on the finishing projects in the evenings. Alas, John was working right up until the Tuesday night of the week I left. That meant that I couldn't always get in and do what I wanted to do in the van... which also meant I didn't get all my projects done in time. But, with encouragement from friends, I decided to just take off and work things out on the road.
That Saturday morning, I was stressed as hell. I couldn't find the passport I would need to cross into Canada above Maine to do Montreal and Ottawa city before coming back down into New York. I didn't have my curtains finished, or my mosquito netting, or the awning I imagined putting up whenever I camped. But I wrapped it up the best I could, hoped I grabbed the supplies I'd need in the immediate future, and set off towards Germantown, Maryland to see my best college friend. I hooted and hollered, felt the excitement and also the trepidation, settle into my chest as I drove south and then east.
