March was a strange time for everyone. It seemed as though every hour the news was changing. People were panicking, others were in denial. There was no toilet paper.
It was especially weird to be living through Covid in a van. When Coronavirus first hit, I thought that living in a van would be ideal. I’d stay away from people and go mind my own business alone in the desert.
At this point, I had just gone through a breakup and was on the mend both emotionally and physically (after a biopsy on my foot) in Fruita, Colorado. I had missed my last opportunity for a real shower as the gyms had just closed, and the isolation was starting to make me crazy.
I had been overwhelmed by trying to figure out where I should go next. I was being urged to stay with family, but my closest family was 30 hours away. I didn’t want to go live in someone’s driveway in Salt Lake City and risk getting anyone sick. Plus, who knew how long I’d be stuck in their driveway. I might lose my mind in the suburbs before I could die of Covid.
I was overwhelmed, so I decided I’d just stay right where I was in Fruita until I couldn’t stay any longer.
At this point, I had the whole place to myself. The weather was still cold, so it was a bit too early for crowds to be rushing this part of the desert. I chatted with the cute Forest Service guys and tried to enjoy the peace and quiet.
As people were losing their jobs and starting to work from home, I was thankful that my job was unaffected. Not only was I still camping in a beautiful spot like I normally would, but I still had an income. Besides the unsettling feeling of impending doom, my life was pretty much the same.
I was watching my friends and family through social media as they adjusted to quarantine. Many didn’t leave their houses for days on end. Meanwhile, I was taking Dakota for 7-mile off-leash walks to stunning canyons and mountain biking from my front door. I was scared to share photos or videos of it on the internet because so many people were desperate for a slice of the outdoors.
I shouldn’t be giving you the impression that my quarantine was easy though. In exchange for having nature at my fingertips, I also had total isolation. The end of my relationship meant a sudden quietness in my life and I could go an entire day without speaking to another human.
I just wanted to be around people. I wanted to see friends, I wanted to meet strangers, I wanted to go on dates to distract me from the pain of a breakup. I wanted someone, anyone, to quarantine with.
I was thankful that my family quickly adopted a weekly virtual happy hour as well as a daily group text. This was often the extent of my socializing for the day, so I lived for it.
The news (which is typically something I do my best to avoid) was consuming me and I was surviving on a steady diet of Covid memes and carbs.
Going to the grocery store felt like risking my life. The local grocery store was out of nearly everything but produce, cookies, and chips. There was nothing to “stock up” on because those aisles were empty.
Luckily, I had family members sending me care packages of canned goods, rice and beans, and baby wipes. What a strange time to be alive.
I had a van friend (Andy, from my splitboarding adventures in the last few posts) driving through the area. He reached out and I dropped him a pin, so thankful to have a real human stopping by.
It had just rained for a few days and my “yard” had turned to soft, squishy mud. A few days prior, I had made a trip to the grocery store after some rain. I put my best driving skills to the test but barely made it out and back without getting stuck. After that, I vowed to plan my trips to town around the weather.
Andy finally arrived and pulled up next to me at my campsite. We went for a little walk and he mentioned that he wished he had brought firewood with him. I had seen a big pile of wood left behind at the next campsite (about a quarter-mile away) so we walked over there to grab some. As we got there though, we realized it would be too much to carry back. This spot was much larger than the spot we were currently camped in, so he suggested that we both just move to the spot with the firewood. We’d have more space and firewood.
We made our way back to the vans and got ready to move. Andy drove off and I followed. But then I felt myself lose traction. The wheels started spinning and I wasn’t going anywhere. Sure enough, I was stuck in deep mud.
I called Andy and told him to come back. His van is a bit bigger than mine so I though maybe he could pull me out.
He returned and worked on positioning his van to pull me. Then I saw his wheels start spinning as mud was being flung up the side of his van. He was stuck too.
Luckily, we both got stuck on relatively flat ground and we had vans full of everything we needed to survive. The downside was that we were now parked on opposite ends of the campsite, facing opposite directions. A passerby would have thought we had gotten into a big argument and were trying to share a site without having to interact.
We tried everything we could to get him unstuck and eventually just accepted our fates. Andy had plans to be in Denver in a few days, so we hoped that the ground would dry out enough that we could get out by then. If not, we’d be calling for a tow.
A couple days later, as we were both taking naps in our respective vans, I woke up to the sound of people talking outside.
I looked out the window and watched as two men walked past and up towards the rock structure behind my van. Their truck was parked at our campsite, right between my van and Andy’s.
The men climbed up the rocks and then sat down on a ledge. It looked like they had a box with them, possibly a lunchbox, I thought. It was so bizarre that they would be picnicking in our already occupied campsite. I felt kind of weird about it, but luckily Andy was within shouting distance if I needed him.
Soon the men climbed down and headed back to their truck and that’s when I realized they had a truck. A truck that could probably pull us both out of the mud. Although I was still unsure about why they had been in my campsite in the first place, I couldn’t miss this opportunity.
I jumped out of the van just as they were starting to pull away. Thankfully, they noticed, and they circled back around.
It didn’t take long until we were both free from the mud, and Andy, fearing he’d get stuck again, made his way to Denver.
I watched him drive away, knowing it could be a while before I saw another human again.
Eventually, I got some neighbors. Seeing that we were now in a pandemic, I was keeping my distance from them instead of introducing myself.
One day, while Dakota and I were on our daily walk, the neighbor gal was running down the trail next to ours. We said hey and introduced ourselves, realizing that we were camped next to each other. We chatted for a bit, from about 200 feet away, and she invited me to stop by and hang out with her and her boyfriend, so I did.
Their names were Terese and Drew, and they were on their maiden voyage in their camper with their cat and two dogs named Charlie, Linus, and Lucy. We became fast friends.
Seeing as none of us were coming in contact with anyone else, we became somewhat of a “quaranteam.” We’d pick up groceries or beer for each other if one of us ran to town and spent lots of hours taking the dogs for walks or playing glow-in-the-dark bocce ball. They were basically the sole reason I didn’t have a total breakdown during this time.
As they were testing out their new-to-them camper, they were racking up a long list of projects they wanted to tackle. They decided to make a short trip back to their home in Breckenridge to take care of some camper projects and then they’d return to the desert.
They wanted to save their spot and had brought two vehicles, so they planned to leave the car behind. Terese asked me if I’d hold onto her keys in case anything happened and the car had to be moved for some reason. I was more than happy to do that because it ensured that my awesome neighbors would be back and in the meantime nobody weird would take their spot. It was a win-win.
After they drove off and I had their car keys in my hand, it dawned on me that they had just given me (basically still a stranger at this point) the keys to their car. Good thing I’m trustworthy!
As for most people, the next several weeks (which felt like months) were a blur.
One day, I hopped out of the van to find that the cute Forest Service guys were parked at my campsite. Dakota ran up and greeted them.
“Oh hey, we remember you,” they said to me. We had chatted during my first few days there and I hadn’t seen them since. “We’re just installing a new sign here, so it’s going to be noisy for a minute.”
The sign said, “CAMPSITE 11: 7 DAY CAMPING LIMIT.”
“Just so you know, there’s a 7-day limit in these spots,” they said.
I could feel my face start to flush. It had been a month and a half since we had that first conversation at this campsite when I arrived.
“But we know you’ve left and just came back,” one of the guys said to me.
“Oh, of course!” I reassured.
I obviously hadn’t left but was thankful that they were so understanding.
Also, I’d never recommend breaking the rules in places like this. We must follow the rules to keep these places open (and free). But during a pandemic when traveling is dangerous, this seemed like the safest option for me and the community I was in.
When I first got to this quarantine spot, I had dealt with snowy days and cold weather. Now the seasons were changing to remind me that time was indeed passing after all. It was starting to feel like summer.
Daytime temperatures were in the mid-80’s and being in the desert was no longer fun. People were starting to get tired of quarantining and the campsites were filling up.
It was time to go.
This was the longest I had ever stayed in one spot. Had it not been for Covid, I would have never wanted to stay anywhere that long. But I was so thankful to have had a beautiful, safe, free spot to call home during such a difficult time.
I adjusted to not traveling and enjoyed the extra hours I had each day now that I wasn’t pouring over maps and figuring out where to go next. Staying still was easy in a lot of ways.
I also had friends as my neighbors, something I hadn’t had since I was a kid. Being a nomad means you never really know when you’ll see people again, so leaving them was extra sad.
Moving on from that spot was bittersweet. I was glad to be back on the road and to feel like I had survived such a wild time in our history (obviously, I know now as I’m writing this that it isn’t over yet, but those first two months were certainly the hardest) but I was leaving behind a place that I had made a home.
I was now heading to Salt Lake City, of course. For the last year I had done nothing but bounce between Utah and Colorado.
Over the winter, as I had purchased some fancy snow tires for the van, my boyfriend had offered to let me keep my summer tires at his house. I took him up on it because it saved me a trip back to Utah. As soon as I leave something at a partner’s house though, we break up. It’s a curse.
While I was quarantining in the desert, he had dropped my tires off to me since the city he lived in shut down their town hard. Anyone who didn’t have their primary residence in the county could be ticketed or owe jail time for visiting. I kid you not.
Now I was making the trip back to Utah with a van full of tires, so I had to get back quick because there was no living space left. I still had my winter tires on, and now it was almost June, so that chore led us back to Salt Lake.
During my return, I tackled some big van projects with the help of some great friends. I added another solar panel to the van, upgraded some electrical components, and then added a vent to my back door to help with air circulation.
One day, while I was napping in the van at my old favorite park, I woke up to someone slipping a paper under my windshield wiper. I got out of bed to see what it was, fearing the worst (if you haven’t read about my last van note, you can find the story here.
This note said:
“Fellow van friend,
I hope you’re doing alright in these strange times. Good vibes to ya today!
Warmly,
Van #225”
I flipped it over and saw the most amazing piece of artwork, featuring a van that looked just like mine.
I looked around to see if I could find this magical van fairy since they had only just dropped it off a minute ago. I noticed another van just a few spots down from mine, so I walked over.
There were two guys standing outside talking, so chances were good that one of them was responsible for the note. I introduced myself and asked about the mysterious artwork.
One of the guys, Parker, said it was from him.
The three of us stood in the doorway of this neighboring van and talked for nearly an hour. We swapped stories of the road, of quarantine, and of our best van tips. I walked away with a plan for a new windshield and a new insurance agent that could cover my van as an RV like I had hoped.
I also had a new friend, and Parker and I made plans to hang out again soon.
A few days later, I joined him back at the park to get a tour of his van and share stories over beers. We were hanging out in Parker’s van with the sliding door open, when someone approached the van, curious about what it looked like inside.
This is a common occurrence when you live in a van. If you park somewhere with the door open, eventually someone will come up and ask you questions about it.
This man, who introduced himself as Jesus, was probably in his 40s. He helped himself inside and talked with Parker about all the details of the build. This is usually where things will wrap up and the intruding stranger will leave, but not Jesus.
He spent the next hour or so telling us stories about how he used to travel in his car when he was younger. He recounted tales of catching fish and putting them on the engine to cook while he drove to the next state (and then forgetting about said fish until a few days later). He told us about staying in homeless shelters to get gas cards to travel to the next spot and sleeping in his car in every corner of the US.
He ended his visit by insisting that the three of us take a photo together and texting it to us as his parting gift.
Jesus really stole the show during my visit with Parker, so I was thankful to get to see him a few more times before I left town. He was also kind enough to help me build a new shelf in the van for my shoes, so I think warmly of him every time I bump my head on it.
During my time back in SLC, I also noticed my van was starting to have an unpleasant smell. It seemed to smell like pee. After a late-night inspection, I determined that it was, in fact, pee. My toilet’s seal wasn’t holding up anymore and pee was leaking into the carpet of the cab.
As unfortunate as this was, it wasn’t the end of the world. I could replace the toilet and I had been wanting to upgrade the carpet to a more durable material anyways. I got rid of the toilet the next morning and searched the internet for a replacement.
There have been some strange side-effects of Covid. One of those is that there has been a tremendous surge in people venturing into the outdoors and camping. Friends that have been working on van builds this summer haven’t been able to purchase basic van materials such as fans or windows because they’re out of stock. REI looks like it has been robbed, and apparently, RV toilets are on backorder.
What should have been something simple to replace was not going to be available for the next several months. No matter which store or website I looked at, they were all gone.
I have plenty of van friends that don’t have a toilet in their van. I’m sure I could survive a few months without one, too. But I was expecting a visitor soon and the thought of peeing in a jar in front of him was mortifying. For some reason, a toilet seems much more dignified.
Luckily, after hours of scouring the internet, I tracked one down.
Back in January of 2019, I had taken the van to Florida. I was just starting to date again after the tumultuous relationship that kicked off vanlife for me in the first place.
I made a detour to Jacksonville to meet up with a guy I had been chatting with for a bit and ended up spending quite a bit of time with him on two separate visits. You can catch up on those stories here and here.
But then, it was time for me to continue my journey. We decided to not pursue a relationship because the logistics would be too difficult, so we parted ways.
I had heard from him a few times since I left Jacksonville a year and a half earlier. He told me he always regretted that we never gave it a real shot between us, that we gave up on it so easily. I had been pretty upset back when we broke it off, so it was hard to hear this confession from him, but our timing was never right to try it again.
Until now.
We started chatting when quarantine hit, and we were both stuck at home. Chatting turned into weekly virtual “date nights” and we started to rebuild from where we had left off. Quite a bit of time had passed, but the chemistry between us hadn’t changed one bit.
Eventually, we started to figure out how we could see each other again. He was working remotely for the foreseeable future so quarantining together would be ideal, except that he lived in Florida and I was in western Colorado. He now owned an adventure van too but wasn’t confident that it could make the drive to Colorado without any mechanical issues.
At this time, states were starting to relax their Covid measures. Restaurants were opening back up and flights were no longer for essential travel only. We decided it would make more sense for him to fly, so he booked a flight for the first week in June. We’d both be working during the visit, so since it wasn’t really a matter of vacation days, he planned to stay for two weeks.
I began my trek to Denver to pick him up at the airport. I would be taking him on the grand tour of all my favorite Colorado spots, and we had a long list of breweries we wanted to visit. I was excited and extremely nervous. What if we didn’t like each other in real life anymore? What if we drove each other nuts in the van for two weeks? What if he got here and I realized I had made a huge mistake?
I had stopped over to visit my quarantine pals, Terese and Drew, before I continued to the airport. They were giving me a place to shower, do laundry, and finally replace my pee carpet. I took a nap after work that morning and made the mistake of not setting an alarm. SEVEN HOURS LATER I woke up in a panic, realizing I was running out of time to get everything done and get to Denver to pick up my guest from the airport.
“Just landed,” he texted me, as my GPS is still showed me 40 minutes from the airport.
I had wet clothes that didn’t have time to dry hanging from every inch of the van, no sheets on the bed, and I hadn’t eaten in hours.
I drove up to Arrivals with butterflies in my stomach and approach a sign showing “Clearance- 8 feet” with my 9-foot vehicle.
I just hoped that I was getting all the chaos out of the way before I brought him along for the ride.
Love is throwing yourself into a stormy sea hoping there are arms to catch you knowing that without the leap there is only the safe and lonely shore.
Atticus
