Breckenridge + A New Adventure

I bought a van…

And it was probably (definitely) the most spontaneous purchase of my life.  I had been dreaming of #vanlife for years (who hasn’t?), but the timeline from when I was realistically considering buying one to the time I sold my Jeep and came home with this baby, was about three weeks.

And just like that, I’m a “homeowner” to Breckenridge, AKA Breck, my new-to-me 2014 RAM ProMaster 1500 with 46,200 miles on him.  To reuse a line that I saw on social media, he’s an empty cargo van filled with all of the hopes and dreams and excitement that I can’t contain just inside of myself.  That being said, I’m still not 100% sure about this decision, but everything just fell so perfectly into place, that I keep thinking that this has to be the right direction for me to take.  Dare I say, it seems like it’s meant to be?

So far, I’ve put in flooring and a window.  The solar panels and electrical wiring are set to be installed this week, and then comes a vent fan, walls, lights, a bed, a kitchen cabinet and many other things that I don’t know how to build quite yet…  I’m hoping to keep the conversion to around $4,000 and am planning to hit the road with an MVP of the buildout by Labor Day weekend.  I’ll spend about two months out west in Colorado and Utah working out the kinks and learning how to do #vanlife, and then will be back east for the remainder of the year for work and to finish the build.

Apart from the few light hippie jokes (“So where will the shag rug go?” and “Are you going to park it down by the river?” are by far the most common), I have received overwhelming support and excitement from just about everybody I have told.  So to every single one of you that has given me words of encouragement – from friends and family to #vanlife Instagrammers that I have reached out to for advice – and to everybody that has written painfully detailed blog posts of their van builds, thank you.  I am forever grateful for the support (I need it more than you know right now) and forever indebted for the help I have been supplied thus far with this next crazy adventure.