TL;DR - van is found and back in my possession
hi everyone!
first off, thank you all so much for your support, tips, and positivity this week. feeling the love from family, friends, and the community here (!) certainly helped me stay positive given the situation - so thank you.
secondly, HUUUGE shout out to JonBertsch for reading my post, picking out my van on the side of the road, and reaching out immediately to give me the best shot of getting her back. while I've only had this van a little over a month, it's already carried me 5k+ miles and put shelter over my head for a week's worth of nights.. and we were just getting started - can't thank you enough JonBertsch. I'm glad you were able to stop by later in the day so we could connect in person and I could get to know a little bit about you and your rig!
lastly, I am extremely happy to report out that MY van is back in MY possession!! well, mostly
after a lot of waiting to get my hands on the vehicle, couldn't get her started with jump or jump pack --> started getting dark --> threw in towel and called a tow. she's safe in the tow lot until tomorrow AM when I find a shop that can start working on her. I plan to pull together a proper story/timeline of this week to share w/ you all - at this point, I think only 1der has heard it all - but need to attend to business first and see if I can't get things back on track for my pop-top install starting a week from now.
thanks again everyone - all I can say is.. what. a. week.