If anyone looked at my post history, they'd think I spent all my time finding the handgrenade pins the previous owners left in my van. It's time for some trip reports. I'll start with our first trip in the van.
The weekend after I picked up our SMB, we went to an awesome spot where we'd been before. When it's clear, it looks like this:
That's Mt. Rainier in the background.
As we rolled up the forest road, it started raining (pretty hard). We immediately had our first van-camping epiphany; we hadn't even bothered to check the weather, and it didn't even matter!
At one point, I jumped out to clear some limbs from the trail (the van is a "little" taller and wider than my Tacoma) and got pretty soaked! When we got to the campsite, we experienced our second van-camping epiphany; Camp was already set up and my dry clothes were right there!
After a little while, the rain let up and the boy and I got out to deploy the awning and check out the site.
My formerly "tough" desert dog decided she likes this style camping too.
Being very experienced tent-campers, this was the wife and my first time sleeping IN a vehicle in probably 20 years. It was AWESOME. Bedtime with the kid was easy, both the downstairs and penthouse beds are very comfortable. The fridge kept my beer nice and cold, the seats are comfy and the storage compartments are great. We still had to get some experience before we really had our packing dialed, but this trip was a real eye-opener for what this kind of camping can be. We didn't even use the heater!
The fog in the morning was awesome- we were totally inside a cloud.
We cooked some breakfast.
The fog/cloud started to drop so we took a hike up the road and tested out the boy's puddle boots.
Then came back and sat around camp for a while.
The dogs found it exhausting.
We packed up and headed back to Seattle. It was a great trip and we love our van!
The YURT
VivaLaVida
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