Our 2024 van life began with a bang–literally. After ending 2023 with a quick tour of nearby state parks on our Senior Off-Season Pass, we pulled out onto a road in major sun glare, out of which a car appeared, very close and very fast. With a loud bang, we spun around 180 degrees and stopped cross-way in the road. Attempts to pull over were met with a rattle and no movement. The drive shaft lay in the street, with the rear axle pushed back against the spare tire, but little other damage. Inside was a mess, as the shelving and bed tore loose and items toppled from the top of our storage cabinet. But, we were unhurt, the driver who hit us was unhurt, and her car was still movable, so we directed her to the side of the road. While she called her husband and Judy called 911, I directed traffic until the sheriff’s deputies arrived. Hampered by poor phone service in this area, in rural northeast Olympia, eventually a tow truck was called and the insurance company was notified.

Our van was towed away to a body shop, and we rented a car and drove home. After a week of waiting, and a cryptic report from the insurance company, we finally realized that, despite what we thought was minor damage, our van, which we had christened “Bella” when we bought it three years ago in 2021, would be declared a total loss. We rented a small moving truck, emptied the van and removed all the add-on fixtures we could easily do so. We returned the rental car and the moving truck, borrowed a friend’s extra pickup truck, and began shopping for a new van, once the insurance settlement was reached.

Our new van, Bianca, a 2023 All-Wheel-Drive model, was not otherwise as well-equipped as Bella, with smaller mirrors, a smaller rear-view camera screen, and not a lot of extra features that Bella had: no eco-boost engine, parking assist, blind-spot warning lights, or armrests. But, it did have the stock Ford wall panels and a padded vinyl rug in the cargo area, which wasn’t a clean slate like Bella had been, and it changed our conversion plans somewhat. We wouldn’t have to purchase a liner or build a frame and walls inside, so we elected to have a roof fan and passenger seat swivel installed professionally, since it was winter and those needed to be installed first in the process.

We used the rug for a template to build up the solid floor and insulation underneath. We removed the wall panels and installed insulation on the walls, and in the ceiling and cargo doors. We made holes in the panels to line up with the threaded inserts in the walls, to which we bolted Unistrut beams to serve as anchors for the interior fixtures. I also set Rivnuts in the roof ribs to attach Unistrut rails to secure the fronts of the upper cabinets.

Before the wreck, we had already decided to make some major revisions to the van floor plan, mainly to move the tandem bicycle outside, move the bed to the driver’s side, and install floor-to-ceiling storage and a kitchen counter on the passenger side, so that’s the way the new van building went. I liked the idea of a cabinet bulkhead behind the driver’s seat, so we made a narrow electrical cabinet, with a box to house the toilet behind that. The toilet had been under the end of the bed in our last configuration.

So it went, juggling all of the contents of the old van aside to make space to build in the garage workshop. We cleared out an area in the weaving room to layout the floor and later the large plywood partitions, but doing all the cutting in the shop. We cut the wood subfloor with a jigsaw, but most of the rest of the construction was done with my set of Japanese hand saws, a pocket-hole fixture, my ancient Makita cordless drill, my Dad’s old Stanley hand plane, and a set of chisels. I made a few cuts with the old benchtop table saw.

By late June, there was enough done to call it a camper, including a new trailer hitch and hitch-mounted tandem rack. We headed to eastern Washington for a few nights camping and a bike ride on the recently-restored Beverley Bridge across the Columbia River. The bridge was the final link that connected the east and west halves of the cross-state Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail, along the former Milwaukee Road railroad route.

For the rest of the summer, we continued to work on the details and go camping overnight and take bike rides around the Olympic Peninsula, using our weekly hikes with the senior center group to select targets of opportunity. Finally, we planned to leave in early September for a month-long expedition to visit friends and relatives in Montana and Idaho.

(to be continued)