We Did a Thing

OK. Cath and I did a thing. We are in California and bought a camper van. It has been a lifelong dream, and we just pulled the trigger. Over the next couple of weeks, we will drive it 3,000 miles back to Virginia, hopefully the first of many adventures with it.

Cathy and I both have always loved camping and the outdoors. Looking back at our lives, the seeds were set early, and the desire continued to grow. The summer before my senior year at West Point, I took a week and backpacked on the Appalachian Trail through Shenandoah National Park. Cathy and I tent camped together at the end of the hike. After we married and left the States for Europe and the Army, we “car camped” multiple times, including in the Alps, Italy, France, Holland, and Germany. Cathy and her friend Res even road their bikes 160 miles around Lake Constance, which borders Germany, Austria and Switzerland, camping along the way. 

 Returning to the States in ‘89 we were stationed in DC. We joked we lived on the wrong coast, as most of our vacations were out west. We car camped in Arizona multiple times and backpacked into the Grand Canyon as well. Other camping and backpacking trips took us to Yosemite, The Trinity Alps in California, and Wrangle St Elias National Park in Alaska. We often car camped or backpacked for a few days and then rewarded ourselves with a Bed and Breakfast afterwards.

 As we became older, we stayed in hotels and visited places like Bears Ears, and Valley of the Gods in Utah, and Monument Valley in Arizona. Seeing people with tents or vans camping in gorgeous places with no one around, our camping interest returned. We talked at times of buying an RV or a camper van, but at that point, they seemed too expensive, and as we were still working, we really did not have the vacation time to take an extended trip of a month or more.

Something changed in June of this year. Cath and her sister Bonnie rented a Mercedes Sprinter camper van and spent almost three weeks touring Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, including Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons, and Glacier National Park. They had a wonderful time (you can find the link to a short blog I did about their trip in the addendum.)

When they returned the van to Crosby, the owner, he mentioned some things had changed in his life and he would be selling the van if they knew of anyone interested. Cath mentioned it to me after she returned home. I chuckled and said, “Right.”, but then we started talking about it. This was something we talked about quite a bit in our earlier life. We are both retired now, and not getting any younger. How much time did we still have to do something like this? As a bonus, Bonnie and Cathy spent almost three weeks using the van. It was a much better evaluation of its capabilities than kicking the tires and taking a short test drive. 

Over the course of a few weeks, the conversation evolved from “Right” to “Hmmmmm” to “This is an interesting idea” to “Maybe we should call Crosby and see if the van is still available.”  About a month after Cath and Bonnie’s trip, we did just that. 

We spent a week or two on the phone and texting. I learned more about the van and its history and we eventually agreed on having a service and a couple of inspections done, and on a price. 

On the 28th of August we flew to Sacramento, CA and the next day, made the trip to Chico to meet Crosby. Crosby went over several items about the “camper” part of the van and we did a short test drive. I handed him a check, while he gave us the title and bill of sale.  The van was ours. 

We drove from Chico to Philo, CA (near Mendocino) and a surprise visit with Bonnie. After a great three day sendoff from Bonnie and our niece, Lana, we are starting our cross-country drive home.

We have a general route planned, sort of following route 80 with many detours – Donner Pass in California, crossing Nevada on the Loneliest Highway in America, visiting Wheeler Peak in the Great Basin National Park, Salt Lake City, and the Snowy Range Scenic Byway in Wyoming are all planned out. The rest of the journey is still a mystery right now. Two weeks is a little short for the trip, but we have things back in Virginia we need to do. Two weeks will still give us a good taste of what’s to come. 

So there you have it. We are pursuing a dream, and at the same time, doing something we hadn’t even thought about four months ago. Wish us luck and happy trails.

Addendum:

• Here is the blog I mentioned about Bonnie and Cathy’s recent adventure –  Cathy and her sister Bonnie spent three weeks touring the wilderness and National Parks in Wyoming and Montana in a camper van. I’ll talk a little about that. What I really want to talk about is the people who stole their firewood at […] Continue here: https://maxnhall.com/2025/08/19/stealing-firewood/
• General info on the van: