Letters from Away

On the Road to Find Out

I said the road is my redeemer
I never know just what on earth I’ll find
in the face of a stranger
From the song “Jesus In New Orleans” by Over the Rhine

When I share that I plan to travel the country in a camper van, some people tell me it sounds exciting or that they’ve always dreamed of making such a trip.

Others ask: “Why on earth would you do that?”

A Good Night’s Sleep

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest

My bedroom is done.

Well, “bedroom” is probably an exaggeration.

But the bed platform in my van is built and with a few minor adjustments will soon accommodate a twin-size futon so I can stretch out and rest my weary bones after long days of nomading. (Yes, that’s a thing.)

The Lure of Lithium Iron Phosphate

I will be “building out” Nautilus this spring and summer.

I named my Sprinter van after the submarine that Captain Nemo piloted in Jules Verne’s prophetic tale of adventure, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Consider that Step One in the camper van building process.

What’s Step Two?

Parked on Pearl

By the time this year’s cicadas have vanished from the Connecticut landscape, I could be halfway to Oregon, where my middle daughter lives in a floating home with her wife and their two dogs — a shepherd the size of a wolf and a tiny Chihuahua — and a colorful beta fish named Sailor.

Or I could be halfway back to Connecticut.

That’s how fluid and casual things will be in my newly nomadic #vanlife.