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 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.

On this late-April afternoon, if I push my face up against my living room window, I can just see the back of my new-to-me Sprinter van parked a block downhill from Wesleyan, near College Street. 

It’s the largest vehicle on the street, a vacant shell of steel and glass that I will soon begin filling out with the necessities of daily living: a platform bed with storage underneath; a cabinet with a little sink with a faucet; a countertop for a butane stove; a portable toilet; a cooler I plan to replace with a 12-volt refrigerator when my electrical system is in place; and perhaps the most important addition of all: a long single bookshelf on one wall, up near the ceiling. 

The shelf will hold, among its many treasured volumes, a slim pale green hardcover copy of “20,000 Leagues Under the Seas” that was printed the year I was born. It is from this tale that I have taken the name “Nautilus” for my van. I suppose that would make me Captain Nemo, and my voyage one of exploration and wide-eyed discovery.

For now, the van is empty behind the front seats. I need to clean it before I start anything else; it still carries the dust of Maryland, where it was an Amazon delivery van until several months before I bought it on the last day of March 2026.

Soon, I will turn my focus to “the build.” My progress will be measured not just by the passage of the days of the week, but also by how steadily I am approaching the day when I have done enough that I can leave on my first voyage.

I’m going to pick journeys that take me where I’ve not been recently (or ever): Niagara Falls, which I last saw almost 45 years ago; Cape Vincent, N.Y., where, in 1862, my Canadian great-great grandparents were married and became Americans after leaving behind their southern Ontario homestead; the gash of the Grand Canyon; glorious Yosemite; the giant redwoods to the south, at the top of a miles-long switchback road that follows the river loggers used almost two centuries ago to transport felled trees to market; my daughter’s Portland home, of course; and the rugged Oregon coastline, to bark at sea lions and to see how it all compares to Maine.

I’ll photograph the places I visit and I’ll sell greeting cards with the images. I’ll also post them in this blog and on my website (johnfward.net).

An important acquisition for my journeys will be a painted canvas backdrop to clamp to the sliding side door of the van when I park, to shoot portraits of interesting people about whom I will also write. Think of it as a laid-back travelogue sprinkled with portraits and occasional road-inspired wisdom.

Wherever I’m headed, I will not rush; I’ll be in no real hurry to get there, wherever “there” might be. And I’ll come back to Connecticut several times a year to catch up on doctor visits, see my two East Coast daughters, and play Trouble and dress-up with my fabulous grandchildren.

The rhythm of my voyages will be the march of seasons and holidays, not the ticking of any clock. I don’t have any false notions that every day will be blue-sky sunny with cool breezes wafting through my van, or that every morning will be Instagramable. I expect to have ups, like gazing across the vastness of Lake Superior, and downs, like nights of fitful sleep parked in noisy highway rest stops. 

But even the average of those extremes should be a pretty good deal — worth writing home about, wherever home might be at that moment; something to put on a T-shirt? I guess I could sell T-shirts along with the cards. I would welcome the cash, but my real bottom line will always be the experiences themselves and the indelible memories I will carry with me as I cruise around North America in my Sprinter van named Nautilus.