Anybody have any ideas? If so, I would love to hear about it.
As my camper car project continues, it was inevitable that I would start to ponder this question, and if this... car... could be it?
My best definition of home so far... and I confess it's not much of one, but I think home is a place where, when you are there, you can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that you have returned....
Right now, I have two beds: My old closet bed (hehe) and the new car bed (oh my). You know, just reading that, I realized that I may not be a "normal" person. I dunno, it's amusing to me at least. I may also be easily amused haha.
Anyways, I noticed that when I lie down in my closet bed, I physically breathe a sigh of relief. However, I have yet to do that with my car bed, even though I plan to exclusively sleep there from now on. In my mind though, the car is still this "other place" that I do not yet acknowledge as home.
However, as I got stuck in traffic today, it dawned on me that getting stuck in traffic was irritating only because I was eager to get home, whereas for VanDwellers, since they are already home, I imagine a traffic jam would be more of a minor inconvenience.... Hmm, could my perspective eventually shift like that as well? After all this, I sure hope so.
Anyways, I finally got some sleep last night in my car bed. It was kind of intermittent, only because a friend of mine texted me last night. Otherwise, I slept just fine.
I also built a platform for my toilet bucket today. About the only thing I can imagine worse than pooping in a car, is pooping in a car, on an uneven surface that could potentially topple the bucket over. Maybe. The space is tight, but even the remotest of possibility was unacceptable to me, and so, a sturdy, level platform had to be built.
Luckily, compared to the bed frame, this wasn't as difficult of a project, so I was able to get it mostly done today. I also snapped a couple of pictures for show-and-tell:
There are still some small additions or changes I need to make, so this isn't the final version yet.
And so, as the sun sets, I am settling into day 3 of me living in my car... in my garage. Baby steps. Oh, and please feel free to tell me your ideas of home.
What is home?
March 28th, 2017 at 11:49 pm
March 29th, 2017 at 12:38 pm 1490787495
I think you would probably not feel "at home" while in a traffic jam, because you are actually still on the job, navigating the car.
March 30th, 2017 at 01:43 am 1490834583
March 30th, 2017 at 04:45 pm 1490888718
March 30th, 2017 at 06:50 pm 1490896208
My current plan is to basically drive this car into the ground, and hopefully that's something far out like 15 years from now, where assuming all goes well, I will pick up and rebuild another Prius and keep on rolling.
But a lot of things can happen in 15 years so who knows? I guess only time will tell....
March 30th, 2017 at 07:28 pm 1490898536
March 30th, 2017 at 08:18 pm 1490901520
The larger trash bag inside can collect several more of these doubled-bagged doo-doos until I can get to a proper trash dump, where then I can pull out the entire bucket, tie up the larger trash bag and pull it all out and dispose of it.
Now, I know all this sounds really gross... and that's why I didn't go into the details haha. However, this is a fairly common system that many VanDwellers use, and believe it or not, but it is much better than the commercial portable potties that involves chemicals, moving parts, and stuff sloshing around.
March 30th, 2017 at 10:09 pm 1490908156
March 31st, 2017 at 02:03 am 1490922185
April 1st, 2017 at 06:11 am 1491023471
April 1st, 2017 at 07:43 am 1491029024
Yes, the main source of showering is through a nationwide gym. I really need to work out anyways. Naturally, they also have bathrooms, and these gyms are often open 24 hours, so I can use that whenever.
And yeah, I fully agree with you about appreciating one's home. I used to take the bathroom and shower for granted, but I see now how wonderful and convenient it is to essentially have them at your disposal whenever you need it. Transitioning to cardwelling will most certainly going to be quite the lifestyle change for me.
I also have a nice sofa that I will miss as well, when I transition full-time.
As for tarp and lawn chairs, it's a possibility.... I need a bit more time to figure out these details, but they are lower on the list of priorities right now. But I do have something in mind... but I'll blog about it later when I get there.