Livin’ in a van down by the ocean

Since before Vada was born Carmen and I have been trying to figure out how we would travel and do “adventures” with an infant in tow. She’s a little young to handle sleeping on snow and ice and it’s going to be a few more years before she can walk in crampons or clip into a rope. We’ve also already learned the hard way that she can’t spend as much time on the trail as we can. That means that for quite a while we’re going to be close the the trail head. So then where do we camp? And how can Jamie go with us? I started looking at camper vans, mainly pimped out VW vans (Westfalia) last year. Even the most updated vans were still a VW and would have been very tight with two adults, a growing child, and a greyhound. Then I found Sportsmobiles. They look like they could drive over a VW. Before we left for Japan we finally found a used one for sale here in Oregon and just had to go for it.

It’s built on a 2006 Ford E350 van. Then it was raised four inches and four wheel drive was added. Then they cut out the top and put in a pop-top (penthouse) bed. Add in a stove, sink, refrigerator, furnace, and power it all by solar power and propane and suddenly we can go just about anywhere (literally) and have plenty of room for all four of us. Although it is embarrassingly big — we sit almost eye-to-eye with truckers, we had to modify the front of our house to get in in the carport, and we’ve been asked if we are going to a monster truck rally — it does give us the ability to really get exactly where we want to go in a pretty small package.

This weekend was our inaugural trip in it to the Oregon coast. It was quick, only one night, but it gave us a chance to get things figured out and for pup to claim her space in the back of the van.

While at the coast we went to Cannon Beach. It was our first time there and it’s a really great location. I think Jamie liked it most of all. She would go crazy when her feet would hit the wet sand. We tried (as evidenced by the photos below) to run with her a bit, but there was just no way to catch up. The beach has pretty steep walls between the sand and town and very few stairs. So it is pretty closed off from traffic and streets. There were a lot of people around, so we (gulp) let her off leash and let her run. Man. She had a blast. I think Carmen and I both had mild heart attacks as she took off down the beach at 35 mph making giant loops around us before she shot past us at full speed and was a football field away before we really knew what happened. And then as quickly as it all started she ran out of energy and started looking for people to give her rubs. In less than a minute she had done her sprints and had trotted back to me ready to resume our walk on the beach.
It was absolutely fantastic to see her run as far and as hard as she wanted. And she was one happy dog while she was doing it. That is one treat though that I don’t think she’ll get again for a long, long time.