White Van with Bed

Saw this one parked on the streets of SF. Interesting minimalist design - there's just a bed in the back and some curtains between the bed and the seats.

-Dawn

BRV in the 70s

Wow. Today my dad sent me these pictures. I had no idea I was re-living my childhood with the BRV. How could Amber have known when she bought it?



We need this carpeting in the BRV! And the curtains. For that matter, we need the bunny seat cover too. I'm hiring my dad as our new interior decorator. Clearly I did not inherit his talents. This does, however, explain my strong affinity for the color orange.


My father explains the layout of the interior to accommodate a family of 4: "The adult beds were on the floor. Perpendicular to the floor bed were two cots that stretched across the width, hanging about 32” above the floor. Two children fit nicely on the 4 foot long cots."

We also learn from this picture that I was pretty darn cute as a kid.

-Dawn

Honda Element conversion - a mini-BRV?

The Honda Element camper conversion is a very cool concept. I'm sure it gets better gas mileage than the BRV, and is easier to park, but it doesn't have nearly as much space, and climbing through the sun roof to get into the bed seems tricky, especially when getting out of bed in the middle of the night...

-Dawn

Folsom lake camping trip

We took the BRV out on its first multi-day trip. We decided on Folsom lake mainly because by the time we looked for campsites this was the only state park with one available Memorial Day weekend within reasonable driving distance. Turns out there was a good reason for this: the campground was lovely, but it was on the far side of the lake, and pretty darn inaccessible from the south/west - basically an extra hour drive around the lake and up over the American river from where we thought we would be staying.

I never knew there was this enormous lake just a few miles north of Sacramento. I've only heard of one thing in the town of Folsom: a prison. And guess where that prison is situated....right on Folsom lake (the south side so we never saw it).

On this trip we learned a lot of useful things:
1. The BRV gets bad gas mileage
2. The BRV can accelerate up hill (unlike our car which requires a running start to get up a long hill, and is decelerating the whole way up)
3. The BRV can hold it's own speed in traffic, none of that lame driving in the right lane with the campers for us!

We can easily keep up with this man on a horse!






4. It is possible to be totally self-contained for 3 days in the BRV*
5. Dawn is good at food planning, Amber is good at BRV packing and organizing
6. The driver's door on the BRV will swing open at inopportune times (like while speeding down the freeway) if it's not closed just right.
7. Our van camping packing skills still need some fine tuning

(*especially if you have a brother come bring you a bag of ice on day 2.)

On that last point, after our big shopping trip we had a lot of potentially useful gear for the BRV, and this was our first chance to test it out:

Mosquito netting - We duck taped this over the windows to allow for ventilation without bugs - this worked pretty well, but we have a vision for a better solution that will be more re-usable (stay tuned).



Camp stove - bought the cheapest version but it worked really well and I cooked several two pot meals including a chicken stew with tons of veggies. It turns out, if you cut up all your veggies in advance and measure out all the ingredients, cooking really is just as easy as it looks on all those cooking shows.



Pans - whoops, forgot I had already bought a camping fry pan so I bought another one at the grocery store, and now we have two. But it's van camping, we have room for two!

Camping shower - We were staying at a state park specifically because they have showers (important to wash off all the pollen every day), but this place had only 2 showers for the entire campground, and 5pm is peak shower time. After a 12 mile hike, we saw the hour long line and decided it was a good time to try out the camping shower. It's really just a black bag with a hose on the end that employs gravity to deliver the shower. Unfortunately we weren't quite ready to use said shower - we didn't have anywhere to hang it, we hadn't worked out the shower curtain situation yet, and we hadn't left it out in the sun to heat. I have a vision of hooking a curtain across the back doors of the BRV and putting the shower up on top of the van....but first we need to get the back doors fixed so they will open. So this time we improvised, and for a squatting down, partially exposed showering experience, it worked reasonably well (no pictures available - this isn't that kind of a blog).

Cooler - OK I know everyone uses these, but I don't think I've ever owned a real cooler. Just those cheap ones that don't really work for more than a few hours. I put veggies and chicken and other stuff in our cooler with a bag of ice, and after a really hot Saturday I started to get worried that the food would go bad before cooking Sunday night. But it was a 25 minute drive (each way) to the nearest store. Fortunately we had already planned some hiking with my brother so we got him to bring an extra bag of ice. But when I went to add the fresh ice to the cooler I noticed the ice in there was still totally frozen. It's like a miracle! The extra ice did not go to waste: we had a bottle of white wine that was nicely chilled for dinner Sunday night.

Big plastic water container - the kind that collapse when they are empty and have a spout so you can fill them with water and then have running water at your camp site. Amber wonders why her family never had such an amazing convenience.




Curtains behind the drivers seats - a brilliant idea from Amber that not only blocks out the light from all the windows in the front but also makes the back of the van seem more homey.




Kitchen island - ok we didn't actually get this for the camping trip, we just got lucky and found one we wanted near Sacramento on craigslist and used this trip as an opportunity to pick it up. So our campsite was much classier than all the other ones (even the RV ones didn't have a kitchen island)!


Bed-in-a-bag - this is the cheapest way to get new sheets and a blanket. In this case you get what you pay for. I think the sheets have a thread count of 10, and the very poofy comforter was just thick enough for sleeping on warm nights.

Radio - The BRV does not have a radio so Amber got us a portable one that has an ipod dock, and she tied it to the dash so that we have a pretty good radio right where it should be. The BRV runs a little loud on the freeway, but so does the Tracker so we're used to blasting the radio to hear over the car noise.


Note the fancy kleenex dispenser now built in to the BRV dash as well!

Butane lighter - another miracle tool that I've never owned. No more messing around with matches!








Firewood - yep, this stuff really works. And buying it before you get to the campground is a great strategy we plan to employ in the future.

Camp chairs - I've always been jealous of friends who bring the comfy camp chairs, and now that we've got a big van there's space for us to cart along the campsite comfort.




Rain/bug tent - You know the big square contraptions that people put up over their picnic tables at campsites to keep out the rain and bugs? Well we seem to have purchased only the netting part of that. We're not sure if that was because I had a vision of using it to keep bugs out of the BRV (which clearly won't work) or because Amber wanted the whole thing but we didn't notice you have to buy the poles and top part separately. Either way, it was useless.

Marshmallows - 2 bags, a small accident of duplication, but you never can have too many marshmallows when camping, especially when you've got chocolate and grahams and firewood and a butane lighter.

What we didn't bring but should have:
- swimsuits - yep, we were camping on a lake and this didn't occur to us
- bowls - plates can't be used for everything
- mugs - 1 isn't enough for 2 people
- pillows - bed-in-a-bag doesn't include pillows, just the pillowcases
- quarters - showers at parks only take quarters, fortunately same brother who brought the ice also brought some quarters

The BRV also made some friends on this trip:


The BRV's little brother, owned by my little brother











This guy pulled up next to us on the freeway to ask the year of our van!


-Dawn

BRV's cousin found at MOMA

On display at the MOMA in NYC this month is this piece called Collective Subconscious, by Yin Xiuzhen.

The BRV has a Chinese cousin!

The viewer is invited to go inside the vehicle. It's a bit minimalist for our taste, in terms of utility for camping, but very spacious! Pretty sure it's not road tested.

-Dawn

Outfitting Our Campervan

Today Dawn and I had our first ever "shopping date" were we went to Wal-Mart, Target, and Sports Authority to get gear for the BRV. I'd already installed mats for the floor (that rubber interlocking gym flooring) and put the futon inside the back of the van, but otherwise I'd held off on buying any more camping or vehicle accessories until we took a trip and learned what we needed.

For example, on our maiden voyage last month, we were a bit cold during the night and realized, "We need a comforter or thicker blankets!" or "We need curtains so people can't see inside our van when we're changing." This is incremental/iterative development as applied to campervans.

Here's some of the stuff we purchased today:

• window shades/coverings
• cargo bar and curtains
• cup holders
• ice chest/cooler
• two burner camp stove
• cooking & eating utensils
• water jug
• table cloth
• camp chairs
• canopy w/netting
• flashlight & lantern
• comforter & bedding
• travel alarm clock
• solar shower
• towels
• plastic storage bin
• steering wheel lock

Our next trip is planned for Memorial Day Weekend, when we'll have a chance to try out all these new toys.

-Amber

Maiden Voyage

This weekend was the first trip in our BRV. We decided to go someplace close, and chose Half Moon Bay State Beach. It's right on the ocean, a very scenic spot on the Northern California coast. It was funny driving into the campground in our van, seeking all the humungous RVs around. I guess our van isn't that big when compared to the Class A motorhomes. But no matter, it has a big heart! Here's it is, you can see the weather was a bit overcast.

As expected, we discovered a few things we're forgotten or wished we'd brought along, most notable firewood. We planned to buy it at the campground, but they were sold out, and we were reduced to the imitation duraflame log from the local supermarket. The log refused to catch, despited us going through half a pack of matches trying to light it. The strong winds coming off the ocean didn't make things easier. The guy at the campsite next to ours apparently saw our woes, and came over to offer us kindling. How nice! With the extra small pieces of wood, our fire got going nicely, and Dawn roasted some marshmallows which is one of her favorite parts of camping. I just like watching the fire.

So with a little help from a friendly neighbor, our initial adventure was a success. We had a nice hike along the coast before dark, dinner at Sam's Chowder House during sunset, and a campfire at night. The full-size futon handled two adults comfortably, despite being the cheapest model I could find, and when compared to being in sleeping bags on the hard ground, it was luxury. The next morning, there was no tent to break down, we could just get dressed and drive away....

-Dawn