In The Beginning

It’s January of 1990 I, Nolan, am born, at home, underwater, in a horse trough, in a chicken coop. 
Twenty-one and a half years later it is July 31, 2011 and I have just purchased a 1991 VW Vanagon. 

The obsession with the idea of a van first started in January 2011, seven months ago, while I was living in Santa Cruz California. Now don’t get me wrong, Santa Cruz is a pleasant little beach town (if you’re into crummy little beach towns) with a lot to offer. However, the moment I arrived, to start living there, an unannounced feeling of terror crept over me. Assuming the sensation would pass I establish myself in this town, but these uncomfortable feelings continued to grow. The hardest part was that there was nothing tangible for me to pin my discomfort on, there was just “bad voodoo” in the air. 

A year goes by and I am walking through my Santa Cruz house. I realize how little room I actually use. I keep looking up to the ceiling and stretching my arms. “Look at all this unused space! I pay $450 a month to live here and I never use all this space!” It was time to downsize.

Now fast forward a couple of months. I am in Monterey with a female friend whom I have known since high school. She came down from Washington state to visit me and some friends. The day I moved out of our home town, the summer of our graduating year, is the day she realized she was desperately in love with me. Now, three years later, she is still in love with me. I had been interested in her in the past, but these feelings had long gone. I considered our relationship to be strictly platonic at this point. 

Things change however and after a week in Monterey together I realize that she was what I needed in my life. She was the person who would help me put my horrible experience, in Santa Cruz, behind me. My idea of traveling around the country in a van was now obsolete. I found myself moving to Washington to fulfill my dreams of love. 

Not even two months of living together and she realizes that she no longer loves me. My world is turned upside down. I honestly expected to spend the rest of my life with this woman. I am broken, I am devastated, I am crushed, I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection. 

I’m confused, I can’t think straight, my mind reels and reels and reels until the synapses of my brain overheat and melt. 

At my lowest moment I realize: I am endowed with a gift. A gift possessed by every creature on the planet. 

Instinct.

So breath, Nolan....breath and clear your mind. Listen to your instinct and clear....your....mind....

SELL MY CAR AND BUY A VAN


(instinct speaks with "caps lock" on apparently)

Instinct brings me back to plan “A”. 

I will now start to document my adventure.

Today you have seen me acquire an adventure vessel.