Yes, you should be singing the Willie Nelson song along with me right now!
For those of you who are new here, welcome.
Let me go back about a month and tell you what we’ve been up to.
At the end of September, we left our jobs and began moving out of our apartment. On October 12, 2018, we got married. And on October 28, 2018, we hit the road again. It was a crazy month of hard work, fun times and a bit of stress.
Let’s start with moving out of our apartment. We have been living in Santa Cruz, CA for the past couple of years, pretty much since we returned from our last road trip at the end of 2015. While we assumed we would be out of the road after a couple of months back at work, opportunities presented themselves and we ended up settling down for a bit. When we got engaged in June of 2017, we were excited to get to planning our honeymoon. Both John and I have long bucket lists full of potential destinations, but we wanted to stretch our money and our time for as long as we could. Thus ending up planning an epic year-long honeymoon. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, it’s just been week one out here on the road and plans have a way of changing. 
For now, let’s talk about the first three months. Our planned route is to head east from California to Connecticut, then we will head south towards Florida, eventually finding ourselves in the Keys for Christmas. If you followed our last trip, you may be thinking that this is awfully similar to last time, and you would be right. The main difference this time is that we have planned this entire trip to be a surfing trip, no bikes are in the van, just surfboards. Last time, bikes in tow, we spent a lot more time crossing the country and more time inland. This time, aside from crossing the country, we will be sticking to the coasts in search of waves. We will be back in California at the end of January.
Next, we should probably discuss the van. If you follow us on Instagram, by now you should know that we are not in our Ford Econoline van, Sheila. Instead, we are in my parents’ van, Ferdinand the Beast (aka Stoke Van the Beast). Ferdinand is a 2017 Mercedes Sprinter Van 4×4 with a 170 Wheelbase and it was built out by Outside Van, a conversion company just outside of Portland, Oregon. My parents have kindly loaned it to us for the next three months. And let me tell you, it is awesome. We can go into comparisons later, but let me tell you how we got here.
On our way up to our wedding, we were in Sheila, who was over full with all of our stuff. The conversion we did on her earlier this year was intended to be a weekender and let’s just say that we had more than a weekend’s worth of stuff loading her down. We had paired down over and over again and still, it all didn’t fit. As we headed over Highway 17, a steep, winding mountain pass that connects Santa Cruz with Silicon Valley, our front passenger side break seized and clamped closed. Mind you, this had happened before, although not as badly. We take full responsibility for not getting a second opinion on it the previous time, but this time, we had a time constraint, a list of errands to run and a wedding weekend to get to. Needless to say, if there was any stress leading up to the wedding, this exacerbated it all. Everything happens for a reason though, so instead of it taking three hours of driving time and probably an equal amount of time running errands, it took us eleven hours to arrive at our wedding venue. We brought Sheila to a mechanic and they had her fixed and ready to go four hours later. During those four hours, John’s mom shared a piece of wisdom that a friend of hers had shared with her: sometimes when things do not go according to plan, life is trying to teach you a lesson. My lesson that day was to delegate. Leading up to the wedding, everyone kept offering to help. I’m pretty stubborn and kept insisting that we had everything covered. That day, we were stuck without a car and without our home, and I learned how to delegate. Once the car was in the shop, I was on the phone asking for help. 
We arrived at the wedding venue much later than planned, with a whole new brake system on Sheila. And as we were getting ready for bed, we looked at each other and said: “I’m worried about driving across the country with Sheila.” It was one of the most challenging things to admit. This wonderful van had safely taken us around the country once, what was so different this time? Sheila is a 2004 Ford Econoline, with a bit of work needed and couple cross country trips under her belt. It’s not that she couldn’t do it, it’s just that the stress of making her ready to go and making sure we were safe in her was getting to us. A couple of months ago, I had jokingly asked if we could take their van and they had jokingly said yes. After all the stress of the day, we decided to ask them if they were serious.
John and I really struggled with the decision, but in the end, I think we made the right one. We have been on the road for two nights so far and both nights have dipped to or below freezing and we have taken full advantage of what Ferdinand has to offer. 
We have just completed our crossing of the country and I cannot wait to tell you all about it.
Thank you so much for following along and reading this long recap of the last month. Follow us on Instagram at @emmaandjohnbyvan for more frequent updates. We will be sharing a new blog post every Saturday.
Until next time,
Emma
Emma and John by Van 