The Space Van

Just before dawn tomorrow morning the Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled (or rather rescheduled) to launch. It will be the final night launch for the shuttle program and only 4 more launches will follow before the 3 remaining shuttles (Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour) are retired for good. Manned spaceflight will carry on with the Russian Soyuz platform, the future Orion spacecraft from NASA and commercial providers, but this will be the end of a great era. The Space Shuttle is truly a space van.

Unlike other manned space flight vehicles we have seen over the years, the shuttle was very much the van of the space program. It had the heavy hauling capacity, the pimped out living quarters and of course was a product of the 70's. No other spacecraft allowed you to load it full of stuff and take it with you like the shuttle did. The same things that have fascinated me about the space shuttle are also many of the same things that fascinate me about vans.

As mentioned earlier, I was always the kid that played in big cardboard boxes. They were never castles or race cars for me, but always spacecraft. I had long been intrigued by the self contained nature of the space shuttle (the spacecraft of my generation) and the way people were able to simultaneously travel and live inside. Poor eyesight and poorer math skills made astronaut an unlikely career, but the dreams of my own self contained space shuttle to explore my universe never faded. Having a van is the grown up manifestation of this childhood fantasy. After all, I am still playing in a box.

I have always viewed my vans as if they were spacecraft. In them I would leave behind the safety and familiarity of my home and venture into the unknown with only myself and my ship to rely on. Of course the back highways of America are significantly less hostile than the frigid vacuum of space, but the concept is similar. During my voyage I would rely on my craft to support all of my life's functions just like the astronauts aboard the shuttle. Eating, sleeping, storing my expendable supplies and so on. Extravehicular Activities (EVA's) required far less effort on my part but still called for me to exit the protective cocoon of my ship to see what was out there.

Even at 30 years old it's not uncommon to find myself daydreaming behind the wheel of my van that rather than the Earth touching my wheels it is a few hundred miles beneath me. Through my windshield are not billboards and asphalt but the soft blue haze of the atmosphere curving away from me. As I pass from the pilots seat to the aft, I still fantasize that I am floating back, free of the confines of gravity. I will miss the Space Shuttle and as I have for years before I will daydream of it often. Part of my vanning passion and hunger for exploration will always be indebted to the big space van.

an old cargo vehicle, or a window into the soul?

What is vanning anyways?

I'm sure that like anything, it depends on who you ask. Basically though, vanning is an interest in customizing and traveling in vans. It's a fairly straightforward hobby that pupated in the 60's, spread its wings and fluttered joyfully through the 70's and then died in the 80's splattered across the windshield of a wood paneled Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Like the phoenix, vanning would rise from its own ashes and transform itself from a shag carpet covered fad into a die hard subculture of people who saw something more. There was something more there than just a big custom car with room for airbrushed murals and velvet covered beds. There was a vehicle that could transform the very way a person lived and perceived the world.

I took an interest in vans even before I really noticed them as a vehicle. I was the kid that would scour the neighborhood trash, waiting for someone to buy a new refrigerator or washing machine so I could drag the empty box home and haul it up into my room. I would draw dials and controls all over the inside and put my radio and sleeping bag in. I would sneak out of my bed at night so I could sleep in the box that I had made all my own. Something in me preferred the small space. Inside there, everything was how I wanted it, and it all made sense to me.

I had always loved to travel. Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of family road trips from Pittsburgh to visit relatives in New Jersey or Maryland. Predawn departures, CB radio chatter, watching the scenery fly by all captivated me. I always got such a kick out of making up my little bed in the back seat to sleep during the drive. The back seat became my own personal house for the duration of the voyage. I watched the Muppet Movie over and over on our Beta max, lusting over the idea of a cross country journey and of seeking my fortune on the open highway.

When I was young, my mother worked for a plumber. I recall one day being in the back of one of the company's brand new Chevy Astrovans. It was still empty, without racks of parts and tools. I was probably around 8 or somewhere around that. I remember being in the back of that empty van, looking at the open space around me and thinking for the first time "Hey, I could live in here.". I have never looked at a van again without thinking the same thing.

It's that concept of a small efficient and mobile home that drives the vanning subculture today. Inside the back of a van, everything is usually installed, arranged and maintained by the person who occupies it. Everything makes sense and can be dealt with in a way that most people can't apply to large complex home. Above it all is the sense of freedom. To be able to drive anywhere and always have your little home right behind you. The freedom to explore at will without having to worry about where you would sleep that night. It's a lifestyle of simplicity and self sufficiency that provides more security than many people could ever fathom. John Steinbeck wrote in Travels with Charley of his camping truck, saying that he was "a kind of casual turtle, carrying his house on his back." That line always stuck with me and I am currently on my 5Th van named "The Casual Turtle 5".

The internet has lead me to know of others out there who share this philosophy and embrace this lifestyle either full time or part time. This blog is my attempt to join in and become an active part of this online community of van dwellers. To share what I have learned and to learn what others have to share with me on the subject. To stoke the embers of a passion that more than any other in my life has defined who I am.

So you've decided to blog...

Let me get one thing out of the way to start with, I don't like the term "blog". It doesn't sound right coming off the tongue, and it lacks legitimacy as a contraction. My reluctance to ever start a blog of my own came largely from my aversion to the word itself. However, a resolution to begin writing again, and the fact that I am unlikely to uproot the word blog from popular culture have brought me here.

There are things swimming around in my head, thoughts, memories, aspirations and fears, that shape the way I see the world. As much for myself as for anyone who may read this, I have decided to use the all powerful interweb to lay out some of those synaptic pearls in an order that may begin to make some sense.

But what to write about...

Without choosing a theme for my blog it would descend into chaos. A post about a passionate political issue on Monday followed on Tuesday by a rant about how some canned foods stack better than others. Not that my writings (and the thoughts that produce them) will ever fall into a sensible order, but at least with a central subject uniting them it may not be as scary.

There are many things that I am passionate about and many more things that interest me (see my profile for a taste), but above all, there has been one area of interest that has defined my outlook more than any other.

Vanning.