Hey overlanders! I know this forum is for real-time trip updates, but this trip began about 6 months ago. HOWEVER, it is still ongoing, so I hope it's alright if I post it in here. I'm cool with it if you are. I've written it elsewhere, so I can copy-paste it here faster than one day per day. I should be able to get caught up to real-time updates...someday. I'm not sure exactly how quickly, but let's find out, shall we?
Alright so, first things first (duh), I'm Rob. If you couldn't gather that from the username then perhaps I can't help you. I was a mechanical engineer working in aerospace. My wife is Mandy, and she was a pharmacist. Our dog is Loki, and he IS the best. Our adventure really begins several years ago, when Mandy found a picture of a pretty lake online. That lake was Atitlan in Guatemala, and we planned a trip to see it. Back then, we flew. But while we were there, we saw a van with Montana license plates on it, and it was then that we realized someone drove there. And if someone else could do it, so could we.
It was not an immediate spark of "Let's change our whole lives and do this straight away", like you often hear about. Although, that is where we got engaged, so we did change our lives a bit. Just not necessarily in the direction of overlanding the world. But we did talk about it off and on for a while thereafter. It would just come up randomly at times and we would consider the various hows. What vehicle would we use? What path would we take if we did that? And so on. Meanwhile, we started paying off our student loans more and more aggressively. And we put in a bunch of work to our home to improve it. This was several years in the making, you see. But with a healthy dose of luck in the housing market, we were able to sell our house in a day and earn enough money to pay off the remaining loans on our brains and our house, buy a van and sock away enough to upfit it.
So, I quit my job. It was cheaper for us to build a van ourselves, rather than buy one already built. Plus, we could create exactly what we wanted, rather than compromise on a really expensive vehicle. If you'd like to read about that whole process, I write it up here:
expeditionportal.com
If you don't care about all that, that's fine too, just stick around here. I'm about to get to the adventuring part. Just a teensy bit more background first. I feel like it's relevant because it kind of defines part of the trip. The important bits of the build that you need to know if you opted not to read that other thread are that we completed it in December in southern NH. If you haven't been to NH in December, it gets pretty frickin' cold. And snowy. It's awesome for skiing, terrible for living in a vehicle. With Loki to consider, we couldn't both work jobs, because he'd just be in the van alone all day. So, Mandy quit her job about 9 or 10 months after I had quit mine, and she picked up a short, 3-month contract in Arizona. This would pay more than if she'd stayed put, and it got us out of the New England winter and into a milder climate. So now you understand where we were at, I hope, when we finally moved in and set out. Our ultimate goal is to get to Ushuaia, but we're still working on the timeline of getting there as we go. It's not going to be a direct route, so if that's what you're here for, come back later, I suppose.
Mandy works until 3:30pm Friday in Beverly, MA. There's a massive snowstorm rolling up the eastern seaboard, with Massachusetts and NH forecast to receive 1.5-2 feet of snow, and we can't leave until she gets out. At 3:45pm, after she's said all her goodbyes and gone back inside for forgotten items, we left. We made it as far as Cracker Barrel in Fishkill, NY. We parked just as it was barely starting to snow.
![PXL_20220129_125752833.TS_exported_7965_1643493071167.jpg PXL_20220129_125752833.TS_exported_7965_1643493071167.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631628-35147a292f4e5bdeafeee81ee9a78c14.jpg)
There was some decent drifting by morning, but it was tough to get a real read on how much had fallen. Maybe a few inches? It was still coming down though. So, we hustled through our morning routine and dog walk. Loki's finally getting comfy moving about inside our new home:
![PXL_20220129_122528163.jpg PXL_20220129_122528163.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631629-95db4b743b171755ac1c258b72b4ab4b.jpg)
Saturday morning, we hit the road in search of cheesesteaks since it was on our way, more or less. Honestly, should have gotten cheesecakes instead. We went to Pat's in Philly and it was underwhelming. I dunno. They pickle the peppers, I mean, what the hell?! The roads were sloppy most of the way there, but the van was solid. It was in 4WD most of the time, cruising between 40 and 50. Crosswind assist was coming in clutch, because this storm was bringing some heavy winds up the whole coast. We saw this awesome old bus at a random pit stop:
![PXL_20220129_154417106.jpg PXL_20220129_154417106.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631630-c40f90ebfb342d83567cd5cf49696e69.jpg)
Originally, we were going to park it in Philly for the night, but once we were there, we were not feeling it. The wind was pretty brutal. So, we hopped back on the road towards wonderful West Virginia. It's probably not going to be any warmer, but it will get us to warmth sooner than if we didn't carry on.
We stopped along the way when Loki got antsy, in North East, MD. Never heard of it. But it was pretty adorable. Super creative naming; you'd never guess where it's located. We just did a loop around town on foot to stretch out the ol' legs and burn off some steak and cheese. Their fire department has a gorgeous engine from 1922 that we got to see through the glass. It looks to be perfectly restored. It was very impressive.
![PXL_20220129_201616807.jpg PXL_20220129_201616807.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631631-51cafaab4b37016a61bfc586e9e90f53.jpg)
We drove to Rusty Nail Winery in Martinsburg, WV for the night. They're a Harvest Host, and so we sampled some wines and then parked for the night in their lot for free. The wines were delicious, the owners were awesome, and we had a great night.
Alright so, first things first (duh), I'm Rob. If you couldn't gather that from the username then perhaps I can't help you. I was a mechanical engineer working in aerospace. My wife is Mandy, and she was a pharmacist. Our dog is Loki, and he IS the best. Our adventure really begins several years ago, when Mandy found a picture of a pretty lake online. That lake was Atitlan in Guatemala, and we planned a trip to see it. Back then, we flew. But while we were there, we saw a van with Montana license plates on it, and it was then that we realized someone drove there. And if someone else could do it, so could we.
It was not an immediate spark of "Let's change our whole lives and do this straight away", like you often hear about. Although, that is where we got engaged, so we did change our lives a bit. Just not necessarily in the direction of overlanding the world. But we did talk about it off and on for a while thereafter. It would just come up randomly at times and we would consider the various hows. What vehicle would we use? What path would we take if we did that? And so on. Meanwhile, we started paying off our student loans more and more aggressively. And we put in a bunch of work to our home to improve it. This was several years in the making, you see. But with a healthy dose of luck in the housing market, we were able to sell our house in a day and earn enough money to pay off the remaining loans on our brains and our house, buy a van and sock away enough to upfit it.
So, I quit my job. It was cheaper for us to build a van ourselves, rather than buy one already built. Plus, we could create exactly what we wanted, rather than compromise on a really expensive vehicle. If you'd like to read about that whole process, I write it up here:
![expeditionportal.com](https://expeditionportal.com/wp-content/themes/expo4/images/logo-header-k.png)
It's kind of like a Revel, but not.
So you want to read about another van build, huh? What makes this one so different from all the others? Probably nothing. But you like reading the same story over and over. That's cool, I don't judge. Strap in for some reading before we get to the pictures. If you want. Or just scroll down to...
![expeditionportal.com](https://expeditionportal.com/wp-content/themes/expo4/images/logo-header-k.png)
If you don't care about all that, that's fine too, just stick around here. I'm about to get to the adventuring part. Just a teensy bit more background first. I feel like it's relevant because it kind of defines part of the trip. The important bits of the build that you need to know if you opted not to read that other thread are that we completed it in December in southern NH. If you haven't been to NH in December, it gets pretty frickin' cold. And snowy. It's awesome for skiing, terrible for living in a vehicle. With Loki to consider, we couldn't both work jobs, because he'd just be in the van alone all day. So, Mandy quit her job about 9 or 10 months after I had quit mine, and she picked up a short, 3-month contract in Arizona. This would pay more than if she'd stayed put, and it got us out of the New England winter and into a milder climate. So now you understand where we were at, I hope, when we finally moved in and set out. Our ultimate goal is to get to Ushuaia, but we're still working on the timeline of getting there as we go. It's not going to be a direct route, so if that's what you're here for, come back later, I suppose.
Mandy works until 3:30pm Friday in Beverly, MA. There's a massive snowstorm rolling up the eastern seaboard, with Massachusetts and NH forecast to receive 1.5-2 feet of snow, and we can't leave until she gets out. At 3:45pm, after she's said all her goodbyes and gone back inside for forgotten items, we left. We made it as far as Cracker Barrel in Fishkill, NY. We parked just as it was barely starting to snow.
![PXL_20220129_125752833.TS_exported_7965_1643493071167.jpg PXL_20220129_125752833.TS_exported_7965_1643493071167.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631628-35147a292f4e5bdeafeee81ee9a78c14.jpg)
There was some decent drifting by morning, but it was tough to get a real read on how much had fallen. Maybe a few inches? It was still coming down though. So, we hustled through our morning routine and dog walk. Loki's finally getting comfy moving about inside our new home:
![PXL_20220129_122528163.jpg PXL_20220129_122528163.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631629-95db4b743b171755ac1c258b72b4ab4b.jpg)
Saturday morning, we hit the road in search of cheesesteaks since it was on our way, more or less. Honestly, should have gotten cheesecakes instead. We went to Pat's in Philly and it was underwhelming. I dunno. They pickle the peppers, I mean, what the hell?! The roads were sloppy most of the way there, but the van was solid. It was in 4WD most of the time, cruising between 40 and 50. Crosswind assist was coming in clutch, because this storm was bringing some heavy winds up the whole coast. We saw this awesome old bus at a random pit stop:
![PXL_20220129_154417106.jpg PXL_20220129_154417106.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631630-c40f90ebfb342d83567cd5cf49696e69.jpg)
Originally, we were going to park it in Philly for the night, but once we were there, we were not feeling it. The wind was pretty brutal. So, we hopped back on the road towards wonderful West Virginia. It's probably not going to be any warmer, but it will get us to warmth sooner than if we didn't carry on.
We stopped along the way when Loki got antsy, in North East, MD. Never heard of it. But it was pretty adorable. Super creative naming; you'd never guess where it's located. We just did a loop around town on foot to stretch out the ol' legs and burn off some steak and cheese. Their fire department has a gorgeous engine from 1922 that we got to see through the glass. It looks to be perfectly restored. It was very impressive.
![PXL_20220129_201616807.jpg PXL_20220129_201616807.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/631/631631-51cafaab4b37016a61bfc586e9e90f53.jpg)
We drove to Rusty Nail Winery in Martinsburg, WV for the night. They're a Harvest Host, and so we sampled some wines and then parked for the night in their lot for free. The wines were delicious, the owners were awesome, and we had a great night.