original date June 17, 2026. I started daily documentation of my adventure on another platform but wish to bring it over to Hive. Since I am only 8 days behind, I will be back posting every 12 hours until I am caught up. If I was any more behind, I would scrap it; but my OCD is telling me that I need the whole chronology on here
Alright. Big, bold and impulsive decisions being made here. I’m pulling the trigger. Time to buy a van.
I woke up in my Subaru this morning in a nice park a friend recommended to me as a car camping spot. I immediately said, ok, let’s get this moving.
After 3-4 attempts at getting out of the trunk due to broken rib pain, I went for a walk while researching the best places in town to sell my car, continuing the search for vans, and (unfortunately) cheap places to stay. I feel somewhat ashamed of getting a motel room 3 days into this, but I couldn’t conceive of any other way to make this happen. My car is FULL of personal belongings. I need to empty the car to sell the car. I need the money from the sale of the car to buy the van. Additionally, it’s not like that’s gonna happen simultaneously, so I need a place to put the stuff.
So I swallowed my “pride”. Nah, it was shame haha. I found the cheapest motel in town and checked in. The reviews for this place were fucking HORRID but I find it honestly perfectly fine; exceptional even, for the price. People just LOVE to complain.
Anyways I made some appointments to get quotes on my car and made some listings online. Well, I lied. First, I went for another walk to get coffee. That turned into a many hour ordeal, but I was actively making car listings and setting up quote appointments while doing so. There’s something about being in a new place that gives me an absolute NEED to go walk around and figure the place out. Like a compulsion. I physically couldn’t sit in the room and get down to business.
Regardless, I did stumble upon this cute little coffee shop on my search. The price was… but I mean I guess that’s normal for a coffee shop in the Pacific Northwest. What did I expect? But the coffee was fantastic and they were very friendly. There’s a nice little outdoor area. So if by any wild chance anyone who reads this happens to end up in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Portland, check out Cafe Eleven. They’ve got a nice little outdoor seating area too and it’s just far enough off of MLK that the traffic noise is less than noticeable.
Anyways, I headed back to the room. I had not realized how long I’d been walking. My usual self-wrangling technique is that when I get the 20% battery notification on my phone, I head back to base.
Furthermore, I had actually already received a lot of interest in the car, and I realized… ALL OF MY SHIT IS STILL IN IT. It would take a long time to clear it out and clean the car so it was an all of a sudden “oh shit” moment and I hurried on back.
I’ll save you the details of all of the people I met about the car. The low-balls, the no shows, the dead ends, the guy who actually thought it was a different car despite a clear listing(???) In the end, I fucking sold it!! Im still kind of in shock. This was something I knew I wanted to do eventually, but had been extremely hesitant about pulling the trigger until all of a sudden it was like “nope this is happening now” and twelve hours later it’s done. It’s for the better. I will always love you my little wagon, but it’s time to get something a little more livable.
A couple of leads into various rigs i had fell apart. But there was one that was promising on a van that I am super in to. The problem was, someone was ahead of me in line and I had a sinking feeling they were going to buy it. But fuckin hell, the seller let me know in the afternoon that that person was a no show. So I’m going to see it tomorrow and I’m REALLY hoping it’s in good shape because I absolutely love it. I have a back up too that I’m going to see a couple hours after but it’s a little out of the range of what I’d like to pay so… fingers crossed.
So I went for another celebratory walk. 10 miles… I think I have a problem. Walking really is the only thing I can do right now with my broken ribs. A few days ago it still kinda hurt to even walk, so that’s big progress I suppose.
Now I’m back in this supposedly “scary” motel watching the SyFy channel. They’ve kinda been on a tear. I never really have had cable TV so every time I’m in a hotel room(which is very rare) I get fascinated with literally anything. I’ll straight up sit there and watch something that couldn’t normally interest me less and be like “WOW this is what TV is!”
Gonna watch Edward Scissorhands while eating my typical Oregon dinner of cheese and hummus. Tonight’s choice was Swiss and Pine Nut. Not sure how I feel about the Swiss. Still kinda slaps though.
photo precariously framed to avoid my dumb feet
Take care everyone :) I hope that tomorrow I have a new van to show you!
