Weeks 8+9: SoCal -> SoCal
Still here!
This week was jam packed, but with nothing too exciting until the weekend. Before arriving in San Diego, Nick posted in a Van Life SD group that he was open to van-related work. Since we had done most of the quintessential SD activities after a week there, we decided to accept some jobs, the first being building under-bed storage in a Ram Promaster. That job took one day, but the client called us back to do more work the following day, so it turned into double the work (and double the pay, yay!). Speaking of the following day, guess what happened!
It was 10:09am and I was about to leave the Planet Fitness after my shower. As I was putting my sweatshirt on, the stalls in the locker room started to shake and a muffled droning noise filled the space. “That jet is flying mighty close!”, I thought to myself. Then the floor started jiggling. I could feel the bones in my legs shaking, starting from my feet and going to my knees. It felt like what I’d imagine those weight loss vibration plates feel like. Just Jell-O legs. At this point, I realized that I was in the #2 state in the entire country for earthquake activity, just behind Alaska.
My primal fight or flight instinct didn’t kick in, just a sense of excited confusion as I stood there. Maybe that’s because I grew up in Florida and had absolutely no clue what to do in this situation, or maybe it’s because I have no survival instinct, but I was just enjoying the ride. We were about 10 miles from the epicenter, which recorded it at a 5.2 on the very subjective Richter Scale, and it was felt as a 4.5 where we were. It lasted all of 15 seconds and did some damage at the epicenter, but wasn’t too destructive in the grand scheme of earthquakeage. Here to share his side of the story is Nick:
Hey it’s Nick. Very excited for this cameo (usually Lorelei doesn’t let me look at these before she posts them, let alone allow me to take some spotlight). I had the pleasure of experiencing the quake from the front seat of the truck. When the van started shaking, I initially thought it was Lorelei messing with me, jumping on the bumper and shaking the van as hard as possible. After checking my mirrors, I quickly realized no one was jumping on the truck… strike 1. We had just finished weeks of crazy intense winds out in the desert, which shook the van in a very similar way, so I started looking at trees and flag poles to see how wild the wind was. They were hardly blowing in the wind… strike again. Finally, after looking at the buildings around me and seeing how their windows were shaking and pulsing around, I got the Alert message on my phone and began freaking out. Once I stepped out of the truck to feel what was happening, the quake had already ended ): Still a riveting experience. I tried to recreate the intensity of the truck shaking for Lorelei when she came out but I couldn’t even get close to how much it was bouncing. Guess I’m no match for mother nature. Until next time!
After composing ourselves and finishing up the Promaster build that day, we met up with two more potential clients: a guy with a half-converted Ford Transit and a guy with… no van (yeah, that didn’t work out but he let us pick some loquats and lemons from his backyard)!
We did land the job with the Transit guy, though, so we started on that immediately. I’ll include progress pictures so you can see how it started and really grasp how dramatic the change was. It started with black corrugated plastic on the walls (from the factory) and camo ghillie netting on the ceiling to cover some bare insulation board. Not the worst case scenario, but definitely more of a man cave than a livable van. The end result was a fancy little beach house with a bright interior, dimmable lights, outlets, a ‘room divider’, and a sealed redwood roof deck.
Day 1: Tore out the factory settings and insulated the walls
Day 2: Built a fancy redwood deck and installed furring strips (to attach ceiling and walls later)
Day 3: Ran wiring for the lights, outlets, and switches. Got clearance to go on the Marine Corps base so we could work at the beach!
Day 4: Woke up to a parade of amphibious vehicles, then put up the ceiling, installed puck lights, and put up walls
Day 5: Since it was Easter weekend, we took a break and got to enjoy the Northern SD area. On Saturday, we found a spot to tidepool and did an impromptu beach cleanup when we saw how disgusting one area was. It seems like the current carries all the trash to one spot on this beach and it gets stuck in the rocks, so it was a never-ending pile of garbage. We found everything you can imagine, including but not limited to: socks, snorkel gear, and a homemade bracelet reading ‘ <3 mormon <3 ’. There was a family there who were also collecting trash, so we combined forces and used all of their sandcastle buckets to haul the junk up to a trashcan.
Day 6: To start Easter Sunday, we attended a sunrise service at flower fields. Expecting a sermon engulfed by flowers, we were a bit disappointed to discover that the service was in the dirt parking lot of the fields. Womp womp. After church, I FaceTimed the fam for their Easter brunch, then again for the backyard basket hunt.
Since it was such a nice day, we headed to the Elfin Forest, where we did a 4-mile hike and had a charcuterie picnic at the peak. At the bottom of the mountain, there was a fairytale looking creek where we sat on giant rocks and basked in the sun. Walking upstream, we spotted a mama duck and her babies, which were learning how to forage and eat algae off the rocks! It was so Easter-y and cute that I nearly shed a tear.
The last FaceTime of the day consisted of the annual water balloon fight, and while I didn’t buy any water balloons to partake, Nick and I did splash creek water back and forth. I was really sad to miss it, but I didn’t mind missing out on the welts from getting pelted with the occasional extra small, unbreakable balloons. To end the day, we enjoyed a comfort food dinner of colcannon and sausage, then dyed some eggs.
Day 7: Getting back into the swing of it, we built cubbies into the wall for additional storage and trimmed out above the back doors to make it look clean and professional.
Day 8 and 9: Nick woke up with one eye swollen shut and our client had a cold so we mutually agreed on a 2 day hiatus. In the meantime, we did our own Earth Day beach cleanup, saw a movie, and went back to La Jolla to visit the sea lions and nesting Brandt’s cormorants.
Here are some additional wildlife videos because I spent so long just staring at these guys.
A harbor seal scratching its armpit. They’re just like us!
A male cormorant being too confident in his mating display and scaring off a female. They’re just like us!
Three barely-baby cormorants fighting for food and violently attacking their mom to get it. They’re just like us!
A baby cormorant shooting poop out of its cloaca (so sorry) I accidentally captured this video and thought it was absolutely hilarious. They’re. Just. Like. Us!
Day 10: Alright, back to work again! We tied up some loose ends, consisting of adding wall trim, cubby trim, and paneling the doors.
Day 11: On our last day, we installed a ladder on the side of the van and built and installed a partition between the kitchen and dinette. We had lunch with Phong (the client), had a mini photoshoot with the finished product, and headed on our way!
Now time for the before and after photos!
Thanks for hanging in through this long picture book! Spoiler alert: we drove over to Arizona to pick up a big build, so stay tuned for updates on that (once I catch up again oops).