Tidbits
- A Day-In-The-Life of urban van life.
- Fixing a van life problem that’s been making me anxious for months.
- Road tripping to this western state!
March 2023
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 3/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 4/1 |
Where In The World Was I?
- Salt Lake City, UT
- 🚐 Valmy, NV
- Bishop, CA
Back At It (☕️ 💻)
After a bunch of skiing last week, it was nice to get back into some coffee shops and behind the laptop this week. It was a pretty routine week, until the last couple days!
Side note: I’ve started to feel more tired on the non-coffee days. I think we’ve officially hit addicted-status 😅
- Publik Coffee (x3)
- Urban Sailor Coffee
- Salt Lake Roasting Co.
- Salt Lake City Public Library
Outputs (✏️ 📈)
- Updated Twitter profile
- Content, content, content.
- Started producing some content around our first target value/offer of content strategy.
- Focused our first offer on some top content strategy tips.
- Been reading Influence by Robert Cialdini
✅ Mini-Project Complete
Ever since temps started to drop back at the start of winter, a new problem arose: window condensation, particularly on the back windows.
Just by the nature of it being a lot warmer and more humid inside than outside, the moist air would get trapped between the back window covers and windows, leading to condensation (and it freezing, if cold enough). It happened on the front windows too, but more often when I put my front window covers up.
The physics of this wasn’t as much of a problem for me than lack of stealth.
It’s pretty much impossible to determine if there’s someone sleeping in the van… until you see a bunch of condensation on the back windows, which pretty much gives it away. It’s just a big “hey everyone I’m sleeping in here” when you’re trying to be stealthy.
I didn’t necessarily have any issues, it was just embarrassing…
I more or less tried my best to limit condensation by getting better airflow inside and then just gave up trying to fix it. I thought my new and improved window covers I made back in October/November would help, but they didn’t…
That is, until I thought “Rather than fix the condensation, I wonder if tinting the windows would just make it so you couldn’t see it.”
So I bought some tint, installed it (eh, messed up the install but it’s mostly fine)
Despite the tint application not being perfect, I’d say it’s a success! Man, this is such a HUGE relief and works fantastically. You can’t see anything!
Road Trip!
Crazy to think we’re pretty much at the end of ski season already! It’s been a fantastic winter in all regards.
I half-wanted to hit as many ski resorts as I could. It wasn’t a priority, but I did want to make it out to the resorts in California before the end of the season.
So, after about 6 weeks (wow!) in Salt Lake City, Utah, I hit the road towards California!
I stopped in Elko, NV for a break. I walked around and explored.
Then hit the road back through Nevada.
So many straight roads!
Stopped for some drone photos!
If the U.S. ever gets attacked, zombie apocalypse, nuclear war, etc. etc. the middle of Nevada is literally perfect to move to. Just absolute nothingness…
I made it to Bishop, CA by Saturday afternoon! 2 days of driving, 8hr 18min by Google Maps except I called an audible halfway through and decided to hit Mammoth before Tahoe, so 9hr 16min.
Crazy to think I was here back in just October (2022)!
Van Life Day-In-The-Life
That’s pretty much it for the week, the rest of my days were pretty typical!
I’ve been warming up to Salt Lake City a lot! I found a good number of camp spots to rotate between, so I wasn’t always camping in the same place (that’s usually one of the biggest factors to how long I stay in an area).
But that said, there are a handful of good coffee shops, good parks (Liberty Park, Sugar House Park), an Anytime Fitness (also somewhat out of the way unfortunately), and all the basic necessities. It’s been fun to settle down in a place for a bit. I’m grateful for the ability to live this life, in all aspects. It’s just wild when you think about it…
Here’s a typical time table at what my days looked like:
- 6:30am – wake up
- 6:50am – drive to coffee shop
- 7am~7:10am until 12pm – coffee shop
- 5-10min – documenting little things
- 10m – “gardening” my second brain notes
- 5m – gratitude journal
- 5m – create a “Daily plan” for what I want to accomplish the rest of the session
- 3-4hrs – “work,” some combination of tasks from:
- Inputs: Improving systems, strategy, reapplying learnings, journaling, etc.
- Outputs: Twitter content, business venture research, Life Update posts, etc.
- 12pm – drive to a park
- ~12:15pm until ~3pm
- ~1hr – lunch, watch YouTube videos
- Walk (~30m)
- Read (15m~60m)
- Meditate (15m)
- Errands?
- ~3pm until ~5pm – gym workout
- ~5pm until ~8pm
- ~1hr 30m – dinner, watch YouTube videos
- Read (15m~60m)
- Meditate (15m)
- ~8pm~8:15pm – drive to camp spot
- 9pm – bedtime routine
- 9:30m – sleep
Some days I threw some errands in that middle “block,” some days I’d only read/meditate in the evenings and not in the afternoons, some days I skipped a gym workout and just went to shower in the evening, etc. but this was the general “ideal” day.
Next Up?
Mammoth Mountain 💪⛷️