Pulled up, tried cooking Korean Spam (yuk) before organizing the van. It's what you call a "No Build", as in I'm not expecting this van to last long enough to bither with building bed frames and drawers.
Then I got to organizing.
Then I charged some stuff with my 80 watt solar panel and watched the final 3 episodes of "12 Monkeys" on my old 32 inch TV. It used up half lf my portable battery. I had Chamomile Tea cooking between the windshield and the solar reflector. Didn't want to be up all night caffinated.
Then I walked around the lake.
Then I timed my drive to where I had set up camp back in May when I was briefly homeless. I hadn't checked the site since then- deep paranoia made me place it into a near impossible to find location. I had a low camping cot in it, a few backpacks, and back up solar panels, to my back up solar panels, to my solar panel.
I arrived way too late, as google maps sent me to a absurd location first, so barely found my tent in time. I spent the night getting horribly scratched up by thorne vines and was covered in burrs. Got my old army black inner sleeping bag out, a expensive jacket I wore last winter, and the cot, and one of the backpacks and a few precious books. I will likely return, gotta find one of my solar panels.
Made it back, was dark, set up my stuff to see how it fits before deconstructing it. I can't have a obvious bed in my car given I rent a parking space out in the open and don't want that evicted. I lose that, I lose my job.
So that's my current state. I can fit my large powerbank in my backpack (barely) and take it into a starbucks and charge it as I run my laptop off it, nobody will notice, it doesn't make a noise. I am still on the fence on buying a electric generator. It would have to go immediately behind the drivers seat.
Way I have my oven-stove, I can't use the oven, but I am probably not going to try to bake bread anytime soon. Not so much the propane cost, as the yeast issue. I was taught how to do it with old refrigerated yeast, and while I can get that from a cook at work, I just don't know how I'd feel with having yeast in the van.
Also little stuff is needed like a folding flip toiletseat, and a few USB powered booklights, and I still gotta make the window covers everywhere.
Remember, I used to be Airborne Infantry up in Alaska, and spent a month living outside without bathing in the winter. I'm living in relative luxury.
I've decided to opt out of living in NYC- in order to work security you HAVE to have a NYS ID, and I've had DMV problems in the past with trying to get a DMV approved address using a rented mailbox (some states mark them as unacceptible). I looked at New England, it was either Connecticut or Massachusetts that had a insane $400 licencing fee and demanding I provide 10 years proof of residency for everywhere I've lived. Only people who can vouch for me are dead now. That's too expensive, too much work for just doing unarmed desk security. Gotta admire the bluestates on how they screw everything up.
I looked over New Jersey carefully, they allow out of state IDs, but the closer I get to New York the harder it gets to rent a parking spot. Also looked over Alexandria, Virginia again (suburb of Washington, DC). I'm not a big fan of having my legally oarked van targeted as a bomb threat, and I have alot of locksmith equipment in my van, which is illegal to have in DC (due to paranoia with Watergate).
So I may be doing the Philadelphia-New Jersey border area afterall. I'm not thrilled with Philly, but it does have a philosophy section in it's main library. I'd be able to drive to Maryland north of DC and ride the bus in to visit the library of congress, or drive to New York City to check out the rare book libraries there.
Oh, I gotta get a new spray bottle for emergency showers, I couldn't find my old one in my tent. If you add some cold water and then pour in hot water, it doesn't warp the plastic and you have a instant warm shower.
I gotta go shower now. I think my paperwork from the DMV finally arrived. My hours are supposed to be radically cut sometime in Oct.
