When my feet, and knees, and inner thighs betrayed me after 60 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, I renewed my love affair with our van. Apparently I am a #vanlifer though I did not know such a thing existed until my friend asked me if I was one. Apparently I am; however, my van life is much less fancy than most of the amazing van pictures that can be found by searching #vanlifers on Instagram.

We have no fancy pretty things, only an old comforter and mis-matched pillows and blankets. We have no extra insulation, no extra battery power, no bathroom, no kitchen (my kitchen is a cooler that plugs into the cigarette outlet and a Tupperware box that has a cutting board, knife, foil, etc.), no curtains, no extra heat or cooling. When it’s warm, we can roll down the windows and cover them with mosquito nets, held in place with magnets. However, mosquitos are kind of smart and figure out how to crawl under the netting between the magnets, so we will have to upgrade this feature. In the winter, we have sleeping bags and lots of blankets. We have woken up to find ice inside and outside our windows some mornings. We have some plans for curtains, insulation, and storage pockets, but we are also lazy and busy and what we have is functional.

Having a van that looks like a delivery van really helps with stealth camping. I should probably not list the places we have gotten away with sleeping in our van—don’t want to alert the authorities to the tricks of our trade—but we save a lot of money crawling into the back of our van to sleep on our thick, cushy camping pad from LL Bean. We’ve only been bothered by people a couple of times: once on the first night we slept in the back of the van (at a rest stop in New York) when some people tried to ply money from us at three in the morning and once when someone in Downeast Maine called the local Sheriff because our van looked “suspicious.” He checked our IDs and said there were no signs saying we can’t camp there so have a nice day.

We fit all of our summer and winter gear into this little van, though we have had to make adjustments at times and our winter gear and random junk is currently in storage with friends while we travel for the summer. But, my expert-packer can shove a lot of stuff into the storage space he built under the bed platform. The only thing that I’d really like to have in the van is a bathroom, but I survive.

(The slideshow above shows some of the places where the van has taken us in this last year plus--on my "unauthorized" sabbatical last winter and my real sabbatical this winter and spring, as well as on my resupply trips while my husband hiked the 100-mile wilderness of the Appalachian Trail last fall.)

My husband dreams of the things he could do with our van—or, another, better van—if only we had the financial resources. But I like the non-fancy, non-designer Ford Transit van that has been my home for several road trips and became my refuge when I had to stop hiking. When you can’t even stand on your own two feet let alone hobble the short distance to the bathroom, laying around in a van is a pretty nice thing.

So, while he hiked, I rested and read and was even able to do some restorative yoga in the back of my van. (Reclining butterfly with blanket props is quite comfy!) Some of my resting and waiting happened road-side. Some of it happened in the parking lot at the Warner Springs Community Center, a fabulous resource for PCT hikers. In addition to wi-fi, charging stations, an activity center, a backpacking gear store in an Airstream camper, bucket showers, foot baths, laundry services, and flush toilets and running water, the Warner Spring Community Center is a gathering place for hikers to rest, socialize, and re-stock with two free nights of camping

In my van, I was an outsider, an observer, but this is more about my typical mode of operation, and was not exclusive to me being in a van while the “real” hikers set up their tents in a field. No one really paid any attention to me or my van, even when I did weird things like walk around the track (unheard of among people who have just hiked 101.5 miles of the PCT!) and practice yoga under one of the big oak trees. Only one person stopped by my van to talk to me—a fellow New Englander thru-hiking the PCT who noticed our Maine plates (the one thing I feel is not at all stealth about our van).

Now that I have returned to my temporary home base and have a bed and the related amenities, I kind of want to go out to the carport and sleep in my van. I kind of want to live in my van, waking up to mountain views and river sounds and fresh air and solitude. A simple van for simple dreams….

Well, I guess I better let the cat out of the bag. … Not that I would ever keep a cat in a bag, of course. I mean I love cats, so I would if I could, but….

You see I am totally stalling for a few reasons…

First, this news that I am breaking still feels a bit unbelievable to me.

Second, it is really hard for me to tell my students and colleagues that I will be away not just for the spring semester sabbatical that I am currently enjoying, but also for a new opportunity that I have accepted.

So, here it is:
For the academic school year 2018-2019, I will be the Fulbright Danish Distinguished Chair at the Center for American Studies, University of Southern Denmark in Odense. This means, I will not be teaching at UMA during the academic school year.

I will, however, be teaching for UMA this summer and next summer, so there’s that.

Despite that I applied for this Fulbright back in August, the news that I was selected was a bit of a shocker. With each application update I was sure that I would receive a rejection at any time. I was kind of looking forward to rejection because it would make my life far less complicated.

But I also told my dean, colleagues, family, and friends that of course I would get this Fulbright because I feel so completely unprepared for it at this current juncture in my life. But, I guess that we are never fully prepared for the opportunities that life throws at us. So, to add to my sabbatical list of projects: I will be getting prepared to spend next year living, teaching, and researching in Denmark.

Thus, my adventures (and blogging) will continue beyond my sabbatical project/adventure and into my Fulbright year abroad. … But until then, there is much to explore!

This thinking woman also likes to eat and drink and hike and snowboard. So here’s a few things that I really appreciate and probably think too much about. Most of them are food places, but I try to represent a diverse range of my favorite things:
 
Ranchos Cosina in North Park, San Diego. I grew up on Mexican food that was mostly vegetarian. But after being vegan, Mexican food is just not the same. But it is at Ranchos Cosina. I could not stop telling people about how much I loved this restaurant.
 
The Arcata Tofu Company who makes the best ever smoked tofu spread (and lots of other yummy tofu). I would eat this with Triscuits every day if I could. Heck, I would eat it straight from the container with my finger (and I did).
 
Other people’s dogs. I would name them all, but I would not want to spell names wrong or leave anybody out. I will also not name the dog that ate my loaf of cheesy bread, bag and all. I should have known not to leave it within reach. Two months before leaving for this trip, we lost our very spoiled and very loved 10 ½ year old dog. We were pretty devastated. Spending time with other dogs was the best therapy we could find. Dogs are hilarious and full of unconditional love.
 
Montana. I am in love with you. To be continued.
 
Sweet Art’s in St. Louis, MO. Our first visit with an old friend. He had no idea that by taking his vegan friends to the vegan café around the corner, he was also taking me to a café that was built on the same ideas as my teaching and research. Menu items named after bell hooks and Octavia Butler! Seriously?! And, vegan pancakes. No further explanation needed!
 
My nephew’s punk rock band, Let’s Face It, playing in Encinitas, and being able to see him play before heading off on the next leg of the trip.
 
Stories. We saw a lot of family and friends that we have not seen for a long time. While our stories got a bit stale being told and re-told, we shared memories and collected many new stories. I love stories.
 
Favorite National Park: Bryce Canyon. (Least Favorite: Zion)
 
Favorite ski resort: Brundage (ID) for the snow and terrain, Deer Mountain (SD) for the atmosphere and for being the place where I had the epiphany that I actually know how to snowboard.
 
Books on tape. I was skeptical. I should not have waited until the trip back to listen! Twelve hours of “Understanding Japan” and four hours of “Between the World and Me.” The latter was a moving, poetic piece of non-fiction that is still on my mind. The former might just inspire another epic trip!
 
Having a hotel room with two bathrooms. I never imagined such a thing.
 
Seeing all of my friends and family and the many different parenting styles. How people parent is a direct reflection of personalities and values. I know so many great parents and met so many amazing kids! I danced and did yoga with Maya and Lumika and I played “sleeping,” which turned into flying on a plane to Africa, and other random imaginary adventures.
 
Hot tubs, hot springs, steam rooms. How do I live without these?
 
Our van. The most comfortable night’s sleep, even at random rest areas. I missed the van when we stayed in hotel rooms. I kind of want to live in it.
 
Coming home and realizing that I had cleaned the house a lot more than I remembered. It was not a disaster. After admiring so many other people’s neat stuff, it was nice to be back with my neat stuff.
 
There are so many favorite things that I cannot list them all here. But I have a rich collection of memories and a thirst for more.

After I posted my first blog, my mom commented that I was on a thinking woman’s vacation. And after a couple of blogs one of my aunts sent me a glowing praise for making her think too much. I like to think. For me, having the space and time to think and write is part of the appeal of a vacation. And, of course, I was working on this vacation, so my students’ final work inspired my thinking. And my course development for spring gave me plenty to think about. And the space and the time, as well as the coincidentals, made me think with leisure.

So, in addition to my more developed blogs, I have been thinking about a lot of little—and not-so-little—things:

I have been thinking a lot about climate change on this trip... dying forests, disappearing lakes, signs reminding people to conserve water, the waste of food, the overuse of paper products, the lack of recycling outside of National Parks, the smog-enhanced sunsets.... I can see how easy it is for people to divorce their over-consumption from the bigger problems of climate change. Climate change is not a myth, and its effects are already a foregone conclusion. This does not mean all is lost; it only means we have to work harder to mitigate the circumstances.

And a lot about the importance of staying connected with friends and family, both of which I can be better at. Coming back together with old friends often feels like we were never apart. But then I just think about how much I miss them.

And a lot about self-care and the importance of taking time away from work—regularly and sometimes for extended periods of time (like more than a day!).

And time more generally. Being in a time bubble, jumping from one time zone to another and back again, how time stretches and compresses, how I am so fortunate to have all this time—to have made all this time—and how to hold on to that time and then let it go. And then remember it enough to find this time again, and more regularly.

And a lot about prison and other fucked up American institutions. We watched the second season of Orange Is the New Black in a few days’ span after hearing that one of my students was sent back to prison to finish her sentence. I was devastated, but I wrote her a letter immediately reminding her that she is an amazing human being with a lot to offer this world. It is a small thing in a big world of problems.

And about being old. In 2016, I turned 40 and many of my friends are around the same age or older. We all feel the same “age” we were when we were younger, but our bodies are getting older and our lives have changed to show our age—our jobs, our children, our health, our dreams. We spent many days hanging out with “old ladies” and playing card games. They also like to talk. So, I learned a lot about aging bodies, retirement, families, death, community, and so much more.
 
About how hard life is for so many people—for all of us. We all have struggles, desires, and stumbling blocks. But I have also thought about how all the people I know also have it pretty darn good.
 
And in all of this thinking I tried not to worry too much about my colleagues working themselves to the bone. I also tried not to worry about all of the work I have to do when I return. Like always, it somehow always gets done.
 
I haven’t been thinking about the most immediate world of problems—the election, the impending change of power. That world was a different world while I was on my trip. It was on pause. The problems of that world are not new; they are why I teach and write and spend all my spare brain space thinking.
 
I also tried not to think too much about how nice it would be to just be able to travel and write and teach yoga and never have to think about anything ever again!

We traveled 5,081 miles to get to San Diego. Maine and San Diego are about as far away as one can get in the continental U.S. I spent, roughly, 20 years of my life in California. I have not been back since moving to Maine.

In 2009, I moved from Washington state to Maine. I clarify Washington state because when you say Washington in Maine people assume you are talking about D.C. And when I talk to anyone who is not from Maine about Portland, they assume Portland, Oregon. In Maine we can’t help but assume Portland, ME in conversation; it is the largest city and the hippest destination in Maine.

Maine is a big state, but it is also a small state. It is an old state. I can feel the weight of history in Maine. Maine is heavy. Maine is made up of a lot of small spaces. Many of these are beautiful spaces. In its relationship to other parts of the east, it is beautiful and unique. Some people I meet when I travel don’t even know that Maine is a state.

Many of the people I meet in Maine have never, or rarely, been outside of Maine. Some have been to Boston or Canada or, maybe, Florida. Maine is a larger state than I expected when I moved there, and many people in Maine regularly travel two or more hours to get somewhere else in Maine. And it is a long way to go to get out of Maine, or New England.

If you are from Maine, you are a Mainer. If you aren’t, you are “from away.” People I know who are “from away” are often people who have specifically chosen to live in Maine (for any variety of reasons). Maine can be a great place to live and there are things I love about Maine. But if your heart is in the West—in Mountains and valleys and big trees and the flat forever of the Pacific Ocean—Maine, and the east more generally, can never compare.
*
Before moving to Maine I had spent my childhood, and most of my education and professional life, in the West. Born in Mountainview, CA; raised in El Cajon, CA; college in Redlands, CA and then Arcata, CA. Graduate school in Corvallis, Oregon and then Pullman, Washington.

And a brief stint in Moorehead, Minnesota—my first job as an assistant professor.

As a child I had been to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents, uncles, and cousins a few times. We flew there, but we drove into Ohio to feed the fish at the Spillway.

Visiting my mom’s family I also traveled to Bakersfield, CA and Davis, CA. In high school I attended a week-long awkward youth leaders conference in Washington, D.C. and spent an awkward weekend at Pepperdine University.

There are a handful of other places I visited as a child, mostly in California, and places I probably have forgotten. But, my lists here illustrate one thing: I have been a west coast girl. I knew very little of the east.

This brief list also illustrates that travel was a pretty regular part of my childhood, and was certainly something I took for granted. I had the privilege to see different parts of my home state and my country, but we also travelled out of the necessity of seeing a family that was divided between the east coast and the West. I did not see a lot of east, but I knew that I loved the West. That too, I took for granted.

People who have not been to the West really cannot understand what they are missing; they cannot feel and see the difference. They do not crave mountains. My old California friend, who now lives in the Fingerlakes region of New York, knows exactly what I am talking about. I am not the only displaced Californian who dreams of mountains and ocean.
*
Getting out of Maine was a much needed shift in perspective. In Maine, every inch is owned, every perspective limited. Other places are becoming more and more like this, but in the West you can still see miles of nothing surrounded by big mountains, big sky, big water. The Atlantic might be big water, but it cannot meet the massive horizon and setting sun of the West.

I had been missing the West, dreaming of mountains and the Pacific Ocean, of open spaces. I thought I could live without these things, but I can’t. I thought that maybe I was romanticizing the West, and maybe I am, but this trip reinforced the differences between east and West. The sameness is a subject for another blog. We are all, after all, Americans.
When we were still a couple weeks away from home, we hit 10,000 miles. We were still in the middle of tall mountains and big spaces. It is a feeling that really cannot be described, but I hope that all of my students, colleagues, friends, and family who have not been to northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana will have the opportunity to go to these places, if only for a shift in perspective.

It was mostly coincidence that my recent epic road trip coincided with the timeline from a few days after the election of Donald Trump for President to several days before his inauguration. I write this with only another day before shit may hit the fan.
Instead of being mired in hopelessness for the last couple of months, instead of storming the streets with my comrades, I was pursuing the very American dream of freedom—the very stuff of hope. As frightening as the election of Trump is for a variety of reasons, I have felt nothing but hope.

Perhaps it is my familiarity with dystopia or my critical American studies lens. Perhaps it is because I had more than 60 days and 11, 469 miles to see and experience a wide stretch of America, including 20 states and 15 National Parks or Monuments as well as beaches and hot springs and interstates and abandoned buildings and diverse people and ski resorts and the Mexican-American border.

America is deep and wide and we’ve been there before. The climate on the other hand…. I only slightly digress, but my point here is about hope. In the spirit of hope, I share a collection of essays that reflect upon my travels. I have posted these individually, but collect them here as a set.

Two I posted while traveling:
Musings on the Geographical Center of the U.S. and Making America Great Again
Reflections on Privilege and Border-Crossing

And several more I worked on over the course of the trip:
Making America Great Again: Musings on East and West        
The Thinking Woman’s Vacation
A Few of My Favorite Things…
 
And the culminating piece:
The Unauthorized Sabbatical: An Exercise in Self-Care and Professional Development

And, so, it is back to work for me. But back to work means doing what I can to hold my country accountable to its dreams, to work toward social justice, to take care of myself, and to continue to have hope.

PS: I include a selection of images that are generally representative of the places we traveled throughout this series of blogs. Enjoy!