Dlog: Vanfest
One night at Aunt Dory's house, Max and I were contemplating our lack of plans and how nebulous the next couples months of our journey was feeling. We needed something specific and scheduled to look forward to; something that wasn't just a loose date range and a promise to "visit soon". Minutes after voicing our need, Max found an event called "Vanfest: Liftoff", a van-life festival aimed at community building for road nomads and inviting the public in to look and be inspired by peoples rigs and how they live while on the road. We bought our tickets that night and signed up to be a "display vehicle" for the public to observe.
February 6th:
We had planned to arrive on an early arrival on Wednesday, but Jesse came down with a migraine that sent us to the hospital in St. Pete. We stayed another night in St. Pete and headed to Van Fest in the morning. With a stop in Frostproof, FL for a lovely lunch with Aunt Amy and Uncle Otto (thanks again for lunch!), we arrived at the festival in late afternoon.
Festivals of any kind are always a bit of a trip. They're a self-contained environment, mostly isolated from the outside world, where your experience is largely determined by the people and activities around you. If something weird happens or you're not connecting with the right people, it's up to you to shake that off and sort things out for yourself. You're surrounded by like-minded folks so your "connection" senses are a bit heightened and, if it suits your fancy, you could walk around meeting a different but somewhat-similar person every 3 minutes.
We both cycled extended moments of wondering "what are we doing here?" or "what are we doing with our lives?" Alas, everyone's on their own trip, and this too shall pass.
February 7th:
Max got out for a run and Jesse attended the morning yoga session that was a part of the festival schedule.
You can't actually see me in this picture, but I was there!
We met our new neighbors, Dani and Troy! They are a really cool couple who are starting up a van buildout company. They make these absolutely stunning wood interiors for vans and they had brought their personal van to use as a display and advertisement for their new company.
February 8th:
Met a bunch Volkswagen people, group of friends who have known each other for 20ish years. Most of them had 1960's bay window buses, and a couple of 1980's Vanagons.
With a healthy dose of uncertainty, we moved camp over the the other VW folks (sorry Dani & Troy!). They turned out to be really great people who shared a passion for VW's which was awesome.
You can see our tiny white poptop in the bottom left corner.
February 9th:
It would've been hard to avoid the realization that we have one of the least "technologically advanced" full-time rigs at the event. We use 1lb propane tanks, a tiny battery system, have no bathroom, no shower, no refrigerator... but... we're generally very happy.
I'd guess 80% of the rigs at the event were "vans" (Sprinter, Transit, ProMaster), many of which were custom converted. We toured enough to get the idea but man... every time I step in one it just makes me appreciate the efficiency, layout, personality and social significance of our Vanagon that much more.
Today we met Kirstyn and Jeff, a couple who custom converted a short-nose skoolie. It was a gorgeous, bespoke interior, with all the amenities and a roof-top deck. Well... Fast-forward a few weeks to writing this and we've settled on buying/converting a skoolie (shuttle bus fiberglass frame) for when we head out West. Stay tuned for where that journey takes us.
February 10th:
We started off the morning with a quick run with Dani and Troy. We left early enough that the sun was just barely warming up as we finished the run.
Things rolled slowly this morning. We gathered our things and said our goodbyes as new friends wandered out of the venue. We gave some post-cards from our travels, exchanged a bunch of contact info, and received some fun gifts from others' travels. Luckily, we just installed a dashboard storage tray, so we have plenty of room to store fun trinkets and whatnot.
We didn't have a plan for where to stay tonight, but ended up meandering down the coast on A1A, swimming in a lagoon and doing our first night "boondocking" in a county beach parking lot off A1A. Check out our South Florida Dlog for that story.
