The Route 66 Chick

Dreaming of road trips in the van was mostly all I was able to do in May. Hours of work for Blue Carpet Corridor , writing deadlines, and a several-week bout of pertussis (yup, whooping cough), drastically slowed my van conversion progress. One result of all that prescribed rest was a Pinterest board chock full of clever and cute van camper ideas. You can peruse those should you wish at my  Van Camper Ideas . Meanwhile, Alice waited patiently for me to get to work. With all those ideas, I started measuring, planning, ordering, and, when I was finally non-contagious and could leave the house, shopping. I soon amassed a pile of stuff on my dining room table, including some treasured things from my mom's kitchen, thrift shop finds, and goodies from Ikea and Target. We'll see how much of it actually fits in the van. The photo just shows the cute stuff (no piles of bungees, tools, first-aid kit, carbon monoxide detector, rain poncho, and other necessary but non-glamorous items). ...

Introducing Alice, my adventure van and soon-to-be mini-glam-van-camper! Alice the Van, at the restored Texaco station in DeSoto MO. You know that feeling when you went shopping and came home with the wrong thing? You know, pants that don't fit, shoes that hurt your feet, dress that just looks all wrong? Well, I did that in February with the first van that I bought. A van to convert to a mini-RV was the right idea, but that specific van was not. I had been researching the little Ford Transit Connects for months. I loved the first-generation style of the 2010 through 2013 models, but the majority of them are high mileage. So I talked myself into a 2015 second-generation Transit Connect. Less headroom and not so cute; long wheelbase and low mileage. But that van had one more thing--that "new car" (translation:  chemicals) smell. Most of you know I'm asthmatic, and chemical and fragrance smells and I do not play well together.  I tried boxes of baking soda, a...