I have always wanted to drive west to east. I've flown it many times but never driven. I was about to find out just how big our country really was!
Lee was asked to be the Best Man for his friend. Catch being, this friend lived in Edmonton. Well what a coincidence, I was born and raised in Edmonton and hadn't been back there in well over 10 years. Thankfully, this friend is also a planner, so asked Lee to be his Best Man nearly 3 years before the wedding in 2015. Lots of planning time!
In announcing our plans to head west, we were offered to stay with some internet friends in Saskatchewan (yeah, yeah, meeting random internet people is bad. I knew these online friends for 5+ years, if that makes it any better) on our way there and back. We also planned to stay with my grandfather just outside of Victoria. Yay! Places to sleep out of the van! And of course, we were staying with the bride and groom, in Edmonton, for 4 days.
We were also given suggestions of cool places to see. This kicked me into planning mode! I had notebooks and scraps of paper all over the place. Bookmarked websites galore. I wasn't really into Pinterest yet, but that certainly would have made me even more neurotic LOL
In announcing our plans to head west, we were offered to stay with some internet friends in Saskatchewan (yeah, yeah, meeting random internet people is bad. I knew these online friends for 5+ years, if that makes it any better) on our way there and back. We also planned to stay with my grandfather just outside of Victoria. Yay! Places to sleep out of the van! And of course, we were staying with the bride and groom, in Edmonton, for 4 days.
We were also given suggestions of cool places to see. This kicked me into planning mode! I had notebooks and scraps of paper all over the place. Bookmarked websites galore. I wasn't really into Pinterest yet, but that certainly would have made me even more neurotic LOL
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| Our proposed route |
We knew that this trip would be HUGELY expensive. We planned to save some money by mostly living in our van, sleeping in Walmart parking lots, like good, classy people do. As we own a Dodge Grand Caravan, we have Stow 'n Go seats. So turning our minivan into essentially a cargo van was easy. We built a bed frame of lumber and plywood with storage cubbies with basic hinges to fit a twin mattress in the back of our van but still have room to store all our gear.
Some searching online gave us ideas as to what to build. This picture (below, from Imgur) and from this site smushed together was perfect for our plans. (The site I linked is quite detailed on how to turn your vehicle into a camper)
It cost us $96. Less than even once night at a decent hotel. As the frame was totally self drafted, it probably took more time than if we actually knew what we were doing. But still, a few hours and it was ready to go!
Some searching online gave us ideas as to what to build. This picture (below, from Imgur) and from this site smushed together was perfect for our plans. (The site I linked is quite detailed on how to turn your vehicle into a camper)
It cost us $96. Less than even once night at a decent hotel. As the frame was totally self drafted, it probably took more time than if we actually knew what we were doing. But still, a few hours and it was ready to go!
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| Sorry I never thought to take a pic with the cubby lids raised! |
We brought a lot of stuff with us to make living on the road easier. Some of it worked out, some didn't, some never even got used. The crock pot and Keurig, for example, never got used because the power converter we borrowed for the trip was just not strong enough to power either of them.
Honestly, my favourite thing was the bed frame. With the 2 lift up cubbies we could store all of our stuff without it being tossed on the bed. Sadly, the van is a little short to have this frame and a full sized mattress. I had imagined being able to sit on the mattress and play cards or something once we parked for the night. Yeah, didn't happen. We had to be so hunched over it just wasn't doable. We accessed the cubbies (once the mattress was on it) by using either the hatch or front seats to stop the mattress from running away. Sleeping 2 adults (and all my pillows) on a twin mattress really sucks (which is why this trip was the only one we did it on) BUT, it did save us LOADS of money for only paying for hotels for 2 of the 22 nights we were gone.
We did get play cards in the front seat though! We got a Coleman cooler that perfectly fit between our seats that worked as a great table top. It also provided us another one of our major money saving. Refrigerated food. We did most of our eating from the grocery store. Rather than a couple of hamburgers for $10, we bought deli meat, loaves of bread, blocks of cheese and condiments. That same $10 could make us 4-8 sandwiches (depending on what was on them, of course). We did have to spend the money to buy a bag of ice from a gas station twice a day, but the $6 that we spent to eat from the grocery store was still much cheaper than eating at restaurants 3 times a day.
Which leads me to my next tip. Not so much money saving but making saving easier. Any lower income family knows, if can be difficult to save money. Especially the types of large amounts of money needed for a 3 week vacation. Enter - gift cards. Seems so simple but it really worked! From the time we started planning until the month we left, we bought gift cards. $50 gas card here, $25 grocery store card there. It didn't eat into our usual budget very much but helped us save with tangible items.
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| Random google image |
We planned to steal, I mean borrow, Brianna's laptop to use Skype to keep in touch with the kids. This was vital. The kids were 2, 6 and 13 when we went. While she's a teen, Brianna is very close to us, and of course the little kids (particularly Joshua) would not have done well, not seeing us for 3 weeks. There were tears over Skype, but there was also loads of smiles. We charged the laptop at any people's homes that we stopped at, restaurants and malls. Lee isn't much of a tech person and I had my cell phone (which charged to the van), so keeping the laptop battery up was pretty easy.
