Van life with Scout: February 2024 recap
A high level of what we got up to in February!
(More detailed daily sharing used to happen on our Instagram stories, but at the start of this month I decided to take a formal break where I deleted the app all the way off my phone and only occasionally log in from my computer. You can read more about the “why” behind that here!)
TLDR: Top February highlights
I made some big changes to my social media habits to better prioritize writing my Paws and Reflect book. (Eeek!!)
Scout and I had a night of solo van life while Sean quickly flew across the country for a work trip.
We had a grand time continuing to hang out in Florida… and feel a little superior hearing updates from friends & family stuck in the much-colder midwest 😉
Van life: Snowbirds are kinda smart maybe?
Two key reflections this month for me. Neither of them are brand new but I’m feeling them more than ever.
The first is that snowbirds — people who I used to relentlessly make fun of growing up in Wisconsin and seeing myself as a very tough, cold-immune kid — might have the right idea. Spending the summer in moderate northern environments and the winter down in Florida? Sign me up. This might be our future for the long haul now.
The second is that living in a van is the absolute best way to travel and you’ll have a heckuva time convincing me otherwise. February saw us in Miami and the Florida keys, two popular destinations with pretty expensive hotels and Airbnbs and campgrounds. But because we have our whole house with us on wheels (and because we fit in a standard parking spot) we barely had to pay anything to park overnight compared to what the costs would have been traveling from a stationary home.
In short, I feel really spoiled. The last month has felt quite a bit like a vacation. My mind is clearer than ever spending minimal time on social media. Wish Sean luck if he ever wants me to stop living in a van. 😉
Some favorite February destinations included:
Camping at Kissimmee Prairie Park Preserve, where we got to see some wonderful wildlife — so many birds! — and stargaze in their dark sky area at night
Walking miles and miles along Vero Beach and befriending a few older couples at a cute local coffee shop
Spending a bit more time with friends in Cocoa Beach and continuing to visit our old favorite haunts from living in the area for the three years before we moved into Hermes the van
Driving south along the coast towards Miami and finding a 24-hour beachside park where we could sleep for a few nights and wake up right near the waves
Staying at a Fench bakery Harvest Host that served the most delicious french toast I’ve ever eaten (S/O to Amy’s in Pompano Beach!)
Dancing, drinking too many cortaditos, and eating too much (amazing) Cuban food around Miami
Spotting alligators and turtles in the Everglades, where we got to camp for a night after visiting an old missile site (which was a perfect fit for Sean’s particular brand of nerdiness with his engineering brain)
Camping for two nights in the Florida Keys at Bahia Honda State Park, which quickly became one of my favorite places in the world
Getting to hang out with dolphins at the Dolphin Research Center down in the keys, where I was thrilled with the commitment to animal welfare
A full roundup of where we slept:
20 nights in parking lots (Cracker Barrel, beach lots without overnight restrictions) or street parking
4 nights at campgrounds (one national park loop, two state park loops)
3 nights at Harvest Hosts
2 nights on public land (wildlife management area with free primitive dispersed camping)
Van logistics in February:
Drove about 700 miles total on Florida’s east coast
Went through our freshwater tank less than 3 times (thanks to so much ocean swimming and quick rinses at the beach)
Dumped our gray tank 6 times
Dumped our pee jug 10 times
Did laundry once (mooched off of a Cocoa Beach friends’ machine on the space coast for a load of clothes)
Replaced our water pump when it did finally break (and short, and blow a fuse, and all-in-all cause great stress) after freezing & thawing out last month
What’s new with Scout specifically this past month
Some things that would have been a big deal in the past
We mostly continue to coast with Scout, just living together without a lot of active training.
There were a few points this month where I thought to myself “wow, this would have been a huge celebration a few years ago but now it just feels normal” — like when she:
Stayed flopped over on her side while other dogs passed by our campsite (this wasn’t the case every time someone walked by and we did help her out as needed, but it used to feel like it would never even be a possibility)
Beautifully resisted the urge to chase campground turkeys, squirrels, and pigeons at our various stays with minimal input needed from us
Played on a busy bridge at Bahia Honda State Park — an environment she’d never been to — while two dogs stared at her and many people walked by to watch the sunset
Canoed with us multiple times (we love our inflatable canoe!)
Walked around unfamiliar streets without too many signs of nervousness
She also had another breakthrough seizure
On Saturday the 24th, Scout had her first breakthrough seizure in almost a year. It was just under three minutes with minimal convulsing, and thankfully the post-ictal phase didn’t last very long. (Within a few hours she was asking us to play again.)
Her epilepsy always sucks — but I’m incredibly thankful that, at this point in our lives, it doesn’t have a huge impact on our overall quality of life.
Update: After getting this post all ready to go yesterday, Scout had another seizure in the evening after dinner. Ugh. No big changes to our plan, for now it’s a “wait and see” game hoping that these two episodes within one week were just a fluke.
I read some more animal-related books
Last year was the year of fiction. So far, 2024 seems to be the year of memoirs and environmental nonfiction. I’ve been tracking every title in my spreadsheet I started last summer — below are the reads that made me think more about our fellow creatures.
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be The First Generation to Create a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie
Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change by Thor Hanson
Psych: The Story of the Human Mind by Paul Bloom