The road goes on forever and the party never ends...: November 2013

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Conroe for Thanksgiving

Parked in Angel's drive, watching the munchkins for 2 weeks, enjoying Thanksgiving then heading to East TX on the 30th YEAH!

Cruisen the net for my mini kitchen ideas... something that I'd like to redo eventually

My current mini kitchen in the Beast

Mon-Tues nuttin but rain and I discovered I have a leak... I believe from the vent, soaked half my bed Mon nite... Today Wed the sun is shining and I got it all open and drying out.

YEAH Clean bedding!!!!

bed is 46"x67" give or take and looking for a freebie futon mattress near that size... the hole in the middle of the bed is drivin me nutz-o ;)

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Not great but not as bad as I thought it would be.... I'm calling the first week in the van a SUCCESS !!

Expenses this week... 11/11/2013-11/17/2013

Monday -0- (spent nite in Austin in Jimi's driveway)
Tues $10 fuel in Toyota to go to day job
$2.15 donut&milk
$30 fuel in van (spent nite at Billys on the couch)
Wed $4.08 wipes and crackers from HEB
$2.15 b'fast at McD's
$7.77 facial wipes, 10pk juice boxes, peanut butter, lighter
$8.01 bungee cord, hooks, therometer, 3 bananas
$40.00 gift card for fuel
$14.00 fuel at Volero (drove 130 miles & slept at Loves parking lot near Tomball)
Thurs (slept in Staceys driveway thur-sat nites)
$17.70 fuel
$6.50 lunch with Stacey at Chic-fil-a
$2.65 caramel mocha at McD's while using free wifi
$12.99 fleece throw blanket, 20 ft extension cord, socks at Big Lots
Fri $55.00 cell phone
$3.33 Taco Bell lunch
$1.08 Tea at McD's
Sat $2.18 b'fast at McD's
$2.18 chicken sandwich at McD's
Sun $2.18 b'fast at McD's

Total so far $223..... THAT definately needs to go way down!
*$55 monthly expense (cell)
*$25 in food
*$117 in fuel and drove from Austin to The Woodlands (No Houston) which is about 170 miles. Then3 miles each way from campin spot to mcD's office Thu-Fri-Sat
*The rest has been stuff thats needed... don't feel like I've wasted $$ on frivilous things but it does add up quick

Friday, November 15, 2013

Workin it!

Ha I won't always post daily! AIN'T NO BODY GOT TIME FO DAT!

I slept soooo goood last nite, not worried about a knock on the windows waking me up, which hasn't happened yet. No big trucks driving by every 5 seconds... was incredibly nice... I slept till 8am which I rarely ever do. I feel GREAT!

The Woodlands TX

The Froggy in the window when I woke up said it was 65ish in the van... maybe thats why I slept so well...

Nuttin else really to "report" ... I'm going to clean a friends small apt today for a few bucks. then back to McD's free WiFi to bedrock some more gigs...

BookYou!

So later gater! Keep Smilin...Bethy ;)

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Woodlands

Hello folks... I tried to spend my first Walmart boondocking nite last nite in Austin but the lot was just too busy, people kept honking at each other so after about 2 hours of tryin to get to sleep I got up and started driving towards Houston. Was dark, and cooooollldddddd out. There was outside air blowing in at my feet and up right in my face like a window was open under there.... I was going to check it out today but ended up running around with Stacy all day and never got to it but I will in the morning.

I drove till about midnite last nite and then crashed at a Loves till early this morning and drove on into the Woodlands to Staceys place where I'm parking the next few nites. Met her boys who are totally cool teenagers and they are a CHEERLEADING family, she coaches and the boys coach and participate in competitions. I might get to go to a contest this saturday with them. She's checking to see if she can get me a pass. We ran around town alil and now I'm at McD's on 45 posting this and going to get alil work done then go back to my parking spot at her house and crash.

So there ya go... a days update... I'm enjoyin this adventure... its much different than any others adventure I've had so far. So see you down the road, Bethy

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Pics this afternoon and thoughts or plans....

theres my bed, it turns into a U shaped seating area with table but no pole to hole the table up, will eventually get a pipe for that. Also still on list of To-Do's is to cover the back windows. I'm thinkin I'll put velcro around windows and on some kind of cloth so I can put it up and take it down easy. Unless someone else comes up with a better idea.

OK the clothes basket in front of the mini fridge is all stuff to be donated as soon as I come across a place to drop it off. It's takin up alot of space so hope to be rid of that before the weekend is over. the white bag with blue and red on it is my dirty clothes. The chair where the suitcase is I want to remove and build/install a closet/cubbard of some kind. thats right behind the drivers seat.

the tub under my flannel shirt there I want to build a box, and put a portapotty in where I can slide it out to use and slide back in when not used, and the top be a bedside table.

that 2x6 is bolted to where a 4th capt chair once was. Got the board off and now going to work on gettin rid of the mounting station there as I'll never put in a 4th chair.

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Expenses so far...

Monday -0- (spent nite in Austin in Jimi's driveway)
Tues $10 fuel in Toyota
$2.15 donut&milk
$30 fuel in van (spent nite at Billys on the couch)
Wed $4.08 wipes and crackers from HEB
$2.15 b'fast at McD's
$7.77 facial wipes, 10pk juice boxes, peanut butter, lighter
$8.01 bungee cord, hooks, therometer, 3 bananas
$40.00 gift card for fuel
$14.00 fuel at Volero (drove 130 miles & slept at Loves parking lot near Tomball)
Thurs $17.70 fuel
$6.50 lunch with Stacey at Chic-fil-a
$2.65 caramel mocha at McD's while using free wifi

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

1st full week VanDwelling

Arrived back to Seymour (the van) in South Austin Monday nite after a pretty cool 2 weeks in South Padre. Was just gettin dark, I rushed to open him up and see what the Austin floods had done. I had heard the last week that the area was flooded, and people were getting rescued from on top of their houses last week. Well I saw no sign of water gettin inside so I'm guessin I was parked in a good spot... whew! So was excited/nervous about the cold Monday nite, news said lows were in the 40's. And I have not worked out all my house power yet. But I had a thick long robe and 3 blankets and once asleep I slept like a baby till 5am when the alarm went off.

So while waiting I make this lil video.... ( been watching other vandweller road videos LOL)

I had found a temp job "sign spinning" on craigslist for tues-fri 7-11am so Tues am I was up at 5, gettin dressed brushin teeth and such... went to start the van and the battery was dead. Of course my SoPadre partner would not get out of bed and give me a hand, so I snatched his keys and proceeded to hook up my battery cables. He has a small Toyota pick up, his battery is half the size of mine... and it would not jump it. So I go back to his garage apt and ask him if he has any ideas... he won't wake up and says to take his truck to the job. Well by then its already after 6:30am, so I email the place and tell em I woke to a dead battery but now on my way... put the addy in my GPS and off I go.... 50ish miles in the wrong direction!!! I finally get back into Austin and find the place at 9:30 and the gal at the counter says the guy that hired me is already gone... so I email him again from my cell cause I don't have his number, I promise him I'm not a flake and would love to come back for the rest of the week. He writes back that I can come the follow Mon-Tue if I'd like but this week he don't need me anymore. DANGIT!

So I get back to the lot where Seymour is and my SoPadre partner is still in bed... but... the shop across the road has guys all over it so I walk over and ask if one can come jump the van... they put a charger on the battery and said to let it sit for a bit and charge before startin... so I waited.... long story short at noon the van is running! YEAH!

I was off to visit one of my artist Billy Eli (www.BillyEli.com) had a great meeting, went to leave and DARN the battery was dead! So he got out his jump start thingy and it was dead so we went back in to plug it in and visited some more. At 9:30pm the thing was still not fully charged so they made me sleep on the couch. Would not let me go sleep in the van. :) The low was 30 last nite so I guess I can spend a nite on the couch. So this morning we go out and put the jumper cables on his car and the van and VOILA it starts! YEAH....

Drove 25 miles to a McD's and gettin some work done... will sit here much of the afternoon tryin to get work caught up since I haven't done much on it the last 3 days... Not sure what I'll be doing this evening yet, seems every plan I've made so far has been blown away. There is a Walmart downt he road 2 miles... when I get ready to leave here will have to get a jump. Goin to look thru Craigslist for a temp 1-2 day job, hopefully raise enough for a new battery... Wish me luck!

Expenses so far...

Monday -0-
Tues $10 fuel in Toyota
$2.15 donut&milk
$30 fuel in van
Wed $4.08 wipes and crackers from HEB
$2.15 b'fast at McD's