We were living in a house and our friend actually owned this van before we did. He didn't want it
anymore and he wanted a car and I had a Path Finder
and so we just straight-up switched cars. February 1st will be 15 months and we
spent roughly six months traveling when we first moved into the van and then
returned to Colorado in the spring of last year because we love where we live
here in Colorado and here we are rocking out winter because Casey wanted to
snowboard. We don't hang out in the van too much in the winter. It's mostly just sleeping
and staying warm at night and making sure your stuff doesn't freeze. Some days
are much worse than others because sometimes we can just hang out in the
van, like right now, this is really mild. Sleeping at night is not really a
problem for us. Waking up and getting changed in the cold and stuff like that
but that's what the heater's for. You get used to it after a couple weeks living in the cold temperatures.
Hola. Welcome to Tatanka, The White Buffalo.
She's a 95 Ford Econoline. She's pretty awesome. She's our home. Let's take a look
at her. She's a nice creamy white. I usually have black Reflectix or I
painted a black in the windows so when the cars and especially cops are driving
by it's not a big flashy yellow warning sign saying, "Hey, someone's living in here".
Here's the back. We got solar up top and with our vent and it comes down
into the back here. Here's our back storage area. Here's our Reflectix.
Bed's right here. All our storage well most of the big storage is underneath.
Our hundred watt solar panel that we have right now comes down from up top, it goes
into our nice controller box, it goes into our second battery which then
powers all our lights and all that which we don't use that much so it's all we
need is 100 watts. Here's our decrepid propane. It's the only thing that's
like rusted out on this van. I don't even want to
open it cause I feel like it's going to fall off but that's where propane goes.
Welcome to the inside of Tatanka, our tiny home.
One kind of van life hack for us especially in
the winter are using burlap sacks on our floor. It really helped with dragging
snow and mud in as well as just keeping the floor a lot warmer.
This is our little bathroom corner. Little bathroom vanity, toothbrushes, and things like that
go over here. So we don't use our sink, we never have. The pump works but we decided
not to forfeit all of the storage space under the sink and we needed that space
for more important things. Cooking utensils, hot pads, spices and seasonings
and this is my little sacred space where I keep my crystals and my jewelry. Down
the way we kind of each have our own bookshelf in a sense. Each have your own
cubby in the back. We each have our own sleeping situations going on. I get a lot
colder than Casey does. Casey has a 30 degree sleeping bag and a down blanket I
have a down comforter that weighs like 20 pounds. Another down comforter that
doesn't weigh so much and a smaller blanket. Extra storage over here. Towels
and shoes. Everything that isn't here in the summer but in the winter we just
kind of insulated our storage area as well as our heater and then another sort
of deal that we've done for winter helping to keep the heating we've put
these fleece pieces up so this one goes across the door. First we would have
Reflectix on this window. First one goes up here. These stay pretty well closed and
then this one we have handy hooks, super high-tech, that closes here and then
there's one other piece over this window that we can put down.
It actually works really well. It keeps a lot of heat inside.
Staying organized is key. We do have van life friends who it's hard for them to stay
organized and their van is just a mess, always, and it's cool but it's just like
even they get frustrated how messy it is. Yeah, it's not as enjoyable. Yeah cuz then
it's a burden. Find cool places to hang out inside if you can't deal with the
cold. Luckily we have friends here who own businesses or places for us to go
hang out and that's probably a luxury for most people. On sub zero nights fill up your
water jug and bring it into your warm area to mitigate that completely
freezing solid, which has happened. Check your fluids. Towels are super important.
Downside to the Mr. Buddy heater that we use that I know a lot of van lifers out
there are using is the condensation and water that's put out into the air. From
what I've been told for every gallon of propane you burn it releases
three-quarters of the gallon of water into the air. We are wiping the insides of
our windows down as well as cracking windows and just with snow and crap like
that in general towels are very helpful. Down. Everything down. Down moon boots
huge down blankets. You know just kind of taking it day by day and the
temperatures are not the same every day so some days are a lot harder than
others. Winter's not going to last forever. We're so used to calling this van home.
It's been fifteen months of this. I mean life's not supposed to be easy all the
time so it just kind of puts things into perspective for when it is really nice
and it's, you know, a balmy 73 and the windows are open all night. Those nights will be
even more appreciated when they come back after this winter.
It's kinda windy out. I hope you enjoyed today's episode if not that's alright if so
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for you and until next time I will see you next time. Yeah.