The Road Back to the AT (Week 2)

Description

Here's the 2nd video in my "The Road Back to the AT" series.

Follow Snuggles & I on our return to the Appalachian Trail through these Prep, Travel, & Hiking Vlogs...... In this video we Do some hiking, Clear out of our Apt, & Give a tour of our Van. We hit the road on (Tomorrow) May 27th to drive cross country back to the AT.

Music By: Thunder/Dreamer

thunderdreamerband.com

Tags: Thru-hiking,Appalachian National Scenic Trail (Protected Site),Backpacking (Sport),Gear,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT,Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail (Protected Site),Utra light gear,Hiking (Sport),Van Dwelling,Road Trip

Video Transcription

hey guys what's up it's Darwin so today is the last day we're in Albuquerque we leave tomorrow morning so this past week both snows and I have been off work and we've pretty much been getting everything finalized with our apartment moving out and everything else getting the van ready getting it all stocked up getting it clean and getting ready to hit the road to head back to the 80 so I figured I'd make this one last video here in Albuquerque because tomorrow morning 8 a.m. we hit the road this is week two of the road back to the 80 so this week pretty much we've done a lot of stuff but some of the stuff kind of the highlights is we did a lot of hiking

really got out there and tried to enjoy the the Manzano's and the Mons Anita's and the sandy is one last time for a couple months before we go to a completely different type of mountains on the East Coast what's another thing we did oh yeah we moved out of the apartment

and I did a little bit more work on the van got an alignment down got the van really ready to hit the road and get all the way back to Indiana so before we do head out tomorrow I figured I would finally give you guys a tour of our home away from home the Black Stallion all right guys so here she is our 2006 Town and Country minivan just the regular inside here the cockpit me and snuggle sit mm where I do my videos from sometimes which looks like a regular minivan of our top box up top keep some extra stuff in we usually keep our packs and bunch of gear up there camping gear but unlike most regular looking minivans she is a little more than meets the eye so whenever we first went to get a van to travel in we decided that we didn't want to just buy a big cargo van we wanted something that was a little more fuel efficient so we went with a minivan did some research and found out if you buy a town and country or a Dodge Caravan they have a lot of room to do some customizing stuff to them and a lot of storage space the stone go seating version so let me kind of show you what all is going on in here all right so we actually took out there used to be seats right in here two regular bucket seats and what we did was we III made this this wooden this wooden frame that you see here and I'll show you that in just a second first off this is kind of our curtain that you know separates that way we can at night you know we can close that up to where if anybody is walking around they're not gonna see that we're in here this is our extra power pack that we use sometimes to plug up stuff it's also good because it has jumper cables on there and we can jump the van in case we're having any problems this door over here is another sliding door but it doesn't open instead I built the shelf so that way we can keep our cooler down here it's all nice and locked in keep all of our stuff cold and then we can use this shelf putting stuff on in case we need the storage if you get a minivan it has the stone ghost storage on there we actually have these two compartments down here that you can open up and there's tons of storage down here so as you can see on this side and we kind of keep our food in the pantry any items that we want to store food wise down in here and then there's another one here and everything that's under there is some shoes boots other types of things that we just want to keep down in that cargo hold so that's kind of why we picked a minivan over like a cargo van because really if you do it right there's a lot more storage options so the cushions that are on this side snuggles and I actually made these it is three-inch thick memory foam that snuggles and I upholstered ourselves with this awesome material that we got at I think like a jo-ann fabrics or some sort of fabric store but essentially what it does is it sets up like a bench and then I've kind of take a peek back here you notice that there is some more so what it does is it converts from a bench to an actual bed so we can sit back we can lounge relax eat play with Bowie and then what happens is we can set this down pull this out and it becomes a full-sized bed so here in just second I'll show you that conversion

alright guys so now as you can see we have a full-size bed and that back of the bench just folds down then this all slides out and then I made these little legs here that are actually on hinges and those clip out from the bottom sit right there on the floor they turn our cooler sideways then we got a full sized bed to lay down on and sleep for the night it's it's been really great very very comfortable very long it fits both of us really excellent so one of the last parts of the van that I want to show you is actually in the back this also opens up and their storage under here as well go ahead and open you can kind of see the way I design this fine how it's built up off of the actual van is the full layout but also you can lift up this compartment use an old trekking pole to keep it up and then we have full-on storage under here - there used to be an old bench seat I'm kind of see where it was attached and we took that out so then you have complete storage under here so we have our box of goodies there's Boies pack supplies pretty much all the stuff we need and then in here we just kind of keep a couple de packs there's our camp stove for whenever we're out camping in a national park toolbox pots and pans pretty much everything you can see we have tons of room down here tons of area so by essentially just building this wooden frame here I've made it to where we can utilize all the space in the van and make it really really efficient alright guys so hopefully you enjoyed a tour of the Black Stallion again we leave tomorrow morning headed back to in the end to stop off for a few days and then we'll be headed back to Great Barrington Massachusetts to finish up the trail so I hope this video just kind of showed you everything that we got going on and I cannot wait to get back out there on the trail and post some videos from there this is a really great option for anybody that is thinking about doing what we did living more simple taking off and seeing the us seeing the world very easy I think we bought the van for like $2,500 it didn't take much money to do all the stuff that we actually did to it but it was well worth it this van has definitely lasted a lot longer than we thought it would especially since it was like a $2,500 craigslist van

but we just kind of converted ourselves so it just kind of shows you what you can do if you put your mind to it and you really want to live simply and go out and see the world so everyone that participated in the sticker contest last week I've sent them in the mail there were ten winners which all got stickers and a picture by snuggles and then I selected a handful of random people that just got stickers so you should have those soon guys whenever you do send me a picture of whatever you put the sticker on show me your snuggles picture that you got show me something leave some comments and show everybody else I'll definitely be doing some more contests coming up then thinking about actually getting some Darwin on the trail patches made so keep an eye out for those as well again we leave tomorrow hitting the road and we'll be sharing our adventure with you filming all the way back to Massachusetts so look for the new video next week of us traveling back so make sure you like or dislike the video subscribe to my channel if you haven't already go over and check out Darwin on the trail comm snuggles is gonna be posting her last diary from last year next week

and then they'll be all brand-new diaries from the trail so keep an eye out for those as always guys thank you so much for watching you