Fernweh-“far woe” – a pain to see far-flung places beyond our doorstep

So after the PCT, I decided to try van-life. I’ve lived and traveled in or on hum-vees, naval ships, motorcycles, 18 wheelers, small cars, pickup trucks, and as you know on foot so why not a comfortable house on wheels with my dog. I bought a 1992 E- 150 and after extensive renovations I set out to start my new life by celebrating my 40th birthday in Big Bend National park and from there visit every national park I could drive to. Well things did not go as planned but we did see Vicksburg and spend a few days living on a beach in Louisiana. ( Where an insane environmental group tried to build a fence right in front of the van doors to fence off the ocean) and we rode ferries and blew out a tire in Texas and we made it to Big Bend for my birthday (after spending a grand on a new fuel pump) and it was amazing! Then we saw Carlsbad caverns and Guadalupe Mountains and looked for aliens in Roswell. We also blew a whole in the radiator and patched it with jb weld and lost the engine trying to make it back for repairs as we limped to Arkansas trailing huge clouds of smoke down I-40 before being towed back to Tennessee by my Dad.
The van (Vancine) was toast and we were broke, homeless, in debt from repairs (the most expensive trip to Big Bend National Park in History) and licking our wounds but the dream was alive.

And I couldn’t kill it. Everyone said at 40 the wanderlust will die, you’ll settle down. I bought land, I tried to be still. Got a job, and yet I dreamed of everywhere, anywhere else. If I could just stay still I could have what everyone else wanted, a huge tv, the newest phone, a fancy car, a climate controlled life. But It wasn’t me I bought a bus.
Besides, My dog had caught my wanderlust. He had climbed mountains, hiked canyons, slightly illegally swam the Rio Grande. How could he be content running circles in the same old yard?

So we labored and we planned. And I had other plans as well. I was to hike the El Camino in Spain in the fall. A lifelong dream. I worked on our bus. I bought a ticket on a plane. This was not the perfect architect designed dream bus with whitewashed walls and perfectly straight lines that look like brand new 5 star New York City Apartments that you see on Instagram. This was a shoe string budget redneck know-how 20 plus year old rattle trap bus built with pallet boards and discarded cabinets, recycled lumber and old batteries, every reusable part we could scrounge from the van, it was hundreds of hours of I don’t know what I’m doing, a front yard paint job with rustoleum, it was running wire and randomly ordering stuff from the internet hoping it would work cause there was no one to ask, it’s a flea market door, and cabinets designed by dad , a bus seat cut down and reupholstered for a dog, a half a whiskey barrel shower and it’s an off the grid miracle that it works and a dream and it’s home.
Summer faded into fall ,work progressed, as I could afford the parts, the water pump came. We wired in the heater, added more solar panels and installed the water tank. I studied maps and read books about the El Camino. Checked out all my old gear preparing to hike.

November arrived and a week before I was to leave they canceled my plane ticket. I had bought it for less than 500 bucks months before but now since it was so close; a replacement would cost thousands. I couldn’t postpone for it was too close to winter. My trip to Europe was no more.

Reeling, I eyed my bus. I knew I needed to go somewhere anywhere. I christened her Fernweh, which is basically German for farsickness the absolute need to travel, to move, to go far away: and I call her Fern for short.

There were only a few National Parks I hadn’t been to, east of the Mississippi so we roughly aimed for those. They were not close together. We got distracted and climbed to the tops of Alabama and West Virginia. We drove to the Atlantic Ocean so Bilbo could chase seagulls. We fought hordes of mosquitos at Santee Coastal Reserve. And we made it to New River Gorge and Congaree National Parks. We visited Gettysburg and Shenandoah drove all of the Blue ridge parkway that was open camped in every national forest we got close too, hiked random trails and played in the snow.
We spent Christmas at Hot Springs National park in Arkansas and climbed its highest peak Mount Magazine. We reached the roof of Mississippi on New Years of 2023 and It was time to prepare to head out west.