December 2025

Holidays and Maintenance

December was a busy month with the holidays and spending time with family and friends. Van upgrades included wiring and installing exterior lights on the bumper, hood, and rooftop rack. This will help us with finding campsites if we arrive in the dark. It will also help with general safety and lighting purposes. 

We also spent a very busy day raptor lining the plastic panel and bumpers of the van. The plastic was getting sun faded and we wanted to ensure the panels were protected. Spraying raptor liner on them was a pretty straightforward process. As with most projects, prepping the van with tape and plastic took longer than the actual paint job did. We're pleased with how the panels have turned out. With the new bumper, winch, exterior lights, and freshly raptor lined panels, we feel like we have a new van! 

Josh worked diligently on designing and 3D printing storage cubbies for our cabinets and drawers. Our upper cabinets have some great storage containers now (we previously had used foam blocks with cutouts for mugs), and our plate and cutlery drawer has a nice sliding storage bin and container with designated slots and spaces for knives, plates, and bowls. Josh also installed two ammo boxes on the rooftop for a bit of extra storage space. We're putting our cocoa coir bricks in them to make more space in our garage.

We left Marysville, WA on Tuesday, December 30th after staying two months on Hailey's parents' property.  We made it to a Boondockers Welcome place in West Linn, OR that night. The host there was super friendly and we appreciated his kindness and generosity. On New's Year's Eve we had a van appointment at Owl Offroad. They replaced a damaged strut on the van that was under warranty. Later that afternoon we met up with some old friends of ours, Terra and Fletcher. We went to Breakside Brewery in Milwaukie where we enjoyed some great beer. We rang in the new year with just the two of us in our van in Terra and Fletcher's driveway.  

Here are some of our highlights from 2025: 

• Visited 18 US National Parks

• Spent the winter in Mexico

• Made it to the southernmost point of Baja in Mexico

• Made it to the nothernmost driveable point of the Arctic in the Northwest Territories in Canada

• Spent the summer in Alaska

• Drove through (and explored some more than others)  11 US states 

• Drove through and explored areas of three Canadian provinces 

• Traveled to Tahiti