There is no other place on earth we’d rather spend a decade-in-the-making big graduation ceremony than family van life at Yosemite. We completely ditched the virtual one.
If you had to chose one place to mark the end of malfeasance and the beginning of hope, what would you chose? That what marked the end of medical training for us, so we chose a National Park, of course. But not just any park, it had to be Yosemite, it’s magnificence matched our elation.
How Yosemite Brings Magic to Everyone in Every Way
When the emergency medicine residency graduation came around, there was no question, and we ditched his lame Zoom graduation ceremony. After how malignant Stanford was, we weren’t even planning on showing up anyway, even pre-covid. It was going to be our protest, and because the ceremony was just a lame zoom, well, it turns out it was meant to be.
As we drove into the entrance to Tuolumne Meadows, we realized that the Into the Wild soundtrack has a song called Tuolumne. It happened to play at that very moment, the moment we intended as a tribute to a friend who took his own life at 27 years old by driving off a cliff, and honoring a fantastic Stanford emergency medicine doctor also who took his own life in 2019, whom my husband worked under as a resident.
It was surreal, as we’d listened to Into the Wild our whole 15-year marriage and never recognized that the short track was called what it was. What came on was Tuolumne in Tuolumne.
The Gods Are Present
It was heavy while we sloughed off the grime from Stanford’s residency full of gaslighting and manipulation. Residency could have been a lot better, but we chose to transfer to Stanford and this institution is great at treating it’s residents sub-human.
As we drove into Yosemite, we were grateful for the gift of life and togetherness. I remembered Robert Moss’s teaching of Carl Jung’s epitaph, “invoked or uninvoked, Gods are present.”
How Family Van Life Can Be Really, Hard
Despite years of hardship, we were able to find a silver lining in the midst of it all. We learned valuable lessons and gained wisdom that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Throughout our struggles, we made it a point to keep our spirits high and maintain a sense of lightheartedness, even when things seemed impossible. In the end, it was our own reserves of strength and determination that pulled us through.
Ultimately, our experiences have taught us that we are stronger than we ever thought possible. We’ve gained a newfound sense of confidence and self-assurance, knowing that we can overcome any obstacle that comes our way. And as we look ahead to the future, we do so with a sense of hope and optimism, knowing that whatever challenges we may face, we have the strength and resilience to overcome them.
Hateful Realities
Back in the Spring, we begged to extend our site out of desperate need as we couldn’t move it when Stanford added lots of extra shifts with no pay. Jackson County, Oregon’s response was “we don’t care.” After we explained he was an essential worker in the ER, which they scoffed at, we even tried to pull the veteran card that we just need a helping hand, a simple 3-day extension. Jackson County Parks still responded: “we don’t care.” (So Sprinterdad got 1 hour of sleep after an overnight ER shift, drove 6 hours from Stanford to Ashland, Oregon while trying to not die).
Essential Workers Treated Like Crap During Covid
In our experience, no one gave a crap about our “essential worker” family during covid. All empty words, because we were treated like criminals. Ft. Bragg, CA is a place we will never visit. One of their officers kicked us out of an overnight sleeping spot at midnight after our kids had fallen asleep. The spot was listed as safe dispersed camping spot, and my husband explained he was an ‘essential worker,’ an ER doctor, just trying to get his family home to Oregon safely from his hospital shifts in the Bay. The officer didn’t care at all, not even one iota. The complete lack of care or empathy really imprinted on me the truth of covid reality.
Those are just two short stories, and we’ve got a book full! Family Van Life in America can be really hard because simply many people just don’t really care about the Golden Rule anymore. But I suppose it’s true, I should “be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond” – Rumi.
Our Resolve is Granite Strong
In 15 years we’ve made it through combat zone deployments, colicky babies, high-spirited toddlers and kids, grueling courses of study, health challenges, and toxic relatives. We’ve got plenty of scars, but they are really our victories; our resolve is as strong as the massive granite boulders of Tuolumne.
Climbing the Ladder Isn’t What it Used to Be
After going through years of trying anything to make it through residency on the west coast we realized climbing the American dream ladder isn’t at all like it used to be. We are all lucky if we don’t slip and fall off into the abyss as the Oregon Trail generation.
Through it all, the hardest thing was to be torn apart. In deciding to wrestle through it and create a happily-ever-after be damned, we lost each other for a time. Living in different states from each other was horrible, and being told we had to get rid of one of our pets was horrible (we didn’t). I’ll not forget the friends along the way that kept us from completely drowning. Still, we kept a smile on our face and adventures under our feet!
All We Ever Had is Each Other
We rose up, every day, knowing there was no break, no family support, no one to turn to if it got really bad. I brought the girls with me into the emergency room so many times as there was no one to help. And not even Dad’s emergency room, as he was hours away.
If we totally broke, we would just break and have to glue ourselves back together somehow. Indeed, in spite of others, we endured and prevailed. There is only brightness ahead. We got this, world. We always had. For the sake of imagining up the unimagined, and for our children, having come from a childhood of zero opportunity and only limit, to limitless. Our girls know that no matter what life throws at you, you can navigate it, convert it, revolutionize it.
Sprinterfam Was Born of Necessity, Now It’s Our Way
This post on Dad’s medical training explains how Sprinterfam was born. Looking back it’s apparent that family van life was meant to be our way. I did not love tent camping, and muscled through it twice a year for the sake of sleeping in nature, at that time I never could have imagined I would live in a van for many months. But there is no other way we could adventure (let alone survive) on the West Coast, and we fell in love with it.
We’ve spent countless nights under the brilliant stars and luminious moon with our children and pets cozily sleeping; a big family nest. Van Life is freedom. The discovery of family Van Life was a gift from the universe.
Sleeping Among Nature Grows Dreams
Sleeping in nature wakes us back up; I have the most magical, vivid, fantastical dreams when parked in Yosemite National Park. It’s a vast space where the unquestionably the otherworld meets ours. Why does nature help us dream? I can’t wait to ponder this question while curled up in the van this fall, reading a new publication from one of the best dream authors out there: Robert Moss. Growing Big Dreams: Manifesting Your Heart’s Desires through Twelve Secrets of the Imagination.
In nature I dream best, and have the space to imagine what shape our lives will take. I think that when people see our van, and excitedly say “I want a van!” what they are really saying is, “I want freedom!”
More dreams to come on our Pacific Northwest National Parks van adventure. We will be doing it in style, as we have created a double bunk system for the kids in our 22’ van which makes the front of the van a double bunk room.
For now, where there is nothing to hold onto and so much coming at us from all directions, there is no better time to get lost in the woods.
