My First Summer Starting My Superman Journey

Well, This year has been an interesting one. This is a story of how I almost quit the reason I moved to the Pacific North West in the first place.

The last week of May I decided to drive the North Cascade Loop in Washington State. It was a nice day, no rain and about 80 degrees. About an hour into the trip my van decides to blow a head-gasket.

To be fair, I probably should not have driven uphill in the heat without knowing how the van was in the first place. But c’est la vie. Anyway, after stopping about 7 times to fill the van up with water so it doesn’t completely break. I made it to a parking garage in Bellevue. Paid A monthly fee to keep it there.

My first night in the structure I was awakened by a loud tap on the window. It was the security guard. He said my van sitting there was really suspicious looking. I mean, garage structure I choose was in the middle of three banks, and Bellevue is a really, really nice city. But, I had already read the fine print for monthly parking pass and nowhere did it say sleeping in a car overnight in the structure wasn’t allowed. I told the security guard this and he said he still needed to find out if it was ok. So he took out his phone and called his manager. “Yes hi, we have a transient sleeping in a van here.” That really hurt. I felt so ashamed and so low being referred to like that, I’ll admit it. In my mind I was ready to conquer the world with my new journey! But in the real world I was a transient in a van. I’ll never forget that. Anyway, after he got off the phone he told me the manager said there was nothing against the policy, so it was allowed. Then he turned and walked away.

I needed to figure out how I was gonna fix this situation with the van. After calling some mechanics, I found out it was about 3k to fix, along with the cracked radiator I had as well. I paid $800 for that van, so there was no way I was gonna pay 3k to fix it. So I decided to get a part time job and save up for another craigslist van. I applied to Lucky Strike in Bellevue as a busser. I figured another job that was easy enough to do at night would suffice. After my first week of living in the dark of the parking garage, and working a job I really didn’t want to. I started to second guess what the heck I was doing in the first place. But it wasn’t until I was on the bus headed to a Laundromat with a gym bag full of dirty clothes that I decided I had had enough. You see, buy this point my Superman Suit was delayed by a couple months. I was getting really impatient and frustrated and felt I was “behind schedule.” Working 6am to 2pm washing dishes then working 4pm to midnight as a busser was making me feel tired and a zombie. All the while in between planning what I was going to do as soon as I got my Superman suit.

See, I actually have a very decent resume. And I knew finding a “good” job would not be a problem. So after about ten minutes of looking I found out American Airlines was hiring flight attendants. So I applied. And I actually made it to the third step in the interview process. But. I realized if I took that job essentially I would be giving up. Because I was trying to kid myself into thinking I can do what I moved out here for, and work in an on call industry again. Deep down I knew I couldn’t. I just had to accept the fact that I had to be patient. So, I stuck it out. I found a van for $1000 from craigslist, took the bus to get it and drove it back to the parking garage.

By the time I had found the new van, my old van’s battery had died. I was on the second floor of the parking structure. I called a scrap company to pick up the van at 2am (I wanted to use the cover of night obviously.) I pushed the van out of its parking spot, somehow did a three point turn, pushed it to the ramp and coasted down and out the gate. Tow truck was waiting for me at the bottom of the garage and loaded up the van and took it away. Not gonna lie, it was. pretty sad. That was my first van, and it was gone.

The next day I told that very same security guard I was out of there. He then admitted to me that he was kinda envious of what I was doing, and told me that if he didn’t have a family he would like to live on the road as well. I thought that was very nice of him to admit to me.

So now I had to get used to living in a much much smaller van. But, I was just happy I found one.

The whole month of June. In a dang garage. Tough times never last, but tough people. It is a quote that I will always try to apply in my life. No matter how impatient I get.