Flashback: Lyndsay's Van Life - Part 5

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I broke down in Bozeman, was questioned by police, got towed to an auto shop and clogged their toilet, they were booked and I needed to be towed to another shop, then found out I'd been outside the other shop before the original tow. Because my life is a comedy.


The hose cost all of $40 to fix. I was on the road again in only a few hours. I still had 2 states and part of a province to get through.

I drove all day and all night. I'd lost any chance at my job and a place to stay for the winter and now I was trying my best to salvage the summer job and parking that I'd just lost.

At night driving through North Dakota, I saw the blue and red flashing lights in my mirror. I was preparing myself for another search; I was driving a rapey van from California through North Dakota in the middle of the night.

But it turned out the cop pulled me over because he was a collector. He loved the heart-shaped window. "I know, right?" I said. He taught me that the engine temperature meter that I'd been relying on wasn't accurate; middle of normal actually meant HOT, not normal. He wished me luck and sent me on my way.

Of course I was stopped at the border and all of my electronics were seized and searched. They demanded that I unlock the phone and turn on my data so that they could search my social media. The problem was, I didn't have data. I offered to log onto their WiFi and they said, "This isn't an Internet cafe." I pointed out that they were the ones that wanted to look through it. They took the phone into a back room; I don't know what they did with it, but they gave it back later.

They took the van into a garage and searched it. I wasn't allowed to see what they were doing, but they brought drug dogs. I was left in a locked room for three hours. I told them my whole story, about Crack Dealer Tony, my breakdown in Bozeman, that I just wanted to get my van home, why won't anyone let me get my van with heart-shaped windows home?

After those three hours, they let me go.

The moral of the story is that this life can't be planned. You can plan all you want, but life on the road just doesn't allow it; there are too many outside factors to constantly deal with. It could be weather, government, regular people in towns you're traveling through, breakdowns... The only thing you can control is how you deal with it. Are you going to get upset, lay down and die? Or are you going to follow your heart-shaped window?

After getting the van, life kept happening. Cancer, surprise pregnancy... I started to give up on my dream. My heart - van - fell into disrepair.

But then my husband restored my dream. Now we are on the road again - together. Following our heart.

And of course there's a story with that - for a later date.