I'm Building into a Cargo Van
"It's in your blood!" My aunt exclaimed when I showed her the van I had on hold to purchase. I had been searching for a cargo van to build into since November and, within a month, I found "the one" just one week before I was set to travel to New Orleans to see my aunt for the first time in over 10 years. When I told her about the van and my plans to convert it into my new home-on-wheels, she excitedly revealed much about my heritage which had previously been sequestered. That some of her best childhood memories were spent in her uncle Chuck's RV living off cans of SpaghettiOs. His sister, my grandma, wasn't so different in her attitudes toward life. I knew of my own mother's adventures on the Greyhound, exploring parts the country at the time as a single mother of one, and of my paternal grandparents' travels in their own RV. In fact, it was my paternal grandparents who first got me started on road trips at just 6 years old. I remember being i...