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Glamping, this ain't. Right now, in campsites all across this great land, there's a million people hard at work editing their tastefully composed shot of an early-morning sun luminously peeking over the snow-laden tops of a scraggy West Coast mountain range, where glossy fog drifts over the manicured tips of the lively pines that lean right to the edge of the cragged cliffs, where the rugged ocean pounds away atop wrinkled rocks, down to the curly steam rising from their mugs of artisanally-grown, sustainably harvested organic small-batch coffees as their terrier-mix puppy named Riley looks on with a cocked head and mild interest as they post it to their Instagram account with the hashtag "#liveauthentic."
Like Instagram, it's all a filter, viewed through a lens. But today's truth of #vanlife comes from Kathryn Jezer-Morton, her husband, and their two young sons—who packed up every single compartment and cubby inside a 1981 Volkswagen Vanagon with trail mix and Legos, fired up that creaky air-cooled flat-four, and headed west: from Texas to New Mexico. Slowly, we'd presume.
Along the way, Jezer-Morton practiced the fine art of making room-temperature margaritas, interacting with strangers, navigating Big Bend National Park on foot and by van, and dealing with the physical and emotional challenges that come with taking your kids on the road, an extended vacation of the "don't make me pull this van over" variety.
If you've ever thought of picking up an old-school Vanagon from eBay for cheap (hurry, before the nostalgia tax makes prices rise like a Westfalia roof) and driving to somewhere, anywhere really, this full story at Jezebel can serve as both cautionary tale and reaffirmation at the same time: cautionary in that not every second is worth the social media braggadocio, and reaffirmation in that despite all the mishaps and little peccadilloes, it still sounds like a damn good time.
