My name is Kristi, wife for 30 years to Brent, who started this Van Haulen blog and website. Just as Brent does, I love adventure and love living this life of adventure with him. One of the best adventures in life has been raising our three girls who are all adults now. Over the years of our marriage, we have had many adventures together. We have kayaked and hiked along the coast of Catalina, ridden many centuries on our road bikes, mountain biked in numerous places, backpacked in Yosemite, and hiked Angels Landing and Observation Point in Zion (along with many other hikes that I won’t bore you with), Though we love adventure, I never imagined us being involved in a van conversion and beginning the van life. 

For about a year, Brent would watch videos about van conversions and would make a comment that it would be so fun to do something like that. I told him he could enjoy those van conversions from the comfort of the couch as he watched those videos. Unfortunately, or fortunately, his obsession of van conversions intensified. Every time I would come downstairs or get home from wherever I was, another van conversion video would be on and he would try to get me to watch those videos. It would be fun he said. No thank you. I told him we are not millennials needing to do this. In fact, JUST THE OPPOSITE. We are grandparents. 

Well, one day I somehow found myself on the couch watching a van conversion video. How did that happen? Yep, you guessed it. Those videos I watched then turned into watching Trent and Allie’s van life adventure (very sneaky Brent) and I slowly (though I wouldn’t admit it) became interested in their journey and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. In June of 2019, I found myself with Brent at a Van Life meetup in Big Bear, CA. I was there for Brent! No intention of getting one any time soon. We were just looking (as Brent kept telling me). It was crazy all the things they had there for van conversions: vans galore, so many people, lights, window coverings, bumpers, storage, water tanks, roof racks, awnings. You name it, I think they had it. Surprisingly, we left Big Bear that day with me telling Brent if we were going to do this we would have to get the tall roof van (you have to realize we are not tall people). My mistake. I did not realize there was a correct term. We would need a high roof van. Needless to say, the wheels got going in Brent’s head. A few weeks later after searching and searching and looking and looking at different vans, we purchased our High roof van ready to embark on a new adventure!