What do you eat when you don't have a kitchen?  I feel like in this department I have a huge advantage over my transient van dwelling counterparts.  By staying in the same place most of the time you find were the really good meal deals are and take advantage of them.  I also have an advantage of having an office with a dorm fridge, and a break room across the hall with a microwave.  Certainly, if i had a larger van I would have the room and power to carry my own microwave and dorm fridge and maybe some day I will do something like that.

     Breakfast  Here is my most unhealthy meal of the day.  I get to work and grab some crap out of my mini fridge and nuke it.  Hot dogs, burritos, or hot pockets.  Total cost? $1-2.

     Lunch  Every day I walk over to the hospitol and eat their salad bar.  It costs 30 cents per ounce and I get %10 off because I have a salad club card.  Its always fresh and they mix up the ingredients daily to keep it from getting boring.  Total cost $3-4.

     Dinner  I eat two items of the dollar menu at Taco Bell and chase it down with a cup of water.  Recently they have had these cool habenero tacos for a buck that are just astounding!  Also, you can opt to go "frisco".  This option removes all dairy products from your taco and replaces it with pico de gallo, fantastic!  Total cost $2.15.

    So there you have it.  My total meal costs for the day is about six to eight bucks.  Could it be healthier?  I suppose, but i feel like i am doing pretty good on that budget.  I also keep a mess kit, a small stove, and some shelf stable food items in the van, in the event that i need to camp out in the sticks for a few days.  All in all, I feel I am eating like a king!  And, saving enough to splurge on a fancy meal when the situation arises.  Yup, life is good my friends!

     So I need to share about my odor struggles here.  When I set aside my first pair of dirty socks I knew this would be an issue I needed to stay ahead of.  So off I went to walmart were I found a bottle of knock off fabreeze.  It wasn't as much the two dollar price tag as it was the small spray bottle size that drew me in.  For obvious reasons, anything in a large or inefficiently shaped container irritates the hell out of me now.

     The smell was pleasant to the nose wile I stood in the isle but, oh my word, do it do some damage to the inside of the van!  I hit the bedding and the seats and within minutes I knew I had done wrong to my baby!  The bouquet resembled the sickly sweet fregrance of the adult briefs I load into the dumpster every morning at work.  An almost pleasant aroma until its mingled with fecal matter!

     I drove around for a day with my windows down and began to wonder if the smell was ever going to let up.  Then, my kind hearted ex offered me a fabreeze arasol can that was spose to smell like clean laundry.  I think this stuff would be ok on its own, but now the smell inside the van was an absolute assault on the senses.  It was like someone was airing their clean linnens inside a hot porta potty!

     So then, friday, I was standing in the checkout line and I saw a fabreeze vent clip air freshener.  I want to say it was like spring breeze flavored or something like that.  I mounted it up and things got almost unbearable in there! It did however get rid of the porta potty twist and now a few days later it is rather pleasant in the van again.  Or, it is possible I have completely destroyed my ability to smell.  At any rate there is not a hint of sock smell to be had!  

     If there is a moral to this story, it is simply: test out the airfreshner some place you don't care about before you pull that trigger!

     One issue in the back of my mind few weeks now is my habit or daily drinking.  Its something I have done pretty much since highschool.  At it's worst I was putting down over a twelve pack a night and some times approaching an eighteen pack.  since I have had long periods were I didn't drink at all.  Currently I have been drinking two to four beers a night with the occasional binge.  

     The legal aspects of drinking in the van could include open container or even an OWI if a cop wanted to be a dick about it.  I have certainly heard stories of bar goers passing out in their car and getting busted simply for having the keys in their possesion.  I am not sure how accurate these accounts are, but if an officer decided I needed to move for some reason it would be awkward if intoxication prohibited that.  Certainly, the chances of the police giving me trouble are small but an OWI would be a catastrophy in my situation.

     lets talk about the bigger issue here: my daily drinking is baggage.  Its an unhealthy, unnecessary relic from my 20s that I would be much better off without.  I have shed so much other baggage to make this situation work that I feel like it would not be in the spirit of the project to hang on to this one.  When one thinks about removing things from one's life as a way to make it better, you would assume the first thing on that list would be bad habits.  Oddly enough, this has been one of the last!  A real testiment to the appeal of those ruts our wheels ride in.  

     I am not quitting drinking.  I will just no longer do it in my home.  now I will just partake of alcohol in its best role: the universal condiment of social interaction!  I may likely go out  more now but, I will spend my drinking time on some conversation and comradery.  It won't be spent mindlessly draining bottles wile watching TV.

    Last night I had a great time in Ossian at a bar called Bambino's.  I went there to spend a little time with my buddy Greg but I stayed a good bit after he left.  There was a young couple in there, and we got into a long conversation.  I ended up closing the bar down!  Time flys when you are having fun.  And, you have a lot more fun when your not worried about getting busted driving home!  

    So many things are simplified by living in the van.  You never forget anything at home!  If you want to take a nap you can do it at any time.  If you get something on your shirt you can just change.  And, last but not least, when Yellowstone explodes all i will have to do is point the van east and put the pedal to the floor! 

   Well, I have stayed in the van several nights now and one issue that seems to bother me is the low humidity.  I wake up several times in the night with my nose half plugged, and my throat so dry I can't even swallow!  I keep a water bottle near the bed, have for years, just take a few sips and I am back in buisness.  early this week, when I was sleeping in the blizzard, it was exceptionally bad.  The high wind was causing the furnace to run a lot, putting a bunch of hot dry air out.  

   So what is a guy to do?  At first I considered making something to set in front of the furnace to wick water up into the furnaces airflow.  This would most likely work but I don't know if I want to piss with it every night and then make sure it doesn't spill water when on the move.  I did find some travel oriented personal humidifiers online that seemed pretty promising.  of course, power useage and storage space are both big factors in any devise I choose.  

   Update: I went to walmart today and found the slickest little dehumidifier!  I paid under 20 bucks for it and it runs silently off of a usb cord!  I have had it running on the counter for a few hours and it really seems great and it is so small.  It comes with three filters wich are thin fiberous straws that wick the water up out of the glass.  I would say my only concern would be how fast it used them up and how hard are they to get a hold of.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Crane-Cool-Mist-Travel-Humidifier-Slate/49801903