First night in Van Halen down! I was a little bit under the weather and hadn’t been sleeping well in general, but sleeping in a van didn’t seem to make anything worse. I was just in underwear beneath a very nice double fleece blanket courtesy of Anna and was generally comfortable but with cold feet. Given the season and where I’m heading I suspect I will spend most nights in a sleeping bag.

First breakfast was what-will-become-the-standard yogurt and granola. Pretty tasty. I then cleaned out the mat in my living room because I had split beer on it the night before. I’m still getting used to moving around in the confined space. Fortunately almost none got on the carpet and it was with practiced ease that I was able to rid the van of stank beer smell.

The next order of business was to construct some blinds to keep out the light at night. Last night I had jury rigged some blinds with Velcro, but it was painfully obvious that this was not a permanent solution. Fortunately I was parked right next to a Home Depot and was able to easily get the materiel I needed to whip up some bomb-ass curtain rods. I’ll post a description of the build soon. The blinds themselves came from Walmart and are called something like “Eclipse ULTRA LIGHTFUCKER” blackout blinds, or something, so they should keep it nice and dark inside.

The weather was extremely excellent and matched crew morale as I drove to DIA to store Van Halen temporarily as I flew to California to help Mary move to Denver. We did the drive in 2 days (which felt like nothing after the drive from Madison) and arrived safely in Denver around 10am on another wonderful day (is the weather always this good in Denver?). There was a big snow storm that dumped on I-70 over the mountains the night before we crossed, but it was a cake walk for us. Now I’m hanging out in Denver for a few days before setting off again. Just to keep you interested here are some shots from the drive from LA to Denver (click for larger images and captions). The west is much more interesting than the center.

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