“Vincent Van Go” Goes To Death Valley

William Maclay
Dec 20, 2024
5 min read

We have never written about our camping conveyance. Not sure why… just haven’t. We have ran the gamut from car camping to RV’s, each one served a purpose at their point in time.

Sometimes life changes cause you to make decisions ahead of the game. We have always intended to downsize into a camping van and hence we did. We sometimes don’t think things through completely before making a decision… we just do… maybe spontaneous is a better way to think about it… but that’s what I like about us.

Thus, “Vincent Van Go” aka Vinnie, a 2022, 21’ Winnebago Travato Van came into our life a little earlier than we anticipated.

So… taking 43 years of a variety of camping gear that we thought we absolutely needed for each rig and selecting what was absolutely necessary for the van was a challenge in itself. Also, let’s not forget we are dealing with a used vehicle which has its own issues.

Packing and unpacking… moving things from one place to another… do we really need this or that? Yes? No?

Feeling like we were getting it together the toilet broke…Finding a toilet on the Saturday before we headed out was another obstacle… but yeah! …after a two hour drive one way, we pulled into a Camping World and purchased our new throne. Not the color we wanted but told ourselves it blends.

Food… I packed way too much. And don’t get me started on the spices I can’t live without.

Clothes / Shoes for all weather contingencies

Emergency supplies

Navigating, communication and weather monitoring systems for the co-pilot.

We were planning on heading out on Sunday but the weather across mid America was a bit out of control. Tornados, snow, torrential rain and flooding in some areas.

Watching the weather forecast we finally made the decision to head out on Tuesday uncertain of what lied ahead of us.

Day 1 Challenges:

Windy… rainy… chilly

We knew we needed to flush out Vinnie’ freshwater system before taking showers or even brushing our teeth but we had to do that on the road. The water in Vinnie had apparently been sitting for a while and was very odiferous. But the rain and mud prevented us from doing so on day one. I do not want to forget to mention that the campground was under a boil water notice due to a broken water main!

Day 2 Challenges:

Clear blue skies but still cold.

Detour off Interstate 44 as torrential rain caused mass flooding in Missouri and in one instance flooded a bridge… hence the closure. It was pretty entertaining driving on a very windy farm road with 100 or so 18 wheelers coming at us. The detour adding an additional 2 hours to our already long day.

Pulled into our first “express style” RV park behind a Holiday Inn Express. Apparently the motel leased out the property to a very nice campground manager.

Flushed Vinnie out at least 5 times to finally get fresh water into his system. Still skeptical I brushed my teeth with bottled water.

The campground was very nice… but it was right next to the highway with numerous semi trucks passing by using their Jake Brakes all night long!

Day 3 Challenges:

Weather… rain, wind and very nippy.

Camping at Loves Truck Stop Hook - UP for the night. The name alone made me wonder what we were getting into. Turned out it was eight large spaces with full hook-up’ for RV’. Better than I thought it would be. Actually it worked out well and would stay at that one again.

Van organization not working. Can’t get to my stuff when the beds down.

Reorganized our daily toiletries

and oh yeah … my spices.

I’m a happy camper now!

Day 4 Challenges:

Wind… all night long…

Day 5 Challenges:

Weather… Snow ahead of our route

7pm… What the heck is that beeping noise every 20 seconds? The hubby diligently trying to discover before we retire. Nope went to bed with BEEEP… BEEEP… all night long.

Day 6 Challenges:

Chilly but sunny.

Laundry day at the campground. One of the other campers had 10 loads of laundry ahead of us… hence we went in search of a Laundromat… after starting the loads all I could think about was what’s that smell? … fortunately it didn’t effect the wash. Never found out what that smell was and I’m pretty sure I did not want to know.

The BEEEP! BEEEP! was the battery in our awning… who knew? Problem solved!

Finally arriving at Death Valley on the 7th day we were ready for a long rest and that’s exactly what we did.

In retrospect should we have bought a used camping vehicle 4 weeks before we headed out on our annual 6 week westward camping trip with all the other things going on in our lives and without doing a test camping run? Hmmmm… probably not our best idea.

But as we reflect on this journey and even with all our challenges and I only highlighted a few, we are very happy and excited about future adventures with our Vinnie. He held up well… some cases better than me.

Death Valley finally opened the “Wild Rose Tavern “. It sits on the 18th hole of the golf course.

There we have met some great people and had fun and interesting conversations.

The bartender for one… after chatting about his travels I asked “how old are you 12?” He said “no 14.” In his 21 years he has travelled more than most people will ever do. Great kid! We wish for him to continue to be adventurous and if we see him next year we will look forward to hearing about them.

Then there was the River Runner and his lovely companion for another. Older couple like us just living the dream. Not sure how many rivers he has paddled but it’s somewhere in the 40’s. Amazing. Being roughly the same age we all had life stories to tell. It was a lot of laughs and reflections of all our life experiences.

Our the last night in the valley we met another bartender at the Wild Rose that typically works at the employee pub. I pinpointed him right away as a musician. Just the way he acted with the patrons and the way he carried himself was a giveaway. His respect for music and the dessert kept our conversations flowing for quite a while.

My sister in law calls Death Valley “our happy place”… she’s right. It was worth the journey… we love Death Valley in all its glory… always have… always will…