Making It Ours

We'll wait until Monday to press our salesman for an update on the status of our van's arrival, though we have our fingers crossed that it is no longer in Baltimore.  Meanwhile, I thought I'd share one of the many reasons why it is important to us to get the van sooner, rather than later.

A few years back I started bicycle hill climbing, and after one season of training I placed in the top 85-90% of the very large 50-59 age bracket in the annual Bogus Basin Hill Climb - up there with plenty of guys that had raced for decades.  I think I was about seven minutes behind the fastest man in the bracket, and seeing how much I had improved in such a short time, I undertook to see if I couldn't close that gap.  With dedicated training, the next year I was faster than that guy (by a few seconds), and shaved about six minutes off my previous year's effort (though I only finished fourth in my bracket).

So what does that have to do with the topic of this post?  It explains the inspiration for some graphics that we'd like to have applied to our van, if there is sufficient time to do that before we leave.  That's because in the Tour de France, the best climber wears the maillot à pois rouges - a jersey with red polka dots - to signify that he is King of the Mountains.  While I've never earned that designation in our local hill climb, I still enjoy hill climbing and watching the climbing stages of the Tour, which is why we are thinking of having our new van look something like this:

Le Maillot à Pois Rouges.

I suspect we might attract a little attention, but all the easier for us to meet others on the road...

On the rear, at the bottom of the "barn doors" is our personal motto:

How Much is Enough?

I think it's probably the most important question that you can ask yourself, and one that you should ask yourself over and over throughout your life.  In general, the less you need, the simpler your life will be.  

Of course everyone's minimum standard for enjoying life is different and that standard is different in the various stages of life, so there are unique answers for everyone (and hopefully your answers will continue to be compatible with your spouse's, at least if you are hoping that the relationship will continue to flourish).  Besides, the Devil in me wants to go around parking the van next to big RVs (which we call "glampers") so that we can create our own David and Goliath photo collection, with every picture including that motto.  ;-)

So if time permits, we'll be doing our traveling in "full anti-stealth mode" in a van that will look a lot like our quick mock-up above.