Road lifers often have gypsy souls. If you have seen Into the Wild, you are aware of the two categories – leather tramps and rubber tramps. The former type wanders on foot and the latter wanders behind a wheel Our Vie Adventures

These are apparently nice people. Caring People. I stumbled onto their Blog, Our Vie Adventures, while phone scrolling—aimlessly clicking around while careful to avoid the political news. There’s plenty of non political stuff on the internet. I found this site among the millions of others. A shiny penny on the beach. This was their Blog. They maintained it for several years, while they travelled. The last post I could find was in 2020…and then what? They melted back into the inchoate swarm of humanity. A nice couple absorbed into the vastness of life. I’m reminded of Doctor Zhivago’s fate: urban anonymity…and Laura’s fate: a labor camp. Woah! get ahold of your shit, Gloomy. Next thing you know, you’ll be feeling good about people.

8 p.m. Friday 2025 February 13 howl’n wind and blast’n rain

I’m tucked into my coffin-sized mini-van bunk. Wedged between an empty Sprinter Van and a triangle of hedges on a lonely cold and dark Marina Parking lot. A priceless stealth position. I’m bundled into the smelly sleeping bag Dirk gave me. I’m thinking I gotta wash this god damned sleeping bag. I’m warm but the sleeping bag could give me Dog Mange. Smelling it could give me TB. Then what? I show up at the hospital with Dog Mange and TB, health workers quail in horror….dart for the exits.

I’m staring death in the eye.

Well…for the time being I’m still alive. Tucked in nice and warm. Right here in my marina parking lot. Knock on wood…I’m cop proofed. Nice. I can just lay here. Drink my wine. Read my phone. Not worry about the Fuzz. The Fuzz. Who came up with that term? Beatniks, probably.

I checked with that know-it-all Prick A.I. but even he don’t know where it came from. I say Beatniks and leave it at that…

Anyway, I’m scrolling around, careful to turn the phone light away from my window covers. Careful to avoid Elon Musk and Donald Trump news. I no longer gobble up the Donald Trump news. No More! I’m done with politics. Let the evil bastards enslave us. Your standard voting citizen of the good old U.S.A. is too stupid to know better than to vote in these bastards. This horror fact of our rapidly diminishing Democracy no longer rings in my ears. I refuse think about it. Or read about it. It’s like the voting public came down with Dog Mange of the brain.

Where the fuck was I !!! I’m scrolling around. clicking stuff that aint political. Wha’d I do? I must’ve randomly clicked Van Life, and, boom, this book pops up.

CAR LIVING WHEN THERE’S NO OTHER CHOICE???

I’m reading the introduction to this book:

I’m Homeless?

I thought I was Van Life’n.

I’m homeless.

The Gloomy Boomer is homeless.

I’m not a Van Lifer.

I’m a homeless dude.

Bob Wells rooked me.

This Jay Bird led me to believe, through his you-tube videos and the national movement he launched, that living in a mini-van is cool. How’d I get so easily conned? I’ll tell you how. The same way normal lug heads got conned into voting for Donald Trump:

Effective Propaganda!

I believed all the hype about van life. I went with it. How’d it start? I’ll tell you how it started. My good pal Rel Render sent me a Bob Wells you tube video. That’s how it started. That’s all it took. Now look at me. Wedged between a ratty hedge and that dude Ryan’s Sprinter van. Lay’n under Dirk’s smelly sleeping bag.

I could kill myself but then I’d be dead…

A Valentine’s Day Dream

14 January 5 a.m. I snap awake. The storm has passed. I’m alone in a frigid car, bundled in smelly covers. Least I’m warm. I’m remembering my dream. One of my usual pleasant dreams. Zombies shuffling around, banging into each other like rabid bumper car drivers. Terrified Van lifers peek out through their windows. I step out of the van to pee. Van Lifer’s frantically bang their windows. “Get back in the car, you fool!” Too late. A zombie looks like a woman I used to date bites my arm off. I’m howling. Bloody stump squirting blood on her Zombie neck. She don’t mind. She chaws on my arm like it’s a spare rib. I’m sad. It dawns on me I’m gonna turn into a Zombie. I’ll be Just like her. Except I’ll have one arm. That’s the ticket! I’ll be homeless no more. I’ll be a Zombie! A respected member of a community…

I’ll care about people…about eating them and getting eaten.

I gotta go

First thing in the morning. You gotta go you gotta go. I yank off my window covers. Hop behind the wheel. Zip around the corner. I barely miss Ronnie, guy bought my boat, driving his company car off to work. He’s got a pad (my old boat). I got a van. I pull into the tennis court parking lot, conveniently located a few feet from my camp. This is like nirvana for a van lifer!

This bathroom never closes.

The tennis court’s public toilets. Hidden down here at Marina Plaza. Off the regular through way. Hardly anybody uses it. Nobody uses it at five a.m. Wait a minute. A Mexican dude is coming out as I’m going in.

We nod cordially. I do my business and step back outside. Spy him driving away in his Roofer’s Truck. Not a van lifer’s truck. A working dude’s truck. I’m wondering if he’s undocumented. It’s tough being undocumented these days, what with mass deportations in effect. By the way, how’s that going? I’m reading how Trump’s way behind Biden’s rate of deportations at this point in time. Way way way behind Obama’s rate. I’m thinking this mass deportation promise is just…a pile of bullshit. A promise Trump used to get elected.

Just like the last time!

I can’t be thinking about that shit. I’m homeless. I need to concentrate on Homeless shit.

Unless…I’m not really a Homeless Dude.

I’m a Rubber Tramp.

King Of The Road.