02 Dec Rollin’ with Karma: Moving In

While hanging out in San Diego with my family we’ve had plenty of time to move in and get organized. We had haphazardly thrown most of our stuff in the van the day we moved out of our apartment, so the first order was taking out our two big duffels of clothes, random toiletries, and several grocery bags of snacks and kitchen supplies to re-sort through and figure what would be long-term stored and what we’d use first.

I also took the opportunity to remake and freshen our bed. I took out the mattress, sprayed it heavily with tea tree + water in a spray bottle, and let it dry in the sun while I straightened out layers of yoga mats. The mattress is actually pretty comfy on its own, but what else were we gonna do with our 4 random yoga mats from our apartment? Might as well put them to use instead of just sitting in storage!

On top of the yoga mats we threw down the Alpaca Rhythm Rug: a real alpaca fur tapestry I created on a whim over 8 years ago. At the time I was casually hunting genuine alpaca fur on eBay – and one day I struck the jackpot: “a box of alpaca fur circles” for $50. Each of these 12″ mini rugs had an old retail sticker for $19.99 – $25 on the back. There were 36 in total. I stitched the circles together with 2″ seams where the circles meet, creating a large rug roughly 55″ x 70″ large. It’s been a favorite accessory for camping, music festivals, and regrettably – one backpacking winter hut trip. But now it’s got a relatively permanent home in the van, insulating our bed and available for a top layer should things ever get really cold!

The van included the simple futon-type mattress – it’s nothing special but so far, it’s been really comfortable! Luckily we both prefer very firm platform beds already! On top of the mattress is our sleeping bags – a low-research purchase from Amazon when we first moved to Colorado and needed something for winter sleeping: Teton sports 0ºF rated sleeping bags. We’ve been using these on all our camping trips and 8/10 times they are too hot! So while we’ve already had our first below-freezing nights in the van, we’ve still been really toasty in these sleeping bags.

To make the bed look a little nicer, and have our favorite throw blanket to pull out easily – we have yet another alpaca blanket gifted to us from my family from their trip to Ecuador a few years ago. It’s lightweight but warm and soft – perfect topper to the bed! Another treasured camping accessory that completes our new travel bed set up: our vintage pillow cases from our childhoods!

We popped open our backpacking chair for an easy seat for cooking / lounging. We have several ideas in the works for adding shelves, more curtains, and maybe a small storage ottoman for additional seating… stay tuned!