WonderVan Adventures

It's time to start to figure out what we can fit in this WonderVan! We have watched a lot of YouTube videos, been reading other people's blogs on their van conversions and have seen some really cool companies that make conversion kits. There is a lot out there... thank goodness. Some good, some not us and some really helpful tutorials! That said I'm a freak about everything having a place. Many of the designs look really cool but I keep wondering where all their dry food, clothes and camping chairs are going. There are so many possibilities and yet we trying to keep our 3 main goals at the forefront: self-contained, street parking friendly and good mattress. We nailed the street parking issue so we can let that go to the side now.  The mattress need to be tackled first so we would know how high we can set the mattress while allowing my very tall hubby a little headroom. He would be very unhappy and claustrophobic if we only had a little space to squirm into bed. Once we kno

We have a van! We technically bought it a week ago but it had not had all its inspections on it so it wasn't final. This last week they did a myriad of things including a new windshield, new rear breaks, new filters, basic services and a smog test. Then they detailed it. We are so happy with our experience at Jimmy Vasser's in Napa and an extra shout out to Raymond. We headed up Friday afternoon, took it for a quick spin, signed the papers, wrote the check and headed back home.  Our new girl is a 2014 Dodge Ram C/V. C/V stands for cargo van. What she really is, is a Dodge Caravan minus the rear seats. There are even hatches to wells where the seat components went. She has a tow package, a rear camera, bluetooth and more. Dennis loves the cup holder because his water cup fits nice and snug.  Of course, the measuring tapes came out and pads of paper to sketch ideas but that's for another post. For now here's a video of her arrival and a peek of the inside.

Welcome to WonderVan Adventures!   I'm Sophie and this blog is about my husband, Dennis, and my adventures in converting a cargo van into a camper van. It will also be about our adventures on the open road when our camper van is ready to go.  Why the name WonderVan? Well, Dennis worked for Wonderbread for over 30 years and it seemed like a sweet nod to his first career. Dennis now works as a school bus driver for the local school district and I work for a book publisher that specialized in sewing and craft titles.  What made us want to take on this project? There are lots of reasons we decided to take on this DIY but the whole COVID situation has made us pretty stir crazy. I now work at home, which I'm very grateful about, but it feels like I NEVER leave the house. In many ways, I don't. We have been talking about getting a trailer, a teardrop, a used RV or other mobile "vacay" on wheels for a while and to be honest, I pretty much lost it. I started to stress tha