Crazy Moebius Explores the Americas: Preparation Shmeparation

21 days to launch.

Welcome back all. Thanks for all the great comments, support and advice!

Over the past few months I have had to do a number of things in order to prepare for my trip. For example, I had to tell my boss that I was going on a 6-month leave of absence. That was a very pleasant conversation. I'd do it again if I could.

Other fun things that I have had to do (with attached stories):

1. Buy a van.

Yes, the famous van-that-has-no-name, wasn't born in my driveway. It took me 2 months to find the right van, and then 1 week to buy a different one. Here's the short of the story.

At first, I didn't know what I was looking for. I thought I'd just buy an old Econoline, remove the back seats and put a mattress in the back. Sounded great until I started thinking of how great it would be when I hit Brazil, with 100 degree humidity and 100 degree weather... and also how the heck I was gonna clean myself when I hit the wild for more than two days, and avoid becoming a petri dish for undiscovered fungus colonies... so I abandoned this cool idea.

I needed something more... versatile. With a shower. With A/C and a generator.

Godsend! I found the Class 2 vans, which are actually quite rare and very hard to find. After two weeks of searching I found exactly what I was looking for. Great van, great price. I called the owner - he seemed a little bit confused at first but I managed to have him agree to send me all the information the next day. That never came, so I called the man back - he didn't remember me. Ugh. That's a good start. After a while, I got a second call from his son (who was 60 years old) telling me that I had been trying to deal with his 89 year old father who has Altzheimer's. Nice! From them on, it was smoother sailing because I was working with the younger man. Right.

Until I got the certified check from the bank (I was financing it). I sent him a copy of it, and he comes back to me 2 days later telling me the check is fake. My certified bank check was fake. Woo! In fact, he had thought it was so fake that he had gotten the FBI involved. FBI also thought it was fake. So in earnest I suggest to the man that I will just pay cash. I will bring a wad of cash on the airplane, hope not to get mugged between the airplane and the swamp where they lived, take it to his bank and do the deed.

He refused. Thought my cash would also be fake.

But when I told him I was an alien, he believed me. Weird.

Maybe the old man was the sane one after all. So I walked away from the deal.

10 days later, I purchased a second van near Detroit, paid cash, and I managed not to scam anyone during the process. Yay!

FBI Most Wanted.
Carries cash. Do not approach him. He might slap you with it.

2. Sell my car.

This one went a little bit better... I posted my car on ebay motors, and quickly got lots of interest.

At first I received a few whackjob offers, including a guy who was willing to exchange a 5 acre piece of land near Vegas against my Benz. I almost considered it.

The most interesting story is from the first prospective buyer, I met him at a garage with his son (car was for his son), went on a road test, everything went well. There were a few questions about scratches on the back bumper and a piece missing that I had ordered, all sounded good, he was going to get back to me with an offer the next morning.

Well... not so fast...

Somehow I managed to find myself at Fat Willie's Rib Shack in Chicago that night, ordered a 40 ounce bottle of beer, and I had just finished it (and a few rum cokes) that the man calls me back. His wife was worried about two things: 1) the serpentine belt, had it ever been replaced? and 2) had I ever crashed my car which could have caused the bumper damage?

Somehow in my drunken bliss, I decided to make a great attempt at humor and answered with the following:

1) I don't even know what a serpentine belt is, for all I know I don't even have one (insert mirth and laughter here) !

2) I might have crashed it a couple times, but the car still runs good (shake head here) !?

The man never called back (I still wonder why). The morale of the story is as follows:

It's usually the wife's fault
If it's not the wife's fault, you can always blame it on the alcohol

No biggie - I sold the car the following week for a higher price, to a nice young man who happened to meet me when I was sober. That was easy!

The guilty bottle - it made me do it !

Good bye Benz! Hello Roadtrek!

3. Move out of my house.

Yep! I have already moved out. I am homeless.

I was just reminded how painful it is to move when you are a compulsive collector of junk. My heart broke a billion times when I had to face the decision whether to keep something useless in case it would become useful some day (wishful thinking), or to toss it and feel like I'm giving my firstborn away. After a while I devised an ingenious idea to fix my dilemma and make the process easier on my poor little heart... I just closed my eyes, and shoved everything in a plastic bag. If I don't know what it is I am throwing away, it can't hurt right?

Just kidding. But it was still painful. Threw most of the junk away, sold a lot of my furniture, and put the rest in storage.

And I'm not completely homeless. My friend Hector graciously lets me stay on the top floor of his house - I call it the jungle. Average temperature 118 degrees, with 99% humidity - great practice for my trip! All that's missing is 2-3 snakes, tigers or angry mexicans attacking me every night, and I wouldn't ever need to leave home. I love it!

4. Everything else

Otherwise, everything is neatly packed away in the van. I bought a number of goodies, including portable grill, small tent, first-aid kit, and the like. The van is already equipped with microwave, toilet, shower, stove, cabinets, bed and more... and I have loaded it with everything I could fit in there, chairs, fishing gear, clothes, and lots of toilet paper (viva la turista!).

I just have to figure out how it works now... with the septic pumps and all. I have heard horror stories about people pressing the "evacuate" button without having properly secured the pipe... hilarity ensues... but since I'm not a huge fan of hilarity, I'll try to learn how to do it right the first time.

Finally, I wanted to share with you the 3 top contenders for my Name the Van contest! They are:

- Large Marge (taken from Pee Wee's Great Adventure)
- Miss Daisy (as in... driving Miss Daisy duh!)
- Gardulla (as in... Gardulla the Hutt, a close friend of Jabba)

I'll need a final vote! The winner gets a ride around town in their own namesake, plus a glass of champagne. And they get to be the first to try out my toilet afterwards.

WHO WILL IT BE ?