djMot's #VanLife Journey

[djMot]

Okay, so in the game today, I was mentioning how amazing the place is that I am today and that I had posted some pics on Facebook.  Not everyone has or uses Facebook, which I get, and I don't blame you if you stay away from that cesspool.  Someone in the game today suggested I just post in the forums here on the >XI< website, so here you go.

And for those who are unaware, in November 2022 I moved into a van pretty much fulltime just so I could drive around and see all the places in the USA that I never saw before I found myself in the surprising position to actually retire.  So, the next post in this thread is pictures of my van and where it is parked for this night on, Thursday, 2004-09-12.

I have a YouTube channel and I'll post here when I post there so you'll know when there's a new video in case you want to check it out.

I also have a Facebook Group.

You can find my YouTube Channel and my Facebook Group by searching for JoyEnRoute on either of those platforms.

My Van's name is "Joy", hence JoyEnRoute.

Enjoy.  (I hope.)

[djMot]

Holter Lake State Recreation Area, Beartooth Rd, Wolf Creek, MT 59648 (a pay-to-stay BLM campground).

[TheHammer]

wow Dj - Thats what My wife and i are going to do In 2 more years at retirement im learning from you buddy !!!!

Thanks and i subbed your you tube Channel http://www.youtube.com/@joyenroute

 

[Smeggie]

12 hours ago, djMot said:

Okay, so in the game today, I was mentioning how amazing the place is that I am today and that I had posted some pics on Facebook.  Not everyone has or uses Facebook, which I get, and I don't blame you if you stay away from that cesspool.  Someone in the game today suggested I just post in the forums here on the >XI< website, so here you go.

And for those who are unaware, in November 2022 I moved into a van pretty much fulltime just so I could drive around and see all the places in the USA that I never saw before I found myself in the surprising position to actually retire.  So, the next post in this thread is pictures of my van and where it is parked for this night on, Thursday, 2004-09-12.

I have a YouTube channel and I'll post here when I post there so you'll know when there's a new video in case you want to check it out.

I also have a Facebook Group.

You can find my YouTube Channel and my Facebook Group by searching for JoyEnRoute on either of those platforms.

My Van's name is "Joy", hence JoyEnRoute.

Enjoy.  (I hope.)

DJ Congrats on your journey.  This is something that I think ALL of us have thought about at some point in our lives.

I subsribed and am looking forward to joining you on your adventures.

I hope that you will experience Alaska off the beaten path.  One of my wife and I's most epic adventures, and we barely saw much of the state!

Thanks for sharing your nomadic lifestyle with us!

[MikeB]

You ever make it to midwest Ohio hit me up.  Will take you to the best pizza place in the US.  

[djMot]

There was a lot of rain in this part of Montana over last night.  When I got to Bozeman, from where this was taken, I see it ended up snow-capping some of the mountain peaks.

[djMot]

Meanwhile, back in North Dakota at the International Peace Garden.  Note that my YouTube channel will be a few weeks behind my actual location, but here and on Facebook things are a bit more real-time.  I'm in Bozeman, MT as I write this.

 

[djMot]

11 hours ago, Smeggie said:

DJ Congrats on your journey.  This is something that I think ALL of us have thought about at some point in our lives.

I subsribed and am looking forward to joining you on your adventures.

I hope that you will experience Alaska off the beaten path.  One of my wife and I's most epic adventures, and we barely saw much of the state!

Thanks for sharing your nomadic lifestyle with us!

Hey Smeggie!

Thanks for the sub!  Really appreciate that.  Yeah, the ability to do this came as a bit of a surprise to me.  I guess I made some really good guesses in the stock market.  I'd love to get up to Alaska one day.  Thanks for tuning in.  I hope to keep you entertained. 

[djMot]

17 hours ago, TheHammer said:

wow Dj - Thats what My wife and i are going to do In 2 more years at retirement im learning from you buddy !!!!

Thanks and i subbed your you tube Channel http://www.youtube.com/@joyenroute

 

Hey Hammer!

It's a blast out here, that's for sure.  Thanks for the sub!

[djMot]

11 hours ago, MikeB said:

You ever make it to midwest Ohio hit me up.  Will take you to the best pizza place in the US.  

It's a date!  Thanks Mike!

[MikeB]

I see from one of your videos your big into vintage stereo and vinyl.  I am too.  I have several Sansui, Kenwood, Akai, Pioneer and other gear.  My main system is a Sansui 9090db with a Kenwood KP-1100 (Japanese model).  Tons of reel to reel gear and tapes and several thousand pieces of vinyl.  I turned 62 and still have vinyl from when I was in elementary school.

[djMot]

4 hours ago, MikeB said:

I see from one of your videos your big into vintage stereo and vinyl.  I am too.  I have several Sansui, Kenwood, Akai, Pioneer and other gear.  My main system is a Sansui 9090db with a Kenwood KP-1100 (Japanese model).  Tons of reel to reel gear and tapes and several thousand pieces of vinyl.  I turned 62 and still have vinyl from when I was in elementary school.

TBH, I'm struggling to remember when I posted in a video about that, although apparently I did.

Yeah, I've been kind of into audio stuff for a long time, but it's not really a passion any more.  I still have all my vinyl, too, and mine also dates back to grade school.  Some of my first being Iron Butterfly – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Three Dog Night - Live At The Forum.  I've had a few systems over the years, but mainly the one I built when I was 18 and still in high school followed me for decades.  Heathkit AR-1500A receiver and a pair of Heathkit AS-104 speakers.  I coupled them with a pair of Magnavox (yup, Magnavox) speakers that have 15" woofers and horn tweeters.  The Heathkit was becomming too much to try to maintain, so it's been religated to a pile of stuff in the basement.  The two sets of speakers are now attached to a Sony STRDH190 receiver.   I don't know what it is about that Sony, but a lot of people LOVE that thing, and so do I.  The first thing I did when I hooked it up to those speakers was play the David Gilmour - Live At Pompeii, Sorrow video.  I literally cried.  It was that good.  With apologies to my neighbors.

Me at 18 building the Heathkit AR-1500A

[Majbasil]

Thanks for sharing, be safe have a great time, meet interesting people, be the tumbleweed we all wanna be.  

[ANGUS]

Awesome stuff @Gatorgirl and I headed out west next year for a two week trip with our Camaro crew. Road to sun, Glacier park. Yellowstone and other places.. Thank you for Sharing.

[djMot]

Ha.  I'm an idiot.  Told you all I'd post here as well as my other social media and then promptly forgot to crosspost here.  So let me catch you up.

My YouTube channel is a couple of weeks behind where I am now.  This is common for vanlife channels.  The video I'm working on now has 2 hours of raw footage.  That's uncommon, but unsurprising given the subject of the video - my return to a now abandoned USAF Early Warning radar site where I was stationed in the late '70s.  But you can imagine how even half that amount of raw footage can be a challenge to make into something watch-worthy.

So anyway, this is the most current video on my channel, and I'll post some pics of what's been happening in the meantime, too.

 

[djMot]

The sense of sadness I have over this picture is palpable.  This is the dorm where I lived while stationed at the 786th Radar Squadron, Minot Air Force Station, North Dakota.  I risked my life, literally, on this day to get to my room which was on the second floor.  The face of the building you are seeing faces south.  My room was the last three windows on the second floor on the north side of the building in the north west corner.  At that end of the building, the floor had rotted through and I could see down to the first floor.  See the antenna tripod on the roof?  That actually belongs to me.  I mounted it up there in January of 1978 at 0°F with a -10°F windchill, and then installed a HyGain Penetrator CB antenna on it; I couldn't believe they let me do it, but honestly I don't think they had a clue what I was proposing.  Still, they didn't say a word once it went up.  Picture in a moment.  I could talk to anyone with a CB for as far as the eye could see.  My view was the spectacular and unobstructed expanse of the North Dakota plains.  I was a member of the site fire team, and the projectionist for our little makeshift movie theater.  When officially on duty, I was a part of the team that maintained the most bad-ass early warning search radar system in all of North Dakota, and only a handful of them in the world.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life and something that gives me incredible pride.

Now the entire site is in such complete decay that I just want to cry.  You can go home, but you can never go home.  This will be the topic of an upcoming video.

 

 

Back in the day.  For me, that was 1977 - 1979.  The site operated with many other radar systems from April 1953 - July 1979.  I left in September 1979.
The mighty AN/FPS-27A Aircraft Control and Early Warning Search Radar (4 stories) and its companion AN/FPS-26A Heigh Finder radar (2 stories).

The Tranquility Base CB base station antenna, a HyGain Penetrator omni-directional 22' mast with four 9' radials.

Steampunk.  The site was heated by massive steam boilers and there were above-ground steam lines running everywhere.  A curious juxtaposition of old school steampunk and the once state of the art cold war early warning AN/FPS-27A tech.  

All that remains of the once-mighty AN/FPS-27A (Verizon operates the new cell tower west of the remains of the radar towers).

[djMot]

Old Settler's Park in Burlington, ND was a quaint little city RV park that I had almost all to myself for the few days I was there.  It's just a short hop, skip, and jump from Minot and perhaps one of the best kept secrets for places to stay when traveling through the area.  50/30/20amp power, shared water spigots, and a kind of rustic but clean restroom with a shower.

 

[djMot]

I can't believe it either.  There was not a corresponding sign on the ladies room door, btw.

[djMot]

This video hit today, Friday, September 27, 2024.

 

[djMot]

This was a difficult video to shoot for.  It is a place where I lived, and it's mostly decayed into nothing salvageable.  But back in its day, it was one of the coolest things in North Dakota.  I loved it there, and it was a job that has given me great pride all these decades since.