a normal day in Grand Junction
picture by Rachel Pourchier Photography
We awoke this morning knowing what most of the day would hold for us.
It was a “Provisions Day”, after all. A day in which we had determined, sometimes not until just the night before, that we were going to need to re-up on a lot of what keeps us running.
Mainly:
Water (20 gallons)
Propane for our space heater and stovetop (2.5 gallons). Propane has been quite a necessity for us since being back in Colorado at the onset of spring, or rather, the come down of winter. I’m not sure which it was more, but it was beginning the second week of March, and parts of Colorado were still getting hit with the occasional and historic snowfall. *See Denver snowfall this past weekend.
Groceries.
and Recycle which we’re always spiraling off one another. The more groceries we would buy, the more recycle we would have next provision run. And the thing about living on the road, in which you don’t have a recycle bin conveniently outside of your door, just means we have to look up whatever public recycling center there is near by and take our collection of reusable stuff there. Recycling is always a staple of Provision Days.
Then, at the behest of our recent schedule and traveling, we decided it was the time for a visit to the laundromat as well. This would all be right and easy any other day. There were a few possible variables in the way of freely moving about our schedule today, such as needing to be in service from 4pm-6:30pm for Amy’s online tutoring gig. A feat we thought was definitely possible.
And so was our day lined-up.
Even on Provision Days we like to have a calm and quiet ease into the morning. Also, the fact it is winter and the land does not get warm until the sun has been baking it for an hour or so hinders the ability to get a move on soon after rising. So we woke up and had morning beverages, coffee for me, hot water with lemon and apple cider vinegar for Amy, and made what we typically consider our “lunch” in place of breakfast: avocado toast with hummus and black pepper, and some fresh cut carrots and bell peppers. Satisfying and filling to start a long day of driving, and provisioning, for a lack of a better term.
We have been staying in Rabbit Valley, a camping grounds on the border of Western Colorado and Utah, about 40 minutes away from the nearest town: Grand Junction, where we would need to do our provisioning. While sometimes the nearest town can be quite close to the lands we stay on, a usual 30-40 trip into town was nothing to blink an eye at when we saw the estimated distance on our phone maps. This was typical in many places.
So after an abbreviated breakfast, packing up, and a morning stop at the vault toilet in the campgrounds parking lot to drop off our kids down the abyss, we headed into Grand Junction- a town we’ve never had to make a provision run in before. This just means we make a list of priorities on what we should accomplish first, google different locations that are possible to accomplish these (Google: Public Recycling Centers near me) around Grand Junction, and move from there.
We typically recycle first, as it is always nice to take a load off, before restocking on everything else. It does tend to make the van less cluttered by the end. We found a nice little recycling center in Grand Junction to make our stop and then headed on to fill up on water and food, which we’ve found it easiest for us to knock them both out at once by finding a Natural Grocers. They have 25 cent reverse osmosis water refill stations that are big enough to fit our water reserve tanks (which is not always the case) as well as having lots of fresh produce and vegan friendly goods to meet our list of needs and meals we eat on a regular basis on the road.
Check off those 2 boxes as well.
Next up was the ever important propane refill. While this is not a regular occurring thing (during the summer we can go months without needing a refill if only used for cooking) during the winter, and especially since we have been in Colorado for the last week or so, it was absolutely necessary. We had been burning the space heater, named Wayne, both nightly and in the mornings to maintain our sanity and any sense of warmth. Running out of propane in a time like this would definitely mean some uncomfortable nights, as well as lots of raw food. Not preferable.
Propane refills are often quite easy to find and stumble across, as many of the towns in the mountains and areas of states we have visited are quite camper and road life friendly and have regular propane refills which can even be at one of gas stations in the area. We found our best option near us was a Tractor Supply Company that would easily and cheaply (usually under $8 to fill up the entire tank) refill ours at the press of a button.
And now we come to the final task: laundry. For some reason, this one always hangs over our heads as if it would be an entire day unto itself. But since we’ve been in the van, laundry tends to be an easier task to knock out together, and itself, does not take up more than an hour and a half to two, from start to finish.
We decided we had time and found a laundromat that fit our needs or rather the review read “Best laundromat I’ve ever been to.” So, that seemed like a winner.
While I wouldn’t quite give it the raving review that anonymous entity on the internet left it, it definitely got the job done, and within a little over an hour, we had washed, dried and folded all necessary winter clothing, blankets (we literally have like 7 now), and bedding (yes that is separate from blankets) with enough time to spare for considering either driving back to our spot for the online session, or choosing to wait it out in the parking lot.
We went with the latter, mainly because there happened to be a coffee shop in the same strip mall as the laundromat we went to. Our eyes always light up at free wifi.
Seeing as the coffee placed closed at 6pm online, it seemed a rightful spot to lay low for a few more hours while Amy tutored from the comfort of a constant connection with the wifi, and I could use the consistent power instead of our solar for a late afternoon work session.
However after getting our drinks, or as Amy would say “Momma getting her oat-milk latte”, we sat down, set-up, and were informed by the staff that the place was in fact closing 2 hours earlier than we thought.
With no time to try and drive back to our camping location, we hunkered down in the the cramped, and currently in “travel-mode”, van for Amy to do her online session, and myself to do some editing. It worked out wonderfully, and I doubt anyone coming out of either the laundromat, the local smoke shop, or the cryotherapy center would have known 4 living organisms were cooped up in the big blue van sitting parked across two different spaces in the lot working away into the early evening.
It was a great impromptu and productive work session that came on the end of a highly productive Provision Day in a town we had never been before.
As we drove back through the hilly valleys of the western slopes, the faint and distant setting sun cast a remarkable glow on the landscape around illuminating the slopes in a golden gaze of warmth and casting a brilliant serene environment on the plains.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen quite a site in such a “plain” place. Plain comparatively to driving through the rest of Colorado.
As we pulled into our campsite, moved and situated everything around to “incognito van mode,” cracked open a gluten free IPA, threw the ball for the dogs to get some energy out, and then sat down to unwind, Amy and I both had a warm and full feeling from what was a fairly normal day on paper.
But this was life, and this was part of the life we chose, and we were here for it.
So thank you to the universe for that extremely normal day we spend in Grand Junction.
caleb 🌊🌊
