June 2026 Update and Van Build Expenses

We thought we’d be done with the van by the end of May. But it didn’t happen. We still had a few small projects, but we were anxious to start moving west. So on June 1, we loaded up the van with all of our tools and extra supplies we needed, left Chance, the fun Australian shepherd we had been sitting, and dropped off Greg’s mom’s car (which we had been borrowing for almost a year) at her house. Then headed to Greenville, South Carolina.

Paris Mountain

This would be our last time visiting Greenville in this vehicle. Instead of staying with friends, we decided to camp at a location where they could come visit us and see our nearly completed campervan. We reserved a campsite at Paris Mountain State Park right outside the city. Once we arrived, we set up a tent and moved all the tools and supplies into it for the 4 days of our stay.

David and Michelle came and camped for two nights, and Dan and Lisa came to visit one of those evenings.

It is odd to have been traveling for so long, coming and going. Fourteen and a half years ago we thought we were leaving forever. But we didn’t. I started to feel a little like a yoyo. This time is different. We plan to keep going.

Building this van for the past year has been monumental. And being without a home of our own was difficult at times. Showing our new abode off to our friends and thanking them for their support was really important to me.

Periplo camped at Paris Mountain State Park.

While we camped, all our remaining supplies and tools were stowed in a tent we set up behind Periplo.

Hanging out at David and Michelle’s campsite with Dan, Lisa and dog, Doc.

Entertaining Michelle and David in Periplo.

Cabbagetown

From Greenville we moved on to Atlanta. There we stayed with our friends Debbie and Peet until we started a couple of house sits. First on the agenda was Cabbagetown Reunion Day. We have managed to hit this annual Cabbagetown festival two years in a row. It seemed significant that this is one of the first things we did when we returned from South America last year and one of the last things we would do before we left the Southeast. This year Greg and I volunteered for setup. I also staffed the merch tent, and Greg sat in for a few songs with our friend Slim Chance. Of course, there was an after party at Debbie and Peet’s house,

I set up and ran this merchandise booth for the Cabbagetown Reunion.

Greg sat in and played a few songs with local music personality and friend, Slim Chance, at the Reunion.

The after party at Debbie’s before it grew too big and moved outside.

Discovering a major problem

Periplo was parked in front of Debbie and Peet’s on a sloped street. We wanted to do a few small projects on her before we moved to our first house sit, so we moved Periplo to a rare off-street parking spot at our friend Karen’s house. Since we didn’t have a house to move our tools and supplies into, we moved everything into Periplo’s front seats and stacked 4 Sterlite boxes of tools and supplies in Karen’s driveway to have room to work. We installed gas struts to hold the doors open on all of our overhead cabinets, a lid support for our bench storage, and hooks for hats and towels. We invited our artist friends over, hoping that they could paint a mural on the underside of our Murphy bed before we hit the road in two weeks. A big Cabbagetown dance party was coming up, and our friends were busy planning it. They decided that they just didn’t have enough time.

At some point we tried to open the Murphy bed and discovered that it had either sagged or swelled in the humid Atlanta heat. The middle of the bed platform scraped on the top of the bench. We couldn’t open it without forcing it. This was a huge problem.

A new idea for our mural

We were disappointed that our friends were unable to paint the mural, but Atlanta is full of artists. One I had heard about a lot in the neighborhood was Jeremy Ray. He had painted a mural on a neighbor’s retaining wall. I checked out his artwork online and liked it. Coincidentally, we were at a Cabbagetown event days later, and he was there. Greg asked him to take a look at the project and he was excited. But first we had to fix the bed opening problem.

Lucy and Cricket

On the 10th, we moved to our first house sit for Lucy and Cricket. We booked this house sit through Trusted House Sitters and had never met the pet parent before. But like all of Cabbagetown, she was interesting and quirky, with great art on her walls. Her dog, Lucy, was a sweetie. She didn’t require walks but loved to chase her ball in the backyard as often as you would throw it. The cat, Cricket, pretty much ignored us, but warmed up more toward the end of our 5-day stay.

Lucy always greeted us at this spot when we came in the door.

Cricket hanging on the bed, wondering why I keep showing her the back of my phone.

Cricket.

Lucy with her favorite ball.

At Lucy and Cricket’s house, we were working on the street. But we were able to bring all of our tools and supplies inside and put them in a spare room. We got lucky parking Periplo with enough room to slide open the side door between the branches of a tree.

Our parking spot in front of Lucy and Cricket’s house. It was a busy spot across the street from the popular Beltline trail.

The sliding door opened between the branches of a tree.

View of the open door and the tree.

There was also the added challenge of working directly on a busy street with curious people and occasionally friends walking by.

Our first project was fixing the bed. I was afraid that moisture was seeping into the unsealed bed platform, so Greg painted it. Then he took the bed platform cover (a 1/4inch sheet of plywood) off and shaved the sides so it wouldn’t scrape our tall cabinet.  We made a trip to Home Depot and Lowe’s to see what we could find to reinforce the platform and to keep it from bowing. We decided on metal L-brackets. Greg attached them to either side of the bed. The brackets that kept the mattress from sliding down when it was in the upright position was pinching the mattress whenever we deployed the bed. Greg replaced these with wide straps that attached to the wall and to the underside of the mattress.

The metal L brackets Greg installed to keep the bed from warping.

The metal L brackets Greg installed to keep the bed from warping.

Los Tres Amigos

From Lucy and Cricket’s house, we moved to our friend Karin’s house, the home of Los Tres Amigos. I had previously sat one of the amigos, Dougie, a doodle, three years prior. Dougie joined Karin’s crew sometime after her dog, Bob (whom we had sat many times), died. Dougie was a puppy with all that puppy energy. But Dougie was far too big to have puppy energy. To our surprise, Dougie had turned into a stately old man. Maeve, the standard poodle, joined Karin’s crew after Dave, another standard poodle, passed. And sometime in the last two years, Potato joined the crew when he was saved from a trip to the Humane Society. We’ve sat for Karin a lot, and she is always someone we can reach out to and say, “Hey, we are in town. You want to go somewhere?” and she will get a plan in motion. But when I showed up to meet the crew, I almost thought we had made a mistake. They are all very enthusiastic greeters. In the end, our stay with them was great. They calmed down once we were settled in, and after a few days, they felt like old friends.

Los Tres Amigos. L to R: Dougie, Potato, Maeve.

Maeve, Dougie, and Potato with Greg.

Little Tater Tot!

While we were there, Greg finished up all the trim work—around the cabinets, covering seams, and around the in-the-floor shower pan. And I made a cover to cushion our induction burner while it is stored.

The mural

With the bed fixed, we contacted Jeremy again about the mural. He came and looked at the space, and we talked about what we wanted. He went home and sketched something up, sent it to us, and we sent him some suggestions. The next day, he arrived in the late morning and spent the rest of the day painting until he was finished.

Jeremy painting the mural in front of Dougie, Maeve, and Potato’s house.

Jeremy painting.

The finished mural depicts the old Cabbagetown mill, the neighborhood houses, and the mural-covered wall that defines the north edge of the community. The blank spaces of the mural will be filled in by other local artists when we travel to other countries.

Hanging with friends

Meanwhile, we hung out with friends. Our good friend Karen joined us for Greg’s birthday. Peet’s band had a big gig at a local club. We had a huge time playing dominoes at another friend’s house. Debbie and Peet had us over for dinner a few times. There was a birthday party for another friend. And Greg recorded the vocals for a song Peet had been inspired to write based on a story Greg had told him.

Karen and Greg at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for his birthday.

Greg got the choice of a dessert or a shot of tequila for his birthday. Here is what he chose.

Debbie playing the washboard with Peet Midnight and the Back Taxes at the Star Bar.

Peet and the band at the Star Bar.

Getting rid of all the tools and supplies

As our departure date neared, we had to figure out what to do with all our tools and extra supplies. We thought we’d have a yard sale, but we were using things until the last minute. Jeremy said he would take some of our power tools in lieu of part of the payment for the mural. We decided to give them all to him. But we still had boxes and boxes of stuff left—lots of hand tools, extra supplies, and fixtures we didn’t use. We wanted to donate them, but to whom? Karen told us about a contractor who would make them available to his workers. She got us in touch, and two days before we left Cabbagetown, Greg dropped off at least four boxes and a couple of bags of stuff at his workshop.

Meet Periplo

On our last day in Cabbagetown, we had a van open house in the afternoon.

Van open house!

The (almost) finished van.

Betty takes a picture of Karen. Karen grew up in the neighborhood. Her mother owned a corner store in Cabbagetown back when the mill was still running. She was thrilled with Jeremy’s mural and told us we were true Cabbagetowners because we had lived on almost every street just like people had done in the old days.

View from the inside of Periplo. Clay (on the left), our favorite bartender and longtime Make Like An Apeman follower, stopped by the open house.

L to R: Karen, Martha, Duwan, Karin, and Anne.

Jeane gets comfy in the captain’s seat.

Karin was back, so we spent the night at Debbie and Peet’s and then continued west the next morning.

Gunter Hill

We wanted to get to New Orleans in time for my niece Ariadne’s boyfriend David’s band’s gig at Tipitinas. This meant we had 3 days. The first stop was at Gunter Hill, an Army Corps of Engineers campground right outside of Montgomery, Alabama.

Davis Bayou Campground

Next we were off to spend two days at Davis Bayou Campground in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, at the Gulf Shores National Seashore. We realized after we got there that we had stayed there 6 1/2 years ago.

We thought we’d do a little birding at the national seashore, but it was too hot to be outside. So instead we checked out the visitor center and visited the Walter Anderson Museum. And we took Periplo for her first oil change!

The David Bayou visitor center in the Gulf Islands National Seashore with a display about the Gulf of MEXICO.

A detail of the community center mural at the Walter Anderson Museum.

We stopped by the library for a bit to escape the heat. There were Walter Anderson prints on the walls.

New Orleans

In New Orleans, we stayed with Ariadne and David. We have visited New Orleans numerous times, and I’m always impressed that there is always something that we haven’t done before. This time we visited a few museums in the French Quarter, the Storyville Museum, and the Pharmacy Museum. If I get my blogging act together, I will tell you more about them in a later post. Ariadne and David’s apartment is right across the street from City Park, which is always nice for a lovely stroll. Of course, we ate out a few times.

A leech urn at the Pharmacy Museum in New Orleans.

A display from the Storyville Museum.

Live oak trees in New Orleans’s City Park.

Live oak trees in New Orleans’s City Park.

An anhinga drying it’s wings in City Park.

And on Friday night we went to see David’s band, Very Cherry, play at the legendary New Orleans music club, Tipitinas. Very Cherry falls into the EDM genre. We had to ask what EDM was – electronic dance music. We were nonplussed but were assured that this was not your ordinary EDM. This is how Greg described the show on Facebook the next day:

I had the privilege of seeing Very Cherry for the first time. They Owned The Room. Everyone was smiling and moving in this joyous space as David and Simon skillfully wove a creative, lively, referential tapestry of music. Plaintive sax over pounding syncopated rhythms, and rocking guitar licks, boosted by the occasional classical piano lines filled the air. If you want to hear one long single-note synthesized dance tune go somewhere else. If you want to be surprised and delighted, go to a Very Cherry show.

David performs at Tipitina’s.

The scene at Tipitina’s.

Very Cherry, Simon and David, at Tipitina’s.

On Saturday night we went to Lake Pontchartrain to eat pizza and watch the sunset with some of Aridane and David’s friends. Then on Sunday we had a final meal out before we headed on up the road on Monday.

Watching the sun set at Lake Pontchartrain.

David and Ariadne.

Escape from the heat

We threw around many ideas about where we would go and what we would do after New Orleans, but ultimately the heat made our decision for us. It was just too hot to do anything outside the van, so we decided to sprint to Colorado, where it would be cooler. I found this NOAA website that displays a color-coded weather map for the whole country. I identified the coolest place within a day’s drive from New Orleans, a small patch in northwestern Arkansas. Finding no convenient camping or overnight stops there, I opened my Boondockers Welcome app and found a host in that area. We spent the last night of the month on a friendly stranger’s property and then got up the next morning to make another sprint to Kansas and hopefully another cool spot.

Van Build Expenses

Cost of the Van: $54,652.75

Cost of upgrade so far, 5/31/26: $22,736.13

*Numbers colored red-violet indicate an increase from the previous month.

We spent $272.75 on Periplo in June.

$40.81 of that was in the Lumber category for molding to cover seams across the ceiling and around cabinets.

$98.18 was spent on General Supplies. This included a new paintbrush, felt for the supports that go under the bed when it is in the deployed position, some rubber trim to cover the edge of our flooring at the back of the van, and wood putty. It also included screws and straps to hold the bed up when it is closed.

We spent $60.86 on metal L braces to keep the bed from bowing.

And another $72.90 for the shower in the Plumbing category, for shower curtains, shower rings, and eyebolt magnets that attach to the ceiling to hang the curtain. (There will be more about the shower system in next month’s post).

June’s Projects

Our projects were pretty light, and I described most of them above, so Greg doesn’t have a report this month.

By the end of June, we had just a few small projects left. Will Periplo ever be done? We are on our shakedown cruise now and will be tweaking things as we go, but hopefully there will be no major changes. Hopefully!

Soon I will publish a wrap-up of our build with an adjusted breakdown of build categories.

To see all of our van build expense reports, click here.

To see our travel expense reports, click here.

If you are interested in reading other expense reports from nomads who really know how to live cheaply while still having a good time, check out the blog from our friends Mark, Liesbet, and Maya at Roaming About. They are currently in Europe starting a camper build project of their own!

If you are interested in becoming a Trusted Housesitter or having a Trusted Housesitter take care of your pet, use our Trusted House Sitters discount code for 25% off!