Solo Van Life Adventure to Joshua Tree, CA | First Time Staying at a HipCamp in My Minivan Camper

Hey y'all! Welcome back to Adventuring with Amanda. Thank you so much for being here. If you are new to my channel, welcome. In this video I am heading out on a solo adventure to Joshua Tree, California where I will be meeting up with my very dear friend Jessica. She got a hip camp and we haven't seen each other in four years so it's going to be a lot of fun, something different, and I've never been to Joshua Tree so let's see what happens. Like this video and subscribe. Let's get into it. There are a lot of van things happening y'all. Alright friends, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I got like four hours of sleep and so I started working at like 5 a.m. and I have almost a five-hour drive today. I have a four and a half hour drive to my friend Jessica. I just got groceries and now I'm ready to hit the road. I'm glad I looked at my GPS because I wasn't gonna pull up my GPS going to California because I just don't need it to get there but there's an accident like right outside a court site so it looks like I might have to take a detour but we'll see how it goes. Well, turns out this traffic was inevitable. This slowdown. So it is a 30 minute slowdown which is a bummer. It should have been a really easy drive on the I-10 but now I'm going to end up getting off of the I-10 and doing a majority of the drive not on the 10. I just like to cruise, you know, cruise control just... and there wasn't a lot of traffic in general until I got to this area so I am outside of court site by about 25 miles. I have to get off on the Vicksburg exit so it'll be about a five-hour drive today. I don't know how some of y'all are in the court site area right now. It is way too warm. November 4th and it's like 90 degrees. It's wild. I am stopped for fuel and I just need a snack so I'm grabbing some one of these chomps and some string cheese and I still have about two and a half hours left to drive. Hi, I'm here. Thank you, ma'am. Y'all, I just saw those really like crazy military vehicles. That was wild. Just quickly, I have about an hour and a half left or an hour and 45 minutes. I don't know. Less than two hours left in my drive and I just wanted to give you all a quick background of how I met Jessica since I'm going to visit her and she is a non-van life friend. She's one of like less than five like normal friends that I have. Sticks and bricks friends, if you will. Although, Jessica does have a really sick Toyota 4Runner with a rooftop tent on it. So, we met over ten years ago because we were both writers, bloggers, digital creators in the pet industry. So, she's very much a dog mom and she has specialized in dachshunds for a long time. Her blog is called You Did What With Your Wiener. She's so amazing. She's done some really incredible activities with her wiener dogs including backpacking trips that I could never imagine doing. I mean, it's it's incredible. She's an extremely outdoorsy person. So, she and I connected around 2013 and we both really kind of had a rise to success in the pet blogging industry. And what made van life possible for me when I began in 2020 was the fact that I had already been established as a freelance writer for seven years by then. So, I was really kind of at the height of my freelance writing career at that time. But then with COVID, everything went downhill and that's when I started making the transition to YouTube. So, I feel bad when people ask me about like remote work and jobs. I just I don't know. I don't have any knowledge on that sort of thing because I've been doing this for... I've been in the freelance digital creation business for 12 years. So, Jessica lives in Washington State and she's actually in California because she was visiting her brother. So, she's at an Airbnb and that's where we are meeting. And then tomorrow night or in two nights we will go find a campsite. But she will have her wiener dogs. So, I'm going to lean into my auntie role again. Like myself, Jessica is a child free woman. That's something that we've bonded on over the last however many years. And she's just one of the only friends I have left from the pet industry. And her dog, Gretel, was six months older than Winston and she died less than 48 hours after Winston in March. So, it was super crazy how it all happened. And Jessica is very special to me. Her dogs are very special to me. And I'm excited for you guys to get to know them a little bit. Oh my, how cute! I made it! Okay, y'all. I made it to Jessica and we're gonna check out this really cool Airbnb that she's renting for $40 a night. And it has an outdoor shower. It's actually a hip camp. Oh, it's a hip camp. Jessica's more up on the trends than I am. Oh my god, that little rug is so cute, dude. Did you really? Oh my gosh, cute! Wow, how adorable! This is too cute. I live in here, y'all. What do you think? Look, you guys. Oh my gosh. This, like, the toilet then? In here? Okay, cuz I mean it looks like an outhouse. Okay, yeah. I mean, a solar light. I mean, we poop in buckets in my lifestyle. So, that's fancy. Yeah. Okay, so it's just like, uh-huh, I see. It's just me, honey. It's just me. It's just Auntie Amanda. Okay, friends. So, Jessica and I have been catching up, but it is time for dinner. I am going to put together a salad with this salad kit. And I purchased some pulled chicken, much better than the canned chicken for me. So, that will be my dinner. It's a beautiful evening out here. And part of, like, for me, well, kind of like I said last night, like, even though we're nomads, we all have some sort of, like, routine that gets us feeling comfortable. Hi, Otter. Good morning. Good morning, handsome boy. Y'all, I slept so well last night. For the first time in quite a while. It's, it's unusual for me, but I haven't been sleeping well. It's a spectacular morning. I think the high today here is around 72. It's beautiful. I have a bunch of flies in my van, though. The flies are very bothersome. So, thankfully, I mean, I won't really be in the van today, and I'm gonna leave my doors open. I really don't know if that's better or worse, but we'll see. Anyways, me and Jess are gonna have coffee today, and we're really just gonna hang around and relax. And, yeah, have a restful day. So, Jess and I are at this hip camp, but there's no electric, which is fine, obviously, because I have my solar. And I have a hundred percent power, but I figured since we are here until tomorrow at this spot, I might as well plug in. I'm going to get a bunch of stuff charged up. I do have my water heating up, so I can take advantage of the outdoor shower later. I have my bed to make. Jessica and I have just been catching up on life itself, and, yeah, I think that's, I think that's it for now. Just doing all my van things. I still need to clean up my stuff from last night. Y'all, I put on a tank top because it's, well, it's gorgeous out. I think it's about 73 with a breeze. It's beautiful, but I need to kind of work on my farmer's tan. And Jess and I have not stopped talking. We've been doing so much brainstorming and catching up and all these great things. But while we've been doing that, I've had my lunch heating up in my Hot Logic. And I made delicious salmon with broccoli. Oh, the only thing about this warmth is these flies. And mashed potatoes. So, that is warming, or it's ready for me to eat, so I'm gonna eat lunch. I got my bed and everything that Jessica rented. And it looks really neat. It almost like, it's like there's That'd be dope. This is inside the shipping container, you guys. Oh, I'm trying to... There we go. Neat! So, oh geez. Hey, girl. Oh, sorry, honey. Yes, ma'am. And once you just get comfortable with the motion, it just becomes... Yeah, okay. Yeah. I briefly showed this earlier, but this is the outdoor shower, so there's nothing in here, and this hip camp has no electricity, so Jessica brought her shower and shower bucket, but we're going to use mine instead. Mine's way better. Hers has the button on the pump at the bottom, and that's a pain in the butt. This type of shower head also uses a ton of water, so we're going to be using mine, and my water's been sitting out in the sun all day, so it's nice because we don't have to set up our shower tents, even though Jess just had me help her show her how to fold her shower tent down. It's just nice because it's windy, and we'll be nice and protected and warm. So, yeah, that's that. I'm not used to all these flies, y'all. I haven't been in warm enough weather for all these flies. They're driving me nuts. We are having such a good time together. It's been amazing to catch up with Jessica so far, but I will wrap up this video, and there's a lot more where that came from, so remember to turn on your notifications, like, and subscribe. I will see you all next time.