San Clemente, California, is the setting for a short but pivotal stop in the writer’s transition from reporting on van-dwelling to trying it firsthand. In the days before Christmas 2014, Linda May was couch-surfing with her daughter, son-in-law, and teenage grandchildren. The visit placed the writer’s first night sleeping in a van alongside Linda’s own precarious housing and transport circumstances, before her hospitality offered practical support for the road ahead.

A temporary home beside Camp Pendleton

Just before Christmas, Linda was staying in a small apartment her daughter and son-in-law had rented in San Clemente. Its rear window looked toward Camp Pendleton, where sunset bugle calls and occasional nighttime live-fire drills marked the family’s surroundings. The apartment was crowded: Linda slept on the couch, and one granddaughter occupied a walk-in closet. It was a short-term family arrangement rather than a settled home.

Linda’s own recreational vehicle was parked on the street and accumulating tickets. Raccoons had damaged its fuel line, a problem she discovered while getting gas. She had expected to return to work at Amazon’s warehouse in Fernley, Nevada, but her wrist was still troubling her after the previous year, so she had to cancel. With cash tight again, the damaged vehicle and lost seasonal work made the temporary stay with family part of a wider uncertainty about where she could live and earn.

The writer’s first night parked in the open

The evening the writer arrived, Linda took the visitor to dinner with her family. Outside the restaurant, a street musician was playing Lorde’s Royals, and Linda gave each granddaughter a dollar to put in the violin case. Back at the apartment, the family offered the writer a place indoors. With Linda already on the couch and a granddaughter sleeping in the closet, the writer chose instead to sleep in Halen, parked in a lot beside the building.

It was the writer’s first night parked in an exposed public lot, after only one earlier night in the van at a private homestead. Passing cars swept their headlights across Halen, and the writer remained awake for hours, uncertain whether anyone would notice the van or approach it. During a final walk with Linda and the dogs, Gizmo, the family’s Chihuahua, bit the writer. The incident compounded the visitor’s unease; the account presents the night as an unvarnished first encounter with the vulnerability of sleeping in a vehicle, rather than as an uncomplicated adventure.

Hospitality and practical instruction

The next morning Linda called to the writer from outside while walking the dogs, then offered coffee, a shower, and a freshly dried pink, patterned towel. The small gestures answered the night’s uncertainty with ordinary care. She and the writer took Halen out for a drive, bought breakfast burritos at her favorite takeout place, and ate at the beach while watching surfers.

Linda then gave the writer a brief parking lesson. Driving a nineteen-foot cargo van came easily to her after six months as a professional trucker, but she could tell that piloting Halen still unsettled the writer. She also directed the visitor to a thrift store to gather cooking equipment, where she helped find a Dutch oven and a percolator among mismatched utensils. Her assistance was practical and specific: driving, parking, and outfitting the van were immediate skills the writer needed to continue.

A departure point for life on the road

After their goodbyes, the writer planned to travel to Quartzsite, Arizona, to boondock in the desert and attend the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. San Clemente therefore functions as more than a stop on the route. It is where the writer’s imagined experiment in van life becomes bodily and uncertain—an unfamiliar vehicle in a public lot, a night of vigilance—then gains a measure of confidence through Linda’s companionship and instruction. The visit also places that first lesson beside Linda’s own constrained circumstances: family space, vehicle trouble, missed work, and the continuing need to find a viable place to stay.