Maybe Tomorrow

Following some solo days, it was pretty bloody marvellous to be joined by the splendid Carl for climbing on the Isle of Skye.  Carl has a brain the size of a planet, is well over 6 foot of blonde intellect with his own van and an encyclopedic knowledge of climbing, climbs and climbers.  I'm fortunate to have a climbing partner like him in my life.  He has a near obsessive passion over weather forecasting and comes complete with a sparcely equipped Toyota van.  Nothing like the plus luxury of Shazza.  A huge advantage of climbing with Carl is that the two of us giggle like school children with regularity.

So he arrived on the Saturday with plans.  Big plans.  Because, hey, he'd come a long way for this "weather window" and had also got brand spanking new ropes following the Alison and Pembroke sea cliffs incidents earlier this year.  So before I knew it, we were walzing off towards Crioch crags for a spot of mountain type routes.  And oh my, they were high and fearsome.  Knee tremblingly huge immense, a scale like nothing I'd contemplated climbing before.  Walking, yes, or looking at from a distance in admiration, also, all over that.  But climbing them.  Flippin' 'eck.  But yes, we attempted a multipitch ascent.  Then we got lost.  A little unfortunate to be sure but by no means marred the day because we were then presented with a team challenge of retreat down unknown paths which was a silly experience we both did together.  I actually love the dual reliance on each other, and with Carl, frankly it's a pleasure.  We work well as a team.

Monday was mostly a wash out so we did the climbers version of tourism.  First we visited our intial planned goal for the day of sea cliffs but then we toured Old Man of Storr, Rhuada beach cliffs and finally ended up at Neist point for an overnighter with a cragging day in mind for the Tuesday.  And all was mighty fine, and as ever we slept with beautiful views, rivers, fountains and general fresh air stuff all around.  And Carl having forgotten to bring his own trowel, oh yes, we bonded, knew more about each other than folk really ought to know.

Tuesday was Neist Point crags.  Mmm, cragging.  Quite a lovely thing to do with all the time in the world, sea breezes and importantly no other folk.  Imagine that, crags with climbs at all grades and nobody else in sight other than the occasional walking type tourist pointing out that my red top made me visible climbing for some distance.  And it was a good workout, and there were many laughs, there was the type of concentration where Carl was looking down on me going through a particularly tricky sequence of moves being quite impressed that at this somewhat tense time I was still carrying out conversation ... that is until I told him to shut up.  Which was fine because when I'd completed the horrid horrid moves he was giggling at me.  Lots of laughter, that's what climbing should be all about.  To hell with those serious tick listers, I like to laugh.

And today's tunes in my head are:

New Life

How, I wonder do people who do Triathlon, Iron Man and Adventure racing manage it?  It's a perpetual juggling act to try to maintain some kind of credible and acceptable (to me) levels of ability in three different activities.  To cycle, to climb and to walk.  None of them is ever at the level I think I am capable of, and if a week or two goes by and one gets neglected I feel like I've gone back a step.  Except I kind of know it's not true, fitness and body memory don't fade that quickly.  

It's been a fair few weeks of more cycling, less other stuff, particularly with the arrival of the road bike.  Because who wouldn't want to be out on their new toy?  The fact is, though, that walking up Dove Crag on Monday has left the entire fronts of both thighs still painful three days on, and the IT band knots are mighty fearsome despite the dedicated self inflicted pain of the foam roller.  And I am slightly regretful that somehow walking or in to use a far more enjoyable phrase, hill fitness, seems to have vaguely declined.  Ah, gratuitous picture taken on phone coming right up:

And then there's climbing.  Leading or seconding outdoors are to me more a leisure activity than they are exercise.  After all, I guess climbing outdoors is the ultimate aim, and all the other activity associated with climbing is simply to get fit to enable that activity.  But somehow with the outside giving less feeling of exercise and physical effort, and more feeling of fear and adrenaline it doesn't feel like I'm getting the workout I kind of admit to needing to keep endorphin sanity levels in a happy place.  So last night, particularly in view of the deluge which hit Manchester, I climbed indoors again.  And as ever, thought oh dear, I've not done enough of this recently.  Except that wasn't true.  Quick warm up on a couple of 5s and soon I was onto the 6bs and then leading on the overhangs.  Lovely mish mash of plans which was originally to meet my friend Markella to climb.  We did climb together for a couple of routes but then somehow we were absorbed elsewhere, her with Andy & Sarah and me with my lodger.  The funny thing is, the lodger does a lot of climbing, leads outdoors at a "better" level than I do, but indoors he feels stretched by my climbing, so much so that he sees me do a route and believes he's going to have to do the same route or feel ... feel what, I wonder?  Certainly he feels pushed to have to do it, and makes comments about me making it look easy, and admires my technique and core strength. All quite amusing because it was him that somehow shamed me into leading last night and yet it was me that somehow pushed him to do the same grades, purely by getting up there and doing it.  And I demonstrated to him that I am incapable of doing a pull up. Oddly in demonstrating that I did managed to show that I am actually a lot closer to a pull up than ever before, and the muscles on my arms were oddly defined as I did, so much so I stared at them.

And courtesy of Nina Simone:

"Fish in the sea, you know how I feel
River runnin' free you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel
Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
And I'm feelin good"

Little space

Windgather in the evening sun.  Something almost meditational about being there.  Climbing is a curious pastime.  In my eyes, the purpose of climbing is to form part of a journey, to chose a route not everyone would take, in a whole metaphor for life and how we live.  Somehow though, despite the convention for climbing requiring two people, one to climb and one to safely belay them, it is still an activity you do alone, with that feeling of isolated silence despite the presence of other people.  To climb at a crag like Windgather isn't really to climb, not to me, it's something else again, it's more a rehearsal, something not real, a trial run of something hopefully bigger, and as you climb you dream of larger spaces, somehow within yourself yet outside.  Absorbed in the moment and yet somehow part of the warm air over the hills which stretch to the horizon. 

There's a curious feeling about spending time on something which has no tangible purpose, has no meaning, isn't somehow a step on a journey. It's just doing something to be there. To be real.  To simply exist.

So many decisions I've made haven't felt deliberate, have had no true design behind or in front of them, yet have been made without hesitation.  I've always kind of known my direction, my mind, never paused in a dilemma between two roads, and yet like Robert Frost, when

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,"

that's what my instinct seems to have done, to take me by the less traveled route.  It's a quiet passion which warmly resides in me.  No less a passion for life for being self contained.  A rounded dark grey stone, it'll never be eroded and in its centre is a blaze of light and fire which is mine, white hot and cherished and it'll not go out, it can't be touched from the outside.  But it's there, and it's mine.

And today I have a sense of doors slamming, which brings me to this by Jimmy Nail.

"and then she kisses me
and somewhere I hear a door slam
so I say 'fine'
and just hope that I'm a better liar
than she is"

Too tired

So tired from the weekend yet still hauled myself out of the office and off to the climbing wall tonight.  There's obviously one hell of a huge part of me who has the bit between her teeth and wants, one way or another, what it takes to keep building or at the very least maintaining a level of fitness which will help me to get what I want out of the next year.  The rational part of me is a little afraid that I'll probably end up injured.  But at the end of the day, exercise maintains a certain level of contentedness, and exercise with other folk is sublime.

And tonight was perfect, climbing as part of a threesome.  Which means you do slightly fewer climbs but also means that while you're belaying or simply watching you get to chat with folk.  Also, given how knackered I am from the weekend it means that we got to be sure I didn't fall asleep belaying.  Unfortunately I'm so hyper now what with the good times I'm not sure I'll actually sleep.  Ooops.

And the Beautiful South bring you:

Let it rise up in the morning and take us for that walk
Let it do the talking when we're too tired to talk
When we're too tired to talk
 

Enormous wellbeing

Despite having given my three months notice in, I have to say some days, and in fact more so since giving in notice, I really do love my job.  Love it.  I will  miss some stuff here.

Yesterday took part in a conference call with the providers of the funding and our "Head of Marginal Gains" - which in itself is a very cool job title to have.  We talked athlete profiling and Project Rio.  Which seems even more remote from me than ever since I definitely won't be here in 2016.  The plan was next for me and Mr MG to head off for an "off site" meeting at Manchester Climbing Wall to discuss the way forwards.  What actually happened is that call over we did indeed stop in the office to talk about what next.  At the moment that Mr MG said what we really need is to get the CEO in front of a whiteboard ... the CEO knocks on the door (he's so polite), comes in, picks up the dry wipe pen and off we go with the planning of the next step.  Ended up with a wind surfing chat (well, they did) and off me and MG trundled to Manchester climbing wall for tea, cake, chat and good times climbing.  I love that I work in a place where everyone does stuff outside.  I love that I can stop at traffic lights, feel a bump against my bike back wheel, turn round in order to berate the person and find myself saying hello to our cycling Finance Director instead, and benefit from a shared part of journey home including banter.  I do love my job.

Climbing last night, I was in a lazy old mood.  After running Monday, cycling to work and back Tuesday and walking Wednesday it's not that surprising I guess.  Explained to Mr MG that I was in chilled type mood, and indeed he was wanting to do some routes where he could succeed so between us we agreed a lazy plan.  And because he's a sports scientist he can always find a good rationale for such changes in attitude.  Conditioning.  Apparently doing reasonable volume of easy stuff can be chalked up to Conditioning.  So we mostly conditioned, chatted and put the world to rights.

And today I have agreed to a 2009 van with 40,000 miles on the clock but with air conditioning.
I have also asked the boss what the chances are of Bradley winning the tour. My lips are sealed.

And I leave you with a bit of Blur.

"I feed the pigeons I sometimes feed the sparrows too
it gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing (parklife)
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day safe in the knowledge
there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it (parklife)"

On fire

So, indoor climbing last night after a few weeks of doing other stuff, such as climbing on rock with weather, waves and sea gulls, getting out on the bike and including a spot of walking was interesting. 

Indoor climbing is physically more intense somehow than outdoors in that you do a greater volume of work and you make more demanding moves because you're on a top rope generally with a partner who you trust.  There's no set up and there's no walk and you get a lot more height gain in.  So it gives a better workout.

Climbing outdoors is, for me, all about mind versus chimp.  There's a terrified gibbering animal inside me who is accounting for maybe 90% of who I am, and my challenge is to snap into the rational thinking person who focusses on the rock and my limbs and one section at a time makes her way up the rock.  The two don't work together well outside and the energy drain is largely from getting the person who knows she can do it back in charge over the "I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die" animal.  For perhaps I am going to die but squealing about it isn't going to be helpful.  There's less of a physical challenge because the work has already been done in this respect, and I'm working with pre-existing muscles, skills, knowledge and ability and staying within a range of difficulty which, for me, is actually quite safe.

So, all this in mind, it was weird getting back on the indoor wall last night and finding that somehow despite feeling I haven't done anything truly pushing in the last few weeks I have improved, fairly exponentially as it happens.  Everything I asked them to do my arms did, my grip (which I previously thought was non existent) just got a hold of things, and everything worked.  Grades previously out of reach suddenly became possible, and it was good.  And much of this is because suddenly I'm in a place where there is safety and trust.  Absolute trust in my totally solid climbing partner.  And we both moved on to things we didn't know we were going to try and we were both successful.  And all was good.  And some of it was extraordinary.

And today I'm largely humming along to the sounds of The Boss:

At night I wake up with the sheets
soaking wet and
a freight train running
through the middle of my head -
only you can cool my desire

oooh I'm on fire......

Staying Alive

So onto the final drama of the Pembroke weekend.  Cannonball wotsits name climb.  We'd been climbing all day, and done our final abseil down to the small inlet between the rocky outcrop and the cliffs.  Carl wanted to do a particular climb but even as he was ascending the first few feet I was having to move me and the ropes further up the rocks out of the way of the ever encroaching tide.  Even getting to the bottom of the cliff to start the climb was going to be at the very least a wet feet experience and definitely would meet the description "interesting".  But it was not to be; he got off to a slow start and realising my potential predicament, but more importantly becoming aware that his ropes could get wet, down he came and we sought out an alternative way up the cliffs and out of the getting damper by the minute environment.  Carl's encyclopaedic knowledge of the area soon gave us an option.  The hardest climb yet of the day at HVS, and indeed the hardest second climb to date in my ever expanding log book.  Fortunately he saw my pathetic face and decided to bring me up to a small rocky ledge a few feet above the waves rather than drown me (again).  So there I was, tethered to this small ledge, uncomfortable under foot, less than a foot out from the cliff and about four foot long.  Attached by three anchor points.  Then again, as it ever were, he left me.  And climbed.

The climb followed a crack into a chimney with an overhang, small traverse then a climb up a slab face to safety.  All seemed to be going mostly well, until there was one of those hesitations where you know your lead is buying time because he simply seemed to be placing as much gear as he could into an area about a foot square.  A good delaying tactic if ever I saw one. And he climbed up and put a friend in on the right, then over and a wire it was on the left and clearly he was making some decisions.

Then.

A shout.  And rope going suddenly very slack.

And I can see Carl a lot lower down than he was in the chimney, and there's a loud crack at my feet, and I'm in foetal position still trying to get some of the slack back on the ropes.  Then it's quiet, and nothing moves.  I'm looking up.  Carl's looking down.  Both of us trying to quickly assess the other's safety.  There's a rock on the ropes next to my feet that wasn't there before.  There's a cut on my ankle, and blood seeping into my climbing shoe.  And Carl.  Well, Carl's still up there, and he's precarious.  And I take in the rope.  I ask are you OK, he says he is, asks if I am,  I say yes.  Deep breaths.  Climb when ready.  And he climbs until a safe place is finally found, and I ask him if he can wait there, and he can, and I remove the rock from the ropes.  And I naively think that's it, issue dealt with, we're off.

Carl reaches the top and says safe, I let him off belay "off belay", and he hauls the ropes through while I faff with things on my harness, getting the nut key forward, putting the prussik loop backwards.  "That's me", I say as the ropes get me.  A pause for rigging and I get a "climb when ready", take myself out of the gear on the ledge and shout "climbing".  And I don't notice, don't see, because I haven't been watching the ropes.  I don't notice the damage, and don't realise what it is, exactly my life would depend on should I fall.  Which fortunately, I don't.

And inevitably the song I leave you with is Staying Alive.

Chimney stacks

Chimneys, stacks and indeed Cannonball runs. 

Climbs all have names, and mischievous some of them are too.  Bank Holiday Monday saw me doing no routes at all with any relevance to her Majesty's Jubilee, but did see me doing climbs named such things as Sheer Delight, Chopping Block and Cannonball Express.  And it was a gentle start to the day. 

I am a bitch.  Let me explain further ...

A few years ago I did a navigation skills course with a friend of mine.  She carries the kind of karabiner you'd put your keys on and a bit of cord on the outside of her walking rucksack.  Her purpose in doing this is (IMHO) so she can identify herself as being "a climber".  It gives her a sense of one upwomanship and prestige I suppose.  Logic and reason suggest this is a crap idea because actually if you're doing scrambling through small gaps etc. you really don't want something on your bag which can snag and get you tangled.  So, when the instructor challenged her as to why she was carrying the bit of tat on the outside of her bag, she was flustered and put on the spot and made the outrageous and simply untrue statement that she'd "abb'd off that".  Which was laughed down.  Being the bitch I am, I spread the tale to a few mutual friends so much so that it became an in joke "I've abb'd off that". 

And this is why an Asda mug with a karabiner  handle became, on the face of it, part of our Ab system. 

And weirdly, even with the mug in situ (along with three other sturdy points) other folk didn't pay attention and descended the same rope without question.  Nowt as queer as folk I guess. 

And the whole Abseil experience became a positive joy ... not quite so certain of the climbing though!



In the words of David Bowie:
The Jean Genie lives on his back
The Jean Genie loves chimney stacks
He's outrageous, he screams and he bawls
Jean Genie let yourself go!

Slip Sliding

By the end of my first day of sea cliff climbing I felt I was handling my abbing with a certain aplomb.  Things had become smoother, far less jerky and indeed completely non exhausting on my right arm.  I suspect there is a certain male advantage to some of those hand movements.  But nonetheless, things progressed.  Each time I arrived at the oh so carefully selected belay ledge Carl was patiently stood on the widest flattest part possible a suspicious look was given to the sea.  And indeed to Carl.  And things went from strength to strength. Half way up I even deigned to raise my hand in a cheery wave as the oh so familiar face of Steve peered down at me from the top of the cliff.  But the weather began to change, and despite the sure and certain knowledge I could get no wetter, somehow rain stopped the playing, and the trudge back to the car park was made.  This was also the last day I attempted to fit all the paraphernalia into a 25 litre daysack.  Mistake.  Ropes a dangling from all manner of places, and that thing where you hang your helmet as a nice rattling ornament from the side of your bag, swishing from side to side and interfering with your elbows.

And the evening was spent in the pub describing to my friends the torment and torture the evil man had put me through.  Little did I know what was to come ...

and courtesy of Simon & Garfunkel

"She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed
And I think of things that might have been"

Not afraid

After a midnight arrival at the St Petrox campsite, erecting the darling tent by the light of the van headlights, a still night changed into a bird song dawn all too soon.  In the spirit of joy at the little things the teeny gelert calor gas burner was ignited, kettle was on and the customary camping breakfast of tea and oats so simple in the somewhat over the top packaging pots was quickly achieved.  For this morning we had a military briefing to attend.  Off to Range West with high, high hopes.  Dreams of men in khaki uniform were foremost in my mind.  And we arrived, and there were a motley crew of climbers awaiting the briefing.  Scruffy for the most part and somewhat weather worn if the truth be told.  My climbing partner embraced the spirit of camaraderie and that weird appearance of being part of some exclusive and strange "scene" by knowing some of the stranger looking characters and idly making chitchat as we awaited permission to proceed to site.

The first uniformed individual greeting us was, much to my disappointment, female.  The next man up was a somewhat sturdy gentleman sporting a beret and a rather stereotypical moustache.  And we were informed about routes through, about times of activity, quantities of ammunition, nesting birds, seals, all manner of housekeeping details.  Then as I glanced along the row, suddenly I felt part of this bedraggled community, because randomly there was a familiar face.  Denial was my first reaction.  Because the face I thought I knew was a sea kayaker with his own base in Cardigan, and he was with a woman and children and to the best of my knowledge if he was the man I thought he was, he was a childless singleton.  I know, it's just a detail.  And I dismissed the possibility that this could be the Steve I knew ... until the close of the briefing when I came face to face with him at the handing in of the "I have listened to everything and the army has no liability" forms.  And from that point onwards, it seemed wherever I strayed along the Pembroke coast, so did Steve.  If I climbed a cliff, there he was at the top.

From there we headed to Flimston Bay.  I had a deeply patient and extremely detailed lesson in how to set up an ab.  Anchor points were jointly identified and discussed.  And then came the moment where I had to practice with the prussik loop.  After quite some time, a latent memory rose to the forefront of my chimping out brain (there was a certain amount of me that was pretty much just going wibble with fear by this time).  I am a left handed prussiker.  Simply cannot manage it on my right hand side.  Not a clue why not, but back in the good old tree climbing days of yore (those were much more bruised days even than now), I have a weird near ambidextrous thing going on.  I say this as I type looking at my left hand mouse; a true deterrent to others using my computer.  And the first abseil down the cliff was jerky and slow, and by the end of it my right arm was wondering how it was ever to climb back up the cliff again. 

A veritable cats cradle of ropes, slings, and pieces of wire were set up to secure me and my gibbering chimp to a teeny and rocky ledge of extreme discomfort.  Small splashes were occasionally tickling my ankles and all was well.  And then Carl left.  Climb when ready was, in my head, similar to "please don't leave me" but somehow that's not how it was interpreted.  And up he went, and left hand belaying also took place, and there were squawking birds and there were interested seals popping their heads up.  And Carl reached the top.  At which point it was a cue for a freak wave to hit me.  Chained to the cliff as I was in my cowardice and some degree of terror this was interesting.  At least it wouldn't sweep me away, but at the same time, there was no escape.  Carl was in the fortunate position of having topped out and being in a place to look down and observe when he heard the sound of the sea change.  And down he looked and nowhere was I to be seen.  Then the wave cleared and my red helmet was once more visible, with a laughing (possibly hysterically) Alison.  Then the second wave hit me and somewhere in all this, Carl had me on belay.  For once, with no messing, the wires, slings etc. were removed.  The first ten feet of climbing to get me above the wet rock was uncannily quick.  Who would have thought I could move so nippily.  And that was just the first day of drenched salt stained trousers ...

And I  leave you with Belinda Carlisle singing "When I'm lost at sea I hear your voice and it carries me.  In this world we're just beginning to understand the miracle of living. Baby I was afraid before, but I'm not afraid anymore."

Wind swept

Four days camping in Pembroke attempting to climb sea cliffs have just been and gone.  For we love royalty and the generosity in sharing a double bank holiday.  The mountain hardware refuge tent decided to accompany me for the trip.  That once much detested piece of equipment has worked its way somewhat sneakily into my heart.  And learning to finally love this tent is, for me, symbolic of learning to love me; to do more than accept those times of solitude, but to simply enjoy whatever experience comes along.  I can love that space, the feeling of smallness I have there.  My thermorest taking up only a fraction of the greedy space, and me in turn taking up just a portion of the mat.  Because  I feel small here, small and curled up in the ultimate friendly space.  The tent itself tiny at the edge of the field and the field just a part of the patchwork of agricultural land that spreads across Britain.   Yet here, in this infinite space, where I am small to the point of insignificance, I am also huge.  Because my thoughts fill my body but they also expand and soar, without boundaries, and without limits and there is nowhere that isn't home.  And this is why it will be OK to travel alone.

But I'm not in Pembroke alone.  I have a driver.  Who is also my lead climber, my teacher, my mentor and someone who I'd be honoured to feel I could finally think of as friend.  Because it remains a new and raw acquaintance.  And it's two people who find we can talk of anything, and we share the kind of conversation I seldom share outside my head.  And the joy here is that I am no longer restrained to just one perspective.  Ideas bounce, together we twist subjects, we both change and we both build on ideas which are curling like smoke in our heads.  Concepts come from each other and jostle and nestle up to pre-existing ideas, turning them into something new.  And if he would just stop attempting to kill me, maybe we could be friends.

He has an infectious enthusiasm somehow incongruous with a 6 foot 5 man near to 50 with a brain the size of a small planet, and makes sea cliff climbing an awesome experience I'm privileged to have shared.  And when I'm in a less whimsical mood I'll explain further.

Until then, I want my love, my joy, my laugh, my smile, my needs.  Not in the star signs or the palm that she reads.  Courtesy of Beautiful South.

Diversion ahead

I have typing diarrhoea.  It's not enough to have a poetry blog, a navel gazing blog, facebook and twitter and a cycling blog.  I want more.  But in the interests of sanity and general good behaviour, I'm just going to broaden this beyond cycling and into the rest of my world.  Because I have a weird world which like a balloon inflates and deflates, ties itself in knots and on occasion changes colour.  And I'm excited because my normal balloon planet is changing.  It's budding off and is becoming a most odd shape.  I'm really excited about my future.  And have now used the word excited rather too much.  It's taking on a new shape, and it's one I semi direct but far from control.  And almost every day something else like a slightly less annoying than normal mosquito draws itself to my attention.

Today, I climbed.  Convinced the poor unsuspecting climbing partner who thought we were going bouldering (as if) that he was in fact a very able second and was essentially the guinea pig to my lead climbing and importantly (for him) my newly acquired skills in setting up a belay.  A gorgeous evening dawned over North Manchester, and the quarry has a beautiful open aspect which means you can see hills, and the sun can reach whole swathes of clean sculpted rock.  There are no mozzies, and no marshy spots (I may have climbed at Anglezarke one too many times).  And it draws you in with a horseshoe shape, and the friendly sounds of other climbers, occasional calls, jingling of gear and muttering under breath.  And I led a couple of routes and then was told (not asked, how manly) that I was going to climb a top roped E1 route.  Which was somewhat of a surprise to me at the time.  But always (ha) obedient and feeling in a mood for experimentation up it I swanned, with surprising ease and maybe even grace (which actually in my books means simply not using my knees).  And life was good as with shaking knees I reached the top, staggered to a handy ledge and gasped those traditional words "I'm safe".

It is possible tonight might have been intended as a date.  I'm not clear on these things.  I don't think so, always safest to assume not and take the pressure off, and just be the pushy I'm going to lead while you second woman I am.  In any case, I have a ringing familiarity with the phrase punching above my weight. And there was beer and there were ideas thrown about for the future I'm so excited about.  The growed up gap year, or indeed as I'm thinking of it, the year of play planned from September pushed out a new weird bubble from the balloon tonight.  A van.  Why don't I get a camper van.  And although the concept makes me wince slightly with the pretentiousness of it all, why don't I?  Why not?