Five Weeks On the Road with a Six-month Old: The Mystery Machine

With dates set and plans made, I began the process of rapid preparation. It is important here to note our mode of transportation is a 1977 Dodge Santana which is a B Series conversion van. They only made this model for two years and I don’t like to think about why. After trying and failing to get into an underground parking lot, we determined that our van is about eight and a half feet tall. It has a full kitchen and sleeps four with plenty of storage space. While I’ve been meaning to update the decor since we bought it a few years back (pre-baby), it still has its original shag carpeting and classic brown, yellow and green upholstery. So, as you can imagine, traveling with the little one brought up some new concerns.

First of all, the dirt. I am of the “dirt don’t hurt ‘cuz it’s of the earth” philosophy, but it’s all those things hiding in the dirt that one considers suddenly after a baby is born; allergens, germs, bugs, toxins, etc. Once clean, we began trying to figure out how the rear-facing car seat would fit since the back “seat,” more like a couch, is sideways facing. Eric set up a system with a bonus, whereas a cushion acted as a buffer between baby’s face and the glass window. Okay, an unnecessary precaution, but to a mother, every little bit helps. I mean, this van acts like a sail on a windy day and forget about power steering or power brakes or any other safety features you might be used to. We don’t even have shoulder straps on our seatbelts. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, we had terrible gas mileage too, but we saved on hotels and restaurants, both financially and our carbon footprint (with the addition of planting a couple of trees when we got home).