Let me start by explaining we are avid campers but also obsessed with boating. Most of our adventures consist of scouting a sweet spot to camp and then exploring the area by boat or other water vessel (don’t worry I have some cool water toys to show you soon enough)!
Tent camping is for the birds in my opinion, its hours of set up and tear down, double that if you have kids, which also means there are hours of packing before you even leave! Even if you have dedicated camping totes with almost everything you need, it’s still such a process. Why do you think van conversions have become so popular? Home is where you park it dude! 🤙🏼 Finding a good van for conversion is kind of where we began in researching our options. We needed something that we could tow our boat and other water toys with but was small enough that if you needed to get around you weren’t trying to take a 40 ft RV through McD’s drive thru, its not possible by the way so don’t try. The idea of a van was right up our alley. Then engine power mattered to be able to go rogue, dually wheels for towing strength, the ability to stand up, low cost for the first rig, etc... all these “necessities” piled up which led us to other options; short busses, shuttles, and semi trucks then finally to the ambulance. Jack is obsessed with craigslist, I mean OBSESSED, he has no social media so imagine all the time you spend on your different accounts is how much time he spends on craigslist. He found a ambulance for sale at a fire station in a small southern town of Michigan that was an amazing price. He called immediately and the fire chief said first person to show up he was selling it to. Jack jumped in his truck and started to head south, about an hour in he got a call that another person had showed up and put a deposit down for a buddy who planned to make it into a toterhome (essentially, chop the back box off and mount a fifth wheel hookup). We were crushed. Twenty four hours later, the fire chief called Jack, told him the first guy fell through and he had a crazy amount of people interested but that Jack seemed like a good guy and was second to call. He gave him 24 hours to get down there. Within an hour Jack was on the road with an employee to go scoop that baby up! Scored it for under $3,000 🎉
She’s a 1991 Ford E350 beauty with very little rust, low engine hours, and low mileage. Legally, they had to disconnect specific sirens and remove a few decals but all in all she still looks like a legit ambulance. I know you’re all wondering... “but what about all the people that died in there, do you want to sleep in that??” It just so happens this small town basically didn’t need an ambulance and rarely used it for anything serious, they actually used it to haul lumber and supplies around more than anything. There was one body transported in the rig and the story is actually a famous one. Check it out here Murder of Jodi Patrick . Anyway, I bleached the whole thing twice and smudged it with sage :) plus we like to have a positive outlook as in “how many lives were SAVED.”
Stay tuned for the conversion!