VAN Tour of a Nomad Living an INSPIRATIONAL Life in a Minivan!

The biggest thing I've gained from losing everything is perspective and that's something I don't think I would change for the world. Hi everyone welcome back to my next video. Today we're going to meet Seth who's in a wheelchair and a minivan and so that can't be the easiest thing in the world. So Seth tell us about yourself how are you in a wheelchair and how's it going being in a minivan? Well the minivan's a little cramped but I'll get to that in a little bit. So for starters I was in the Navy for just shy four years which is kind of what brought me to the chair. It wasn't directly because of the Navy but I was at a pre-deployment party. I had a little bit too much to drink. I dove into a pool broke my neck and down. So then after about six months in the hospital I got out and then moved back to Minnesota where I'm from and then after the next couple of years it was just kind of getting used to the new way of life and then I joined up with the Paralyzed Veterans of America and I was volunteering with them for about four years and then that's when I kind of decided I needed a little bit of an adjustment and I've always loved traveling and stuff like that hence joining the Navy. Way to see the world. Absolutely and last May I ended up taking off in my van and I went out east for starters and then I went over to Pennsylvania for a couple weeks and I was actually supposed to go to Utah for scuba diving and then I ended up with a foot infection so that kept me in Pennsylvania for a little longer and then being as I was over there I've never seen the northeastern states so then I did a little quick tour over there and then I shot back home to Minnesota in July and then August 17th I took off out west and did the 101 at Yellowstone and kind of just took my time down the west coast and made my way back home for the holidays and then came to the RTR. Super and you were going you were on your way to Utah for scuba diving and so you're on some kind of disability then? Yep through the VA. That's great yeah so there's a that's positive. Absolutely. You know it's I'm sure you'd go back and pray in a heartbeat but it's a positive. It is it is. So you you'd made the decision that you were going to be travel rather than just be stationary and how did you end up in the minivan? I already had so I had a Dodge to begin with a Dodge caravan and then I upgraded to the Chrysler and then that luckily I did because it has just a little more room on the inside for me so I did my first kind of mock-up of it and then I did a little bit of traveling like I said and I went back to Minnesota in July and then I did my I guess my second revision with it and then that's what I've been toting around is my second revision with it for the past roughly six months. I mean I kind of fell in love with the road a little bit so I had decided I was going to buy a short bus and now come February it's I bought it from Washington. Oh you have one already? Yep I bought it so now I just need to transfer it because it was the actual school bus so I need to transfer it into a motorhome status and then they're going to ship it to Minnesota and then that's actually after I leave here I'm going to go to Schoolie Palooza and then after that then I'm gonna head back home and start working on my short bus. Right and that'll give you an enormous amount of room. Absolutely. And it probably has the lift already on it? Yep. And once you're inside they're just so open my goodness that's perfect. Yeah it's going to be a lot nicer to have a little 7x14 area to roam in rather than the minivan so yeah it's a little cramped but it gets me out so that's the primary cost. So what has been the hardest thing for you so far? Of course you're limited by your mobility. That's a good question. Honestly I think that is the hardest thing is being as I can't go you know walk through the woods and enjoy the deepness of it so I'm kind of confined to luckily I have like the freewheel and stuff like that that allow me to go further than just the chair so that part's nice but I think just the limitless limited access to places is probably the most challenging but I still try and push myself to go where I probably shouldn't. Yeah. Yeah I actually have a track chair back at the because I got a cabin still in Minnesota so I got you know the sticks and bricks back home but I got a track chair that I still can go through the woods go hunting and get me into nature but can't really tilt that sucker with the minivan so there's been multiple times that I've gotten stuck and luckily have the phone to you know give a ring be like hey you know I'm stuck come get me. Right. So being in a chair it's opened up just the biggest thing I've gained from losing everything is perspective and that's something I don't think I would change for the like going through the navy and stuff if I knew that I'd end up in this particular situation I'd do it all over again. You would. I would. Well it's pretty amazing that you can take that point of view and for those of us who are a lot of people struggle with a lot of hardship I say you have a struggle with a hardship you do but a different kind of hardship how do you keep that positive point of view and bad times you said there are bad times. Oh absolutely. How do you get through those? I mean there's no secret of course but honestly I think I just always keep even though I know that bad days come and go it just everything always works out in the end no matter how long the hardship is there for I feel everything happens for a reason and everything always works out in the end. Well can we take a look at your rig? Absolutely. I'm going to be interested to see how you've done this. So I guess I've tried to keep it as simple as I could so if you go straight into the threshold of the van that's where I just have my bed there and then to the rear is where I keep all my like my shower stuff is in the black one on the bottom is a couple like canned goods and stuff like that below my bed is where I keep a lot of my canned goods those underneath the bed there and then the actually the foot portion of the bed will actually raise up so I can get under there if I need to and then the back bin is just for my like clothes and stuff and then right behind you there Bob is where I keep my cooler is on the very bottom as well as the pooch's rations and then and you does it slide out the cooler yeah it I just have to pull it out manually it's not on slides or nothing which would make it a little easier but it works yeah and you know slides pretty well on the carpet I absolutely and so the you've got a specialized chair and handles so that you can drive yep so that that transfer seat is called a six-way transfer seat so it goes up down forward back and then it swivels to I think 180 degrees and then as far as driving what looks like that suicide knob up there is due to my lack of hand function it's called a tri-pen and then below the steering wheel right where the steering column is is that rod right and I push towards the dash for brake and then I push towards the floor for the gas right so everything becomes hand operated yes and I'm sure the Navy must have been instrumental in getting this all set up for you to go on yes the VA actually helped immensely yeah you know a lot of people kind of dogged the the VA but I don't think I've had one poor experience with the VA so you don't have much but it all fits and it works yeah you're comfortable absolutely so you're gonna be a minimalist oh yeah like a lot of us absolutely yeah and then I do have a pillow there but I usually use a booze my pillow so you have to back in up the ramp you have to you have to pull yourself up the ramp yep so I just push up so usually I can give you a little show of how I usually do it so I usually just pull up right here and then this little one by one bar right down here I tuck in between my brake and my wheel here so then I have a little extra room and then if I want to go to bed I can just hop up on bed or I can hop up onto the chair or you know whatever I want wherever I want to go and then I have just enough room if I if I can't go down backwards and it's too at an angle where I'll tip back then I can this is where the crampness comes in yes I have just enough room to do a 360 and come down yeah and I saw you have a Jackery in there so you must have solar yep I do on I we were to open that door there that's where I keep so I actually got one of my one of my favorite little additions to it is so that white board right there if I were to lift this ramp up I have little arms that I can stick in these grooves and that acts as a table so I tried to use as much of what I have as multiple purposes I can well you're kind of so crowded inside you probably spend all your time you can outside oh yeah setting up a camp so a table would be really critical oh yeah I guess the only downfall of that is if I forget one thing inside I have to completely break it down close everything up open it and then get back in there I guess since I've been on the road I've uh I've tried to implement uh only driving a max of like two to three hours a day so I I don't miss much I I don't keep him inside the the van all cramped and right so I I try to uh stay outside as much as I can right yeah uh you probably lost some fuel mileage with weight a little bit I average about 20 uh if I'm on the highway I can push 25 but uh yeah I get pretty decent that's very so that that's going to be kind of the kick is uh with that short bus it's going to be a little bit different oh my yes very very good yeah but it'll be well worth it I agree your your quality of life totally agree because you're so crowded going to the bathroom can't be easy I actually found a pretty ingenious uh I'll show you real quick a little setup so back home I have just a regular commode that I throw over the toilet right so luckily this is a tri-fold mattress right and then uh right here is my little porthole right and then underneath over here is I have little cushions that I can just set right there and that acts as my commode and then I put the bucket underneath and that's how I do my business ingenious yeah so it works really well actually so I've been in the chair now for seven years and uh I'd say the first two was definitely the adjustment period so after I adjusted and now moving into this it's just one more slight adjustment period so it uh being as I waited the next for a few years before I really you know did anything like this it uh it definitely helped to be comfortable with how I am now and then so this transition wasn't as hard as if I were immediately forced into this position after the chair that would have been very good very yeah that's the whole I'm sure the whole initial transition oh yeah okay oh and then staying clean is basically just the way we all do it yeah I use uh baby wipes for my shower and then once I start feeling too dirty I'll just you know pull into a truck stop and get a shower or something like that so you know a few days out of showers nothing nothing too gross or bad or anything like that no I guess one of my other additions that I really uh I'm glad I put on the van is the light bars on the top oh uh-huh yeah so those little bad boys uh I got one on each side and uh during night like actually since uh we've been here at the RTR uh I've actually been able to use these the most since I've been here since I've been on the road because you get around a group and then these are really bright so you have to throw like a light scarf or something over the top of it so it dulls the light but yeah you just flip one of them bad boys on and you got a lit up camp that is nice yep and then if you if you are in the middle of the woods and you hear something crash through the woods you can turn that on and spot what's out there so it's good for security as well as leisure so I got like my tattoo machine down there I do wow I'm not I'm not pro by any means but there can some you do someone can people have you do a tattoo for them if they don't want like 100 professional quality yeah okay like actually a couple days ago one of the friends I met at the RTR I gave her one and it actually turned out pretty good I was surprised but did you do your own uh I did some on my leg um my knee ankle so I've done a few myself a lot of them were just stick and poke but after I got the tattoo machine that uh that was the game changer cool yeah but yeah I mean I got the some storage back here uh that's a little 12 volt back there I run the cord to the jackery for when it runs low so I usually unless you know boondocking stuff I usually don't have to throw out my solar for the jackery and then uh I guess other than that I got some extra storage down here and down here is where I keep my propane stove and then the pots and pans and stuff so I usually throw everything in the end spot let her cook and good to go yeah yeah oh yeah yeah I'm that's uh I'd say 85 to 90 okay well Seth thank you so much for sharing your life with us and your story it's really really amazing thank you fantastic job very inspiring I know you're going to help a lot of people to deal with some difficulties in their life and inspire them to move on and do that absolutely appreciate that thank you thank you so folks if you got anything out of this video like us on youtube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you later bye now cheap rv living has a patreon page please join us for behind the scenes footage and early release videos also you'll get insights into who bob is as a person plus advice for the road you'll also 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