My first stop, as I mentioned before, was to a friend’s house in Thousand Oaks, who was an absolute godsend in so many ways. As fate would have it, Krista is a frequent van camper with her husband and three kids. So, I arranged to spend two days at her house to prepare for my odyssey and then go with her to a camping ground on the southern California coast two hours away to cut my teeth.

After chowing down on the obligatory In N Out burger, I unpacked the boxes that I had shipped out and began to ponder how to best pack the van. I quickly figured out that experience would be my best guide and that any arranging in advance would inevitably be rearranged as I went along. Then Krista took me shopping. With her years’ experience she ran down the list of must-have, yet not obvious, items, such as mats for outside the van, tongs, bigger bowls with lids, goat cheese and more. She also dug around her tubs of camping gear and supplied me with sponges, camp lighters, little lanterns and condoms (I guess they fall into one of those lesser-known Eagle Scout, Always Be Prepared categories).

So it was, on August 12, 2015, armed with the essentials, Krista and her gang hopped in their van and I in mine and made for my first camping site, with one pit stop along the way to an animal shelter to find an adventure dog for me (the one I liked was unavailable due to a “biting issue,” which didn’t really bother me). Two hours later we arrived and found our spot, #123.

Number 123 couldn’t have been better positioned (or named), with an unobstructed view of the Pacific, a great oak for shade and the hammock, and a bathroom and showers just steps away. My deer-in-the-headlights expression began to wane as we parked our vans and set up camp. Indeed, I began to think that, if this is camping, I’m in—a four-star room at a hotel couldn’t have offered a better spot. And that notion only grew over the next two days as I fired up the stove and made breakfast for five each morning, rode my bike along the coast, lounged on the beach, went boogie boarding with the kids, and roasted marshmallows over a campfire (the kids accused me of hogging most of them, a habit that will go largely unnoticed as I travel solo). I gained years of experience over those few days, and I will forever be grateful to my West Coast family for showing me the ropes. And, as if my stars weren’t lining up already, the skies put on a spectacular show each night as the Perseids meteor shower passed by.

I finally felt ready(ish) for Whatever.