Abandoned Cabin in the Woods & Life Update

wow yeah mold probably should be in here no we shouldn't [Music] I was born in Jonesboro Arkansas and live with my grandparents until I was six after moving to Wisconsin I would still often spend Summers with my grandparents I remember days spent by the river and nights walking along dirt roads while discussing the constellations overhead and I remember that it was sometime before the year 2000 when they bought this 64 acre property in the Ozarks it was meant to be an off-grid Haven in addition to their actual home just in case you know the world went to hell over time my grandparents had at a few small cabins ouses work sheds and a main two-story cabin they also installed water tanks and dug a well and even had a windmill brought in for generating electricity but the lights never did turn on and though the well struck water there was never enough power to pull it up because my grandpa got sick really [Music] sick he passed away while they were still in the building stages and though my grandma and family would go up every now and then over time it just became forgotten and nature began moving [Music] in all the time that it has sat up here you would just want to take that insulation out because it's had it's been hot and cold and moisture right basically they never finished the walls they just put the insulation up look at this fan that's the fan you still have that fan yep oh my gosh IED that fan I didn't know was up I love that fan you want it Dad we go to garage sales and just buy stuff for up here all the time over the years trespassers have broken in and stolen nearly everything even my grandma's wedding dress so only the basics remained but these things still tell a story rows of beans and rice stored in plastic Coke bottles lining the walls of nearly every cabin travel siiz bottles of shampoo and conditioner that are 20 if not 30 years old random Treasures that have been collected from garage sales since the 1960s relics from another time seeing it all here in person was wild and it was also just kind of sad to see what was once a dream be so clearly lost to time so they dug a well but they were never able actually to get water up but there is water down there that was confirmed and then this is the outdoor shower that they built there faucet over there tank poison ivy there's another cabin back here that we're walking to yeah this is wow that's why they but this one could be cleaned I bet my grandpa was the kind of guy who wrapped his cash in tin foil to keep the government from knowing what he had before he died we watched The Bucket List together and I asked him what three things would be on his own list he said he would have liked to let live in a teepee for a year or wander the Australian Outback with only the essentials and horses he wished he had spent more time with horses everything with him felt like a grand Adventure even the smallest things he meant so much to me and left this world far too soon coming back to this place was emotional for me in a lot of ways even though I'd only been here a handful of times all of them more than 20 years [Music] ago I didn't know what to expect but I was definitely not prepared for what we found this this is wild look at all this baking soda why is there so much baking soda it's so good wow it's right there below below this thing that's look at all the nuts in here they've been storing this would be a big cleanup project before I would even start to build so much to clean out here's the third cabin oh my gosh it's pretty bad yeah this one is the worst but this one is the first one you put up here oh the smell [Music] mhm yeah mold should be in here oh spiders potential [Music] mhm hey there's out house right here this is probably this cabin is probably the the best shape doesn't smell wet or miloy looks like the roof is still intact it's small but this could potentially be a good base for building out the bigger one if I decide to do that look at that old frosting cup wow feel like I'm at a museum right well this has been up here is it look at all these survival Foods jeez these are like 20 years old yeah 25 we're going to put some mice straps in here and spray for bugs and don't know when will be back hoping that this will [Music] help hi wait hi surprise it is 2 months later and I'm back on the west coast bet you didn't see that coming so the cabins were in really bad shape most of them probably not worth keeping it wasn't a total deal breaker for me because I was still open to saving what I could but otherwise just rebuilding from the ground up but as it turns out the land itself is worth a lot we didn't actually have it appraised but judging by other listings in the area potentially north of $1 to $200,000 and even though it's in the family the land is part of my mom and aunt's inheritance and their kids which does include me but still really only works if I pay market value for the property so considering the cost of the land how much work it would require and all the upfront costs of clearing a road and pulling water and installing solar and propane and all the things it just didn't really make sense especially because it's so remote like building a community would be tough and my family would still be over an hour drive away and I would be so so far from the places that I really love but I won't lie it was a tough pill to swallow I think I had just become really attached to the idea of kind of picking up where my grandpa had left off and learning how to build something off grid and I know it's a really popular pipeline for road lifers to then transition to buying land and building it and that is a dream I'm still interested in in but um this one this just wasn't it and it was a really tough thing to come to terms with because it seemed so aligned you know it seemed to come out of nowhere and it seemed just like the next step but it wasn't meant to be and that's okay I spent the second half of October in Missouri with my family and that alone was definitely worth a trip out east I didn't film much but I would love to go back sometime in the summer and spend time with them on the river it's just so uniquely different from the Landscapes out west I did still seriously consider moving to Missouri primarily because I have family there and I would love to spend more time with them there's also the fact that it's just wildly cheaper to live in the midwest or the South than it is to live on the west coast in Missouri I would have the option of buying something outright that would be modern and comfortable whereas on the west coast my options are more limited after spending just a few weeks there I found that I was deeply deeply missing the Landscapes of the West and I know that might seem really obvious like we all knew that was going to happen part of me felt that after traveling and living on the road for so long I would be in a space where I could have some distance but that just wasn't the case I also began to realize that work would look pretty different as well like I would be flying to a of destinations in order to film and photograph which would also mean additional costs for flights and airbnbs and rental cars and all these things that I don't have to stress over right now when I have my van and I can easily just drive from one beautiful location to the next so overall it was a learning experience it was an amazing time with family and I'm so glad that I went my next Grand idea was to travel internationally all winter So my aunt offered to let me park my van at her house and both she and my mom have Airline benefits and I fly standby mostly for free so I was like this is it I'm going overseas I applied for a handful of month-long house hits in Switzerland and the UK and I had great conversations with a few of them they seemed like a slam dunk but in the end they all felt more comfortable going with someone local which I totally understand it makes sense but was also a bummer so I thought okay I'll just book a month-long Airbnb and travel that way it's really no different than paying rent in the US but I get to experience new countries and cities and all that so I started browsing possible locations and I tried imagining what I would do once I got there and honestly I just wasn't that excited going by myself just didn't sound that fun which is an interesting plot twist because I can genuinely say that up until not that long long ago I truly wanted nothing more than to be alone but now I've reached this point where I'm like wait I actually kind of want to experience this wild stuff with someone I don't know who but yeah I will say that if I had never been to Europe before I would absolutely push myself to go alone or not but I've spent a fair amount of time overseas living overseas especially in Europe and at this point I don't really have an interest in going somewhere just to go I've spent so much of my life traveling and moving around I've actually lived in 37 places like legit address changes I actually keep a spreadsheet of all my former addresses because I was once interrogated at the UK border and I couldn't remember my last five addresses correctly and that didn't go over so well so I created a spreadsheet anyway my point is travel is a huge part of my identity and something I will probably always love but what I'm craving right now more than anything at least lately is to go home I just don't know where that is yet or to house set overseas because that to me would be a new and different experience unlike booking a hotel or Airbnb you're basically plucked down into the life of a local and you get to hang out with their pets and walk around their neighborhood and meet their neighbors and sometimes they'll invite you over for dinner or to go for a hike and you get to really experience the location from a whole other perspective than if you're say traveling as a tourist so that is definitely still on the table but as it stands all of this basically landed me right back where I started in trying to decide what to do and where to go next so I did what I often do in these situations and I hi High tailed it to a place that feels like home and that place was yosity I spent about a week just hiking and hanging out and refle Ing and I realized that this cycle of questioning is kind of an annual thing it's a feeling that tends to surface when the nights are longer and I'm forced to spend more time alone inside my van with my thoughts it's almost like a yearly review one where the underlying question is is this still fun because most of us don't get on the road thinking this is it I'm doing this forever like we get on the road thinking I'll do this until I don't want to do it anymore or for some I'll do this until I don't have to anymore and so it's kind of this constant underlying question do I still want to live in this van I don't think that question will ever go away until the day I don't live in this van but I will say this I love this van it's my home and it does give me anxiety to think about not having it however what I want in my life right now is routine stability consistency and Community I could also also really use some health insurance which I haven't had since 2018 but that's a topic I will say for another [Music] video right now living on the road probably takes up about 40% of my energy on a daily basis finding safe and accessible places to sleep that are at least somewhat flat and also have relative access to water and groceries internet showers track cash laundry shipping options for work packages Sunshine for solar and non- creepy neighbors daily tasks include building a bed and work desk cleaning the dishes with cold water emptying the toilet and gray water tank driving monitoring battery levels researching and planning routes checking the weather listening to ATVs and/ or generators but also fan life is great I love it a big motivator for me right now is that I just want greater access to the places I love which put simply I want a 4x4 I want to go film The sieras in the winter and other snowy locations and drive up to Alaska maybe or just roam around remote places in the canyon lands I want to film and photograph some harder to reach places I also want to go backpacking and leave my car at the trail head without worrying about my vehicle my home and literally everything I own getting stolen all at once and truthfully that's just not possible with my current setup so here are my thoughts one option is to sell the van get a home base and a 4x4 SUV similar to my old setup so that I can still travel for weeks at a time and also have a vehicle for getting around town another possibility is to get a truck camper and remain full-time I think if I do that it'll probably be after a year or two of living in a house or apartment first because otherwise I would kind of just be trading like one set of problems for another I could also just sell the van pack a bag and Float around overseas but again that doesn't really satisfy my current need for routine stability and community that brings us to the easiest path which is to just do nothing and see if this feeling fades in the spring like it always does after yosity I drove down to Big Sir and spent a good amount of time along the coast just soaking up the sunshine because what I ultimately decided to do is to commit to a two-month house in Washington which I am at right now and it is currently week two my thought behind this is to see how I feel after two months in one place during the darkest and rainiest part of the year right now the jury's still out because I am loving the stability but we'll see what happens come February you can probably expect more videos from me over the next few weeks because I'll actually have time to edit and I'm currently working on a van tour that I filmed on the trip up here guess this has just been a little life update um wanted to share about the cabins and I also just wanted to be transparent and honest about what I'm going through especially for all my fellow Ries out there you are not alone if you're also feeling a little unsure of what comes next I think it's just all part of the journey and I feel like I've been talking for 10 hours tldr everything and nothing at all has changed I'm so grateful to all of you for tuning in and watching and I hope you all have a beautiful holiday I love you guys and I'll see you soon my hands are freezing ow [Music] dude

Channel: Christian Schaffer

Views: 240,404

Keywords: campervan, van conversion, tiny home, tiny house, tinyhomeonwheels, living in a van, solo female, solo female travel, travel vlog, solo female van life, off grid living, end of van life, off grid, cabin, travel, life update, quitting, Missouri, Ozark

Id: h0LVk_0ey3U

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 22 2023