Hit the road Jake: Diary of a Vagabond

Hello dear reader! No, it is not Jacob who is speaking to you right now. It's me, the old, red Opel. You're probably wondering why I'm speaking out. Well, I wanted to take the opportunity to briefly express my displeasure with the young Rasta. It was already exhausting enough that he had chased me over countless dirt roads, through streams and across the forest over the last few years. And that's just to catch carp that don't even taste good! Think about it. Taking advantage of me, an old pensioner, like that. After all, I am already 30 years old. What a disgrace!! And now he seriously says I would think it would be great if he lived in me permanently. Yes, no joke! He actually moved out of the dorm so he could fool me seven days a week. He built a bed in me, a table and this rickety kitchen was already there anyway. Does this freak have no other demands? Well, to be honest, I'm a bit proud of it. He raves about me so much and trusts my rickety engine immensely. If only he didn't always turn the music up so loud while driving.

Oh, please excuse my Opel's chatter. But the good guy is actually right in what he says. About a month ago I packed my seven things in the student dormitory and moved everything I needed into the Opel. What was I planning on doing? Well, I don't lack time and freedom at the moment, so why not use the situation to fully immerse myself in the Gypsy lifestyle. To summarize briefly: I am currently living permanently in my Opel for some time. And that should also be the main theme of this blog: it is the diary of a vagabond.

Hit the Road

The decision to use the Opel as my home was of course no coincidence. The two of us have already completed a few trips and countless kilometers. Until recently, however, I had a room in a student dormitory, a permanent place of residence like almost everyone reading this. But I was only living as a sublet and had to vacate the room at the end of April. It would have been easy to move to another room, after all, I had made many friends there and spent many good hours. At the same time, Covid-19 brought almost the entire world to a standstill. For me, this meant that I had to temporarily put my work as a competition coach on hold because the climbing gym closed. My weeks were increasingly empty, with no set appointments or to-dos to maintain a healthy rhythm.

As if that wasn't enough, the three-year relationship with my then girlfriend came to an end. A circumstance that didn't make my life easy and caused many gray days. From then on, Karlsruhe seemed cold and empty to me, everything reminded me of you and there wasn't really anything left for me to discover. My hours in this city were definitely numbered. For me there was only escape forward. First I traveled across Germany for a few days to clear my head again. There will soon be something to read about in the CHM. It was an exciting time and showed me how I wanted to spend the coming months.

Back in Karlsruhe, I immediately began to expand my Opel. The first project was a bed that I can also fold up against the passenger seat as a couch. A small table quickly followed for a laptop or a coffee cup. I had already installed a kitchen and food box last year, as well as proper lighting on the ceiling. In a few HammerDashs I carefully sorted my clothes, photo equipment and laptop. If I were to live in a car for a long period of time, I would need to be able to do everything from the car. I also decided to pack my bike. This would make me far more mobile and allow me to explore large distances and areas without a car. But even for simple things like shopping, it's not necessary to go through annoying traffic and waste fuel unnecessarily.

The rest was a no-brainer. Reduce fishing equipment, don't forget training material and think about how I could best develop a good system for all the equipment. Of course I also packed a spinning rod because I definitely have a weakness for freshly caught bass on the water.

Young, wild and unruly

When everything was ready, I also felt absolutely “ready to go”. I spent the first few days with Alex. He also has a converted van. I was immediately a little jealous of the amount of space in his vehicle. Over the next few days we fished two large rivers, visited friends and drifted. But he should report about it himself at the appropriate point. When we parted ways again, I almost immediately went on to Holland, my current location. I've been up to mischief on the area's canals and rivers for seven days now, battling with spawning carp.

However, that is a topic for the next blog. Stay tuned and follow the events of “Rodlife” every week from now on.
Your Jakob Mehltretter