UPGRADING OUR VAN FOR THE ULTIMATE MEXICO ROAD TRIP!

After owning this van for over two years, we are about to embark on the biggest adventure we have ever taken. In about 48 hours, we are supposed to be crossing the Mexico border. But before we do, we have a very long list of things that need to be done. So the first attempt at putting the roof rail on was a fell.

Don't think that was supposed to happen.

We've even left room at the bottom because I'm sure there's some things we've forgotten. Let's get to work.

So we're staying at a friend's house for the next few nights. And before we came ask if we could get a couple packages shipped here. We are literally taking up the whole garage. But before we mark anything off of our list, we've got to open all this stuff. Black ol. Black beard drop shirts. We're not gonna sell these or anything. They're just, for me, a little tight. It's like a muscle T shirt. Living in a van full time means that we always take advantage of safe shipping addresses when we have them. But this time it's especially bad because one of the items on our to do list is installing a roof rack and a ladder. So that's why the boxes are so hu. So excited about this. We have talked about it ever since we bought the van. That is beautiful.

Margarita maker carbon monoxide detector. We've needed one of these for a while now.

What in the world? So this package has Kara's name on it, which means that it had to come from our Amazon account. But it's a package of bamboo garden stalks. Hey, Kara, did you order bamboo stalks? What do you want to build a tiki bar in the van?

So not only is our to do a super long, but I am also going to be undertaking the largest construction project I have ever attempted on this van since owning it. That is to install a roof rack. But before I can even start on the roof rack, I first have to install these roof rails. That is the first step. Unfortunately, that step is a lot more complicated because the roof rails weren't installed before our van was built out. And there is no way to get to the bottom of the roof because we have this beautiful white wood ceiling. And in order to put the nut on the bolt that should hold the roof rail on something like that, we would have to take out the entire ceiling. Then my friend Rick had the idea to use plus nuts to secure the roof rail. So that's what we're going to try today. So the idea is you drop the plus nut into this Hole in the roof. And then you squish it down until it looks like this. That keeps the nut from coming out of the roof. And then theoretically, the bolts for the roof rails should screw right into the plus nut, and that's what will hold the roof rail on. I've watched hours of YouTube videos Trying to figure out if this is actually going to work. I think it is, but there's only one way to find out.

Okay, while Nate is working on that, I'm going to get started inside the van. The first thing on my list is not actually on this giant to do list. I need to organize this place before I can think about anything else. We both have two suitcases full of stuff that I need to put away.

We have laundry to do. We still have a sink full of dishes. So before I can tackle any of these things, I just need to start with a clean slate.

The first step is removing these little caps because there are already pre drilled holes in the sprinter van that the plus nuts will drop through. And according to the Internet, you need a heat gun to do that. I should just be able to heat the glue up that's around the outside of this cap. And then once it starts bubbling, I should just be able to pry it off.

Well, the Internet was right about step one. Now I need to clean it off, and I'm gonna go ahead and attempt to install one of these plus nuts Before I take off all these caps and figure out that it's not gonna work. So this is the plus nut tool. So you put it on the plus nut and then you drop it down into the hole. And I believe you just squeeze. It's so awkward trying to do this on a ladder. Okay, the plus nuts in. Oh, it works.

One side down. A little less than an hour later, I'm on my last one.

Dang it. That's only my second one that's broken off. Nice. Okay, time to start cleaning. No.

Cannot remember when I washed this last.

This is the only way I can currently get on the roof.

Please be careful.

Kara hates it. So this is what the top of the van currently looks like. The roof rails are going to go on the edges right there and right there.

I am pretty sure the last time our bed was converted into a table was when Eamon and Beck were living in here. That was August. September. Let's see if I can remember how to do this.

Wow, this is crazy.

Okay, so now that the area is nice and clean, I'm going to install all the plus nuts. I'm pleasantly surprised by how well all this is going. Okay, this is the very, very last one. Wow. This is where most people would start this project if they didn't already have a ceiling built into their van.

How's it going?

I just finished.

Woo.

The plus nuts step point five.

So we put these mats down for a ski trip to protect our floors from our boots and the ice and the snow and everything. And we might even keep them for our Mexico trip. No matter what we do, though, they've got to come up so I can clean this floor. I'm honestly so nervous to lift these. It could be full of mold. There could be critters. There's no telling. Oh, gosh. Wow. So much dirt and a little bit of moisture, but so far, no mold or bugs.

So disgusting. All right, I feel a little guilty about this because Nate's definitely done way more work than me today, but I get to mark the first thing off our giant list. Technically, I get to mark two things off because we already took care of the flat tire. Super easy fix. Just drove it to a tire shop. They changed it in, like, 10 minutes, and it was about 20 bucks.

And I removed our padded flooring. There's a question mark because we might need to put it back back. But I'm just gonna leave it on the sidewalk for now. Air it out a little.

Real quick. We want to say a big thank you to Athletic Greens for being so awesome and for sponsoring this video. Nate and I discovered AG1 two years ago, and I kid you not, it has been a part of our daily routine ever since. Okay, maybe we've missed, like, a handful of days, but my body has gotten to this point where it craves it. Since we're on the road 24 7, I guarantee our bodies are not getting the nutrients they need from our diet alone. And just One scoop of AG1 contains 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients. I'm not a medical professional, but when your body gets the nutrients it needs, it just works better and you feel better. So now we start every day with AG1, because then we know we're covering all of our nutritional bases, no matter what we end up eating, which is about to be a lot of tacos. Whenever we're living in the van, we keep this jar in the fridge. But when we go on a trip, I always bring tons of these little travel packs. So if you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend that you do. If you click the link in the description below, you can get the AG1 immunity bundle. Comes with a one year supply of vitamin D drops, plus five individual travel packs for free with your purchase. I hope you love it as much as we do.

Okay, I'm going to try to get these rails completely ready before I put them up on the roof. So that way all I have to do is set them in the right spot and screw them down. First I have to connect the separate rails using this little piece. Once they're connected, I need to run what they're calling a gasket on the bottom side, so that'll stick to the bottom and hopefully keep the roof from leaking. Last but not least, I'm going to start all 22 of these tiny SCRE. So that way when the rails are up on the roof, they're already in position and all I have to do is screw them in.

At the beginning of this year, Nate converted our shower into a ski locker. So he basically just padded the wall and added a bunch of hooks so we could put our skis and all of our soggy ski clothes in there. I am now gonna turn into a surf locker, which is pretty much the same thing. All I'm really doing is taking out all of our winter stuff and getting it ready to mail home. Sorry Nate, I'm undoing your hard work.

Goodbye coats, hello.

Wetsuits.

Wow.

These take up so much less space.

Not bad.

Woohoo.

Moving right along.

So the first attempt at putting the roof rail on was a fell. Apparently Mercedes does not put enough factory holes in the top of the van in order to screw the roof rail all the way down to the very end. There's a hole in the roo roof rail right here, but there's no hole in the top of the van. And I went back and read the instructions and it said if you have 170 inch wheelbase van, you need to drill four extra holes. Two at the very front and two in the very back. So now I have to take this roof rail up, drill some holes, put some plus nuts in, and then reinstall the roof rail. This added at least an extra hour of work. I also feel very uncomfortable with the idea of drilling a hole in the top of my van.

Well, I've made the executive decision to put all the floors back in the van. Just gave them all a good clean, got the floors real nice.

That was easier than expected.

It is so nerve wracking hearing Nate drilling holes in our roof.

Yay, clean floor. I think when we're dragging sand in here every day, we'll be glad we did this. It'll just fall through the cracks and pretend like it's not there.

Yes.

Nice. It worked.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I didn't expect to want a warm coffee during my afternoon work day in la, but it's really nice.

Good luck.

It'll go great as long as it doesn't rain because I currently have 22 holes in the roof.

Oh, gosh.

I'm majorly stalling right now because one, it's freezing out there, and two, my next task is.

How can I say this?

I'm dumping our poop.

Okay. Now I should have all the holes that need to be in the roof drilled, hopefully. Now all I have to do is lay down the roof rails, all the holes line up, and then I'll just screw them down.

We've only dumped the solids portion of our composting toilet a couple of times, and both times were pretty uneventful. However, I think we've gone a bit too long without changing it out, and I'm a little nervous about what I'm about to see and smell. Also, I've never done this before. Nate always does it.

Watch out.

Nice.

How's it look?

Very toilet papery.

Oh, that looks gross. This is what it looks like. Yeah. This is going in the trash for sure. Make sure you have a really good hole.

Oh, no. Let's see if we can win this to the grass. Live in a van, they said.

All right, now to replace the peat moss, I got this new stuff that's made out of coconuts. Let's see how it works.

Okay.

You do have to hydrate the coconut coil before you use them. According to the YouTube video. I just watched you just put it in a bucket. It doesn't smell like coconut. Add some water and then break it up.

So that took forever. It went from this to this. Now I gotta dump this in the toilet.

Done.

1, 2, 3, 4. 4 of 19. Moving on. So this is where the propane used to live. Now the propane is over here. And we put a temporary gray water tank under the sink because we didn't want our gray water that used to be under the van to freeze while we were in car. My mouth is frozen while we were in Colorado. So it's time to get rid of this giant jug, put the propane back where it belongs, and then I'll get all of this storage back. The problem is Nate also did this, and I'm not really sure how, but I'm gonna try to figure it out.

Goodbye, water jug.

That was easy. Unscrew the this.

There's a glob of hair in here. This just moved back over here. Feel like I'm missing something here. Oh, this thing. Yes, yes, yes. I did it. Let's test. It.

Didn'T leak. Success. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Look at those clouds.

As you can probably tell by the light, this has not gone as smoothly as I hoped. I think the big mistake that I made was over tightening the plus nuts. When I over tighten a few of them, that messed up the threads, so the screws aren't going in straight. I also have one screw that is stuck inside of a plus nut, and because of where it's stuck, I can't finish putting in the roof rail. So I have a plan that involves letting super glue sit overnight. So I think I've done as much as I can for today. We will revisit this project in the morning when hopefully I'm a lot less frustrated.

This morning is going to start with me either being really happy or really frustrated. So last night, I super glued the plus nut with, like, an entire tube of super glue, hoping that that will hold the plus nut in place, which will allow me to unscrew the bolt. And if this doesn't work, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Here goes nothing.

Yes. Oh, my goodness, it worked.

I'm writing a thank you letter to that super glue company.

Okay, great start to the day. Time to put the roof rack on.

Time to make myself useful.

Okay, so the roof rack is laid out in about 15 different pieces, and I think I have it all laid down right. For some reason, this roof rack came with no instructions, so I'm literally using a blurry picture off the Internet to try to figure out where all these pieces go. There's only one way to find out if I've gotten this right. Because of how heavy the roof rack is, I'm just gonna try to put it up piece by piece. Theoretically, I'm just gonna slide this little square nut into the rail, and then I should just be able to bolt the rack directly onto it. Let's see how this goes. Wow. I haven't tightened anything down yet because I'm not sure that I have it in the right place, But I'm feeling dangerously optimistic that this might be a relatively simple process. All right, so I'm about to put on the last piece of the side rail. This is taking, like, two seconds, and it feels so good to finally see some progress on the van.

Got the tank out, and now my job is to get this box out of this cabinet and move it into this Cabinet. I've never used one of these in my life. We will see how it goes.

Wow. Okay, so this came off. Don't think that was supposed to happen.

So I think in order to finish installing the roof rack, I'm going to have to do a lot of getting on and off the roof. And so that I don't have to climb up the back door every time. I'm going to pause the roof rack project and I'm going to attempt to install a ladder.

Came in two separate pieces, so I just have to put it together.

So now I have to mount this piece to the bottom of the van so that the ladder has something to attach to down here on the bottom. Let's put some time on the clock and see if I can knock this out in 15 minutes. That didn't sound good.

I can't believe how easy that is.

Maybe you're going to become a DIYer.

Maybe so.

Success.

Okay, scrap the 15 minute clock. This piece on its own is going to take 15 minutes to put in.

Raining shards of hot metal down on my arm.

Some of them were crumbs in the propane box.

Oh, come on. This is always how it goes. Job that you think is gonna take 15 minutes is the one that ends up taking up the whole day.

So productivity comes in many shapes and sizes, and today my to do list consists of getting coffee and Target.

All right, well, that would have gone a lot faster had I had the right tools. But the ladder is attached to the van, and I'm gonna see if Kira will be brave enough to be the first person to climb it.

Will you be the first one to climb the ladder?

No.

Yes.

I'm not taking that away from you. I just got back from Target.

I'm scared to test it.

Oh, my gosh. I don't even feel like this is our van. Like, the cool factor is instantly, like, times a thousand out of ten. How confident are you that this is gonna hold my weight?

10.

We have a ladder. Oh, my gosh.

Feels good to actually have one thing fully accomplished. Well, that took about an hour and 45 minutes longer than expected, but it's done. So what I want to do next is actually move some of these solar panels around and build a deck on the front half of the roof. The only issue with that is the roof rack was supposed to be the easy part because the solar panels and the roof deck I'm making up, there's no instruction manual for that.

I get to use this again.

They're a lot harder to get down than they were to pull up.

Ah. Everything's fine. It did it. It screwed in.

Little buddy.

Back home where you belong.

Hallelujah, hallelujah hallelujah, hallelujah. The shoe basket is back. Oh, I've missed you. It's the little things when you live in a van.

Good morning.

Yesterday was a very productive day, and I get the honor of marking it all out, even though Nate did majority of it. Nate finished installing the roof rails. He's pretty much done with the roof rack, so I'm gonna go ahead and mark that out for him. Moving the solar panels is not gonna happen, but I will let Nate explain that we're still waiting on a few more pieces for the deck. I moved the propane tank, and I went to target. Making progress. Ah.

I am happy to report that last night I stayed up with a headlamp and got all of the pieces for the roof rack in place. It is pretty much done. However, I'll fill you in on the next big challenge after I get everything tightened down. This was a curveball that I definitely didn't see coming.

Remember, when I pulled up all the flooring and washed the floor and washed the mats and then put them back? Last night, I noticed there was a little bit of moisture underneath the mats, and so I thought maybe the water was still in them, and so we just needed to let them dry out before I put them back down. But this morning, I've made the discovery that the water was coming from underneath our wooden floors, and it, like, comes through these cracks. So I'm pretty sure during our whole ski month, like, condensation and water was just gathering. We're going to leave the door open all day, let it dry out. I'm just a little nervous that it's going to turn into malt.

Hey, buddy. After a little over two days, the roof rack is officially complete. This is the wind screen up front.

Almost fell.

Nate, don't you dare.

That's what the final product looks like. I don't feel like it looks like much from up here, but from ground level, it makes the van look way cooler. But it's less about looks and more about what it's going to allow us to do, which is carry surfboard boards with us as we drive down the Baja peninsula and also build a roof deck up here where we can hang out. But the roof deck is where we've run into problems. Let me show you why. So the plan was to move this solar panel and this solar panel to the back of the van, and then that would allow Us all the space from here forwards to build a roof deck. And then last night, when I started looking at how I was going to get these solar panels off, I realized there is no way to get to the bottom of the roof because we have this beautiful white wood ceiling. So because we can't move the solar panels, there were really only two options. We could either build a deck on the front of the van, or we could build a deck on the back of the van. The amount of space that we have on the front of the van is pretty much equivalent to the amount of space that we have on the back of the van. So all the solar panels stay in the same place. And then I'm going to attempt to build a roof deck around the fan on the back of the van. So this will be the hangout deck. Unfortunately, we're going to end up storing our surfboards on top of the solar panels, but at least it'll rest on the rails and it won't be bad for the surfboard. So ideally, the deck would have been this big, but now the deck is only this big and it has a fan in the middle of it. So I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but that's the best I've come up with so far. And I think it's the only thing that we have time to build before going to Mexico.

Look how much stuff we're mailing home. We decided that we were going to mail home all of our winter stuff because it just takes up so much room in the van. While we were at it, we thought we'd just go through all of our other stuff, do kind of a spring cleaning. I don't know what all is in here. All I know is that we are going to have so much more space.

This feels like closing my suitcase. Yes.

Hopefully that's good enough to get it to the UPS store.

The fact that I've had to come to Lowe's means that there is no way I'm finishing the roof rack today.

I'm thinking I'm going to use this composite decking stuff for the. The platform on the roof seems like it would hold up to water. Well.

Mail my box. When I got there, they said it was going to be a hundred and sixty dollars. And then the guy was like, or you could pay for it 100 online and it'll only be 50. How crazy is that? I just mailed almost 60 pounds of stuff for $50.

I don't think this is the right thing for transporting these.

True.

Don'T worry, babe. I got this one.

Thank you. Two hours later.

Where are you going? Good morning. Today is day four of what was supposed to be a two day construction project. It was dark by the time I got home from Lowe's last night. But I did measure out the boards that are going to create the platform on top of the van. So I'm going to cut those and then we'll get those up there as fast as possible this morning. There have been some frustrating moments in this whole project, but I have really enjoyed working with my hands also. Everybody driving to work this morning has made me really grateful for what I get to do for work. Thanks for watching this video so I.

Can do that so you can play with tools.

All right. Oh, that's unfortunate.

The bomb straight in the way.

Easy enough.

Get this finished today. Still time for walking.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's finally starting to look like something. Wow. It looks so good. Okay, so I've got one board down, and it actually worked as planned. So let me walk you through the process. So first I'm putting the board down in place. Then I'm using the drill and I'm drilling straight through both the wood and the roof rack. Next, I take a wood bit and I drill a slightly wider hole so that the top of the bolt fits down into the wood. Then I move the wood, clean up the mess. And finally I stick the bolt in. I stick the nut up underneath, and I tighten the board down. Then I repeat the process over and over again with three mounting points for every single board. This is it, the final board. How we do it's not very straight.

You did it.

Wow. So the deck is complete, but I have one more idea that I think is going to take it to the next level.

So this is marine flooring. It's like the type of floor that they put in boats. And not only does it have about a quarter inch of padding, but it's also specifically designed not to get hot. So the plan is to cover the entire roof deck in this flooring. So that way, even in the middle of the day in Mexico, when the sun's beating down on the roof, we'll still be able to go up there, hang out, and enjoy it without burning our feet or our butts. See how this goes. Thank you.

Wow. I'm a little sad to cover it up. The deck itself looks a lot better than I thought it would.

We don't have enough. I'm just kidding. I bought a second roll. No. Whoa. This is so sticky. We get one Shot at this. You only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to float. Oh, it's nice.

It is nice.

People are going to love this shot.

Wow. It worked.

It totally worked.

Very good.

Omg, we have a roof deck.

The roof rack is officially finished.

It's perfect.

Oh, yeah.

This is the life. Way to go.

You don't feel like I wasted the last four days of my life?

No. I'm obsessed with this deck. I think what I love the most about it is the texture of this new flooring. I don't feel like I need a towel or a yoga mat or anything. I can just come lie directly on it. I feel like I could just take.

A nap up here right now. This is the finished product. If we're being completely honest, Kara's been begging for a roof deck ever since we bought this, the van. And it was the fact that we needed somewhere to store our surfboards that finally pushed me over the edge to build it. And I could not be more excited. Sit up here every single day in Mexico.

That was the last time we'll fill this van up with a hose pipe for a long time.

All right. What a productive couple days we've had. Back to our list. It's time to mark some stuff off. I think Nate explained why that's not happening, but it worked out. We just built a roof deck. That's a big one.

I like that you said we there.

I helped. We still have to do this tonight. I shipped home our winter stuff yesterday. I kind of clean. Nate did this.

Nope, haven't done that. But I appreciate it.

We're gonna buy this tomorrow. We're gonna buy that tomorrow. We're gonna buy that tomorrow. Buying stuff is easy. We think we figured out Internet. We have a hot spot that we're pretty sure works in Mexico. And Nate just pulled up our fresh water. So we only have 1, 2, 3, 4 more things on our list of 20. It's pretty good.

Good work. Lots of high fives and fist bumps in this video.

So this hose used to be connected to the little hose pipe. Fill up right here. Basically all I did was rip it out of the wall. The new solution for the gravity fed water system is take this funnel that I bought at Lowe's, put it in the top of this hose. One of us will hold on to this, the other one will grab a jug of fresh water, and then this is how we will fill up our water tank. Moving forward, it's going to be a two man job market off the list. I am slightly embarrassed by what's taking place right now, but it just felt like we deserve this. We're in the middle of a neighborhood, chilling on our new roof deck, having drinks.

Cheers.

Celebrating a good few days of work.

Hilarious.

This is one of those neighborhoods where, like, everybody's out, everybody's paying attention to what's going on. Everybody has asked what I'm doing to the van, and now we're drawing a lot of attention to ourselves by just sitting up here. Don't worry about us. Hi. On top of everything else, we're also filming ourselves. And Kara's still wearing sunglasses in the sun. Gone down.

I've been busy. I forgot. And now all we have to do is buy our surfboards and drive to Mexico.

What just happened? I cannot believe we did this.

To be continued.