I Lived the #VanLife. It Wasn’t Pretty.
The writer Caity Weaver’s pursuit of the manifest destiny of the millennial generation ended up looking better in the photos.
作家凯蒂·韦弗（Caity Weaver）对千禧一代天命的追求最终在照片中看起来更好。
The author’s rental 2013 Ford Econoline E-150, with kitchen and tent engaged.
作者租用的 2013 款福特 Econoline E-150，配有厨房和帐篷。
Credit...
信用...
Angie Smith for The New York Times
安吉·史密斯为《纽约时报》撰稿
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month.
作为订阅者，您每月可以赠送 10 篇礼品文章。
Anyone can read what you share.
任何人都可以阅读您分享的内容。
To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android .
要聆听《纽约时报》等出版物的更多音频故事，请下载 iPhone 或 Android 版 Audm。
For the most part, I don’t remember things.
大多数情况下，我不记得事情。
My memory is not so much vague as it is glitchy; a generally blank screen that sometimes blinks to life and performs basic recall tasks.
我的记忆与其说是模糊的，不如说是有问题的。一个通常是空白的屏幕，有时会闪烁并执行基本的回忆任务。
With scarce exceptions, my recollections are so inaccessible to me that they are more like the memories of a person I have never met or spoken to.
除了极少数例外，我的回忆对我来说是如此难以接近，以至于它们更像是一个我从未见过或交谈过的人的记忆。
Once, while rewatching one of my favorite films, I found myself wondering what its lead actor might be like in real life.
有一次，当我重看我最喜欢的一部电影时，我发现自己想知道它的主角在现实生活中会是什么样子。
Several scenes later, a revelation jolted me: I once flew cross-country to have lunch with that man, interviewed him about his life for two hours and had my 1,400-word summary of the experience published in a magazine.
几个场景之后，一个启示让我震惊：我曾经飞越全国与那个人共进午餐，采访了他两个小时的生活，并将我的 1,400 字的经历总结发表在一本杂志上。
Geotagged iPhone photos are often some of my only clues that I have been somewhere or done something; I cherish them as proof that I, at one point, left my house.
带地理标签的 iPhone 照片通常是我去过某个地方或做过某件事的唯一线索；我珍惜它们，因为它们是我曾经离开家的证据。
In February, it was decided I would once again exit my house: This time, I would spend a week in California, living out of a converted camper van, in pursuit of the aesthetic fantasy known as #VanLife.
二月，我决定再次离开家：这一次，我将在加利福尼亚州度过一周，住在一辆改装的露营车里，追求被称为#VanLife 的审美幻想。
Living full time out of a vehicle has become aspirational for a subset of millennials and Zoomers, despite the fact that, traditionally, residing in a car or van is an action taken as a last resort, from want of other options to protect oneself from the elements.
全职生活在车外已成为千禧一代和 Zoomers 的一个愿望，尽管事实上，传统上，住在汽车或货车中是最后的选择，因为缺乏其他选择来保护自己免受恶劣天气的影响。
The Department of Housing and Urban Development characterizes vehicles as places “not designated for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation,” and because of this it counts people who live in them as members of the “unsheltered homeless” population.
住房和城市发展部将车辆定义为“不指定或通常用作常规睡眠场所”的地方，因此，它将居住在其中的人视为“无家可归的无家可归者”。
But it is ordinary to use some specially designed vehicles — R.V.s, say — as a regular sleeping accommodation, so HUD also advises that whether a vehicle-dweller counts as “unsheltered” is, to some extent, at the counter’s discretion.
但使用一些特殊设计的车辆（例如房车）作为常规住宿是很常见的，因此 HUD 还建议，在某种程度上，车内人员是否算作“无庇护”由柜台自行决定。
I would be encouraged to see myself as well sheltered for this week.
看到自己在本周得到庇护，我会感到很鼓舞。
I had nearly embarked on a different odyssey — one better suited to someone with a poor sense of direction, who is terrified of driving — except I blew it for myself by being too enthusiastic.
我差点就开始了一场不同的冒险之旅——一场更适合方向感差、害怕开车的人——但我因为过于热情而毁掉了它。
Before the #VanLife idea was settled on, my editor dangled a different concept in front of me: I would go to a guitar-shaped hotel and write about it.
在#VanLife 想法确定之前，我的编辑在我面前提出了一个不同的概念：我会去一家吉他形状的酒店并写下它。
“LOVE hotels, please send me on any assignment that is based around being in a hotel!!!” I emailed back.
“喜欢酒店，请给我发送任何有关入住酒店的任务！！！”我回了邮件。
But justification for a writer’s passage to the Guitar Hotel at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., in the mind of my editor, required some fashion of explicable premise: a field expedition to ascertain, through observation and reporting, the precise nature of the guitar-shaped hotel’s symbolism, for example.
但在我的编辑看来，一位作家前往佛罗里达州好莱坞塞米诺尔硬石酒店和赌场的吉他酒店的合理性需要某种可解释的前提：例如，通过观察和报告进行实地考察，以确定吉他形状的酒店象征意义的确切性质。
His vision encompassed such concepts as “American dynamism” and “the decline of the guitar.” It incorporated the word “hegemony.”
他的愿景涵盖了“美国活力”和“吉他的衰落”等概念。它包含了“霸权”一词。
“E.g.,” read my editor’s email, veering occasionally into Latin.
“例如，”我编辑的电子邮件中写道，偶尔会转向拉丁语。
“Etc.”
“ETC。”
“Can’t a person just go to a hotel and have a great time and learn a very small amount, for work?” I wrote back, ending all further discussion.
“为了工作，一个人就不能去酒店享受美好时光并学习一点点知识吗？”我回信，结束了所有进一步的讨论。
I couldn’t wait to get to this hotel, and witness firsthand its resemblance to a (large) guitar.
我迫不及待地想到达这家酒店，亲眼目睹它与（大）吉他的相似之处。
“Maybe the Guitar Hotel is not right for you,” my editor replied, adamant that all further discussion die by his hand alone.
“也许吉他酒店不适合你，”我的编辑回答道，并坚信所有进一步的讨论都将由他一人结束。
Instead, it was determined — with no evidence — that what was right for me was to spend a week driving around California in a van.
相反，在没有证据的情况下，我确定，对我来说最合适的方式是花一周时间开着一辆面包车环游加州。
To prepare for this regular-shaped mission, I threw myself into the #VanLife corners of TikTok and Instagram.
为了准备这个常规任务，我全身心投入 TikTok 和 Instagram 的 #VanLife 角落。
Accounts of popular “vanlifers,” as they are known, are an infinite reservoir of gorgeous, unpeopled scenery previously encountered only in desktop backgrounds: sunrise canyons, sunset oceans, high-noon highways that stretch on, carless, forever.
众所周知，流行的“vanlifers”的描述是一个无限的库，里面有以前只能在桌面背景中遇到的绚丽而无人的风景：日出的峡谷，日落的海洋，正午的高速公路，永远没有汽车。
#VanLife is largely honey-colored with soft blue elements, or vice versa.
#VanLife 大部分是蜂蜜色，带有柔和的蓝色元素，反之亦然。
Outdoors is presented like hung landscape paintings enclosed in frames of flung-open van doors or oblong windows.
室外的景色就像悬挂的山水画，封闭在打开的货车门或长方形窗户的框架中。
Vanlifers’ eyes rarely peer back from their photos; self-portraits appear to catch them off guard, gazing in the direction of majestic snow-capped peaks, or perhaps pointedly into a cereal bowl (majesty having become habitual for them).
Vanlifers 的眼睛很少从他们的照片中回头看。自画像似乎让他们措手不及，凝视着雄伟的雪峰方向，或者可能尖锐地凝视着麦片碗（威严已经成为他们的习惯）。
The vans seem to share their owners’ tendency toward reverie; exterior shots typically find them angled away from the camera, as if to watch the waves.
这些货车似乎和车主一样喜欢遐想。外景照片通常会发现它们与相机成一定角度，就好像在观看海浪一样。
This photogenic strain of van-living does not come cheap.
这种上镜的房车生活并不便宜。
Secondhand converted Mercedes-Benz Sprinters (a popular model for custom campervans, with features like heated floors) can easily sell for $300,000 — if you can find one.
二手改装的梅赛德斯-奔驰 Sprinters（定制露营车的一种流行车型，具有加热地板等功能）很容易就能卖到 30 万美元——如果你能找到一辆的话。
Interest in an itinerant, panoramic, luxuriously self-contained lifestyle exploded alongside Covid-19.
随着 Covid-19 的爆发，人们对流动、全景、豪华、独立的生活方式的兴趣激增。
Customization companies warn of yearlong wait-lists.
定制公司警告称，等待名单可能长达一年。
Despite this scarcity, it is easier than ever to experience #VanLife.
尽管存在这种稀缺性，但体验#VanLife 比以往任何时候都更容易。
With a day’s notice and $1,000, anyone can have the life of a whimsical wayfarer — if they are willing to rent.
只要提前一天通知并支付 1,000 美元，任何人都可以过上异想天开的徒步旅行者的生活——如果他们愿意租房的话。
My husband couldn’t believe it when I revealed I had scored a campervan for us to drive around and live in for a week.
当我透露我已经买了一辆露营车供我们驾驶并居住一周时，我丈夫简直不敢相信。
“That sounds bad,” he said.
“这听起来很糟糕，”他说。
He immediately declined, citing several compelling reasons.
他立即拒绝了，并给出了几个令人信服的理由。
Perhaps, my editor proposed, I could do it alone, even though I pointed out that I am the worst driver I know and the worst parker known to anyone anywhere.
我的编辑建议，也许我可以独自完成这件事，尽管我指出我是我所知道的最糟糕的司机，也是任何地方的任何人都知道的最糟糕的停车员。
(That could be “part of it,” he suggested.) I ran a search for “tips female van life solo.” The top result advised leaving men’s shoes outside the van at night and traveling with a gun or dog, or both.
（他建议说，这可能是“其中的一部分”。）我搜索了“女性货车生活的秘诀”。最重要的结果是建议晚上将男士鞋子留在货车外，并携带枪支或狗，或两者兼而有之。
That didn’t sound like an aesthetic fantasy.
这听起来不像是一种审美幻想。
I needed to find another human.
我需要找到另一个人。
But what human in their right mind would be willing to travel well over 1,000 miles in a vehicle under my control (hopefully), interrupting and endangering their life just to sleep marginally sheltered in the dead of winter in scenic places?
但是，哪个心智正常的人会愿意（希望如此）驾驶一辆在我控制下的车辆行驶超过 1,000 英里，中断并危及他们的生命，只是为了在冬天的风景优美的地方稍微遮风避雨地睡觉？
I called the most neurotic person I had ever met: my friend Michael — who, since he and I last had dinner in New York City in late 2019, had quit his job at a venture capital firm, set out on a backpacking trip across Asia, cut short his backpacking trip because of the global pandemic, started a new life as a life coach and meditation teacher and gone blond.
我给我见过的最神经质的人打了电话：我的朋友迈克尔（Michael），自从我和他上次在 2019 年底在纽约共进晚餐以来，他辞掉了一家风险投资公司的工作，开始了一次穿越亚洲的背包旅行，由于全球大流行而缩短了他的背包旅行，开始了作为生活教练和冥想老师的新生活，并变成了一头金发。
I may have set expectations a little high.
我的期望可能有点高。
Based on my pitch, Michael later told me, he’d imagined us cruising California in something resembling “a Beyoncé tour bus.” Instead, our 2013 Ford Econoline E-150, with a psychedelic jungle-scene paint job, resembled a Rainforest Cafe on wheels.
迈克尔后来告诉我，根据我的推销，他想象我们乘坐类似“碧昂丝旅游巴士”的东西在加州巡航。相反，我们的 2013 款福特 Econoline E-150 涂有迷幻的丛林场景油漆，就像车轮上的雨林咖啡馆。
Thanks to a huge acid yellow and electric blue bug-eyed chameleon perched just behind the driver’s door, it looked like a vehicle a mobile vape company might use to dispense free samples, or something a person might drive to let onlookers know: Here is someone willing and able to perform unlicensed aquarium repairs — for the right price.
由于驾驶员车门后面栖息着一只巨大的酸性黄色和电蓝色的虫眼变色龙，它看起来就像是移动电子烟公司可能用来分发免费样品的车辆，或者是一个人可能会开车让旁观者知道的东西：这里有人愿意并且能够以合适的价格进行未经许可的水族馆维修。
A picture-perfect breakfast in Joshua Tree.
在约书亚树享用完美早餐。
Credit...
信用...
Angie Smith for The New York Times The van was part of the midsize fleet offered by Escape Campervans, a rental company I selected because its website seemed tailored to dummies with no experience driving campervans — offering “extras” like a rentable kitchen kit ($40) and an ice scraper ($5; “Yours to keep”) — and because the site described the vans as “premium,” which I thought sounded upmarket.
Angie Smith for The New York Times 这辆货车是 Escape Campervans 提供的中型车队的一部分，我之所以选择这家租赁公司，是因为该公司的网站似乎是为没有露营车驾驶经验的傻瓜量身定制的——提供“额外服务”，如可出租的厨房用具（40 美元）和刮冰器（5 美元；“你可以保留”）——而且因为该网站将这些货车描述为“高级”，我认为这听起来很高档。
I was surprised and alarmed when an employee filling out our paperwork at the Los Angeles rental depot casually described the company as “a budget campervan service.” I made my face purposely nonreactive, and hoped Michael hadn’t heard.
当一位在洛杉矶租赁站填写我们文件的员工漫不经心地将公司描述为“廉价露营车服务”时，我感到惊讶和震惊。我故意表现得毫无反应，希望迈克尔没有听到。
Our van had 238,646 miles on it and drove like a dream — a recurring dream I have in which I am driving a car but the brake and accelerator pedals are all confused, so that sometimes I attempt to brake and nothing happens, and other times the car zooms uncontrollably forward.
我们的货车已经行驶了 238,646 英里，行驶起来就像做梦一样——我经常做这样的梦：我正在驾驶一辆汽车，但刹车和油门踏板都混乱了，所以有时我试图刹车，但没有任何反应，有时汽车无法控制地向前行驶。
(In fairness to the van, this was perhaps a result of operator error.) Many of my driving difficulties are most likely attributable to a lack of confidence.
（公平地说，这可能是操作员失误造成的。）我的许多驾驶困难很可能归因于缺乏信心。
I am a bad driver because I am so preoccupied with driving safely that normal drivers have trouble predicting my actions (which are also surprising to me), and because I have poor spatial reasoning.
我是一个糟糕的司机，因为我太专注于安全驾驶，以至于普通司机很难预测我的行为（这也令我惊讶），而且因为我的空间推理能力很差。
Despite this, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania declared me legally able to drive when I was in high school, and since then, no other entity has called the bluff.
尽管如此，宾夕法尼亚州在我高中时就宣布我可以合法开车，从那时起，没有其他实体承认我的虚张声势。
But, my God, Michael couldn’t know this.
但是，天啊，迈克尔不可能知道这一点。
He might pull out of the trip, or, at least if he had any sense, demand to do the driving.
他可能会退出这次旅行，或者，至少如果他还有理智的话，他可能会要求开车。
I would just have to hope Michael didn’t realize that it took me 20 minutes to migrate to the leftmost lane of the freeway while keeping up with traffic, or that I was gripping the steering wheel at 10 and 2 so tightly that calluses bloomed on my palms by the middle of the first afternoon.
我只希望迈克尔没有意识到，我花了 20 分钟才跟上交通，才移到高速公路最左边的车道，或者我在 10 点和 2 点紧紧地握着方向盘，以至于在第一个下午的中午，我的手掌上都长出了老茧。
I would also have to pray he’d immediately forget that I couldn’t figure out how to release the parking brake in the van-rental lot, or tell if it was on.
我还必须祈祷他会立即忘记我不知道如何释放货车租赁场的停车制动器，或者判断它是否打开。
Because of a concussion he received while abroad, Michael had warned me, if we hit a pothole too hard and he bumped his head, he could die.
由于他在国外时受到脑震荡，迈克尔警告我，如果我们撞到坑洼时用力过猛，他撞到了头，他可能会死。
No problem.
没问题。
As we neared our first destination, a tiny resort called Mercey Hot Springs in northwest Fresno County, all was pitch black, leading Michael to worry — somewhat improbably — that my navigating down unlit rural back roads would somehow result in his being decapitated.
当我们接近第一个目的地时，弗雷斯诺县西北部一个名叫默西温泉的小度假村，周围一片漆黑，迈克尔担心——有点难以置信——我在没有灯光的乡村小路上行驶会以某种方式导致他被斩首。
Our campsite included a picnic bench, on which we heaped luggage, garbage bags of linens, groceries and frustrations as we tried to remember how the van-rental employee had reconfigured the gray cushions and thick tabletop panels of the daytime seating area into a nighttime Tetris arrangement.
我们的露营地有一张野餐长凳，上面堆满了行李、装着亚麻布的垃圾袋、杂货和沮丧的东西，我们试图记住货车租赁员工如何将白天休息区的灰色垫子和厚桌面板重新配置成夜间俄罗斯方块的布置。
The 30-minute task of readying the bed by starlight was one we instantly agreed we would not repeat; we would spend the rest of the trip with a bed for a back seat.
在星光下准备床铺的 30 分钟任务是我们立即同意不再重复的任务；在剩下的旅程中，我们会在后座放一张床。
For the first of many times, we were too cold and hungry to prepare dinner on the teensy propane-powered camping stove that folded into a compartment behind the van’s back door.
这是许多次中的第一次，我们太冷了，太饿了，无法在小型丙烷驱动的野营炉上准备晚餐，炉子可以折叠到货车后门后面的隔间里。
I ate a jelly roll purchased earlier that day at a Mexican bakery, and fistfuls of Cheez-Its.
我吃了那天早些时候在一家墨西哥面包店买的果冻卷，还有一把芝士奶酪。
Our $70-per-person overnight fee included use of the resort’s spring-fed soaking tubs, which were open until 11 p.m.
我们每人 70 美元的过夜费用包括使用度假村的泉水浸泡浴缸，该浴缸开放至晚上 11 点。
We changed into swimsuits in the restrooms — clean, well-lit spaces, the pleasant memory of which would sustain us much as hallucinatory Christmas visions warmed Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match Girl while she slowly froze to death.
我们在洗手间换上泳衣——干净、光线充足的空间，其中的愉快记忆将支撑着我们，就像幻觉中的圣诞节景象温暖了安徒生笔下的卖火柴的小女孩，而她却慢慢地冻死了一样。
(Our lavatory situation would grow progressively dire over the coming days.) In the tubs, all was well.
（在接下来的几天里，我们厕所的情况将变得越来越糟糕。）在浴缸里，一切都很好。
It is pleasant to become a hot soup on a chilly winter night, and eavesdrop on the distant conversations of owls.
在寒冷的冬夜里成为一碗热汤，偷听远处猫头鹰的谈话，是一件多么惬意的事。
But eventually we had to return to the van.
但最终我们不得不返回货车。
To suggest that the worst part of vacationing in a van is sleeping in a van is not fair to the other aspects of the endeavor, which are also all the worst part — but it is cramped, slovenly and bad.
说在货车里度假最糟糕的部分就是在货车里睡觉，这对这项工作的其他方面并不公平，这些方面也是最糟糕的部分——但它很拥挤、不修边幅和糟糕。
It is impossible to make a bed while already sprawled atop it.
当床已经铺在上面时，就不可能整理床了。
If you are sharing a vehicle that does not have rear doors on both sides, as ours didn’t, the portside sleeper will be effectively trapped on their half of the bed from the moment they enter it, as I was.
如果你们共用一辆两边都没有后门的车辆，就像我们的车一样，那么左舷的卧铺者从进入车的那一刻起就会被有效地困在他们的半张床上，就像我一样。
For some reason, it wasn’t until going to bed our second night that Michael wondered, preposterously, if closing the miniature curtains strung around the van windows for privacy and warmth might make our sleeping area too claustrophobic.
出于某种原因，直到第二天晚上睡觉时，迈克尔才荒谬地想知道，为了隐私和温暖而拉上挂在货车窗户上的微型窗帘是否会让我们的睡眠区变得过于幽闭恐怖。
I dismissed this idiotic notion as soon as he voiced it; we were obviously fine the night before, so Michael was inventing problems.
他一说出这个愚蠢的想法，我就驳回了。显然前一天晚上我们都很好，所以迈克尔在制造问题。
Two hours later, I woke up terrified, surrounded on all sides by closed miniature curtains, positive there was not enough oxygen in the van and that Michael and I were suffocating to death.
两个小时后，我惊恐地醒来，四周都被关闭的微型窗帘包围，确信车内氧气不足，迈克尔和我快要窒息而死。
“Michael?” I whispered, and kept whispering — “Michael?
“迈克尔？”我低声说道，一直低声说道——“迈克尔？
Michael!” — until I heard him wake up.
迈克尔！” ——直到我听到他醒来。
“Are you awake?” I asked innocently.
“你醒了吗？”我无辜地问道。
It turned out he was.
事实证明他是。
I explained that I needed to open one of the van’s doors — an action that would instantly flood our sleeping area with frigid air.
我解释说，我需要打开货车的一扇门——这一动作会立即让我们的睡眠区充满寒冷的空气。
“Are you OK?” Michael asked.
“你还好吗？”迈克尔问道。
“Oh yeah,” I shrieked.
“哦，是的，”我尖叫道。
I clambered over the driver’s-seat armrest and hurled myself, sock-clad, onto the frozen dirt outside.
我爬上驾驶座的扶手，穿着袜子，跳到外面结冰的泥土上。
The following evening, as we prepared for bed, I wondered aloud, in a nonchalant tone that made it clear I wasn’t asking for myself, if there was “definitely enough oxygen in the van, right?”
第二天晚上，当我们准备睡觉时，我以一种漫不经心的语气大声问自己，“车里绝对有足够的氧气，对吗？”
“You know how you can be inside your house with all the doors and windows closed, and not suffocate?” Michael said.
“你知道怎样才能在门窗都关闭的情况下呆在房子里而不窒息吗？”迈克尔说。
“It’s like that.”
“就是这样。”
On the second day of the trip, our route to Yosemite National Park cut through what appeared to be an outdoor cotton-processing facility frozen midexplosion.
旅行的第二天，我们前往优胜美地国家公园的路线穿过了一个看似爆炸中结冰的户外棉花加工设施。
We pulled over to examine the acres of white blooming trees.
我们把车停在路边，检查几英亩的白色开花树。
“Who knew?!” Michael said when my plant-identifier app declared the trees almonds.
“谁知道？！”当我的植物识别应用程序宣布树木是杏仁时，迈克尔说道。
“I never imagined blossoms on an almond tree,” he cooed.
“我从来没有想象过杏树上会开出花朵，”他轻声说道。
Almonds are a reprehensible thing to grow, Michael announced, because they require so much water.
迈克尔宣布，种植杏仁是一种应受谴责的东西，因为它们需要大量的水。
He approached a thrumming wood box on the ground near a row of trees.
他走近一排树附近地上一个发出嗡嗡声的木箱。
“These are bee boxes,” he said.
“这些是蜂箱，”他说。
His head whipped around.
他的头猛地转了一圈。
“Oh — to pollinate the trees!”
“哦——给树木授粉！”
“It’s like the apocalypse has happened,” I said, watching him from the middle of the empty road.
“就像世界末日已经发生一样，”我在空荡荡的马路中间看着他说道。
“We’re the only two people left in the world, and we have to make sense of it.”
“我们是世界上仅存的两个人，我们必须弄清楚这一点。”
As we would learn when we reached Yosemite, the apocalypse had unfortunately not happened.
当我们到达约塞米蒂国家公园时，我们了解到，不幸的是，世界末日并没有发生。
Yosemite covers an area of 1,187 square miles, and that Saturday there was nowhere to park in any of them.
优胜美地占地 1,187 平方英里，而那个星期六，其中任何一个地方都没有地方可以停车。
Michael and I spent hours in the lumbering van, first trying to find a parking spot near a hike we planned to take before observing the sunset “firefall” — a reportedly dazzling phenomenon in which, for a few winter evenings, one of the park’s cliffside waterfalls can briefly glow like molten gold; then revising our search to a parking spot within walking distance of the firefall; then a spot within walking distance of the shuttles for people who parked too far away from the firefall to walk to it; then a spot anywhere, in any proximity (or not!) to anything.
迈克尔和我在笨重的货车里待了几个小时，首先试图在我们计划徒步旅行的附近找到一个停车位，然后观察日落“火瀑布”——据说这是一种令人眼花缭乱的现象，在几个冬天的夜晚，公园悬崖边的瀑布之一会短暂地像熔化的黄金一样发光；然后将我们的搜索修改为距火瀑布步行距离内的停车位；然后是一个距离班车步行距离之内的停车位，供那些停在距离火瀑布太远而无法步行前往的人们使用；然后是任何地方、任何东西附近（或不靠近！）的地方。
In Yosemite Valley, the location of the park’s most famous rock formations, vehicles (including several fellow Escape Campervans rentals) snaked over every millimeter of pavement, including the unscenic parking lot of the Ahwahnee Hotel, where Michael and I became trapped for 40 minutes.
在约塞米蒂山谷，公园最著名的岩层所在地，车辆（包括几辆 Escape 露营车租赁车）蜿蜒穿过每一毫米的人行道，包括阿瓦尼酒店风景不佳的停车场，迈克尔和我被困在那里 40 分钟。
By early afternoon, after hours observing the park from the crawling van, it had become clear that John Muir was wrong when he declared: “No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite.
到了下午早些时候，在从爬行的货车上观察公园几个小时后，约翰·缪尔宣称“没有一座手工建造的寺庙可以与约塞米蒂国家公园相媲美”的说法显然是错误的。
Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life.” Yosemite was actually bad.
墙壁上的每一块岩石似乎都焕发着生命的光芒。”优胜美地实际上很糟糕。
“You go to a national park, you think you’re going to really commune with the earth,” Michael said.
“当你去国家公园时，你会认为你将真正与地球交流，”迈克尔说。
“And yet, here you are, trapped in exactly the same situation you are when you’re driving to work in bumper-to-bumper traffic,” he said.
“然而，你却陷入了与在拥堵的交通中开车上班时完全相同的处境，”他说。
“Not that either of us works in an office.”
“并不是说我们都在办公室工作。”
Michael sits before his computer’s built-in camera and leads group meditation classes online; I flop between my bed and my couch, typing up inane thoughts all day with my laptop on my stomach.
迈克尔坐在电脑的内置摄像头前，在网上主持集体冥想课程；我在床和沙发之间翻来覆去，把笔记本电脑放在肚子上，整天写着愚蠢的想法。
We were millennials pursuing the manifest destiny of our generation — chic, rootless wandering — who had become mired in a boomer-esque rush hour.
我们是千禧一代，追求我们这一代人的明显命运——时尚、无根的流浪——我们陷入了婴儿潮一代式的高峰时段。
We needed to leave.
我们需要离开。
We couldn’t figure out how.
我们不知道怎么做。
While maneuvering the van down random roads in search of a GPS signal — requests for maps in multiple convenience stores and gas stations turned up only activity books for teaching children to read maps — we stumbled upon a parking spot.
当我们开着货车沿着随机的道路寻找 GPS 信号时——在多家便利店和加油站索要地图，结果只找到了教孩子们看地图的活动书籍——我们偶然发现了一个停车位。
Well, not technically, but at least an area large enough to accommodate a pulled-over vehicle.
好吧，从技术上讲不是，但至少有一个足够大的区域可以容纳一辆靠边停车的车辆。
“Let’s just stay here for a while,” I suggested, desperate for a reprieve from steering the blockish van through traffic.
“我们就在这儿待一会儿吧。”我提议道，迫切希望能暂时摆脱驾驶这辆块状货车穿过车流的麻烦。
We popped open the clamshell tent that unfolded on the van’s roof and scrambled inside, where, having already watched last night’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” on Michael’s phone first thing that morning, we fell asleep.
我们打开车顶上展开的翻盖式帐篷，爬进里面，早上第一件事就是用迈克尔的手机观看昨晚的《鲁保罗变装皇后秀》，然后就睡着了。
Hours later, after walking for two miles down the paved road from where we had parked, we squinted up at the eastern edge of El Capitan, in the direction where several hundred people standing shoulder to shoulder were looking.
几个小时后，从我们停车的地方沿着铺好的道路走了两英里后，我们眯起眼睛在酋长岩的东部边缘抬头，朝着数百人肩并肩站着的方向看去。
Earlier, we’d overheard a young woman tell a man to train his gaze, at the firefall hour, on the part of the cliff that resembled “a chicken cutlet.” No part resembled a chicken cutlet.
早些时候，我们无意中听到一名年轻女子告诉一名男子在火瀑布时将目光集中在悬崖上类似“炸鸡排”的部分。没有任何部分像鸡排。
We could see a patch of unremarkable medium orange, the sort of shade you might expect granite to turn at sunset — which is what was happening.
我们可以看到一块不起眼的中橙色，你可能会想到花岗岩在日落时会变成这种颜色——这就是正在发生的事情。
“Did we miss it?” I asked.
“我们错过了吗？”我问。
Phalanxes of photographers with enormous professional cameras crouched behind tripods.
带着巨大专业相机的摄影师方阵蹲在三脚架后面。
“I think that might be it,” Michael said.
“我想可能就是这样，”迈克尔说。
Having briefly regarded the orange splotch, we trudged back to the van.
简单地看了一眼橙色斑点后，我们拖着沉重的脚步走回货车。
The trek along the road’s shoulder was the only hiking we did in Yosemite.
沿着路肩的徒步旅行是我们在优胜美地唯一一次徒步旅行。
While leaving, a wrong turn out of the park in the dark meant that we ended up an hour’s drive from where we wanted to be.
离开时，天黑了，我们从公园转错了方向，这意味着我们距离目的地只有一个小时的车程。
The emotion of this moment is difficult to articulate: It was miserable to have prolonged our journey, but all we were going to do when we finally managed to leave the park was still be in the van, a foot behind where we were sitting.
这一刻的心情难以言表：延长我们的旅程是很痛苦的，但当我们最终设法离开公园时，我们所能做的就是仍在车里，距离我们坐的地方一英尺远。
By opting for lodging we could take anywhere, we had inadvertently saddled ourselves with accommodations that were inescapable.
通过选择可以带到任何地方的住宿，我们无意中给自己带来了不可避免的住宿。
With nowhere to go back to, being aggrieved over the delay seemed pointless.
由于无处可去，为延误而感到委屈似乎毫无意义。
We didn’t even bother to feel upset.
我们甚至懒得感到难过。
Michael and I were looking forward to the fifth and sixth days of our trip, in Joshua Tree National Park, not because we were uniquely excited to wander among its melted-looking rock formations and namesake outstretched yuccas, but because Joshua Tree was our final stop, after which we could exit the van forever.
迈克尔和我对约书亚树国家公园之旅的第五天和第六天充满期待，并不是因为我们特别兴奋地漫步在其融化的岩层和同名伸展的丝兰之间，而是因为约书亚树是我们的最后一站，之后我们就可以永远下车了。
We had only managed to bathe once since leaving the hot springs, a semipublic undertaking at an R.V.
离开温泉后，我们只洗了一次澡，这是在房车里进行的半公共事业。
park near Yosemite.
优胜美地附近的公园。
Thus far, any pleasant weather had been experienced as a visual phenomenon while traveling between locations.
到目前为止，在不同地点之间旅行时，任何宜人的天气都是一种视觉现象。
We tended to arrive at places just as our first (sometimes only) allotted day there was ending.
我们往往在我们的第一天（有时是唯一一天）结束时到达目的地。
Unfortunately, after checking into our $25 campsite, we were informed that the good weather in Joshua Tree was yesterday; frigid winds were incoming, with gusts up to 50 miles per hour.
不幸的是，在检查了我们 25 美元的露营地后，我们得知昨天约书亚树的天气很好；寒风袭来，阵风高达每小时 50 英里。
Because the gusts meant campfires were discouraged, I suggested we treat ourselves to dinner at a nice restaurant I’d heard about.
因为阵风意味着篝火被阻止，所以我建议我们去一家我听说过的好餐厅犒劳一下自己。
The wait for a table at the nice restaurant I’d heard about was two hours.
在我听说的那家不错的餐厅等了两个小时。
I suggested we treat ourselves to dinner at wherever was closest with no line, which turned out to be a sushi restaurant in the desert.
我建议我们去最近的不用排队的地方吃晚饭，结果是沙漠里的一家寿司店。
Despite having been presented with hundreds of reasonable opportunities to do so over the previous days, Michael had issued no complaints — a grace that astonished me.
尽管在过去的几天里，迈克尔获得了数百个这样做的合理机会，但他没有发出任何抱怨——这种优雅让我感到惊讶。
The friend I made in college was an incorrigible fussbudget, who tended to be either discouraged or panicked by everything around him (in, by and large, a funny way).
我在大学里结识的朋友是个无可救药的大惊小怪的人，他往往会对周围的一切感到沮丧或惊慌（总的来说，这是一种有趣的方式）。
He was not the kind of person who took spontaneous trips.
他不是那种随性旅行的人。
Michael credited his newfound peace and stamina for uncomfortable situations to the Vipassana meditation he began practicing after he left his job to backpack through Asia.
迈克尔将他在不舒服的情况下新发现的平静和耐力归功于他辞去工作背包穿越亚洲后开始练习的内观冥想。
Its central teaching, he said, is that everything is impermanent.
他说，其核心教义是一切都是无常的。
Suddenly I recalled a detail from the incident when curtains in the van had nearly caused us to suffocate to death.
突然我想起了当时货车里的窗帘差点让我们窒息而死的一个细节。
After the cold forced me back inside, Michael lay beside me issuing gentle directions: I should observe the feeling of cool air entering my nostrils, the weight of fabric on my toes.
寒冷迫使我回到室内后，迈克尔躺在我旁边，温柔地指示我：我应该观察冷空气进入鼻孔的感觉，以及脚趾上织物的重量。
As I grappled for composure, I warned Michael that the suffocation panic seemed moments away from resurging.
当我努力保持镇静时，我警告迈克尔，窒息恐慌似乎很快就会卷土重来。
But that would be OK, he said, because feeling scared was temporary.
但那没关系，他说，因为感到害怕是暂时的。
If it happened, I could simply wait for the feeling to pass.
如果发生了，我只能等待这种感觉过去。
A short while later, I heard the quiet clink of plastic on enamel.
过了一会儿，我听到了塑料与搪瓷的碰撞声。
Michael had removed his retainer to speak to me soothingly, I realized.
我意识到，迈克尔摘下了他的牙套，是为了安慰我说话。
The sleep that followed was deep and sound.
接下来的睡眠又深又沉。
That experience, I said in the restaurant, was the first time in 12 years of friendship I had ever found Michael relaxing.
我在餐厅里说，那次经历是我 12 年友谊中第一次发现迈克尔感到放松。
He accepted the compliment and told me that meditation has all sorts of benefits.
他接受了我的赞美，并告诉我冥想有很多好处。
It has also made him nicer on the phone with customer-service representatives.
这也让他在与客户服务代表通话时表现得更加友善。
The day before , Michael and I had arrived at Red Rock Canyon State Park, where we discovered a Bible-length binder in the visitors’ center that cataloged instances in which the park’s weathered rock formations had been captured on film or video for commercial purposes.
前一天，迈克尔和我到达红岩峡谷州立公园，我们在游客中心发现了一本圣经长度的活页夹，其中记录了出于商业目的在电影或视频中捕捉到的公园风化岩层的实例。
It was briefly diverting to learn that we stood on the hallowed ground depicted in Aerosmith’s “Amazing” music video; a commercial for Arby’s; Mazda, Kia and Peugeot advertisements; “2 Fast 2 Furious” and the beginning of “Jurassic Park.” But most of the trip’s pleasures were ones I experienced only later, as false memories.
得知我们站在史密斯飞船的“Amazing”音乐录影带中描绘的神圣土地上，这让我们短暂地感到有趣； Arby's 的广告；马自达、起亚和标致广告； 《速度与激情 2》和《侏罗纪公园》的开头。但这次旅行的大部分乐趣都是我后来才体验到的，都是虚假的记忆。
After flipping through the historic car-commercial binder, Michael and I took a short hike up a nearby ridge, because that was all we had time to do before nightfall.
翻完历史悠久的汽车广告活页夹后，迈克尔和我在附近的山脊上进行了短暂的徒步旅行，因为这是我们在夜幕降临之前唯一有时间做的事情。
I know from photos that the sheets of slate blue clouds overhead were so thin in places that a peachy sunset could be seen beyond them, like light passing through stained glass.
我从照片中知道，头顶上的石板蓝色云层非常薄，在某些地方可以看到桃红色的日落，就像光线穿过彩色玻璃一样。
On the ridgetop, we spotted a solitary lenticular cloud hovering darkly over the distant foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, and I took a picture of Michael from behind, his arms and hands outstretched as if controlling its movements.
在山脊顶部，我们发现一朵孤独的透镜状云黑暗地盘旋在内华达山脉遥远的山麓上空，我从后面拍了一张迈克尔的照片，他的手臂和双手伸出，仿佛在控制它的动作。
At no point was our van configured to accommodate the flung-open-door stunning vista shots that are hallmarks of #VanLife.
我们的货车的配置从来都没有适应打开车门拍摄令人惊叹的远景照片，而这是 #VanLife 的标志。
It was, at all times, piled doors to ceiling with luggage, groceries, bedding, kitchenware and the heavy metal ladder for accessing the rooftop tent, which we tended to throw haphazardly over the whole heap.
无论何时，门上堆满了行李、杂货、床上用品、厨具和通往屋顶帐篷的重型金属梯子，我们往往把它们随意地扔在整个堆上。
Maddeningly, you wouldn’t know it from the photos on our phones, which depict scenes from a much better vacation.
令人抓狂的是，你不会从我们手机上的照片中知道这一点，这些照片描绘了一个更好的假期的场景。
In the photos I irritably snapped from the driver’s seat in gridlocked Yosemite, the sun shines silver on nearby rock faces, distant granite peaks appear through a warm blue haze and a tremendous waterfall thunders off a cliff.
在交通堵塞的优胜美地，我坐在司机座位上烦躁地拍下了照片，阳光照在附近的岩石表面上，发出银色的光芒，远处的花岗岩山峰透过温暖的蓝色薄雾显现出来，巨大的瀑布从悬崖上轰鸣而下。
Pictures taken to document the dispiriting havoc of our sleeping arrangement show the van steeped in a warm morning light that was not present.
为记录我们睡眠安排的令人沮丧的破坏而拍摄的照片显示，货车沉浸在温暖的晨光中，但实际上并不存在。
They look like promotional images for a California tourism campaign.
它们看起来像是加州旅游活动的宣传图片。
I awoke in Red Rock Canyon to Michael meditating in front of sandstone cliffs beneath a sky of pristine Windows-desktop blue.
我在红岩峡谷醒来，看到迈克尔在原始 Windows 桌面蓝色天空下的砂岩悬崖前冥想。
For only the second time in five days, we bothered to set up the propane stove to prepare a lavish breakfast of eggs and sides.
这是五天内第二次，我们费心架起丙烷炉来准备丰盛的早餐，包括鸡蛋和配菜。
Except, we discovered, all our sides had been ruined by the van’s tiny refrigerator, which gradually froze everything it was charged with protecting.
但我们发现，我们的所有侧面都被货车的小冰箱毁坏了，它逐渐冻结了它负责保护的一切。
The avocado that Michael had been looking forward to for days tasted “like the sea,” he observed, frowning after his only bite.
迈克尔期待了好几天的牛油果尝起来“像大海”，他在咬了一口后皱起了眉头。
After breakfast, I frantically scrubbed pans with icy hand-pumped water while violent winds sent clean bowls skittering across the sand.
早餐后，我疯狂地用冰冷的手压水擦洗锅子，狂风吹得干净的碗在沙子上打滚。
In pictures, breakfast is gorgeous.
从照片上看，早餐很丰盛。
On the last day of our adventure, in the rental-return lot, I received an unforgettable souvenir: excruciating pain that ripped through my back the second my foot touched the asphalt.
在我们冒险的最后一天，在出租还车场，我收到了一份令人难忘的纪念品：当我的脚接触柏油路的那一刻，我的后背传来难以忍受的疼痛。
While the agony left me unable to walk for weeks, it afforded me the extraordinary experience of sobbing in a wheelchair on the tarmac at LAX and clutching the hand of a kindhearted Delta employee as she prayed aloud that my life would improve.
虽然这种痛苦让我数周无法行走，但它给了我一种非凡的体验，那就是在洛杉矶国际机场的停机坪上坐在轮椅上抽泣，并握住一位善良的达美航空员工的手，她大声祈祷我的生活会有所改善。
I later learned that sitting tensely for several hours a day in a huge rattling vehicle can sometimes be bad for your back.
后来我了解到，每天在一辆嘎嘎作响的巨大汽车里紧张地坐着几个小时有时会对你的背部造成伤害。
Laid up in bed, I clicked through other vanlifers’ pictures of the places Michael and I had gone, intending to scrutinize their splendor with newfound knowledge about the deceptive beauty of iPhone photos.
躺在床上，我浏览了其他房车爱好者拍摄的迈克尔和我去过的地方的照片，打算用新发现的关于 iPhone 照片的欺骗性之美的知识来审视它们的辉煌。
So I was unnerved that, rather than spotting seams in the pristine #VanLife tapestries, I found myself longing to procure a nice van and replicate these trips — these trips exactly like the one I had just gone on.
因此，我感到不安的是，我发现自己渴望购买一辆漂亮的货车并复制这些旅行，而不是在原始的 #VanLife 挂毯上发现接缝——这些旅行与我刚刚经历的旅行一模一样。
Michael was right: Everything was impermanent.
迈克尔是对的：一切都是无常的。
I had forgotten how much I hadn’t enjoyed it.
我已经忘记了我有多么不喜欢它。
Caity Weaver is a staff writer for the magazine.
凯蒂·韦弗 (Caity Weaver) 是该杂志的特约撰稿人。
She last wrote about the entertainer Wee Man.
她上次写的是艺人韦曼 (Wee Man)。