Marcel Bleeds
Fresh off our first real van-adventure of 2026, we continued north up Highway 101. We still had one more family member to visit on our route up to Washington State, but in between was nothing but weeks of coastline and dirt roads—or at least that was the plan.
The small coastal town of Trinidad is where Kerri’s aunt lives, and it’s become a traditional stop on this route. We stayed about 24 hours in total: two loads of laundry, two showers, a fine meal at a local restaurant, and a good bit of catching up since our last visit twelve months ago. By early afternoon we were back on the road.
More miles north on Highway 101 would bring us through Crescent City, where we’d stopped on the boat back in 2022. We didn’t stop this time—Crescent City doesn’t offer much to a van dweller. But we both had target destinations. Hers was All Star Liquors just before the CA/OR border. Mine was that very border. Nomads love asking each other favorite roads. Mine’s always the same: “the nearest one leading out of California.” On this day, only a few miles north of All Star Liquors, sat that amazing “Welcome to Oregon” sign I’d been looking forward to for weeks.
We didn’t venture deep into Oregon. Just a few miles past the border and we were turning off the highway onto a dirt road that climbed a nearby mountain, nearly traveling back into California. At the top was a trailhead—an overnighter for traveling types like us. It even came with the added luxury of a vault toilet.
In the morning we took a short three-quarter-mile hike on the nature trail, then got straight back to traveling. We had a lot of miles to make in the next two weeks and didn’t want to travel every day. The plan was to find a nice spot for a few days, then hop somewhere else for a few more, rinse and repeat.
We’d barely made it through Brookings when we pulled over at a bakery for brunch. Walking back to Marcel, I did what I always do—a quick inspection of the suspension and ground underneath for any signs of things going wrong. Grow up fixing your own cars, and this becomes a normal thing in life . This time there were drops of fluid everywhere. At first I thought I’d parked in someone else’s mess, but one knee down told me the truth: Marcel was bleeding.
Fluid had coated the entire underside, from transmission to rear axle. Even the rear doors and windows wore a fine mist of oil. I finished my post-meal pipe while pulling out my under-van mat and then got straight to it. It only took a few minutes to find the source: a vent hose coming off the transfer case—the gearbox exclusive to 4WD vehicles that attaches the front and rear axles to the transmission. A quick Google gave me the answer: the $12 seal between the transfer case and transmission had failed, letting transmission fluid overflow the transfer case and coat everything underneath. Poor guy wet his pants.
Fluid levels were good enough to attempt a limp back to town to get the part and find a location to do the dirty work on my own. But as we pulled back out onto the highway, a loud clank and the sound of gears being eaten up shook us both. Well, that’s it then, we both thought, there went a differential or the transfer case. This was going to be a big job. Odd thing was, the van was still moving under his own power. We pulled off the highway and I got back under Marcel for more assessing. Five minutes trying to find the now bigger issue and it hit me. When I’d manually spun the front drive shaft during the first inspection, I’d accidentally locked the front axle into four-wheel drive. Since the transmission was not in 4WD, the front axle popped back out of it with a loud racket and a not-so-nice sound of grinding gears. I tested that 4WD still worked, even doing a few laps around the roadside pullout we were in. Everything functioned, so I argued we drive the few miles into town. My own confidence in the diagnoses at a very different level than Kerri’s. But, we got back on the highway and brought Marcel back to Brookings just fine.
Napa Auto Parts has taken care of us many times in the past, and today they would go above and beyond. After acquiring the seal, a couple quarts of transfer case oil, and a catch pan for the old oil, we set out to a rest area one mile away. There I would climb under the van and get started. The repair would take my dropping both drive shafts, draining the transfer case, removing said transfer case, replacing the seal, then re-installing each item I had just removed. Every nut and bolt came off an eighth turn at a time, crammed tight against whatever else was jammed in there. This is customary in any auto repair in my experience. This job was made more difficult—they are always more difficult—when one of the drive shaft bolts had seized and had to be hacksawed off. Napa delivered those spares to us after a quick phone call. The parts they brought were wrong—also customary—so he had to go back. Then his truck broke down, right beside our stricken big van. He had to call for help, got running again, and re-delivered new parts a little later. This all happened while I finished the seal repair. Then, just as everything was bolted back together and we started pumping the transfer case oil (can’t pour it, no room, has to be pumped), our pump broke. Napa closes in 15 minutes! Another phone call and a little begging got us a new pump delivered, and the job was finally complete, five full hours after it began. My body isn’t accustomed to this amount of physical labor in one day.
It was at this point, while packing up all the tools splayed around Marcel, that Kerri said those words. Normally I am the one jokingly saying, “must be nice having a man around,” but she beat me to it with a “sure is nice to have a man around.” I beamed, literally. Those few words surged dopamine through me to a level that made every minute of the last five hours worth it.
Already pushing 6pm, we decided to drive straight to the nearest boondocking spot we knew from last year’s travels through this area: Miller Bar. Miller Bar is a well-known river-bank camping location, and when we arrived it was pretty darn full of other campers. We drove as far down the rocky riverside as we could, finding no space to camp between all the others already set up, and came to a dead-end. Here, the bank stopped. Only the flowing river blocked us from more land on the other side—land where no one else was camped. Half joking I said, “We could just cross it.” Kerri didn’t hesitate: “That’s why we bought a van like this.” More dopamine ran through my veins. I was truly in love with this woman. I shifted Marcel into 4WD and accelerated into the water. I felt dozens of eyeballs on us—surprise and envy mixed together—as we crossed the shallow river and claimed our own slice on the other bank.
That night I barely made it through the celebratory cocktail. I climbed up into bed before 8pm. Kerri massaged my aching neck and back. I was asleep within 1.1 seconds of her stopping.
