The true story of how one married couple made an impulse purchase blind off the internet: a 24.5-tonne vintage army truck. Their plan: to convert into a unique off-grid tiny home on wheels ready for an expedition to Mongolia.
Building the Beast:
How (Not) To Build An Overland Camper
The Wayward Truck Book 1
by Jacqueline Lambert
Genre:
Comedic Travel Memoir, Nonfiction
Featuring ‘The Beast’, an
expedition truck, as seen on TV*
A Vintage Truck: An
Amateur Team: An Immovable Deadline
The Comic Memoir of a Crazy
Idea
In this captivating true story, join an intrepid
married couple as they take another wild leap into the world of
nomadic living.
Four years previously, Jackie and Mark gave up
work to embark on a permanent road trip with four dogs. However, one
Friday the 13th, forces beyond their control cause them to throw
caution to the wind and buy a 30-year-old army truck sight unseen
from the internet.
Their goal: to create an expedition truck fit
to drive overland to Mongolia.
Follow them as they dive
headfirst into the daunting but thrilling task of converting this
rugged vehicle into a perfect off-grid tiny house on wheels.
Yet
their first ever DIY van conversion proves to be a rollercoaster
ride, when they sell their house to fund the build, and Friday the
13th comes back to haunt them.
Is their confidence that,
‘there’s always a solution,’ misplaced?
With their
relationship, sanity, and finances on the line, can they navigate the
pitfalls of their first-ever build and avoid becoming
homeless?
Filled with quirky van life friends and unexpected
twists, this is an inspiring tale of perseverance, friendship, and
finding the courage to conquer the challenges that face those who
dare to chase their dreams.
* The Beast made a
guest appearance on Ben Fogle’s New Lives In The Wild
ARC
Reviews:
“An honest and often funny account of
the realities of when people actually begin to live their
dream.” Anna Rashbrook, Author
“A
page-turner!…You never know what will happen next!” Carrie
Riseley, Author
“The trials and tribulations of building
a home on six wheels, told with laughter and insight… a must
read – even if it’s just to stop you making the same
mistakes!” Maximilian Sam, Award-Winning Author
“This
book is a fantastic look at designing a unique project and
going for it with humor and perseverance. If one is tired of another
‘chucking it all and renovating an old house’ story, this is a
quixotic twist that will keep you entertained.” Kari Iverson
Lane
“Hugely inspirational, because I think many would
have just given up trying, with all the things they had to put in
place to get their dream of owning and converting The Beast off the
ground. What a story – and a fabulously entertaining
book/read.” Julie Haigh, Goodreads Librarian and Top 1,000
Amazon reviewer.
**Get it for Only .99 cents!**
This is a good example of my writing style and the level of technicality regarding the build (ie – it is not terribly technical at all!)
The Story of Creation (Batteries)
In the beginning (1799) in a laboratory far, far away (well, in Italy), Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani sparked up an argument about frogs’ legs.
It would change the world!
Scientists do the strangest things.
Galvani had been busy prodding dissected frogs’ legs with metal rods. He noted it made the muscles twitch. This, he asserted, was because they contained innate ‘animal electricity’.
Volta was not hopping on board with Galvani’s hypothesis. He believed the electricity was not inherent to animal tissues, but the result of contact between two dissimilar metals when they had some gubbins sandwiched in between. To resolve their potential difference, he devised his own game of electrical Jenga. He stacked up bits of wet cardboard with various metal combinations.
In one experiment, he assembled his signature Voltaic Pile.
He separated alternating layers of zinc and copper discs with sheets of card soaked in brine (salt water) to act as an electrolyte (a solution which conducts electricity). This simple arrangement produced a continuous flow of electricity and Watt’s Up?
Volta had created the world’s first battery!
This electrifying breakthrough sparked a whirlwind of discoveries in electrochemistry and electromagnetism. With not a trace of humour, scientists like Humphrey Davy developed huge Voltaic Piles and used them to create electrical arcs and isolate chemical elements by electrolysis.
Davy was the first to get his hands on pure potassium and unsullied sodium, as well as calcium, strontium, barium, and magnesium. All it took was zapping electricity (the electro bit) through molten salts or solutions. That caused them to split (or lyse) into their individual components at the electrodes.
Without Volta’s Pile, Mary Shelley might never have written Frankenstein in 1816. And in 2020, Mark and I might not have been scratching our heads, wondering how best to power the electrical system inside our Beast…
Jacqueline (Jackie) Lambert is an award-winning travel writer, adventure traveller, and dogmother, who loves history and curious facts.
BC (Before Canines) she rafted, rock-climbed, and backpacked around six of the seven continents. A passionate windsurfer and skier, she can fly a plane, has been bitten by a lion, and appeared on Japanese TV as a fire-eater.
AD (After Dog), she quit work in 2016 to hit the road permanently with her husband and four pooches. Initially, they were Adventure Caravanners, who aimed To Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before.
Now, they’re at large in a self-converted six-wheel army lorry, with Mongolia in their sights.
All her books and the anthologies that include her travel stories are available on Amazon:
Photo: Mark, Jackie & The Fab Four with The Beast. Photo courtesy of @Liveration, who made a short film about the crew and their lifestyle on YouTube.
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