With all the stage one stuff done I took it for a few trips and if there is one thing I can recommend to anyone thinking of doing a build, is this:
Take an extended trip in your van before you design the interior.
After my first trip to Colorado and back I completely changed my mind about the design. Things that I thought were important to me turned out not to be and things that I thought were not important turned out really to be important. Couple examples are shower, toilet, sink, indoor bike storage, storage, beds, etc...
These ideas continued to evolve over my trips and I am just getting to designing my interior now (May 2018, remember van was bought in summer 2016).
I realized I needed a shower, just had to, made the trip much more pleasant and enjoyable. Also indoor bike storage wasn't critical, a good hitch bike rack gave me way more space inside. My thoughts on the need for a sink/kitchen/fridge at this point (fall 2006) were still a no... but that would change.
Here are some pictures from my trip to Colorado:
How I had the interior setup for the trip:
You can see my companion for the trips really enjoyed the bench seat I left in there for her. She comes along on all of the van trips, so that was also something I had to consider during the build. I looked into a lot of options for cooling it while I was away, but really didn't find anything I trusted that was within a reasonable price range. I ended up going with the MaxxFan and these really cool window screens , granted they are very expensive, but did wonders for ventilation in the van when parked. I would never leave her in the van though if the temp outside was dangerous. The fan and vents could keep the van to about 2-4 degrees higher than outside temperature, so I still had to be aware of the temp. Also note the 3 gallon water bowl I left for her in the van (can be seen in the pictures).
That being said I am still exploring options on leaving her in the van in terms of temperature alarms and whatnot. Right now I am not comfortable with an AC system or running the van while gone with the AC on as that just isn't fail safe without an alarm.
Here are some pictures of the window vents I mentioned about installed on my van:
Also the van had no issues towing a few ATVs on some gravel access roads to get to some awesome terrain
For the time being my shower was a camp shower bag hung from a tree, which worked well enough in the wilderness. Not sure if it would fly in a rest stop/Walmart parking lot. When I would mountain bike I would leave the bag full of water on the hood of the van to try and heat up the water for when I returned. It didn't work great, which is why I am in the process of figuring out a new shower method. (you can see my dog leash method of hoisting the bag high enough up for good water pressure):
