In July of 1976, 20-year-old Dave Van Manen and 17-year-old Helene Hilt, Brooklyn-grown and infused with young love and impeccable harmony, got married, packed everything they could into an old blue Chevy van and made good on their longing to ditch the big city and chase a life out West.
“We were kind of hippies,” Dave says, “without the drugs.”
Nearly a half-century later, they’re once again living out of their van. After a mostly idyllic few decades raising two kids, shaping their harmonies into children’s music and embracing a variety of work in the tiny Colorado hamlet of Beulah, the Van Manens agreed it was time for another adventure: retirement.
A Colorado Sun series. Read more.Colorado is getting older, rapidly. Are we prepared? We’re taking a look at how these shifting demographics are affecting housing, the workforce and quality of life, and whether Colorado has the services needed for people to age in place.
Follow alongOr as Helene insists: “We don’t really use the word ‘retired.’ We use the word ‘rewired.’ ”
After selling their mountainside home on 2½ forested acres last month, they put most of their belongings into storage, packed up their van — a newer, tricked out camper version — and headed for Colorado Springs. This iteration of van life, while similarly powered by the desire for a new beginning, has been driven less by youthful impulse than an aging couple’s practical considerations.
Proximity to family. Accessibility of reliable medical care. Flexibility to quickly seize opportunity as they scour a more upscale real estate market. And most importantly, capability to make this transition while the decision is still theirs alone to make.
After decades in a mountain paradise — their two children grew up playing in the surrounding forest they called the Magic Woods — Dave and Helene, now 69 and 67, still have their health. In fact, as they search for a property to purchase on the city’s west side, access to hiking trails ranks high on their must-have list.
But for the last several years they’ve been conscious of their membership in that rapidly growing demographic of 60+ Coloradans that mirrors national trends. Colorado ranks third in the rate at which its residents are aging. They were not blind to the challenges that lay ahead.
Bodies are not designed to last forever, and so we feel like we want to make this move when we don’t have anybody having to decide for us where we’re going to live.
— Dave Van Manen, on moving out of their home of nearly 50 years
“We’ve been very fortunate,” Dave says. “We look around us and a lot of our friends who are not as old as us can’t do some of the things that we do. Bodies are not designed to last forever, and so we feel like we want to make this move when we don’t have anybody having to decide for us where we’re going to live. We want to make those calls ourselves.”
Some residents of relatively remote mountain and rural areas have found particular difficulty dealing with the challenges of aging that can make transition or even remaining in place difficult. And while it may be impossible to exercise complete control over how the aging process plays out, the Van Manens have mapped their next chapter with a strategy far different from the impetuous instincts that pointed a couple of crazy kids to Colorado.
They’ve even given it a name: The Next Best 20.
Self-described “parks people,” they’ve zeroed in on a neighborhood close to outdoor amenities.
After housesitting for some friends for a few days, they’ll roam a bit while waiting for the right property to become available, while remaining ready to hit the gas back to Colorado Springs if they need to move fast on a real estate deal. Later this month, another housesitting opportunity will give them a break from camping.
Helene and Dave Van Manen stand beside their van parked next to the Rock Ledge Trail in Colorado Springs, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Van life has come full circle since they left New York City in a blue Chevy van in 1976 to seek their fortune out West. (Michaela Ocko, Special to The Colorado Sun)In Beulah, an unincorporated community of about 650 roughly 25 miles southwest of Pueblo, they pursued varied interests. Their shared love of music found its niche in the children’s market. Helene’s work in music therapy eventually gave way to business and personal coaching and consulting. Dave ventured into outdoor conservation and education through founding the nonprofit Mountain Park Environmental Center. (It’s now the Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center.)
Helene has carried on her business, though she has “changed the parameters a little bit” by cutting back her work time and being more selective about clients. She sees a move to a more urban environment improving her social life, given feelings of isolation she felt working from home in Beulah.
“We’re never going to not work,” Helene says. “I mean, we love work. We love doing. We get up every morning and just want to make a difference anywhere we can.”
Before Dave stepped away from the nature education center, he launched the Earthkeeper Nature School, now in its eighth year, under the nonprofit’s umbrella. He still volunteers there. He notes that both he and Helene are “pretty politically engaged” these days, and their transition makes more time for them to be active on that front.
“We feel like we’re leaving (Beulah) sooner than we need to, because we’re both, fortunately, quite healthy,” Dave says. “So much of the research says people are healthier as they age when they’re near their people.”
While their son and his family work an organic farm on the Western Slope, their daughter, a nurse, and her family reside in Colorado Springs. They look forward to more frequent connections with both.
They listed their house for $389,000 and “got just about that,” Dave says. Now comes the challenge of buying in a pricier ZIP code.
“Thank God that we have been very conscientious through the years of preparing for this time in our lives,” he adds. “I’m about to have to dip into that some to make this work.”
Dave and Helene Van Manen point out Garden of the Gods park from Rock Ledge Trail in Colorado Springs, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. As they look for a new home, proximity to parks and hiking trails ranks high on their list of must-haves. (Michaela Ocko, Special to The Colorado Sun)“We wanted out” of NYC
Back in the midsummer of ’76, the couple — newly married just weeks after Helene’s high school graduation and shortly after Dave turned 20 — hatched their crazy plan to leave their New York City neighborhood for good.
Dave’s adventures had seldom taken him farther than New Jersey and upstate New York on Boy Scout trips, or summer stays out in the country on Long Island, where he felt most at home. In the city he felt like a “fish out of water,” a back-to-nature guy reduced to hanging out at a park where the infamous Son of Sam wreaked terror. (The serial killer David Berkowitz, who claimed one of Dave’s high school classmates as a victim, was captured about a year after the couple left.)
“New York was really rough, even beyond the edges,” Dave says. “It was rough at the core in the ’70s. So we wanted out.”
He wrote to chambers of commerce all over the western United States, scouting for a promising landing spot. Montana seemed like a cool place.
The plan the couple described to their parents went like this: They would make their way across the country on what little money they had until they found a place to settle in. They would get jobs. And then, if things weren’t working out, they would join the Navy.
“That’s what we said,” Helene recounts, laughing at the memory. “It was the stupid years, right? We heard that you could join the Navy as a couple. We were never going to join the Navy, but we told my parents, and there was nothing they could do with that.”
They did, in fact, go to Montana. And, in fact, things didn’t work out. But later that summer, they headed to Colorado, where Helene had a relative in Beulah. They decided to give it one winter. And though the relative moved away, the Van Manens stayed.
Dave started teaching music, their social connections took root and suddenly it seemed that all of this was meant to be. They somehow worked out a deal to buy a property and started making a life together. Surrounded by million-dollar views, they never bothered to put up curtains.
“We stayed because we were poor. We had no money,” Helene recalls. “We were poor 20 year olds, and we were like, ‘Let’s have a baby.’ So we had a baby. And we had another baby.”
For nearly 50 years, the Van Manens lived in this mountain home in Beulah, on the edge of the Wet Mountains. They grew many of their own vegetables in the dome next to the house. (Courtesy of the Van Manens)Making music
Meanwhile, their reputations as musicians gained traction, with Dave’s acoustic guitar guiding those two-part harmonies, channeling ’70s influences like Jackson Browne, Paul Simon and Dan Fogelberg. When they delved into children’s music in the ’80s, answering the need for creative alternatives and additional income, their careers took off. They recorded albums, traveled the country, played schools, church basements, libraries and festivals, as simply The Van Manens.
That marked the first half of their working lives. In the midst of those diaper- and life-changing events, the couple continued their education. That led to often overlapping work as environmental educators (Dave’s particular passion — he would go on to earn a lifetime achievement Award from the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education) and a combination of pursuits encompassing everything from childbirth instructor to music therapist, bus driver to naturalist, as Helene settled into coaching and Dave founded his nonprofit.
Meanwhile, the 1,200-square-foot house among the Ponderosa pine, Douglas and white fir on the edge of the Wet Mountains became a home, especially with added touches like the garden dome where they eventually grew food year-round. It’s “part of our contribution to the planet,” Helene says, adding that wherever they land next they’ll continue their pursuit of sustainable agriculture.
In Beulah, they no longer calculated the time in years, but in winters. Forty-nine winters. Dave loved them. Helene, in recent years, not so much.
They’ve known for a while that change was coming. Still, Dave figures he would have felt comfortable staying, but respected his wife’s desire to move.
“I always felt like it would be better to do this a year or two or three too soon than a week too late,” he says. “I kind of felt like, hey, I got my 50 years living in the woods.”
Though Helene sometimes struggled with seclusion, she’ll always consider the Beulah house her “forever home.” No regrets.
“No, no, that’s over,” she says, and places her hand over her heart. “I’m gonna keep it in here.”
Dave and Helene Van Manen carved out a career writing and singing children’s music, though they also composed other types of songs, including some that featured autobiographical lyrics about their life together. Here they perform at a gig early in their music career, probably around the mid-1980s. (Courtesy of the Van Manens)Apprehension and excitement
The memory of driving across the Hudson River on the George Washington Bridge and the feeling that went with it — something on the order of a look-out-world euphoria — haven’t faded in almost 50 years.
“We had no idea what we were doing. We were just fearless,” Dave recalls. “We were so in love. I guess I have a lot more fear now than I did then. I’m much more apprehensive and cautious because … I don’t know why.”
“But it all worked out,” Helene points out. “And, you know, we get along great with our kids. We have a really beautiful, small family, but it’s really good. So we feel really lucky.”
They are absolutely all in on this adventure, just as they were as newlyweds. But they also acknowledge that their feelings about this stage of their lives in some ways are uniquely separate while still blending in harmony.
Dave and Helene Van Manen share a moment in the nook of their Beulah house as they prepared to move out. (Courtesy of the Van Manens)Dave felt very emotional in that last hour before they left their Beulah house, with all the outbuildings he’d constructed over the years and the memories they contained. And as much as he’s committed to looking forward, he concedes that perhaps the reality of this transition hasn’t fully hit him yet.
“I was very happy living in Beulah,” he says. “However, since I’m married to somebody who wasn’t, then I had to make some adjustments. And, you know, I know how to go find wild nature. I can still get over to the Sangre de Cristos pretty easily.”
“He’s just the best man,” Helene says. “This is harder on him, because he’s used to going outside and doing stuff. He’s at the wood pile. And we had a big greenhouse. I mean, we left all of our plants. We left tomatoes on the vine. We left squash growing.”
Despite all that, she felt ready. She might’ve been ready 10 years ago, but certainly in the last five. Nudged by the isolation of the pandemic, she’d become keenly aware that her time in their home had started to feel like it had reached an inevitable conclusion.
Which is not to say she didn’t have feelings when they pulled away.
“It’s exactly like living in the world right now — scary, beautiful, frightening, happy, lucky, despairing,” Helene says. “It’s everything. It’s the world. The unknown. Free falling.”
After a short pause, she adds: “Mostly, I’m so happy.”
And grateful. A third traveler in the Van Manen’s van is the plush stuffie she calls Gratitude Goat, a variation of the Indigenous “talking stick” she used in her coaching retreats that has spilled over into everyday life. Whomever holds it is invited to share something for which they’re grateful.
Gratitude Goat sits in the Van Manen’s van. (Michaela Ocko, Special to The Colorado Sun)It’s also a reminder of the excitement that infuses this adventure. Vestiges of a familiar anticipation.
“That’s probably what is keeping the sadness at bay,” Dave says, “because we are leaving something. Of course, when we left New York, I wanted to get out. Beulah was much more of a mixed bag. But this is exciting. We have an adventure ahead of us. We don’t know what house we’re going to live in. It’s fun.”
For the Van Manens, this new phase holds the sort of promise they vocalized decades earlier. They produced three children’s albums plus a collection of chants and folk music. But they also have a few songs that never became part of any collection. A couple of 1986 singles, which contain definite autobiographical elements, they made available on Spotify.
There’s not a thing I’d rather doThan to spend my life with youAs we sow the seeds of love and harmony.
Those lines from “A Better Place to Be” echo their earlier life together but might also apply to their current journey, except that the literal harmony, their time as a performing duo, has passed.
“I still want to make music, and I actually miss making music,” Dave says.
“He makes music every day,” Helene interjects. “He sounds good. He sounds so good.”
“It’s use it or lose it,” Dave explains, “and I don’t want to lose it, so I’m still trying to keep my fingers and my voice to where it sounds OK. We have a little circle of people around here, and they like to get together and do backyard concerts and stuff. Who knows, that might be a part of my future.”
As their 60s wind down, they adjust and adapt — certainly aware that age encroaches, but determined to plot a route toward their best life.
“We can’t believe this is our story,” Helene says. “We couldn’t have made this up if we wanted to. We never could have made up this life.”
Dave and Helene Van Manen walk along the Rock Ledge Trail in Colorado Springs, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. (Michaela Ocko, Special to The Colorado Sun)Hence then, the article about from brooklyn to beulah hippie beginnings to golden years a retired couple returns to van life was published today ( ) and is available on Colorado Sun ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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