Search for a Van

Yesterday we went searching for a van. Since Eric is 6'8" we decided we must have one with a topper. Other criteria are little to no rust, good running condition and under $5000...out of all those finding a topper is the hardest but in a regular van he can't he walk around bent over; he has to sort of bend at the knees and squat/walk.


We had fun test driving one but then we got to a dealer about an hour from here and there was what seemed to be the perfect van! There was no information or price on it though so I'm not sure what year. It looked to be an 88 or 89. It's a Dodge and has about 140,000 miles on it and it was extended so there was a little extra room inside. Very little rust that we could see. Unfortunately we found out it 's at the dealers to be fixed up for the Sheriff's department to sell or auction off I guess :( It was confiscated during a drug bust or something like that. BUT, the salesman said he would call and find out if they could sell it to us so keep your fingers crossed for us!

There is a second van we found a few weeks ago that's still available as well. It's a 1995 Chevy with 140,000 miles. Asking price is $3995. We haven't test drove it yet but it's nice and clean and it even has a plug on the outside of the van so if we camp somewhere will electricity we can just plug her in. I'm hoping to get Eric to go test drive her this week.


I've found a few nice ones on Ebay as well but it seems like the era of finding a good deal is over on Ebay...prices seem to be about the same as local prices. Also, I would have to have the van shipped to me which would cost about another $600-800 and pay for it sight unseen. I don't know...maybe if something showed up that was absolutely perfect I'd go for it.

We did make our first purchases for the trip though! I ordered 2 sleeping bags, 2 fleece liners, an extreme cooler (keeps ice for 5 days even in 90 degree weather), a used mini cannon printer on Ebay and a Eureka! tent (see photo). The tent is tall enough for Eric to stand in. We'll still need a much smaller one for when we go backpacking but I don't think that's something we'll be doing right away so there's time. Now all we need are a million other things LOL


I read somewhere it's good to have some sort of "theme" when you go on the road like this so here are the themes we're going to follow so far:

• Eric wants to visit caves all over the country
• I would like to find a drum circle to participate in every time we stop for more then a few days.
• I would also like to visit all the hot springs that we can along the way
• Of course we will be doing Geocaching all the time as well.
• And for some reason Eric thinks this is going to be a spiritual journey of some sort.