I’m looking back at Debbie’s and my van build-out idea. It started amid the heat, ash and smoke of the summer of ‘20 on the West Coast. It was the worst summer I can remember. To top it off, we had the pandemic to deal with. We vowed we wouldn’t stick around for another summer like that. We were going to hit the trail, get out of Dodge, head for the hills. There must be some part of the continent where we could be sheltered from what seems like – and is predicted to be – the inexorable onslaught of climate change and the recurring summer tragedies.
So, that April we started looking for a campervan, one already built out and ready for us. There were plenty available, but not much in our price range. Some might have worked for us, but they were pretty old; too many miles; too many years; too much weird stuff. When we looked closely at some of the interiors, we noted how unattractive they were and how many unnecessary features they often had. Some, for example, had wood burning stoves. Course, these people were usually living in them full time and often in Montana or Canada. We wanted something with the promise of more life left and less to have to tear out. A friend of Debbie’s, Ellen, got us contact information for an RV Broker, James Upham. She said that he had helped several people she knew find vans. We contacted him, and he set up a phone meeting with us for a few days hence. He said it would be a 15-minute meeting. And it was almost exactly a 15-minute meeting. He asked all the relevant questions, was incredibly personable, and we hung up optimistic. Weeks passed, and we were becoming less and less optimistic. We were constantly looking ourselves, and we even forwarded things we thought were worthy of consideration to him.
We began to tire and despair. Call it lack-of-money-fatigue or whatever– we just weren’t finding anything that met our limited budget and somewhat untamed desires. James called and said that we were about $30,000 short of our goal. So, we started looking for empty cargo vans that we could build-out, and we discovered a place that dealt in used autos, a discount brokerage. They had some very well-priced Ford Transits, and we signed up. A couple of days later, just before we had committed to a Transit, James called and said he’d found our van. It was a short bed (156” wheelbase), high roof, Ram ProMaster with low mileage, partly built out and a lowish price. Then he got the price down another $5000. We were in! Only glitch was that it was in South Carolina. 2800+ miles from home.
We had to fly to South Carolina, leaving our 5.5 month old puppy, Mesa, with my brother and his wife so we could drive the van home. It was partially outfitted: paneling in the ceiling and walls; some cabinetry – all along the top behind the driver’s seat – 3, three foot cabinets about a foot deep and a foot high; a sink with a foot pump for water and a 5 gallon gray water bucket beneath; a roll out canopy about 10 feet long that can roll out about 8 feet; two seats in the front (driver’s and passenger’s) able to pivot completely around; a bed platform in the rear of full bed width and nearly perfect length – Turns out a ProMaster is the widest of the aforementioned vans, so shorter people can sleep across the width. Folks over 6’ tall might find it uncomfortable, even folks a little shorter. Debbie and I found it entirely adequate. Lots of storage in the bed frame itself and under it, the garage; a metal rack running the length and width of the van to which the canopy is attached; a safe under the bed; two ports to plug in a cigarette lighter type of connection to run a 12 volt appliance or lights: a cooler powered by 12 volt system. I think that’s about it.
Our van is a 2017 Ram ProMaster 1500 with a 156 inch wheel base; the shortest model, measuring just under 20 feet long but also with the highest roof available. I had looked at van reviews, and they left me with some trepidation about getting a ProMaster. I read that the engines are prone to need fixing, not replacing or rebuilding, just fairly modest but necessary fixing. I’d read several reviews that stated that of the four vans on the road, ProMaster, Sprinter, Transit, Nissan whatever, ProMaster was ranked 3rd. I’d read that the electronics were prone to glitches, that the transmission shifted poorly, that the headlights shone strangely and ineffectively, and that of all the models of ProMaster, the 2014 model was the worst mechanically. That latter issue didn’t worry since mine was a 2017, still, I was on high alert.
But while the van itself gave us no problem on our drive home, the build-out cabinetry did:
Road bumps jarred the doors on the upper cabinets, dislodging screws from the hinges and unlatching latches. Some doors fell completely off. Things we’d stored within cascaded to the floor.
Stopping and turning caused the drawers in the lower cabinets to slide open because they all faced forward and the latches were placed so as to be ineffective. Often, they literally slid off the drawer glides onto the floor, across the length of the van, running into our seats, spilling their contents.
The modest 12 volt system didn’t work. It provided no power to the cooler or anything else. We discovered when we got home that the inverter didn’t work which would have powered things from the car battery from the rear port, but leaving something plugged in when the motor wasn’t running (say, the refrigerator) would have drained the battery that also starts the car. The port in the front seat area had a blown fuse, but would have presented the same problem even if the fuse worked.
Still, the van ran like a champ. It has front-wheel drive and rack and pinion steering. The seats are very comfortable. It has over-sized mirrors that provide good visibility on the sides; two windows in the back and a window (part of which is operable) in the sliding door behind the passenger seat. It has a 6-cylinder engine, and we got roughly 18 miles prer gallon when I kept track. You can park it in any outdoor parking space which generally measure 22 feet, although it’s too high to get in many parking garages. We managed to mitigate some of the problems on the way home, but we knew we had a steep learning curve ahead of us to make Vinnie work for us.
Flight day was a disaster. We had a connecting flight in Dallas/Fort Worth, but we ended up circling and circling and not landing because there was too much air traffic, and we got there later than many others. Finally, we had to fly to Tulsa, OK to get more gas.
Returning to Dallas/Fort Worth, we only had to circle a bit, but when we landed, we had to wait another half-hour bedause all the gates were being used. Finally getting a gate, we had to wait for a ramp to de-plane. By then, we had missed our connecting flight. To get another flight to go to our South Carolina destination, we were directed to an incredibly long line – a quarter of a mile long at least. Debbie had other ideas. She spotted someone at a desk at a gate that wasn’t in use. She approached the man, told him our situation, and he put us on another flight in the first class section!
So, we arrived in Greenville, SC tired, but happy. We stayed in a hotel, walked to a nearby restaurant the next morning for a tasty Southern breakfast and took an Uber to our new van’s location.
More to come.
