Seattle to Boston 2013: Pics from my trip

Waking up in Montana at PCT trailhead

Camper Interior Tour

Despite its apparent resemblance  (to the untrained eye) to the VW vans, the Toyota Van is not a roomy vehicle.  Last year I stepped into my neighbor's VW Vanagon and the first words out of my mouth were "This is as big as my living room!"  To their credit, the Toyota Vans do have a high roof.  However, it takes some creativity to make a living and camping space in this van. The toy van is no Chevy Express Campervan. The previous owner of my van did a bang-up job building a camper interior.  

The interior is designed to maximize storage space, almost at the expense of head room. The design preserves full access to the battery and engine compartments.  In bench mode, most passengers would be comfortable sitting in the back. Anybody over 6ft might end up with cramps on a long trip, but given that there are no seat belts back there, I don't anticipate this ever being a problem.

Rear view of the bed platform. The bed consists of four cushions, each about four inches thick. Each cushion lifts up easily and the panel under each cushion lifts to provide access to storage space.  In practice, I only have to use the front and rear access panels.

The height of the bed platform was made to accommodate a standard (14 inch) Coleman cooler.  On the sides of the cooler are compartments that fit two four gallon water containers.  You can see the spigot of one container in the right hand compartment.  Note the 1-x-2 inch ridge glued to the bottom of the hatch.  This ridge helps to keep the cooler in place.  there is also a thin ridge on the floor in front of the cooler.

Great Goodwill  find is this basket for fruits and veggies. It is the perfect width so that it sets into the inner lip of the cooler.  Interestingly, the cooler lid does not rest on this ridge, so the cooler still closes tightly. The basket prevents items keeps those items from getting crushed or soaked with melted ice. I love visiting Goodwill stores on trips, never know what you'll find to complement your van life.

Tailgate view of the storage area. Note that the wheel wells have been blocked off. This provides a degree of compartmentalization, which is nice.  I like to store items that don't get used often in the wheel wells.

Looking down into the rear hatch (driver side). Hinged supports were installed to prop up the front and rear hatches. The insulation below the carpet extends throughout the walls and floor. There is a false floor throughout the van.  The growler (right) is a great thing to carry (almost essential) in case one comes across a brewery along the road.

Four foam bed pads are easy to lift and move when I want access to the storage compartment.

The 1-x-2s that you can see on the underside of the front hatch insure that the bed platform does not slide around and that everything closes up tightly. I layered card board over the false floor of the storage compartment for cushion when there's a pushin', and noise reduction.

View via the sliding door opening. The storage box under the bed is made from thin wood (1/8 in?), and the whole thing is framed up with 1-x-2s.   The bed platform looks to be 3/8 in plywood. Forward of the fire extinguisher there is an angled cut - this allows for a downward tilt to the seat when the front half of the bed is transformed into a bench.

Bed mode with lights on, reflectix up, and some of the curtains drawn.

Bench mode with micro-LED lights affixed to the curtain rails.

Bench mode.

I added this hitch mounted cargo basket for additional storage.  It doubles as a cooking platform and table.  When making my decision about this rack versus others, I was concerned that 60-x-24 inches would appear (and be) too big for this little van. Most racks are 20 inches deep and many are only 48 inches wide.  The 60-x-24 inch size is perfect. I would not recommend a smaller rack.  This rack is fairly heavy duty for the price.  It does not seem to reduce my gas mileage, so whenever possible I will use this instead of my roof rack.

Van, serving its purpose!

Another New Van

The SWC clan posing in front of "Grey Van".

Well, I've done it again. I bought a new van (1988) and sold my old van (1987). I saw it on CL-Sacramento and decided it would be my LAST van purchase. if this one didn't satisfy me then none could.  It's an '88 Toyota Van with 4WD AND a 5-speed manual transmission, AND the works, AND awesome camper interior (which I'll feature in a future post). I am in the northeast, so I arranged to have it taken to my buddy's (SWC's) place in Sacramento. There it sat safely in his garage from January to May of 2013, when I made the trip out there to retrieve it. This trip was justified as part of our annual "work together at home" week, where we simply go to one or the other person's house, and work from home. In the evenings we like to drink PBR and talk about vans.  SWC has a 2006 Chevy Express AWD with sliding door, for which we spent a lot of time building an interior bed and table.

Soon after arriving at SWC's place, he took me to his garage for my maiden view of the new van.  The van has a cool camper interior (which I'll show off later), that fits a 14" coleman cooler perfectly.  I opened to find it packed with PBR and Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA.  What a treat!