Mod Mischief

Look what came in the mail today! It's The Big Book of Hacks from Popular Science and one of our projects is in it. The bed we built in the back of Bertha , and later rebuilt for Sally , is project #238. You can find the original instructions and all the photos, with significantly fewer armadillos (unfortunately),  over on instructables.

I saw this van and its fantastic trailer downtown on Friday. Maybe Chris and I should make Sally a little miniature version of herself to tow around, but it'd be hard to beat this version.

Last time we drove to Burning Man we built a bed in the back of the van  ( full instructable here ). If you were wondering if we could reuse the same bed in our new van, we can! While Sally, the GMC Savana 3500, is longer and taller than Bertha, the interior is actually narrower in certain parts. We trimmed the bed's joists and plywood top, and now it fits perfectly. We also adjusted the bracket holes to make use of the GMC's seat locking mechanism.

She brought us across the continent and faithfully carried us off on many adventures, but last week Bertha, our beloved Ford E-150 van,  finally quit on us. about to be towed back to Ottawa I'm really going to miss her, but truth be told, we were already looking around for her replacement as we doubted whether she could make it back to Burning Man.  the final km count, a little over a year and a half after hitting all 3s  kissing Bertha goodbye Our new van, long tall Sally, is the blue 2003 GMC Savana in the photo at the top of the post. A 3500, she's even longer and bigger than Bertha!

If you've ever wondered "Can you fit two canoes on a Ford E-150 van?" the answer is yes, you can. We went camping with friends in Algonquin Park and wound up at the same site we had two years ago . Camping post-Burning Man is an unusual experience. We didn't know quite what to pack since bubble wands and tutus now seem synonymous with camping supplies. It was a challenge keeping it to what we could fit in a canoe, but we managed. At our camp site we met some colourful characters. this hairdo wouldn't look out of place on the playa, neither would someone sporting yellow horns. Mr. Toad All in all we had a great time. happy camper

Bertha hit 333333 km yesterday. She's still chugging along but I think we're going to have to find somewhere to store her for the winter. Winter street parking in Ottawa is ridiculous.

From these photos, you might get the impression that I just stood around watching Chris hard at work  making a platform bed for the van. That would be incorrect. I had the very important job of sitting on the lumber to make sure it didn't move while he worked.

She's a beast. A 2000 Ford E-150, she's had a pretty rough life. She's been an airport shuttle bus and hauled countless lengths of hardwood for a flooring company. But life is about to get much better as she's now been tasked with taking us on an epic road trip. It'll be fun times like this and this

While it's no school bus , I was pretty excited when our search for a road trip vehicle lead us to this 1990 Vandura. The price was right and the dealership said that it was in great working order and they would even guarantee it for 3 years. We traveled to Toronto to Karmann Fine Cars (on the corner of sweet Jane & St. Clair ) where the very friendly salesman showed us the vehicle. The van sounded good and we weren't bothered by the fact that the rear view mirror was in the cup holder and the bright green bondo wasn't even finished setting. We keep imaging how great it would be to add a spoiler and red racing stripe . The dream didn't last long... much like the test drive. Before we even hit the highway, the power steering and air conditioning blew out. We crawled back to the dealership with the 4 ways flashing and a belt dragging on the ground. Cooling fluid and steam spewing from under the hood, we decided it was just not meant to be.

I just got an invitation to the 10 year reunion of my exchange to Belgium. Starting way back in the year 2000, I spent one of the best years of my life living not far from Liège on a Rotary Youth Exchange . While the invitation brought up many pleasant memories it’s also got me feeling really old. Just last night, Chris and I were up late talking about things we want to do and places we’d like to go. Pretty soon commitments to work and a house are going to prevent us from doing whatever we want. In many ways they already do. According to this article I’m relatively well adjusted (although much of it resonates with me), but I’m still feeling a push to take advantage of being young and stupid while I still can. So I just might end up buying a school bus after all. Forget the convertible, this crisis calls for something a little funkier . Now to convince Chris that it’s a good idea to take off the entire summer for an epic roadtrip…

I have recently discovered that used school buses are very cheap. There are several for sale in Ottawa for under $3000. If I’m not careful, I’ll soon wind up in something like this. We're navigators, we're aviators, eatin' taters, masturbatin' alligators, bombardiers, we got no fears, won't shed no tears, we're pushin' the frontiers of transcendental perception... If only all magic bus riders were as cute as Jim Sturgess …