This past Memorial Day weekend, RDVC rolled up to Cashmere, Washington for Poison Ivy's fourth van run. Woody and the gang really put together an amazing event. My daily driver at the time (now the donor van for Infinite Surf) was out of commission, so I rode shotgun with Aaron in his '77 Dodge Tradesman, Chub.
Aaron came across this van at the Portland International Raceway swap meet in 2013. Dean ended up being the one to purchase the van for a whopping $1400. He drove it home, did some work to it, and then sold it to Aaron shortly after for the same price. This is definitely a "You don't find the right van, the right van finds you." kind of situation. This one is definitely in the right hands. Since these photos, he's added some sweet side pipes, and a fender flare / chin spoiler combo is in the near future.
Dean and Gina drove their 1976 Chevy G20 van. Dean bought this van from a guy on craigslist the very same day that I bought my 1966 Econoline from him. He was living an American van free life, and immediately felt the withdraws. He had talked to the seller a few days before, and before we even left Club 21 where we made the swap for the '66, we had planned to pick up the Chevy later that day. We drove out in his Toyota panel space van, Dean test drove the Chevy, dropped $1500, and I drove it back to his house.
We arrived late Friday night. The party was still going strong, and we quickly found the bottom of a bottle of Fireball. Since I hadn't brought my own van, I managed to drunkenly set up my tent, and get back to the party. The grounds were amazing. Set right between the mountains with views that almost couldn't be better. There were actually clean restrooms WITH SHOWERS! I will tell you right now, those showers made my weekend way more enjoyable, and my hangovers way more bearable.
Saturday morning was a blur to say the least. I woke up to see all the vans I wasn't really able to see the night before. Everyone still had their snooze boots on. The remnants of a van party were obvious.
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| Ty Lidke's van "My Cocoon" with a killer quad headlight grille. |
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| Bob and Nancy from Canada had a bit of a mishap on the drive down. Those big mirrors saved their van from a hit and run side swipe on the highway. |
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| River City Van Club |
Saturday was another all day party. Games were played, beers were consumed, totally legal washington weed was smoked. We learned about Rodney's three bong rule. (Road bong, van bong, party bong.) It was awesome. The show and shine was Saturday's main event. The best in show award went to Ty's Dodge Ram Van.
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| Ty Lidke of Poison Ivy Vans and his Dodge Ram Van, My Cocoon. |
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| Yeah, that is a ceiling fan. In a van. |
Ty's van was definitely the show winner for a reason. That thing is amazing. He mentioned he has plans to change the van's name, as the current name was chosen by the previous owner, and doesn't quite fit his taste. The interior is spotless, and very unique. I felt like I was sitting in my awkward high school best friend's grandma's living room. You know, the kind that has plastic covering everything, and furniture that feels like it was never meant to be sat on. Exactly like that, except maybe in this particular grandma's living room, you find a half smoked doobie under one of the couch cushions, and an eight track player with a Black Sabbath tape jammed in it.
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| Jim Krueger bought his Tradesman brand new, and has been working on it, and vanning with his wife since the 70's! |
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Jim's van has a serious power plant. You can also see a bit of the absolutely ridiculous bay of switches and buttons he has in the overhead console. Something like 200 switches. The ignition key is a printed circuit board that he keeps in his wallet.
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| Steven and Sarah Geist's Chevy van, Kimber. |
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| Aaron's Tradesman, Chub, looking good as always. |
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| Rodney usually shows up in his gorgeous early Ford, The White Knight, but with a blown motor in that van, he brought out his recently purchased first generation Chevy no door panel. Such a cool van, and an even cooler vanner. |
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| Just Clown'n Around! |
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| I could not get enough of Matt's Ram Van. It was parked in the perfect spot for photos. |
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| Steel Vanther, owned by Matt Denison of River City Van Club. |
After the show and shine, everyone kind of split off and did their own thing. RDVC decided to take a short drive from the fair grounds to the nearby town of Leavenworth, WA. We stopped at the Ye Olde Safeway, and picked up some ye olde PBR. It was a touristy mad house in town, so we didn't stay long.
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| Ye Olde Custom Van |
We made it back to the fairgrounds, played some horse shoes, had some delicious dinner, pot luck style, and waited for the band to play. Woody got a pretty rad band for the event, and they played for what seemed like, and may have actually been three or four hours. I'm not much of a dancer myself, so most of the time that was going on, I was waiting for night fall to get some more photos of the vans. We were also patiently waiting for some mysterious Nascar trailer to show up, hauling some magical monster van that no one had seen before. Lenny had been working on it for a while, and wasn't able to have it running for the run, but still wanted to bring it out. It finally showed up later that night, and we were not disappointed.
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| Lenny's monster 4x4 chopped Chevy Astro. |
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| Steel Vanther |
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| Desperado |
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Steel Vanther and Desperado
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| Stacy Petkus' Chevy G10 flying the River City Van Club flag. |
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| It got a bit breezy between the mountains! |
Saturday night lasted until about 4 or 5am Sunday morning. RDVC busted out our patented drinking/board game, TBATW. It was a major hit, and got everyone major drunk. We played with knives, scissors, markers, and toy vans until the owner of the property came and told us that the campers across the street were complaining about noise. Yeah, that happened. Yeah, we're adults. Yeah, we found the bottom of another bottle of Fireball. Saturday was wild to say the least.
Sunday morning came early, and Jim and Stacy of RCVC made a huge and amazing breakfast for us. Another hot shower washed off the previous nights hangover, or at least got it wet. Sunday also brought us the raffle, and awards. RDVC won the furthest traveled award, and we took home a few coffee mugs with handles shaped like hand guns, so all in all it was a big win for us. There was also a "beer box hat contest." Dean worked pretty hard on his hat.
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| Dean, featuring a reflection of Jim's van, Desperado. |
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| Aaron! |
Probably my favorite part of Sunday was the small photo shoot we had across the street from the fair grounds with Aaron and Jim's vans. They were the only two original custom mural vans at the run. Both are 1977 Dodge Tradesman vans. They have a very similar vibe, and having them together in the same place for the first time was very cool. The only thing that could have made it better is if I could have had my 1977 custom Dodge there also.
Shortly after, we packed up all of our things, and started the long drive back home to Portland. It was one hell of a weekend, and I cant wait for the next one! We are planning to be at Corn Cob in Grant's Pass, Oregon this September, and then we are hosting our van show in Portland in late September.
