If you want to buy a brand new full sized van in the United States or Canada you have a choice of three. In Mexico a Volkswagen model which looks confusingly similar to a Sprinter is also available. Nissan has stopped selling it’s van which leaves Ford and Ram vans alongside the Mercedes Sprinter.
When we chose Custom Coach Creations to build our home he recommended the Ram for its square shape and more floor space thanks its vertical walls. For me the Ford fanatic after years of driving sedans into hurricanes I have up the Ford Transit dream with regrets. We tested our new home in the Ocala National Forest and were pleased.
Front wheel drive is an innovation in North American van life with many loud detractors. I don’t really know why as I’ve driven cars with it for decades but my van can turn circles around the other brands with a 41 foot turning circle. Tight turns have saved me more than once in Mexico. The lack of drive gear in the back means the floor is lower to the ground and the lower center of gravity gives a very stable van.
Spending time with Kip at Promasters Only has reaffirmed my choice. He has three and has driven them hundreds of thousands of miles and praises their low maintenance requirements and dependability. He found no issues with our van, not surprising he said with our “low mileage” at 52,000 miles…And he hasn’t seen some of the roads we’ve driven. Or the potholes and speed bumps we’ve hit.
Without getting into boring van details I’ve known for two years that GANNET2 as designed by Layne makes an excellent home and I love living aboard. After spending time with an expert, and judging my terrible photos you know I was hanging off every word, I know that we have the best possible mechanical machine for our kind of journey. The drive away from Barberton on our way to Erie saw me feeling really good about our choice for a long term journey to Argentina starting in December.
Our style of travel is not so much off roading as driving with a destination in mind. We’ve never been afraid of the road less traveled and over time I have developed a pretty good idea of what our low slung 9400 pound van can cope with but I enjoy city driving, beach camping and exploring fire roads in the woods. Four wheeling in mud sand or rocks has never been my desire and if it were I’d have a different vehicle (and most likely be traveling solo).
We stopped, exhausted on the Ohio Turnpike, a toll road cutting across the north of the state to Pennsylvania. Our Florida Sunpass Pro works in all 18 states where EZ-Pass is used which made our choice simple. We found a rest area unlike any other. They even have RV parking for $20 a night with full hookups, a dump station and drinking water.
We parked in the car area and discovered free hot showers and first rate laundry machines to do our wash for three bucks. No one else was in the “Truckers Lounge” area, rather forbiddingly named! We asked a trucker if it was open to car drivers and he laughed and said “Of course!” so we dived right in. We brought dinner, teriyaki chicken on noodles at a restaurant in Akron so we went to bed with chores in hand. It’s a funny part of living on the road, the freedom yes but only juxtaposed with the need to manage your time and get manual jobs done.
I carried our toilet tank to the dump and then hand filled our water tank with our buckets and siphon. Easy in and easy out! All that fuss about hygiene to suppress Covid comes naturally when you don’t have a utility company to take care of your life for you. Van life requires a lot of attention to details in between the You Tube sunsets and diaphanous nymphs going surfing. We got our details taken care of before we set off for Erie, the city on the lake.
We were last in Erie around 2001 walking in the beach with Emma who came before Cheyenne and had traveled with us on the boat from California. It was a cold stormy winter day and we moved on. This time was different.
Erie in September is a pretty town with an abundance of green trees and thick lawns. The city was bursting with activity on a Saturday afternoon, gatherings on porches, food trucks, running races, dog walkers and anglers. On the water it was the same scene of activity. I guess in a place where you can’t take outdoor weather for granted you get out when you can.
With no ocean swells to slow you down the slightest breeze can be enough to keep your boat moving. It looked like fun actually, edging the boat through light airs in flat water.
I was astonished to see, on a side note, a 20 foot Flicka sailboat motoring into the marina. I lived on that model of boat for a decade and sailed (and motored it) up and down California as well as the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas. I sold it in Ft Myers when Layne, my new wife, decided it was too small for two and we cruised a catamaran. All that went through my mind standing on the edge of Lake Erie.
And that in a way is part of the privilege of van life, being able to drop in on life in progress. I have no desire to stop and settle in any one place but it is really a pleasure to find oneself in the middle of a sunny afternoon’s activities.
Anglers in a boat came by close to the sea wall and started chatting with the fisherman standing next to his pole. Layne overheard them chatting as the boat idled. In commiserating with the fisherman on land and his lack of luck, the boater offered he’d been out ninety miles (!) looking for fish and shared his catch with the luckless man standing on the wall.
Then I heard a woman ask another man fishing if he owned the Plymouth glistening in the sun nearby. He allowed he was and she noted he was dressed in matching teal…It turns out he’s owned the car since he bought it when he was 15 and that means he’s owned in for 39 years. He also volunteered at top volume he’s spent $200,000 on the car and doesn’t regret a penny of it!
When Rusty had finished walking and sniffing we sat together at a picnic table watching the afternoon unfold on the lakeshore. Layne was back aboard GANNET2 washing Montana potatoes bought at the side of the highway for our dinner of bangers and mash, to be eaten at our wild camp later in a state forest in New York.
We drove out through the city, past the lakefront mansions, under a thick canopy of trees, on crappy torn up streets in the poorer neighborhoods with families sitting on their porches, through a bustling restaurant going downtown and past the ring of brick industrial palaces of industry.
It was a pleasant stop but we’ve been here in the cold, leaf-free winter days and we’re glad to be moving on. We’ll be far south when that happens this year.
Highway 5 along the Lake Erie shore ran mostly out of sight of the water and gave us a taste of the sights of rural Pennsylvania, a mostly empty roadway rising and dipping through farms and woods.
All we got to see of the Amish was the signs warning of their slow moving presence.
Missionary zeal is on view reducing religious belief to a bumper sticker statement. I was rather more impressed by the cheerful neighborliness I saw at the lake.
Ride on lawnmowers on steroids.
I really like the neat and tidy homesteads. I would be an untidy embarrassment we’re into live in such a place.
I think many of the fields that looked like watercress to my suburban eyes was probably soybeans.
There was no mistaking the grape vines which grow thick and hearty in this soil. I was surprised how close together they plant the vines but there were miles of grapes along the highway both sides of the stateline.
And then we found ourselves on Highway 5 in New York. I’d like to have seen more of Pennsylvania, a state of excessive beauty which I enjoy every time I drive though.
This trip I’m keen to see the St Lawrence one more time on our way to Vermont.
