Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
Gallivanter: An Ominous Beginning and an Optimistic Future
Back in the day, I had a van. In fact, for a short time it was my address. I had a 1992 GMC G30 Vandura in my snowboard bum days of Breckenridge, CO. I had actually bought the van to start a mobile oil change business. However, as I was kind of an irresponsible party alcoholic in my early 20's living in a ski town, that never materialized. I did use it while I laid tile in multi million dollar mansions surrounding the area, but that was about as much work as it accomplished. Mostly, it held my belongings and served as a place to sleep in the cold Colorado winter nights in between the times I had a real roof over my head.
This is where my story starts. In the lower atmospheres of my thinking and my youth, I never really realized just how great that vehicle was. Come to think of it, I remember the tons of compliments I was paid about how cool the van was while at gas pumps and in parking lots. It was just a van really. Nothing special and stock. People wiser than me in my youth knew what I had though.
My fondest memories of the time with that van were the times when it was my address. I would periodically lose my place to stay from crashing on one couch or another and the van would become my home. It was a great thing that I knew the people I did and found a great place to park my home on wheels and I had the best place in town. The Beaver Run parking lot; less than 100 yards to the lift.
My daily routine was as follows. Wake up around 8 or so in the morning, usually intoxicated from the previous night's ski town shenanigans, put on my snowboarding gear and brush my teeth in the parking lot while the gapers looked on with quizzical looks trying to figure out my story and just why exactly I was brushing my teeth outside of a van that obviously held everything that I owned. Next, I would walk 100 yards to the lift and shred Breck a new one for an hour or six. Then, back to the van to change for work, head to the bus stop and take a half hour bus ride down to Frisco to start the evening shift at A-train Pizzeria. I would have driven to work, but I didn't have the necessary piece of plastic to operate my beloved van legally. See paragraph one. A-Train was the kind of kitchen that encouraged drinking on the job and we got going early. By the time we were ready to punch out, our buzz had a good start and the night was young. Breck tonight? Frisco tonight? Who knew and I rarely remembered. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I sold that van some years later, but always loved it. It is only now that I am embarking on a new van adventure that I remember my first van. A vehicle is so much more than a piece of machinery and transportation. It is a feeling and a statement of being. It is a relationship. We, as van people, have our own way of looking at the world and at our vehicles.
If you are looking for just another thread to glean technical information from or to help you decide what van to buy, this thread is not it. This thread will be the true story of a van build and all the trials and tribulations of what it takes to make a 4x4 van happen in your driveway with no previous vehicle modification experience. This thread will also take some effort on your part. I love to write. A lot. Which means you will need to read. A lot.
Some of you may find it drivel, but some of you may find it riveting. My explanations and stories will be in depth and probably contain a bunch of fluff to the front, side, or back of what I am talking about. I would love if people had a great reaction to what I write, but I am ok if they don't. This thread is for me to sit down and write to take my mind off running a company, maintaining a personal life, and to document my own adventure building Gallivanter.
I used to write a pretty successful thread as far a forums are concerned (shameless plug to click signature) called The Adventures of Tyson and Hobbes. In fact, it is still the 19th most popular thread in all of Day trippin' on advrider.com out of over 10,000 threads and I haven't written on the dang thing in several years. I miss writing and I am going to take it on again with this project and attempt to write a different kind of build thread. I hope you'll join me along the way.
The basics on what is to come:
Flying to buy a POS van
Ending up with several vans and a mildly unhappy girlfriend
Dealing with multiple crappy parts from salvage yards
Playing with a plasma cutter for the first time
Making new friends
The frustrations of not having a shop
The frustrations of not having enough money
The frustrations of missed deadlines and winter
Here are the goals for the project over the next few years
MG's 4x4 conversion which is mostly installed and an immobile van in my driveway.
Interior build that I am sure will change a million times
POP top- Hey MG, waiting on you buddy. Oh, and money. That too.
Some fancy lights. Ima gonna put like 4 light bars on this thing. Prolly not. Lol
Use the F-ing thing! Ski in the winter. Baja. Raft hauling rig. It's an outdoor machine and so am I.
So starts of the build of Gallivanter.
Below is the link to the Google Sheet I have created where I am documenting every last penny spent on Gallivanter in chronological order. Click anytime to see where I am at.
Sheet updated: 7-25-17
Gallivanter's Cost Sheet
Back in the day, I had a van. In fact, for a short time it was my address. I had a 1992 GMC G30 Vandura in my snowboard bum days of Breckenridge, CO. I had actually bought the van to start a mobile oil change business. However, as I was kind of an irresponsible party alcoholic in my early 20's living in a ski town, that never materialized. I did use it while I laid tile in multi million dollar mansions surrounding the area, but that was about as much work as it accomplished. Mostly, it held my belongings and served as a place to sleep in the cold Colorado winter nights in between the times I had a real roof over my head.
This is where my story starts. In the lower atmospheres of my thinking and my youth, I never really realized just how great that vehicle was. Come to think of it, I remember the tons of compliments I was paid about how cool the van was while at gas pumps and in parking lots. It was just a van really. Nothing special and stock. People wiser than me in my youth knew what I had though.
My fondest memories of the time with that van were the times when it was my address. I would periodically lose my place to stay from crashing on one couch or another and the van would become my home. It was a great thing that I knew the people I did and found a great place to park my home on wheels and I had the best place in town. The Beaver Run parking lot; less than 100 yards to the lift.
My daily routine was as follows. Wake up around 8 or so in the morning, usually intoxicated from the previous night's ski town shenanigans, put on my snowboarding gear and brush my teeth in the parking lot while the gapers looked on with quizzical looks trying to figure out my story and just why exactly I was brushing my teeth outside of a van that obviously held everything that I owned. Next, I would walk 100 yards to the lift and shred Breck a new one for an hour or six. Then, back to the van to change for work, head to the bus stop and take a half hour bus ride down to Frisco to start the evening shift at A-train Pizzeria. I would have driven to work, but I didn't have the necessary piece of plastic to operate my beloved van legally. See paragraph one. A-Train was the kind of kitchen that encouraged drinking on the job and we got going early. By the time we were ready to punch out, our buzz had a good start and the night was young. Breck tonight? Frisco tonight? Who knew and I rarely remembered. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I sold that van some years later, but always loved it. It is only now that I am embarking on a new van adventure that I remember my first van. A vehicle is so much more than a piece of machinery and transportation. It is a feeling and a statement of being. It is a relationship. We, as van people, have our own way of looking at the world and at our vehicles.
If you are looking for just another thread to glean technical information from or to help you decide what van to buy, this thread is not it. This thread will be the true story of a van build and all the trials and tribulations of what it takes to make a 4x4 van happen in your driveway with no previous vehicle modification experience. This thread will also take some effort on your part. I love to write. A lot. Which means you will need to read. A lot.
Some of you may find it drivel, but some of you may find it riveting. My explanations and stories will be in depth and probably contain a bunch of fluff to the front, side, or back of what I am talking about. I would love if people had a great reaction to what I write, but I am ok if they don't. This thread is for me to sit down and write to take my mind off running a company, maintaining a personal life, and to document my own adventure building Gallivanter.
I used to write a pretty successful thread as far a forums are concerned (shameless plug to click signature) called The Adventures of Tyson and Hobbes. In fact, it is still the 19th most popular thread in all of Day trippin' on advrider.com out of over 10,000 threads and I haven't written on the dang thing in several years. I miss writing and I am going to take it on again with this project and attempt to write a different kind of build thread. I hope you'll join me along the way.
The basics on what is to come:
Flying to buy a POS van
Ending up with several vans and a mildly unhappy girlfriend
Dealing with multiple crappy parts from salvage yards
Playing with a plasma cutter for the first time
Making new friends
The frustrations of not having a shop
The frustrations of not having enough money
The frustrations of missed deadlines and winter
Here are the goals for the project over the next few years
MG's 4x4 conversion which is mostly installed and an immobile van in my driveway.
Interior build that I am sure will change a million times
POP top- Hey MG, waiting on you buddy. Oh, and money. That too.
Some fancy lights. Ima gonna put like 4 light bars on this thing. Prolly not. Lol
Use the F-ing thing! Ski in the winter. Baja. Raft hauling rig. It's an outdoor machine and so am I.
So starts of the build of Gallivanter.
Below is the link to the Google Sheet I have created where I am documenting every last penny spent on Gallivanter in chronological order. Click anytime to see where I am at.
Sheet updated: 7-25-17
Gallivanter's Cost Sheet
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