Tikkabik

My wife and my sister in law have been talking on and off for months about my sister in law's van. She and her husband were planning to replace the van come spring with a new model -- that's why I have, in the past, alluded to my need to get through one more winter with our own frickin' van. My plan was to limp through the winter and save up enough to buy the van from my sister in law come spring.

She couldn't wait, however, and closed a deal last week on a new Chevy Tahoe. This accelerated our plans, and while I can't say that I had the cash on hand to close the deal, I did manage to beg, borrow and steal enough to get the van on the road yesterday.

It's a 1996 Chevy van, a G10 model converted by Glaval. It's Glaval's Gladiator Sabre model, which, at the time, was a premium conversion -- high top, running boards and ground effects, thick carpeting, four velour-covered captain's chairs, a bench in back that folds out to a decently sized bed. What the kids love the most is the TV and VCR. What I love the most is its mammoth size -- it's like a living room on wheels. I parked it right next to the frickin' van last night. It's longer than the Aerostar by about a foot. It's wider and taller too. All told, it's giant.

Believe it or not, the big van has considerably more mileage than the Aerostar. It's almost all long-distance highway mileage though, and much to my sister in law's credit, she took care of it meticulously with regular tune ups and oil changes. She's also fixed almost all of what's broke, so as a result, it runs great and we have a marvelously preserved van to use.

Where's this leave the frickin' van? We're keeping it. About four years ago I decided because I was working out of the house that we could reduce our load to one car. But since then the kids have gotten older (and we had another one), and our schedules aren't nearly as easy to coordinate around a single vehicle as they used to be. So I'm going to hang on to it for a while, and use it as a second car for when I need to haul stuff to the dump, or take one of the kids some place when Bonnie's otherwise indisposed. So I'm sure much hilarity will ensue for some time to come still.