Twenty-nine years and counting

This is weird but I know exactly what I was doing 29 years ago on June 11. I was teaching at Dr. E. P. Scarlett and we had a celebration of creative writing. I was wearing a skirt, which was unusual for any year. Richard came to pick me up after school. I remember I was having trouble with an ankle tendon and was limping a little.

We just had the interior detailed

I got into the car and we headed for the auto brokerage. It was the only time we have used a broker to buy a vehicle and I don’t remember exactly what our rationale was. We got to the lot and there it was, a brand new 1993 cherry red Toyota Previa. It came from Vancouver and we thought it was just about the coolest van going.

We had arranged to sell Kermie the 1970’s Volkswagen pop top and we were looking for something that would let us sleep in it and carry bikes. We christened the new van Beano, after its jelly bean shape, not the product designed to reduce gas after you eat beans. Once we realized the confusion we thought of calling it Jelly Bean instead but Beano had already stuck.

We have been on some wonderful adventures in Beano over the years. We have slept in it a few nights when we arrived late the night before a cycling tour was to begin. Once when we were preparing for a ride on the Going to the Sun Road in Montana, the wind roared like crazy all night and we were amazed at how quiet it was in the van. We slept in it again the night before The Silver Triangle ride one year, and it carried us to the start of many cycling trips in Alberta and B.C. It has outlasted several single bikes and one tandem.

We bought the van before we bought our first tandem and the tandem not only fitted into the van easily when the middle seat was removed, it also matched the colour almost perfectly. We didn’t have the opportunity to pick the colour of the tandem. There was only one in stock when we wanted to buy ours so the match was a lucky accident.

When Beano was new it carried 6 of us and all our gear from Vancouver to Sydney where we rented kayaks. We paddled to D’Arcy Island and spent the night there before paddling back and piling into the van for the return trip.

Beano hosted a ‘touring’ poetry group at one point. The L group, as we called ourselves, was invited to do a reading at a bookstore a couple of hours north of Calgary. I remember driving the backroads with Richard the evening before the reading so we could get the required number of miles on the engine to break it in for the drive the next day on the highway.

In addition to carrying people and their cargo, Beano has been used as a moving van a number of times. I moved my school stuff in it when I transferred from Scarlett to Ernest Morrow, then when I moved from Morrow to Pearson, and finally from Pearson to Forest Lawn.

It helped Richard’s parents move to the house on the hill, and moved David’s stuff two or three times. It also carried some of Mum’s stuff when she sold her house and moved into the seniors’ lodge. It has carried dressers and beds and most recently, new chairs for our living room.

I love driving it because I never have to worry about having enough cargo space. It won’t fit a full 4X8 sheet of plywood lying down but it will take that sheet if it’s first ripped in half lengthwise. We brought Richard’s lathe home in it and almost every other piece of machinery that now lives in the shop. It has carried workbenches and tool boxes and chunks of trees salvaged for woodworking projects. It has carried all the birds we have had and their various cages and it has made many trips with friends and family. I remember one very hot summer Richard and I picked up Mum and took her for a drive just to cool off because Beano had air conditioning.

It has had its windshield replaced 3 times, has been broken into once, and has been in one accident. I think the guy behind me fell asleep at a light and bashed into the back end. The break-in occurred when it was parked at a helicopter landing site just west of Golden while we were at a backcountry lodge hiking. That is a number of years ago now and, at that time, we got the second last tail light available for that model in North America.

And that, eventually, is the problem with old vehicles: you can’t easily get parts. So far we’ve been lucky. We’ve had to have it towed a couple of times when the battery died but it’s still running. It has been in a garage most of its life so the rust isn’t as bad as it could have been. When I had the summer tires put on it a couple of weeks ago the guy informed me that there was still lots of tread on the winter tires but they were ‘older than dirt’ and he couldn’t, in good conscience, recommend that I put them back on the van for next winter. I told him to toss the tires. I’ll buy a new set in the fall.

Beano is rusting

I don’t know how much longer we’ll keep the van. A lot depends on parts. Once things start to go wrong with it and the dealership can’t get parts, it will be time to pass it on to someone with the desire to look for parts in junk yards. I’ve heard of those vans going for 400,000 km if people are willing to give them the TLC they need to keep them going. I’m rather hoping I can drive it until we’ve had 30 years together. If it keeps running well chances are good but there’s no guarantee.

I don't know what I’d replace it with. We’ve been waiting for a hybrid Sienna for years and they’ve finally arrived. Still, I go back and forth on whether I really need another van or not. I know a lot of people make fun of minivans but I’d be hard pressed to find another vehicle that is so versatile. Then again, maybe I could get away with something more like an SUV. I’m certainly not ready to take the leap to a one car family. For me it’s not only about convenience: it’s also about independence. There aren’t that many times when we each need a vehicle at the same time but they still occur and I like the freedom of not having to plan transportation around a single vehicle. It’s a luxury and I enjoy it.

The siren call of new vehicles is also having an effect and I drive Beano less than I once did. Now, when I drive an hour out of town to work on ukuleles each week, I more often take the Previa. It has a backup camera, adaptive cruise control, bluetooth pairing with my phone, and heated seats. I do like those features.

In spite of all the whistles and bells available, I remain attached to Beano. Each time I get into the driver’s seat I marvel at what a good old van it is and how much I enjoy sitting higher up than in the car. So here’s to Beano, 29 years and counting, and here’s to whatever adventures are still in store for us in its company. I’m sure that, when the time comes for Beano to go to another owner, there will be another blog post. Stay tuned.

Not bad looking for 29