Journey of a Lifetime

The Queen Mary in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

A little over 22 years ago, we took one of those journeys you remember for the rest of your entire life.
We set up our giant ‘79 Ford E250 van for camping and headed west.
The E250 was a giant leap from tradition. I was used to buying smallish and economical cars.
But fellow bus-drivers at Regional Transit Service suggested I try a van to replace our rusted VW Dasher station-wagon, which was only running on three cylinders (out of four).
So I started looking for a van.
Tried quite a few, but a bus-driver suggested Ford made the best van.
One afternoon I was headed out past Webster to look at a van in the SwapSheet.
Didn’t find it, but noticed a dark orange van in the used-car lot of a Chevy dealer.
Stopped and tried it, and promptly crippled. Dead battery.
Bought it anyway. —Not some boudoir with winking spider-webs on the ceiling. But finished inside; not an unfinished cargo van. (I had tried both.)
It was a custom van of sorts. Windows had been cut into the sides.
We called it the “Queen Mary” because parking it at Weggers needed two moves. —Turn toward the slot, back up, and then go in.
It was like a ship.
I was thinking it was the Small-Block, but it was the giant 460. Pistons the size of paint cans!
No matter; what a cruiser.
A vehicle designed for the Eisenhower Interstate System. Set the krooze at 65, and turn on the air-conditioning, which was both front and back.
We had Cole Muffler install a trailer-hitch, and aimed for my baby-sister in Lynchburg, VA with two motorbikes on the trailer.
It overheated.
It was beastly hot outside, but it didn’t boil over.
Just ran hot.
The following year I took out the giant radiator and had BJR Radiator recore it, three-row to four.
Replaced all the coolant hoses; that thing wasn’t boiling over if I could help it.
Also replaced the thermostat.
The E250 is something Old Henry would be proud to have his name on.
The front suspension had long gorgeous forged swingarms, the sort of thing you’d find on a Model T.
But 10 mpg the whole time I had it. That’s 30 gallons every 300 miles. SHLURP! (Two tanks; 40 gallons total — a potential fireball.)
I also did a few other things to it. Bought new steel 16.5-inch wheelrims from Frey the Wheelman, and mounted four Michelin snows.
I also mounted four new Koni® shock-absorbers — did it myself.


Grand Tetons at 4 p.m.

Ready-to-roll; ready to head west — to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and Pikes Peak.
No scenic routes this time; I’d made a cross-country in 1980, that was dreadfully boring because the scenic routes were just like here until you got to Kansas.
And in Kansas we took the old Santa Fe Trail; back-and-forth: first due west, then due south, then repeat.
I wasn’t doing that this time. Just onto the Thruway and Interstate-90 from then on.
All the way to Montana.
First night we camped out in a giant RV park in Indiana; cheek-to-jowel with other RVs, most long-time stayers.
Next night Wisconsin in a thunderstorm.
Next night was over 100 degrees hard by the Missouri River in an open field.
We had screens in the open windows, so they kept the ‘skeeters out.
And on-and-on it went, gobbling up gas and miles.
Planned to use a motel eventually, but the E250 was preferable, so we camped out in it every night.
It was turning into a mind-boggling adventure.
On to Mt. Rushmore. 110 degrees, uphill all the way, but no trouble at all, even with the air on full-blast.
The Queen Mary just flattened it.
It felt like the E250 was good for Californy, but we turned south in Montana toward Yellowstone.


Weird things are going on in Yellowstone.

Can’t remember if the Tetons are north or south of Yellowstone (they’re south), but we camped that night in the only campground with vacancy we could find, south of the Tetons.
Woke up the next morning, and there they were.
Grand Tetons at dawn.
38 degrees in July, but I ain’t missin’ this.
Every American, by law, should be required to see the Grand Tetons at dawn.
I will never forget it as long as I live.
Then east across Wyoming. I remember three things:
—1) Coming out of a supermarket in Jackson Hole I faced a sheer mountainside. “Ya don’t see stuff like this at Weggers,” I observed.
—2) We pulled into a lonely gas-station out in the middle of nowhere, and I swear the people inside cheered. Bingo! A 40-gallon sale.
—3) That night we camped out in Curt Gowdy State Park. No facilities whatsoever. No phone, no electricity, no water, no check-in booth; NOTHING!
Cellphones were nonexistent then.
Yet time to change the oil and filter.
My wife was trembling with fear. NO MISTAKES! Here we are out in the middle of nowhere — it’s not even on the geodesic maps. What if I mucked up?
Nothing to it! The drain-plug for that gigundo sump was a soldered-on repair, but I’d done it before.
A slam-dunk! The waste-oil got put in two Weggers milk jugs, and went all the way back to Rochester.
Off to Devil’s Tower.
Anyone who’s seen the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” visits Devil’s Tower.
We drove around it. No landing pad for alien spaceships.
Just huge infestations of prairie-dogs.
Then south into Colorado, down past Denver, and west on I-70.
Up and up the Front Range, finally through the Eisenhower Tunnels at the top, 11,158 feet above sea-level.
Then down and down we went, south off I-70 toward Leadville, finally to camp out in a broad fertile valley above 7,000 feet.
Another 38 degree night.
I think it was the valley of the Arkansas River, although at that point the river was little more than a rocky creek-wash about 15-20 feet wide.
Down to Ouray in the mountains toward Silverton, and up the Million-Dollar Highway at the end. (“Million-Dollar” because the pavement is flecked with gold.)
Ouray is in a deep mountain cul-de-sac. The only way out south is hairpin up the mountain.
There’s Ouray far below; an alpine view.
Finally back east, after camping in an abandoned open-pit coal mine near Durango.
But first the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge.
The Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge was built in 1929 over the Royal Gorge in southern Colorado, a HUGE narrow cleft (gorge) through the mountains wherein the Arkansas River flows.
The bridge is an incredible 1,053 feet above the river.
The Piper Tri-Pacer I flew in 1956 cruized at about that altitude. The Denver & Rio Grande built it’s railroad west through the Rockies up through Royal Gorge, so as we walked out on the bridge, a freight-train was threading it far below.
The cars were tiny!
The bridge is only one lane wide, with a deck of wooden planks — but probably wide enough to pass two Model Ts.
The largest vehicle allowed on it was our van; no RVs, no camper trailers, no camper pickups.
I remember as we started out across it, a wave in the planks proceeded us, and bounced off the other side back at us.
It’s a suspension-bridge; and unlike anything I’d ever seen before. What I’d seen is BIG; big enough to not be effected by vehicle weight.
The Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge is small. Yet at 1,053 feet is probably the highest. The New River Gorge bridge in WV is 876 feet above the river. The suspension bridges I’ve been on were over rivers navigable by ocean-going ships; around 135+ feet of clearance. —And wide enough for seven-or-more traffic lanes. Also stable enough to not be effected by vehicle-weight.
That night we camped out in a rustic campground near Cañon City.
I remember two things:
—A) I stepped outside into the pitch-dark, and overhead were “billions and billions” of stars; more than I’d ever seen before.
—B) Outside I could also hear the nocturnal yips of coyotes.
Then it was up past Pikes Peak, but no mistake this time.
Last trip we drove past it, but this time we’re drivin’ up.
And here we go again: “every American, by law,” should be required to drive the Pikes Peak road.
Although I hear by now it’s paved.
When I drove it, it was dirt.
And there were no guardrails, which meant NO MISTAKES. A thousand foot drop awaited if you mucked up.
At the top I sang “America the Beautiful.” After all, that’s where that song was written, by Katharine Lee Bates, published in 1895. —First as a poem, but later orchestrated.
And you can see why: “Amber waves of grain” to the east, and “Purple mountain majesties” to the west.
8.5 mpg up-and-back; but mostly in mid gear.


First vehicle in.

The E250 lasted a few more years after that trip.
It moved most of our stuff out to West Bloomfield to our new house, and was our first vehicle in our new driveway.
But it became unreliable.
If the engine was hot, it wouldn’t crank. Too much compression.
It had to cool.
Finally the floor rusted out around the rear wheel-wells, so that slush was getting inside.
Rust also appeared under the custom windows. The window cut-outs were probably cut with a Sawz-All.
Finally, I parked it. It’s gigantic C6 auto-tranny left a puddle of ATF on our driveway.
We donated it to charity, and I have a hunch its motor is powering another truck.
But I really liked that monster despite the 10 mpg.
So much of me was in it — I also rebuilt its four-barrel carburetor on my kitchen countertop.
And it also gave me an unforgettable journey.
I’ve had a van ever since. First a 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, and more recently a 2005 Toyota Sienna.
In other words, more minivans than the Queen Mary.
Although the Astrovan is more a truck — just small.

• All photos by the so-called “old guy” with the Pentax Spotmatic camera. (RE: “‘Old guy’ with the SpotMatic.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). The “SpotMatic” is my old Pentax SpotMatic single-lens-reflex 35mm film camera I used about 40 years, since replaced by a Nikon D100 digital camera.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “Webster” is a suburb east of Rochester; actually an old rural farm town.
• The Ford “Small-Block” (a V8) was about 5-6 liters engine displacement; the giant 460 was 460 cubic-inches displacement, over 7.5 liters. (The Ford “Small-Block” was a response to the phenomonaly successful Chevrolet “Small-Block” introduced in the 1955 model year. —Chevrolet introduced the unrelated “Big Block” in the 1965 model year. The 460 was Ford’s “Big Block.” Such large engines were gas-guzzlers.)
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.
• A “Tri-Pacer” was Piper Aircraft’s high-winged tricycle landing-gear small private airplane marketed in the ‘50s; a four-seater. —Some are still flying.
• “Billions and billions of stars” is Astronomer Carl Sagan.
• “Auto-tranny” is automatic transmission. “ATF” is automatic transmission fluid, a hydraulic fluid.