1st Econo road trip w/ pictures.

Well I finally got back from my trip with the econoline and it exceeded all of my expectations. The purpose of the trip was to see one of my best friends get married in lakeside Montana. Being nervous and anxious about the trip I crawled under the van to do I final examination to see if it would handle the trip and I'm glad I did because I noticed my heater hose was on the verge of blowing out so I took care of it.

Wednesday : we headed out around 10:30 from twin falls while it was pouring rain. I had only about 150 miles on my van since I had it running and most of that was in town driving. So this was the first time on the highway in the rain. There is the whole in the floor about a 1/4" all the way around my steering box and mist and rain would come in from the road and sprinkle my feet and even more so when I would get passed by a semi.

We made it all the way to Clark canyon reservoir until we had our first malfunction. We were going about 60 then the van started to shutter and buck, we dropped down to 50 and we were fine for a few minutes then the same thing, until we were eventually going 35mph all the while I'm doing a mental checklist of everything that could have been going wrong and my wife in the passenger seat giving me a look like "we had to take the van didn't we!?" I deduced the problem was a fuel filter so I pulled off the side of the road and cut the engine but let my electric fuel pump run until the bowl was full and made it into dillon Montana and replaced the filter before my pump and also bought a spare.

We finally made it into lake canyon ferry in Helena Montana and met up with some friends and my parents who were also camping and set up camp for the night. We had drove about 450 miles.

Thursday: we spent most of the day eating camp food and drinking beer and even got to take my dads boat on the lake for some fishing but we got skunked.

Friday: we left camp early in the morning to head out to kallispell Montana to see my friend get hitched it was a beautiful drive and while driving through Seeley lake area we got to drive by a house that I had done some masonry on a few years back when I lived in the state and it was nice to be able to show my wife. We arrived at our campgrounds and spent the rest of the day with my buddy during his last day as a single man. We had drove about 250 miles.

Saturday: we mostly sat around waiting for him to get married so I grabbed a haircut in kalispell since my hair was about as long as it had ever been, we grabbed a shower at his future in laws place got all slicked up and actually ushered for him last minute. He was married right on flathead lake at a resturaunt. I ate about 4 plates of food at the reception and my wife and I got changed and took off for the bitter-root valley (my home town) to break up the drive home a little.

Feeling adventurous we decided instead of staying at my dads house that night (he was still in Helena) that we wanted to stay everynight of the trip in the van so we visited a mountain hot springs that I used to frequent just outside of Missoula about 20 miles on the other side of lolo pass. The drive was 170 miles. We got to the trail head to the hot springs at 11:30pm and hiked the mile and a half trail using only light from our kerosene lantern. We relaxed for a few hours and slept in the water for a while too and then hiked back to the van. We drove back to the top of the pass and slept there at the visitor center. It was 3:45am by the time we got into bed.

Sunday: we wanted to get up early for our last leg of the trip but despite it being the coldest night of the trip (there was still alot of snow on the pass) we managed to sleep in to 12:00. We cooked our breakfast and took off and stopped at my hometown brewery in Hamilton to pick up a growler of my favorite brew. we then drove to salmon Idaho to visit my aunt who had just had her first baby and i got to greet my new cousin. We then drove through stanely then up over galena pass and through sun valley. And we finally made it home to twin falls at around 10:30. We had drove around 430 miles.

We had such a wonderful time and ended up putting over 1500 miles on our van. Not bad considering I only needed a wheel hub, master cylinder/wheel cylinders and a carb rebuild. We averaged between 18-20 mpg the whole trip and I was running a little rich the whole time. I am very impressed with this vehicle there are many more trips in our future. This $400 dollar van has allready given me and my wife some memories that we will have with us for the rest of our lives. The pictures will be in order of our trip, except the first two that were taken a day before. Please forgive the pics taken through our bug splattered window, consider them econo-vision.



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Great Pictures!!!!!

Thankyou! It's a bummer to be back home, I now want to live on the road! I also couldn't believe how good the mpg's were!

that's really cool! looks like fun

Dude, I and almost everybody here is jealous

#1. Because your alot younger than most of us
#2. Because thats the kind of stuff we used to do
#3. Because thats what life and memories are made of!

Thanks for posting, you got some guts taking that thing on the road like that

looks and sounds like a rreal nice adventure thanks for sharing it with us

sounds like a first of many trips

First of many trips? Yeah! I've got 3 or 4 more planned out for the summer the whole time I was driving it I was thinking why don't they make similar vehicles anymore? It looks good, it's fuel efficient, it purely functional, and you can work on it with a small toolbox. Do any of you guys go camping in your early vans anymore or are they weekend warriors?

econo-vision......love it..........ive been looking through econovision since 79'... imaybe thats why i didnt notice any bugs or road film. Great tri story, keep on truckin

I camp in mine all the time. I pretty much live out of it all summer in darby mt. There still looks like there is quit a bit of snow up on lolo. How recent were those pictures taken.

Those pictures of lolo were taken two days ago. Ramian when you are up in the bitter-root valley this summer make your up Jerry Johnson hot springs on the other side of Lolo pass. It's a beautiful drive, a beautiful hike, and an awesome hot springs! If you are interested in it let me know and I'll give you directions.

oh, to be young and adventurous wish i was still that brave:)
wildbillinva

Looks and sounds like a great weekend you guys had cool pics -- thanks

Great pictures! That is what old cars and vans are all about. So many people fix them and keep them stored in the garage. Thats no fun. Use them! And your answer to why they don't make these anymore? Plain and simple, the auto manufacturers are idiots compared to fifty years ago. Keep having fun and you will stay young!!

Magic Bus wrote:Dude, I and almost everybody here is jealous

#1. Because your alot younger than most of us
#2. Because thats the kind of stuff we used to do
#3. Because thats what life and memories are made of!

Thanks for posting, you got some guts taking that thing on the road like that

AMEN to that! That brings back memories of my cross country trip in my '65 E100 many, many years ago.