The Vanagon

I found this photograph, and it looks very similar to our family vanagon. We got it in the early 80's and it died while I was on my mission in '93. What great memories......

We would travel across the country in that car. I grew up in New York, but all of my grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles lived in the west. So we would spend four days in the car, and three nights camping along the way. My dad would take out the middle seat of the van, and put in a platform, that he created for this trip. He would put all the suitcases, food, tents, ect underneath the platform, two foam pads on top, and all the sleeping bags and pillows in the back. We never wore our shoes in the car. They were tucked into the holes against the sliding door. I was always a little nervous that one of my shoes would be left at the last reststop. We would have the entire area to do whatever (it was about the size of a queen size mattress), except when my dad wasn't driving. Then he would sleep on the diagonal of the bed, leaving two small triangles of space. Life was so different before car seats and seat belts. Our only entertainment was listening to the soundtrack of Annie and Songs for a Mormon Child. I quote from my journal, "We are driving through Nebraska, I wrote Nebraska so long because it take so long to go through."

I learned how to drive standard on that car. The van does not have the easiest clutch, and I was told that if you could drive a vw, you can drive any standard car. My brother (six years younger) loved when I had my driving lessons. He would yell to his friends, "Kaylynn's learning to drive!" All the neighborhood 11 year olds would come running. Again the middle seat was left out, and their game would start: who could remain standing while I jerked the car around.

Once I learned how to drive the car, I got to use it pretty regularly. (One of the benefits of living in a small town where your parents work at the same place.) The car did have some minor problems: the gas tank had a leak in it, so we never filled it more than 1/4 tank full of gas. Because the gas gage was broken, the car was constantly running out of gas. We had an extra gas can in the car, so I was never stranded anywhere. The sliding door was also broken, so I would never open it. I was always taking people home from school, and they would have to go through the two front doors. Once a girl was about to open the side door, I stated matter of factly, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Then I explained how the door would fall off if she opened the door.

Intermittingly, the only way you could start it was by rolling it down the hill. Luckily, we lived near a hill. We would push the car around the corner to Sand Road, my dad would start the car, he would go around the block, and we would all jump in, probably through the front two doors.