Greta Van Blau- '16 144 low roof 4x4 project.

[OffroadHamster]

LOADED!! Looking forward to a couple of weeks of America's best tradition...the road trip!!

UTAHHHHHHH Relaxing time, followed by Wyoming relaxing time with my girls, Sister and favorite Nephew.

No real offroading on this trip unfortunately, not with the bikes hanging off the back, but plenty of dispersed camping and adventure in the forecast!!

[OffroadHamster]

Well we missed two of the largest earthquakes in So Cal in the last couple decades, but managed to have a lot of fun. Saw some great wilderness, participated in the human Zoo which is Yellowstone, saw a grip of bear( lots of black and a single brown), elk, bison, and deer, and averaged 17.8mpg over 2915 miles.

[asimba2]

Yellowstone has been one of my favorite National Parks so far. If you haven't done-so already, get your kids started with a National Parks Passport. My 4 year old gets super excited to get each new stamp, and if we can manage to not lose it, it will be a fun record of our travels.

[ranchworld]

+1 on the passport. My girl is all about the badges she gets for doing the junior ranger programs at each park. Lots of national monuments have the same program too.

Great photos, nice to see the European vans.

[OffroadHamster]

My Oldest (4 at the end of this month) has 3 national parks and 2 national monuments under her belt, well on her ranger vest anyway. Lots of fun, she loves collecting things and the badges are definitely unique and memory filled. Yellowstone was great, We will be going back in a few years when the kids can do more hiking as there is about 60 miles of trail that I really wanted to explore and didnt get to given their ages. We will probably go back in May next time, risk the cold and snow to avoid the crowds.

The Euro vans were cool, the Woelcke Autark from Germany was especially cool.

[OffroadHamster]

Gearing up to do a remodel of sorts:

Moving the refrigerator to behind the drivers seat and adding a shallow "tray" to the top of the new cabinet for in transit food essentials.

In the current refrigerators place I am going to place a custom stainless fresh water tank. Tank has a sloped bottom to collect all the water at the supply line, a drain for evacuating the tank under the van, an air vent optimized to allow complete filling when the van is parked on an angle and a top fed fill port. It also will have a 4" deck plate (like on a boat) to allow clean out of the tank.

Flat pattern water jet cut from cutsendcut.com is $219 in 16GA 304SS, deck plate and bulkhead fittings come it at $38, and I need a new bottle of tri-mix to weld it all up ($48). Tank will hold 27 gallons and fit a rectangular cavity approximately 18" wide by 23" deep by 18" high. This leaves me a similarly wide by deep space of 12" in height for some more storage, although it will have some hoses running around in it.

Once I pull the existing water tank from the spare tire location, I will relocate the spare back under the van (another welding and bending project). This will allow me to ditch the aluminess bumper (for sale in a few weeks). I will be replacing it with and OWL Vans Sherpa and Box carrier. THe sherpa will haul bikes and skis's and the carrier will hold my 30" aluminess box and some other goodies.




I dont have a TIG welder and its been a while since I MIGged SS....cross your fingers I dont blow a bunch of holes in it

If all goes to plan I will end up with a custom stainless tank for the same price I paid for a ****ty plastic generic tank....

[OffroadHamster]

LIGHTS!!!!

VC Pod mounts with ****ty nilight pods and a nilight bar. Cheap and bright. Hopefully they last a year or two!

[OffroadHamster]

Happy Thanksgiving from Death Valley and Mammoth. Nothing like 5 ft of pow in November!!