Van Sunday Show And Tell: My 1977 Dodge Chinook Escape-Pod

The last post on Mercedes campers got me thinking (wistfully) about the open road and how I have a grand total of four digital photos I could share with you from our six years and thirty-five thousand miles worth of travels in our 1977 Chinook. Like lots of amateur photographers, I have boxes and boxes of prints from our early years, and our first two kids. Guilt and a nagging wife kept me shooting film through our younger son’s childhood. And I took some nice shoots in a few dramatic places with the Chinook, on film. I transitioned very late to digital, partly because I couldn’t bear to give up the Canon 35mm rangefinder I bought new in ’77 and still works perfectly (I’m on my second digital, and the lens motor is already acting up).

Anyway, here they are, four shots of a typical five-day beat-the-occasional-summer-heat-wave trip to the cool coastal mountains. We find our way through US Forest Service Roads to obscure creeks and lakes, where there are pull-offs perfect for the dry-camping we favor. We can go for days with hardly ever seeing another car or soul, or paying a camp ground fee. The site you see here may not look very spectacular, but the creek was crystal clear and great for cooling off. Dead quiet, except for our Grateful Dead.

We haven’t made any big trips the last couple of years, but a few years back, we took two trip down to Baja, as well as several large autumn loops around the southwest, and the Yellowstone-Tetons area. I’m usually pretty busy in the summer, and Oregon is almost too nice to leave, so we prefer to hit the road int the fall, when the weather is ideal, and the popular attractions are un-crowded. October is the best time to hit the sights of the west.

Stephanie is quitting her job this year, so we hope to roll again this coming fall. I just need to figure out the best way to stay connected to the web, so I can post the Curbside Classics I find along the way.