This is my Faithful 2008 Canyon pickup. I bought it with 2247 miles on it and a full factory warranty shortly before the 2008 Memorial Day weekend SLR Rendezvous. We had a great many good times together. It got me to work, took me to rendezvous, went camping with me at the IWLL and generally helped me travel through life. It has even helped me move my Urchin’s stuff a time or two.
It suffered through the heat of summer and the snowstorms of 2009 – 2010. A gutsy little truck with a solid manual trans, Line-X bed-liner, monogramed mud flaps and Hello Kitty floor mats. It even had a snazzy after market radio with an iPod line-in. Its only real flaw was a wimpy 2400 tow capacity, a side effect of its manual trans and engine size. In 78400+ miles all it ever needed besides routine maintenance was a water pump.
So I wasn’t really looking to replace my Canyon when I went to the multi-dealer car sales fest at the John Paul Jones Arena. Gypsy Jane and I went there Friday afternoon to look at trucks in general. I wanted to compare extended cab midsize pickups with regular cab full size pickups and get a better idea of just what was out there and at what cost. Which I did, with occasional moments of profound amusement. Somehow I can’t see me with a DVD player so my guitar and clothes can watch “The Last of the Mohicans” while I drive to a rendezvous, or leather seats which adjust electrically every which way and have an air cushion to boot (wonder how much it costs to fix when it breaks), or even a built in tool box in the pickup bed (it wasn’t all that large). Clearly Charlottesville was not the place for serious pickup comparison shopping.
On a whim I decided to check out vans on my way out of the display lot – I figured vans would be way out of my price range unless they had seriously high mileage. The first 2 vans I passed confirmed my cost assumptions, both were out of my price range even though they also had over 90,000 miles.
Then I saw this 2004 Chevy Express cargo van with 33,733 miles for less than I paid for my Canyon. A cargo van with full windows and no racks. A very clean cargo van with a 4.8 liter engine that can tow 6400 pounds. I went home, I thought it over, I went back Saturday morning and traded my Canyon for an Express van. I even got more for my Canyon in trade than I owed on it.
So now I’ve got a vehicle I can camp in or pack for an event and have my gear in dry, lockable storage. A vehicle that can tow a horse or 2 motorcycle trailer easily. There’s even enough clearance to carry a motorcycle in the van, although I’d need to install proper tie-downs and get a loading ramp to actually do it. To sum it up, I’m one very happy camper. And I’m sure someone out there will be very happy with my Canyon.
Of course a new camping vehicle means one has to go camping. So after the paperwork got done Saturday I loaded my modern camp into the van and drove to IWLL to stay with Gypsy Jane. She had left my place for IWLL the evening before in part to greet a FB friend named Chopper who was due to arrive there around noon. Well he got delayed but Chopper and his lady did finally find the campground.
Choppy & Lady
We had a grand time, the weather was most accommodating and sleeping on an airbed in the van worked out just fine. (I do plan on making curtains with magnets for the van over the winter.)
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