Brown Betty

“A cool van”, said the text message with accompanying photos sent by my brother-in-law.

The start of this late in life off the grid odyssey began with the end of a marriage, a temporary retreat in a travel trailer to some wooded acreage while things were figured out, then spending 17 months in said travel trailer figuring things out. Two conclusions were reached.

One was that I had retreated into the woods and would not return. The second was that I would never spend another damn night in a travel trailer, ever again. Especially in winter.

But I enjoy camping, even if just for a night at nearby Lake Superior but am getting a little too old to enjoy a night in a tent. And I also enjoy traveling, often to obscure or remote locations, and in general dislike motels. The dislike of motels comes from an oilfield job that somehow confused “work camp” with “billet workers in a seedy motel in town”, making for a rather miserable existence for over a year. And I am not a fan of frivolously buying or burning gasoline.

The only possible way to reconcile these loves and hates would be with a good old fashioned 1960’s hippy van, a fuel-efficient efficiency apartment on wheels.

An old school VW is the epitome of hippy van cool but the prices they now fetch would make a bazillionaire flinch. And those old, air-cooled V-Dub vans are painfully slow on the highway. A modern-day Transit or Sprinter could check all the boxes as they are cavernous, have high ceilings, and are truly blank canvasses for customization. But they lack the quirky soul necessary to make everyone from little old gray-haired ladies that did too much acid in their younger days to jaded Gen Z’er’s look longingly and comment, “Sweet van, man”.

The photos attached to the message from my brother-in-law were of a 1965 Ford Falcon window van, which was the upscale passenger carrying version of the more utilitarian Econoline van. The Econoline/Falcon vans were cutting edge in their day and not only invented the van as we now know it but were also quite efficient 20-30 mile per gallon performers when introduced 60 plus years ago. This one was also geared so it should cruise along comfortably at 65-70 miles per hour, a plus when traveling out west. It also has the ubiquitous “Big Six” engine. One should be able to find parts whether in Tierra del Fuego or Deadhorse, Alaska, or all points in between should the bulletproof platform ever require a little road or trailside love.

This was the hippy van I had been seeking for three long years.

The hippy van may have been located only three miles from my sister’s home in the Black Hills of South Dakota, but it was 800 miles away from mine. A loose plan was hatched to wire my sister some money and have the seller deliver it to her home. I would get it out of her yard at some vague date in the future.

That vague date eventually morphed into the delivery day, but a prior volunteer commitment meant I would arrive 8 hours late. I called the seller. “No problem, we can just roll it off the trailer”, he reassured me.

Worthy of note-this 1965 Ford left the assembly line cloaked with an absolutely gorgeous Prairie Bronze Metallic paint scheme, that same gorgeous color of many a classic Mustang. Somewhere along the line, somebody opted to paint the old van the more mundane color of Beaver Brown.

About midway of my travels between Wisconsin and South Dakota, I received a text from Sister Suzie stating, “Brown Betty is coming off the trailer”. Over the next 2 ½ hours I received multiple texts and videos attesting to the same, but Brown Betty was seemingly OK with staying on the trailer.

It turned out that the trailer Brown Betty was on was not a car hauler trailer but a homemade flat top trailer with a high deck, all four of Brown Betty’s tires were hopelessly flat, and the rear wheels were locked solid. 2 ½ hours later and with the help of a John Deere tractor with a front-end loader, Brown Betty was finally off the trailer and on the ground. No problem? I arrived 8 hours after that drama.

Interestingly, my nephew loaned some tires that held air, and when Brown Betty was popped out of gear and had inflated tires, she rolled effortlessly onto my car-hauler trailer.

My sister then offered me the Southern Black Hills tourist experience. Her normal ride to the commerce hub Rapid City takes her through both the Custer State Park as well as Wind Caves National Park and there are frequent buffalo encounters. She wanted me to experience that.

We drove along but saw no bison then turned into a siding to turn around. Suzie pointed out a delivery truck stopping a short distance away, and sure enough, there was one bison on the road. What we did not see is that the main herd was abreast of us.

One big old buffalo broke from the herd and sauntered intently and purposefully toward my truck. I felt a little uncomfortable and backed around and aimed the truck towards the exit. The old Grandad Buffalo sauntered first toward my Ford Ranger, then swung around the front and gave Suzie and I a long stare down across the hood.

He then sidled around to the driver’s side door. There was a scratching noise that sounded like 80 grit sandpaper dragging across the side of my late model pickup. “What is the etiquette here?”, I asked Suzie. “I don’t know. This has never happened to us before”, she said. “Well, the paint is ruined so we may as well enjoy this”, I replied.

Soon five others from the herd sauntered up to my pickup and began vigorously licking as well. It then dawned on us that I had driven out of Wisconsin in a snowstorm and the sides of my pickup were white with road salt. My Ford Ranger was now a buffalo lick.

In my wildest dreams, there was never the thought of staring directly into the eyes of a one-ton land mammal with a little more than one foot of distance and a thin piece of glass separating our foreheads, but that was exactly what happened. Eventually a young bull came in from the side and began head butting and irritating the old Grandad Buffalo. When the old ‘buff began to get wild eyes and his tail stood up, I told Suzie, “Am starting to feel a little uncomfortable”.

“But look how close the bison came, and we did not end up like foolish tourists and get gored or tossed up into a tree with our pants torn off” she replied giddily.

Oddly enough and despite the horrible scratching sound, upon being washed the truck did not have a single scratch from the buffalo tongues!

Suzie later brought me to the Wolly Mammoth Site that features mammoth bones, not fossils, exposed in situ and as found. One of the skeleton’s was laying so poised and intact that it almost seemed like one was interrupting a Wolly Mammoth during a nap.

So, after the drama and after the wonderful Black Hills experiences, Brown Betty found her way to her new home in Sconnie. The last stop for fuel towing her home was late at night at a convenience store in Hinkley, Minnesota. “Sweet van, man”, the Gen Z dude tending the counter said.

The thing about classic vehicles is that all of the best intentions and plans and dreams might be for naught. Currently, the plan is to ditch the Brown Betty moniker and paint her bright orange metallic and Wimbledon white, somewhat of an homage to the 1960’s V-Dub pumpkin orange and beige scheme. A basic camper interior would make her a fuel-efficient efficiency apartment and World Expedition Vehicle. And with retirement looming on the horizon, a World, or at least Western Hemisphere expedition might be just what the doctor ordered.

Or she may end up sitting neglected and untouched in the garage for the next decade before being sold off for pennies on the dollar, just like most classic vehicle projects.

Stay tuned.