Ugly Old Van Day (or week?)

While driving down to Portland on Saturday we kept passing these ugly old vans on the road; 60s or 70s vintage, straight up and down boxes with faded out paint jobs and little engines in the front. How could there be so many of them on the road? We wondered if it was a ‘convoy’ or something. ‘Van fans’ getting together in the same way that Corvette owners and Model T clubs do. But they didn’t seem to be traveling together at all. People were simply driving them. As if they thought they would keep running.

What IS keeping these things running?

Then yesterday, while we were walking, a number of them passed us on the road! And today, when I left to run some errands, there was one of them, parked right next to my car, and 4 more on the road just between here and the mail place!!

How could we not have seen this before? When we moved to Northern California we certainly noticed the preponderance of high-end cars on the road. And in Arizona there were obviously more trucks than anywhere else we’d been. For that matter, Kentucky roads are noticeably populated with American cars, far more than their counterparts elsewhere.

So does this mean that the Northwest is where old hippies – and their vans – retire?

It gives one pause to think.