West Canada - visiting Banff National Park, Jasper National Park and Mount McKinley in Alaska of course. One has to take a look at Vancouver, don't even talk about Vancouver Island. Great plans came to our minds when Sabine, Simon, Peter and I started to think about what to do in summer. And regarding the great distances the question was how to get there? Sabine has no car and I can't take any of the two we Braunschweigers bought together as Sabine already leaves for the west at the end of May.

So we though it over and over again. Again buying a minivan? Where to put our mountain bikes? We agreed that the cars has to be big enough to put all our baggage and bikes inside as we want to stop in bigger cities like Vancouver or Calgary (how important it is to have the bike in a safe place I recognized when my mountain bike was stolen from campus beginning of May). Pick-up truck with a lid, minivan with a trailer hinge and lockable trailer or just one of the huge American vans?

We hadn't really discussed this question, when we saw a pick-up truck with a big crew cabin on our way up to Sudbury mid of March. The owner asked $3500, it had a 6.2L Diesel engine and the owner didn't really wanted to talk about the gas consumption. We got the phone number and went on. Just a few kilometers down the road Sabine discovered that smurf-colored van, which we both liked a lot.

The question of gas consumption was important here, too. We agreed to call the owner right away from Sudbury, but only reached an answering machine. Only the following week we got a call from this guy telling us that it was certified and would cost $5000. Our limit was $4000, but we at least wanted to try to trade a bit. The final exams were coming and we wouldn't reach anybody. As we finally were called back I pushed the price down to $3800. An appointment we had to postponed to after the finals and as I called again a day before I was told that the van was actually sold this very morning.

Now we switched our tactics. We bought the truck trader and searched it for adequate offers.

Unfortunately all offers were spread all over southern Ontario. At some point I found a van with a slant 6 engine and standard gear shifting in Guelph, just around the corner. A test drive was nice, but the van only had one window in the sliding door and none on the other side. Back to the truck trader again.

We had lost almost all hope and time was getting rare when I discovered a van in the truck trader, which seemed to be made just for our purpose.

Meanwhile I got pretty careful about the being-excited-about-an-offer, too many offers had turned out to be a trap. $3900 was what the dealer asked for, certified and emission tested. Furthermore the low mileage of only 109,000 km sounded very good.

We called the dealer on a Sunday and only got the answering machine, on which we left a message. On early Monday morning Sabine and I drove there to take a look at the van. The car dealer told us, that he hadn't had a look at it so far, but could go for a test drive on our own, if we wanted to - and handed us the keys - very nice. We inspected the car and beside some small rusty dents the body looked very good. The interior - it is a LE version - we liked right away, especially the benches which can be rearranged to a bed or two benches facing each other with a table in the middle. The test drive confirmed our good feeling about the van and when we came back to the dealer we were sure to buy it. As Bob - the car dealer - explained to us that the van wasn't certified and emission-tested yet, I could already see us driving off without buying it. But Bob promised to check the van during the next three days. And indeed, when we came back later to sign the contract it was ready to go - just in time for the move to the new apartment ;-))

And here it is, the new blues mobile

5,9L V8 engine, makes the body twisting when you step on the accelerator....;-))

gas consumption 17-18L/100km

sound - great

driving feeling - like hovering

space - almost unlimited, but still too small for Sabine ;-))