You get to hear some interesting exclamations when you drive around with big signs about snakes on your vehicle! The van does get funny looks from some people, but lots of compliments as well. So, we thought we'd tell you about her! Now, we don't normally name our vehicles. We've had a succession over the years, many of them fondly remembered despite the lack of personal titles. But late in 2000, we retired our second Nissan Multi and bought a used Suzuki Sidekick (the 4 door version, even we couldn't manage to pack a reptile display into the 2 door). The Suzuki came with the appropriate name Suzy from her previous owners. Within a month, we also bought this van, a 1988 Dodge B3500 12 passenger van. Quite the beast! The B certainly could stand for 'BIG', so we decided to call it Big Bertha, which quickly got shortened to just 'Bertha'.
Bertha has been a real workhose for us. She had only 81,ooo km on her when we got her, and she's just turned 158,000 km as I write this. She can handle enough stuff for multiple reptile displays, hauls all of the firewood used to heat our nature centre building, and is great for touring since we can put multiple people, their stuff, the animals, sound system, etc. in the van and still tow our tent trailer (more on this in a future entry). Her downside- she burns a lot of gas, so she's only on the road when the task requires her size and muscle! Still, in the interests of the environment and cost effectiveness, we are considering switching to an alternative fuelled vehicle- the subject of another future entry!
For this tour, we done some customizing, and continue to rework things while were on the road. We started with new seats before leaving home. The front ones now recline, and the rear ones fold flat- big advantages when you're on the road for 7 weeks! In Sudbury, we added a ceiling mounted fishing rod rack and rear shelving. White Lake saw additional shelves, and yesterday we bolted a portable file folder case to the centre console of the van to help keep our maps, files, etc. organized. Big improvement! We sure wished for a cordless drill, though- screwdrivers with drill-tip screws are an arduous way to work!
Still to come, more shelves, and some rewiring. After that, I'm sure we'll think of something else!
Of course, now that we've written this, we've blown a coolant hose and the van overheated! A photo of me temporarily fixing it with duct tape is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scisnake/197466138/
It's fixed now, though, thanks to the Canadian Tire here in Winnipeg. Great service, guys, and thanks for getting us back on the road quickly!