Wife, kids and I spent the last week on vacation. We visited family members (hers and mine) around Sioux Falls, SD and attended my 20 year high school reunion (I think I heard that pictures might be there some day). I have so much to write about, hope I hit some of it over the next few days. We definitely kept busy on this trip.
And speaking of traveling… this was our maiden voyage in the van we bought at the end of May: An ’02 Dodge conversion van (full sized). Our much loved suburban had to leave us this year. The “no car payments” benefit was being destroyed by the “it’s old and needs lots of work” stuff. It was no longer cheaper than payments to keep the sub around! So, while out shopping for replacements I stumbled over this van and just had to have it. My folks always had vans and I recalled how comfortable they are to travel in. In fact, they have one very similar to ours right now, just a couple years older! So yeah, our 11 hour drive was done in style and comfort. All the windows have blinds. The chairs are all plush and recliners. A couple times we closed all the blinds and ran the DVD player through the stereo sound system — makes a very nice rolling movie theater that way.
That being said, we learned a few things about our van: Not surprisingly, it has all the areodynamics of a billboard rolling down the highway. It hates going directly into the wind. And, when the motor is working hard, the first thing the van does is disable the A/C to “lighten the load” on the engine. Which can be very disconcerting on a 100 degree day, ya know? I learned (quickly) that I either need to slow down a bit or kick it out of overdrive to avoid such nonsense and keep the A/C going.
One of our SD stops was at Lake Poinsett where the wife’s folks have their summer home. Their area has been in a drought for quite a few years and they’ve not been able to put their boat in the water for the last 5 or 6. Seems a shame to have a boat just sitting around not getting wet so they offered to sell it to us. 
Couldn’t pass that up so now we have our first boat. Not that Colorado is well known for the boating lakes, but I bet we’ll make do somehow…
Here they are together:
Don’t they look like they belong together? Aside from the color… Amusing side story: The entire time we were discussing buying the boat, I was visualizing their neighbor’s boat. Also a Larson, but more of a maroon color and with a larger motor. Lol, I was a bit freaked when we pulled up to the cabin last week and a blue boat was out front! So much for my little dream of having the van and boat match colors.
Father-in-law gave me a tour of everything he thought I should know and then we hooked up and dragged it around the lake to a boat ramp that has enough water to launch from. Got ‘er launched (took a chip out of the prop on a rock…) and went playing for a few hours. A little tubing, some site seeing and generally just dinked around. I think we’re going to love having a boat.
Pulling a boat 730 miles home went better than I thought it would. I think I’ll need to add a tranny cooler to the van, but other than that things went well (ok, 11 miles a gallon is a bit of a drag…). It pulls the trailer nicely and the ride stays nice too. Now I’m in the process of rearranging everything in the garage to see if I can wedge the boat in there for the summers. I think I can get it all to fit in there, but backing it in to the garage, up hill and at an angle, is going to to severely test my skills…