Meet Zatara! She is a 1995 GMC Vandura 2500 Trail Master edition. Zatara is Italian for driftwood. The name comes from one of my favorite books and movies “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Since the van is the color of wet sand, and I plan on seeing this great country from one coastline to the next, Zatara seemed like the perfect name! I had been searching for months via Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, autotrader, and various other vehicle sale sites. After countless emails, and even being scammed on a VW Westfalia, I finally found her!

I drove an hour to test drive and check her all out. She was wheel chair accessible with a heavy duty steel wheel chair lift, garage kept, mechanically sound, all maintenance records, and only 87K miles!!! Being a full size van, I knew that I would have more options for storage and design layout, so I was sold and brought her home.

After getting her home, I parked in my parents driveway and we immediately got to work. First thing to come out was the bench seat in the back. While it does lay down to create a bed, and is in very good condition, I need to have a platform with storage to house the solar components and battery as well as clothing, gear, and food that I will be traveling with. So out it came, and now has a permanent home in my dads garage for extra seating when people are hanging out and breaks while still working on the van.

Removing the wheel chair lift, however, would be a much more daunting task!

First we had to disconnect the lift from the battery. Then cut the power from the lift’s motor. My dad inch wormed his way around the underside of the van to completely remove the long cable running almost the full length of the under carriage up into the engine.

The rubber mat at the entrance was stubborn when it came to removing it as many of the screws were stripped. Parts of the mat had to be pried up with a crowbar. It wasn’t smooth sailing when we finally got to removing the bolts from around the base of the motor tower either, as 30 years of build up made getting them lose feel like a workout at the gym.

When we finally had everything unbolted, disconnected, and ready to actually remove from the van, we had to call reinforcements! This thing was HEAVY! One of our neighbors came to lend a hand, and the three of us managed to get that thing off the van and into the garage.

With the back of the van cleared out, I could finally crawl in there and dream a while, envisioning my layout and where everything would go.

We had accomplished quite a bit in those first few hours with her before dark and mosquitoes set in, so we called it a night, went inside to relax, and came up with a game plan for my next task on the list…. removing the carpet and side panel walls!