Council of Council 2012 hosted by Florida Van Council

As seen through the eyes of Vanatics Van Club:
 

Well our trip started on Friday, Jan 27th with getting up at 2:30 a.m. so we could be on the road by 4:30a.m.  Jerry and Laura spent the night so we could get an early start. We met up with Rocco at the local travel center off I-55 and started our journey - first stop New Orleans! 

We arrived in the Big Easy just in time for the weekend traffic heading to the city. Didn’t take long to reach the hotel though and we settled in with a few cocktails and preparing to head out for the evening. We grabbed a cab (suburban) for the 5 of us to hit the city. We were dropped off right in the thick of it and we were ready to party. 

First stop was to grab a “Grenade” drink a local favorite and a few beers. We met up with some friend that live in Baton Rouge and the party was on! We went to Pat O’Brien’s to get a hurricane for Princess’s birthday (fact is she had 2 lol). Then we proceeded to make our way from bar to bar until about 2 am when we had enough and were tired from driving. 

After a good night’s sleep we were up and back at it down at the French Market getting a cocktail, some gumbo and a muffaletta to satisfy our appetites, after that we proceeded to walk through the various shops and have some more cocktails. We made our way back to hotel later to clean up and grab a cab back down to the fun. Well let’s just say the rest of the evening was a lot of fun going from bar to bar enjoying the entertainment and we wrapped up about 2:30 a.m. - do you see a trend here?? lol..lol.. 

Sunday we got up and back down to the city after seeing Rocco off. He was heading to Clearwater, Florida and would meet us at the Council’s hotel. We arrived downtown to have the first of a few issues with our minivan as the ignition/key got stuck in the lock position. After about 30 minutes Jerry and I managed to unlock it and get van started so we pulled the battery cable and locked the van up and made our way downtown. We made an early evening of it, had a nice dinner and off to bed as we were heading to Gulf Shores, Alabama the next morning. 

Got up Monday morning and left hotel around 8:30 and off to Gulf Shores. There we met up with Rita’s sister and mom and the Vantasia gang who were on their way to Florida. We grabbed a nice lunch with them at a place called Tacky Jacks. They came to our hotel and we finished off with drinks and a few apple pie shots and we finished ours at the famous LuLu Buffets restaurant (great food). 

Tuesday we got up and had a bite to eat then took in some beach time, some lunch and dinner with Rita’s family and Jerry and Laura. Then called it an evening so we could get up and make our way to Florida the next morning.

We awoke Wednesday to dolphins outside our hotel in the ocean and warm weather! We loaded up and off to Florida we went. Made great time going down until (insert drum roll) the van broke down. We had pulled off to use a gas station and it died. We called for a tow and Rocco came and picked up Jerry and the girls. I myself had the ride of my life in the tow truck with the driver towing my van coming inches from running into the rear of a stopped vehicle. Let’s just say I was pissed and needed a drink. Jerry and I trouble shot the issue and had suspected a bad fuel pump so with the help of Randy (Gnarly) from FVC (he set us up with some tools) and myself Jerry and Denny Smith Jr, we dropped fuel tank and installed new pump and filter.. guess what??? Didn’t fix it.. grrrrrr… so next we discovered no spark.. ok easy enough new coil pack, guess what?? Didn’t fix it… double GRRRRRRR.. and to top it off now were blowing ignition fuses now I’m mad.. so I get my laptop out. I found a website that someone had blogged the same issue I was having and behold we found issue the O/2 sensor wire fell against exhaust manifold and was shorting the ignition out so .50 cents of electrical tape we were back in action minus $200.00 fuel pump we could not return. Oh well no need to worry about those for a while..lol..lol.. We spent the rest of the day at the beach bar laughing it off and made our way back to hotel where we left to go pick up the other part of our crew at the airport - the Hyde’s and Raoul. After picking them up we partied for a while then off to bed. 

Thursday we spent the day near the beach bar hopping and souvenir shopping then back to the hotel to get ready for the nights activities. It was pajama night and I, Jerry and Rocco managed to pick up some cool shirts with Drunk 1, 2 & 3 on them so we suited up and made our way to the party. The shirts were a hit with the vanners,  the band was great and we partied until wee hours. 

Saturday we strolled around to look at all the vans in the show and shine. Rocco had his Caravan panel in the show and won a trophy for it as well - great job Rocco! After Cindy returned from the meeting we made our way to lunch and then back to the hotel for a cruise from 5-7 p.m. We had a great crowd with Mr.Bill, the Hopcraft’s and several others. We managed to drink a gallon of apple pie I had saved just for this occasion it was a great way to top off the trip. After returning we made our way to the band as well as all the raffles being drawn. Needless to say none of us won..lol..lol.. all in all a great trip took 15 hours to get home but worth every bit of it to spend time with my family and close friends and all the vanner family as well.

Darrin Bentley
Vanatics Van Club

Howling Van-Pir-Te hosted by Hy-Rollin Vans

Hy-Rollin Vans holds their event at the same grounds that the Nationals will be held at in 2012 in Elkhorn, WI.  In October we're never sure what the weather will be like but this year the weather was great - warm ... no snow!! On a good note, our event has a heated building we use for the party and run a kitchen out of it, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner & late night munchies to make ends meet.

Every year more & more vanners show up on Thursday night to camp and help decorate the building with us. Thursday night & Friday morning is spent decorating, making jello shots & setting up our kitchen. Once the clubs start arriving they start decorating their sites & carving pumpkins.

Friday night's band was Bounty Hunter, a band we've had play before and everyone seems to like. Adult games on Friday nights are always a challenge. Rick & Keith spend quite awhile every year before this event trying to figure out how to make the game cheat proof ... never happens LOL. Someone always figures out how to get the edge but it makes for a fun time!

Saturday morning we're up early and in the kitchen getting ready to serve breakfast. The activities are non-stop all day between kids games, show n shine, adult games, trick or treating and the hayride for kids. Hy-Rollin did get a break in the afternoon. A big THANK YOU to the Ace of Spade Van Club for inviting us to share dinner with them in their campsite. If you're coming to Nats this year, I recommend making sure you don't miss Vanner's Nite In hosted by them. The food they made was delish and something you won't want to miss!!!

Jill's dad made the trophies again this year. I hope he knows how much we appreciate what he does for us. They looked awesome as usual. As soon as trophy presentation was over the party started. There were some pretty creative costumes this year making it hard to choose the winners once again. Hope everyone had fun!!  The dates for 2012 are October 5-7 - hope you can make it!

Look for more pics from our events on HOAVC.org and hyrollinvans.com 

Tammy Kenney

Hy-Rollin Vans

39th National Truck-In hosted by Vans on the Run

The trip to Nats from GoodGuys in Columbus was an adventure as we were trying to beat a storm there. Ended up sitting under a overhang at the Best Western in Zanesville, OH riding it out once we heard the tornado siren going off while filling up gas tanks. Soon we arrived at the Nats. I guess it's true that pigs do fly! We heard that the pig balloon at the Nats flew over the interstate during the storm. I've searched YouTube for pics but I guess no one took video when it happened LOL. Glad the storm was over when we got there. It isn't fun putting up our camper in the rain.

SOVC Campsite

Having fun with Vantasia Vans

We parked with the Nats Board next to the area SOVC had roped off. Made for quite the entertainment as the party is always happening in that area. Here I was wondering who the crazy guys were in the pool during the thunder storm only to have Tommy Trucker climb out and to say hi LOL. The pool is made of rubber right...what could be wrong with being in the pool during a thunder storm? Glad to see some things never change. One of the other things we noticed when we first pulled in is a Corvair van with NotStock Photography painted on the side up by the Drop Jaw and Vannin.com booths. Yep, John decided to find out what vanning was all about! He planned to stay for a day or so but he must have had fun cuz he stayed for the whole event!

Vannin.com / Nats Board Meet & Greet

Slo Ride Game

Vanner's Nite In was a Soup Kitchen on Wednesday night. They also had the "Nutz Bus" to get you around. Parking with the Nats Board also meant parking with Mr. Bill. There were some very drunk people in his pool and an endless supply of blender drinks it seemed. 

Show n Shine was broke up into 2 days.  There were a lot of lineups for pics of all Econolines to celebrate 50 years of the Econoline and then the annual Early & VCVC lineups. Denny Smith did a nice job in the burnout contest.

 

 

Tom & Pam Chronister showed the updated Battlestar - now called DeathStar. Beautiful new paint job on it. It was nice to see Blastro & Headstone at the event as well as Karson's van. Congrats to Don & Becky Noone for taking Best of Show with Pirates of the Caravan!  Overall a good event. Last count there were about 614 vans in attendance.

Tammy Kenney

More pics will be posted on the HOAVC website.
You can also view pics on DropJaw Magazine's website.

GoodGuys - Columbus, OH

We don't usually get the opportunity to attend this event since it's usually the same weekend as Nats so this was the 1st time Rick & I went to this GoodGuys event & it was big with over 5,000 vehicles.  It was the weekend before Nats so we just made it part of our vacation. I know we didn't see all of this event. We had a hard enough time just finding our friends on the grounds. Ken Hopcraft & Tim Brogan & his wife met us there.

We had a perfect spot (we thought) for setting up camp right on the corner by registration so vehicles had to come buy our site before they headed into the fairgrounds. We failed to notice however the HUGE light over our camper. Needless to say you could get up at 2am and it was like daylight inside hehe. I can't say I cared for the grounds at this event as much as I enjoy the Des Moines grounds but I would go again. I think I just didn't like being right in the city and if I thought we did a lot of walking at the Des Moines event you did even more here. I did like the open sided barns that you could park in and there was quite a bit of shade and a few buildings with a/c but a lot of parking lot areas you had to walk if you wanted to see all the cars. Rick loved their trophy presentation on Sunday. It was a drive through presentation into a big building with a/c and lots of seating which came in handy after all this walking.

This event is also where we first ran into John Jackson of NotStock Photography. Apparently a LOT of vanners had been sending and putting flyers in his Corvair van to try to get him to the Nationals LOL. Saturday we parked in the Ya Gotta Drive 'Em special parking section and we ended up actually parking by John with Ken Hopcraft.  If you haven't checked out John's website and Facebook page you should really take the time. He does an awesome job!

Someone that works with my son also made this his 1st GoodGuys event with a 57 Nomad he'd been building. It took 2 days to find him but we finally caught up to him. Gorgeous car!
We also ran into several other vanners there including Headstone taking a run around the grounds - can't miss the sound of that van plus it's one of my favorites!! Overall a great time and a nice way to start our trip to the Van Nationals.

Be sure to check the HOAVC website & Facebook page for more pictures!

Rick & Tammy Kenney
Three Trails Vans/Hy-Rollin Vans

38th National Truck-in - July 2010 - Greenwich NY

Starved Rock State Park Campground in IL

Rick and I took off from GoodGuys in Des Moines and started our trip out to the Nationals in NY in our '64 Ford Econoline pulling our pop-up camper.  We did a little sightseeing along the way.  Our first night we spent in IL at Starved Rock State Park. Had a great breakfast at the Lodge and headed out. Breezed thru Indiana and when we got to Ohio we decided to take some back roads along the lake. Planned to go to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame but it was closed by the time we got close. We stopped on our 2nd night at Geneva State Park in Ohio. Really pretty scenery on these backroads. Wish we had more time to look around. Would have loved to go through the Carousel Museum.

Rest Area we stopped at in NY overlooking lake

Tuesday we were off into NY and closing in on the Nationals. We decided to take the scenic interstate along the south part of NY. Very scenic - not a wise decision! One of the bumpiest, under construction interstates I've ever been on.  Does not make for a fun ride, especially in an early Ford! We were also fighting warmer than normal temps in NY. In fact record breaking heat which caused the van to overheat and could not use the A/C most of the time. We had planned to spend another night in a state park but by then all we wanted to do was set up camp and relax so we pushed on to the Nats. 

Howard, Ken and some of the others we usually park with saved us a nice spot with everyone. No shade, other than ez ups but a nice spot close to everything going on. Last time we were in NY for a Nats I remembered colder than normal weather. Not this year! Record breaking heat!! Ed & JoAnn were life savers with the misters they had set up under Tim & Suzanne's canopy. Mr. Bill's pool & blender seemed pretty busy too.   I spent my time by the mister while Rick sat in Nats Board meetings. There was a caravan into town one night. Pretty good turnout and the town definitely took notice.
Show n Shine classifying took place Thursday & Friday so both days busy for us. Quite a few people stepped up to help with judging the vans on Friday. It would have been a long day without their help.  Virtual promoted vannin.com and they had a meet n greet up by the band building along with the Nats board one night that was fun. Doc was serving hot dogs and they had beer in memory of Wacko for everyone. Drop Jaw magazine was there covering the event. This is the first time Rick and I had the opportunity to meet them. Very impressed with their coverage and how much they participated and enjoyed the event. Saw several vans we'd never seen before.

 

Best of Show 2010

Saturday afternoon we spent watching the burnout contest followed by trophy presentation later that day. Best of Show went to Alpine Express owned by Gary Larson.
We left after trophies for the long drive home stopping somewhere in NY at a rest area to sleep in the van for awhile before continuing on our way home.  Made it as far as Crawfordsville, IN and decided to spoil ourselves with a hotel room for our last night on the road.
Overall it was a great time although very hot. I don't know though that I would do this long a trip again in our early.  By the time we got back we had put over 3200 miles on the early Ford and we were worn out!! 

Grilled Cheese Sandwich Night - Yummy!

Be sure to check out the coverage from:
Drop Jaw Magazine Article  Pictures
Truck-In Magazine Article and Pictures
More pictures out on our website. Click here.

Rick & Tammy Kenney / 3 Trails Vans / Hy-Rollin Vans