I recently re-drove Hwy 395, along and through the Eastern Sierra Nevada
range in California and Nevada..... down and back from near Portland,
Oregon.  This time I left the Vanagon at home, not through choice, but to
'save' the transmission which still needs a rebuild...      Anyhow the
scenery is magnificent.   The driving and route selection, those were
different, because I was in an AWD GM Safari van (my cheap alternative to
Vanagon Syncro)   The GM is not that much fun to drive....it isn't "in" the
experience..   I only took a tiny tool kit.  The Safari is quiet and
comfortable to ride in and will go anywhere most any 4x4 will go, with
clearance being the only limiting thing...As I have learned to do with many
vans over my years, I built a "temp" platform for sleeping and storage
under...Given that I normally have a couple of bikes and dogs with me, the
GM van actually was a little easier to live out of....I took a small single
burner camp stove for coffee, etc...

   I found some campsites I never would have seen driving the
Vanagon....the GM, with lots of power and AWD made side road and iffy
traction situations  less concern.   I  effortlessly kept my speed at
around 65mph, despite heading north into headwinds that were being clocked
at over 70mph....Once into south eastern Oregon I encountered my normal
spring snow.....from Susanville to  south of Bend, it was mostly ice and
snowpacked driving....a real treat in the AWD van, would have been tough in
the 2wd vanagon, especially  given the gusty sidewind..

  The Take?   Can't wait to get back into my Vanagon, hopefully with some
type of enhanced traction device added to my 5 speed manual
transmission....Driving an automatic transmission in a more rural and often
mountainous road situation is (for me, anyway) ..........boring,
frustrating, and a silly waste of motion...though it is pretty cool in
sustained stop and go (like at our Border Patrol checkpoints)   I'm also
glad gas is pretty cheap right now, though California was a dollar more per
gallon than elsewhere...The VW with it's inline ABA and manual 5sp gives me
about 24mpg average, I think the GM is about 17.....

  sorry for the late friday style post...there is vanagon envy here
though....   Scott is right, the Vanagon is a sports car compared to those
GM/Chevy mid size vans.....