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Part 1 - Trystan's Travco

On Saturday 5th September, Trystan and the Pocket, a twenty-five foot gold and ivory colored 1972 Dodge Travco, picked us up from Portland. Trystan found the pocket reposing and dormant in Bend Oregon where it was deposited after several decades of service, touring Alaska. While the owner started it on holidays or similar for the last however many years, our expectation of drivability, reliability and safety was clearly and completely incommensurate with reality. But hey that’s how we roll and besides, it’s curvaceous fiberglass figure and wooden interior gives it a timeless character - It has style and it’s technically the right kind of vehicle for a road trip. Who cares if it only sleeps two uncomfortably and blows hot oil when downshifting or accelerating, like a surfacing whale, onto anything near approximating the proximity of the back of it, which often included our bikes and whatever car was unfortunate enough to be parked within thirty-seven feet of the Pockets exhaust pipe.

With no tune-up of any kind, the as-is Pocket delivered us safely and nervously over Hood to Sisters and the start of Cycle Oregon.

“Driving over Hood knowing the breaks hadn’t been serviced was frightening enough, you know mile after mile of breaking and pumping through the corners and twists in the road, with the rig diving and listing and Trystan over correcting, but the sketchiest section of road was the eastbound descent into Warm Springs on the way to Cycle Oregon. Looking down from inside the Pocket you could see scree and rocks and dust blowing and spinning off the tires into the abyss not more than a foot from where I sat. The guard rail looked so pathetic against our size and momentum, and our would be drop ranged from several thousand feet to bottomless. That was actually terrifying.
– Greg Johnson

“You know I knew the pocket was in pretty good shape. I mean it has problems, it burns about four quarts of oil an hour and is getting worse, but I think it handles really well. The breaks might need work”
– Aaron Erbeck

“The interior is beautiful and wooden. It’s like a mid century modern pirate ship. The original owners manual is bigger than a bible and has better pictures too. It’s amazingly complete and resplendent in detail. The manual, the photography and writing and the models and descriptions, oh and the options it was available in at the time, plus the vehicle itself, all equal something like a three dimensional performance-art based period piece. I think the manual is worth more on eBay than the actual RV.”
– Ryan Thomson