After Years Of Cruising Casper At 2 MPH, Longtime Ice Cream Truck Is For Sale

After years of cruising Casper at 2 mph, Randy Morrison is giving up being the “Ice Cream Man,” selling his truck. And it’s not because hours on end of that jingle is hell on earth: “You really don’t notice the music until it stops,” he says.

CASPER — Randy Morrison and his family have been slowly cruising through Casper, selling frozen treats out of his 1991 Chevy P30 for years.

Those are years of cruising through neighborhoods at 2 mph with the truck’s jingle on repeat. If you think that gets in your head while the truck drives by, try being the one driving the thing.

Now Casper’s “Ice Cream Man" is selling his truck, including all its upgraded amenities, for for $38,500.

It’s not that he doesn’t love making local kids giddy for his chilly treats. “I’m just way too busy with my other companies to cruise through Casper at 2 mph every night and weekends," he told Cowboy State Daily. "I own multiple businesses, so I’m pressed for time as it is.”

That’s not to say Morrison and his family have cooled to the idea of running an ice cream truck. In fact, ice cream trucking might be the ideal way for him to retire when the time comes.

“It's probably the most fun thing I've ever done in my entire life,” he said. “It's awesome."

I Scream Morrison has run his ice cream truck business “The Ice Cream Truck” as a side gig.

He bought it from the original owner, who had been slowly selling ice cream in Casper for nearly two decades.

“He wanted to slow down a little bit and do more activities with his wife in the summer,” he said. “As you can imagine, an ice cream business is pretty busy in the summer. You don't get a lot of free time.”

Morrison didn’t buy the truck for his own business portfolio. He thought it’d be a great entrepreneurial experiment for his daughters, Mazie and Tensley.

“I thought it would be a really cool thing for them to learn how to run a business,” he said. “Making orders, talking with people and all those things would be really good for them, so I thought it’d be eye-opening for them to run the ice cream truck.”

In addition to cruising down the streets of Casper, the Morrison family took their truck to birthday parties, car shows, and other local events.

Morrison seems pleased with his experiment. He’s watched his daughters learn a lot about themselves, about business, and how to apply their personalities to their professions.

“Tensley, my younger daughter, is the salesman of the two,” he said. "She’s super chatty, will walk up to any random person, and start a conversation, so she’s the person at the window selling ice cream.

"Mazie is good with people, but doesn’t like dealing with them, so she’s better at running the truck. It’s good for them, and they’ve done well with it.” But that’s not the whole scoop. What does it take to succeed in ice cream trucking?

You Scream Morrison might be selling his ice cream truck, but he still believes it’s one of the best businesses he’s ever run and worked in.

“It's one of the most fun things that I've ever done,” he said. “It’s very enjoyable, but it’s an awkwardly timed business.”

The Ice Cream Truck got its inventory from a supplier in Colorado. It delivered individually packaged ice cream cones, popsicles, and other frozen treats stocked in the truck’s freezers.

The keys to a thriving ice cream truck are a little counterintuitive, he said. For one thing, it’s not an early-bird business.

“It's good for people that like to sleep in, because nobody buys ice cream in the morning,” Morrison said. “It's a hot afternoon business.”

A successful truck owner focuses on quantity over quality, especially since the quality comes prepackaged from the supplier.

Morrison said nothing matters more than volume, which means more time on the road.

“You don't make much money selling individual items, so you’ve got to do volume,” he said. “Getting out every week, every night, and every weekend is how you do it profitably.”

And, as one might imagine, ice cream trucking doesn’t lend itself to a fast-paced lifestyle.

Fulfilling one’s “Fast and Furious” fantasies would be difficult behind the wheel of a 1991 Chevy P30, let alone one that needs to stop and sell to profit.

The benefit of that slower business model is that an ice cream truck can’t overstay its welcome.

Casper isn’t nearly as large as other cities in the U.S., but it might as well be a borough of New York City to an ice cream truck owner.

“You can't go more than 2 miles an hour or you're going to miss the kids,” he said. “You have to go around neighborhoods very slowly, so hitting all the neighborhoods in one day — even in a small place like Casper — is impossible. You can’t hit them all.”

We All Scream Driving through Casper at walking speed with freezers full of ice cream might be relaxing, but not all that exciting.

There are, however, many tangible and intangible benefits that might make it worth someone’s while.

For one thing, ice cream trucking isn’t a boom-or-bust industry. Morrison never had to worry about finding enough customers. People don’t stop loving ice cream and kids aren’t likely to stop excitedly running to mom or dad when they hear it coming.

“There's more of a demand for it than I could have ever possibly fulfilled,” he said. “The truck moves slowly, but the kids can't come out fast enough.”

Everyone has a deeply entrenched instinct to react to the sound of the ice cream truck’s jingle approaching them.

Like Pavlov’s dogs, people have an immediate response when they hear the ice cream truck, sending their hands into pockets and emerging with fistfuls of allowance.

“Seeing the kids is the best part,” he said. “We had one kid who came running out in his tighty-whities, freaked out, and ran back inside.

"You just knew he was trying to get some money to buy an ice cream cone,” he said.

Since Morrison couldn’t hit every neighborhood every day, the ice cream truck never lost its novelty. That goes with the truck, which is an intangible but valuable asset for its next owner.

As a business owner, Morrison can easily see how he could scale up Ice Cream Truck to increase profits. It’s a suggestion he thinks the next owner should consider.

“If you really wanted to run it as a full business, you could have three or four trucks driving around all summer long, no problem,” he said. “We never did that because it wasn't ever done to intentionally make money.

“Definitely the Spider-Man popsicle for the kids, and the strawberry shortcake bar for adults,” Morrison said.

Frozen In Time Morrison said Ice Cream Truck has definitely been eye-opening for Mazie and Tensley, now ages 17 and 13. Now that they’re older, they’re looking forward to exploring other opportunities.

“They’ve determined that owning a business might not be for them over the last couple of years,” he said. “They see how much time it takes me to run my businesses and see more of the negative versus the positive side of running a business.”

Since Morrison and his wife Tiffany don’t have the time to run the truck, let alone drive it around Casper, they’ve decided it’s time to sell the business and move on.

The truck has been completely refurbished in the last 16 months. Morrison’s recent upgrades include a new radiator, water pump, and brakes, a Trimlight exterior for themed after-dark events, and a mini-split AC unit. Ice cream trucks have been a staple of American cities for decades.

Those who think they’ve passed their time in 2026 couldn’t be further from the truth, Morrison said.

“It's pretty dang doable, especially for a business that comes with all the stuff you need, ready to run,” he said. “We would try to fulfill the demand as much as we possibly could, but there aren’t many neighborhoods and only so much time.”

More than anything, Morrison hopes he’ll keep hearing and seeing the ice cream truck in Casper.

It was a mainstay in the community before he bought it, and he hopes it’ll continue to be one once it's sold.

“The truck's been in Casper for a long time, and I really want to try to keep it in Casper,” he said. “I have no control over it, but I sincerely hope it does.” Several people have inquired about the truck, but Morrison believes it’s a business that’s best suited for a particular type of person.

“I think it’d be best for a retired couple that wants to have a little income but doesn’t necessarily want to travel a bunch, especially in the summer,” he said. “It also takes up a lot of evenings and weekends, which takes away time for your family.

"It’s not in the cards for me, but I'm sure it’ll fit somebody’s lifestyle very well.”

That actually might be Morrison’s future business model. Running an ice cream truck could be a perfect way to “keep himself busy” when he retires. “I may start something back up again 15 years from now,” he said. “When you’ve got the music playing, and you’re driving down the street, holy cow, the little kids go absolutely berserk.

"I’d love to go back out and sell ice cream to little kids. It was that much fun.” Speaking of the music ...

You Notice When It Stops Another upgrade Morrison added to his business is a lithium-ion battery system. That eliminates the need for a generator for the freezers, making the truck’s interior much quieter.

Of course, that’s not the noise most people would be concerned about behind the wheel of an ice cream truck.

Hearing those loud and perpetually perky jingles, a staple of all ice cream trucks, for hours on end is many people’s version of hell on earth. Nobody in the Morrison family has been driven insane by ice cream truck jingles. Apparently, that’s an unavoidable aspect of the business that’s easy enough to get used to.

“To be honest, you don't even notice it,” Morrison said. “The only time I’ve noticed it is when I’m talking to customers and it’s a little too loud, and when you stop.

"You notice the kids. You notice their excitement. You really don't notice the music until it stops playing.”

I was hired by the US Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks right out of engineering school. I was rotated to various offices to learn the totality of the organization.

I had asked to work with construction project managers in response to the request of what I would like.

Believe it or don’t but one of the sections I visited was in fact an office with numerous engineers who were “Project Managers”. They managed the various construction and maintenance projects submitted to Congress for approval and funding.

Each PM had a lengthy and wide spread sheet containing all the line items under his responsibility. He also had a typewriter with a very wide carriage onto which were typed all the pertinent data on a single line item. The paper on which the typing occurred had perforated strips one line wide that could be typed and then pasted as a revised line item on his master sheet. The data was more or less constantly changing as the project planning developed.

That is, the data was typed, then cut, and then pasted over the data on the specific line item.

The strip was coated with rubber cement to attach it. There was always an excess that squeezed out. When dry, a ball of the rubber cement rolled over the excess, neatly and cleanly picked it up.

A measurement of status was the size of the rubber ball that was used to clean up the squeezed out rubber cement.

After years of cruising Casper at 2 mph, Randy Morrison is giving up being the “Ice Cream Man,” selling his truck. And it’s not because that hours on end of that jingle is hell on earth: “You really don’t notice the music until it stops,” he says.
After years of cruising Casper at 2 mph, Randy Morrison is giving up being the “Ice Cream Man,” selling his truck. And it’s not because that hours on end of that jingle is hell on earth: “You really don’t notice the music until it stops,” he says. (Courtesy Photo)
After years of cruising Casper at 2 mph, Randy Morrison is giving up being the “Ice Cream Man,” selling his truck. And it’s not because that hours on end of that jingle is hell on earth: “You really don’t notice the music until it stops,” he says.

I read that too.

“I’m confused. Is he giving up after years of cruising at 2 mph?”

Count me as confused, too. I wish these articles would explain things better. Laz’s concise summary helped a lot, though.

I’m still not certain, though. Is he giving up? What if he had cruised at 3 mph?

“I gave up part-way through.”

Piker! It was like watching a bad movie...you just have to stick with it to the end with the hope that it might JUST GET BETTER. But they never do.

I stuck with the article to see if he actually gave up after cruising at 2 mph. I am glad I stuck to the end because it answered that question. You’ll have to find out for yourself, though.

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