Trip Reports AND Quick Trips!

[mikemtnbike]

Thanks for starting this thread ertse.

Paint Creek Campground Cherokee National Forest. 2 nights cheap camping with just the amenities we want (a water pump and clean vault toilets). Creek side site swimming hole nearby tons of trails and 4wd roads to explore laughing ourselves to tears around a fire just about perfect.

_________________
1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[Walty87]

The wifey and me snuck away from the kids for a night. It was our first serious trip in the Walty Wagon! We traveled about 250 miles round trip from our house to Felton CA near Santa Cruz. Stayed at the Henry Cowell campsite. We’re pretty new to all of this, so we wanted something pretty easy.

To start our trip we traveled from the Modesto area towards Los Banos. I wish I could say it was a trouble free voyage, but on highway 33 almost to Hilmar CA the van started to overheat so I pulled over quickly only to find a bunch of white smoke coming out of the engine area and vents. I had my wife quickly grab fire extinguisher and when we quickly took a look at the engine. I could smell and see burnt antifreeze everywhere. Turned the van on for a second and found the problem! We had a small piece of plastic barb break off on the coolant junction where a small hose attaches. Luckily.. we were able to get the broken plastic piece out of the hose and we were able to attach the hose back onto the junction piece where it broke. I had to trim some plastic to make a makeshift barb so we could attach the small hose back on. I’m glad I was carrying antifreeze and water with me because we had to fill it back up! We continued on our way and boy it was a warm ride (Walty Wagon is an 84 with no ac). Because of the incident delay we were traveling later in the day than we had planned. Anyways, the Walty Wagon did great through Pacheco Pass (1.9L engine). Even in the heat we were able to pass some big rigs when it was safe to do so hahah. We were super happy to get near Watsonville because it got way less smokey and the temperature dropped! Since the Van was running so well we decided to take highway 1 and 101 to quickly get to our campsite in the Santa Cruz mountains.

We went on a 6 mile hike and then settled in for an early night. The next morning we made breakfast and had some coffee. Then got on the road to head home!

We were eager to get home to the kiddos so we decided to take the freeways home. On highway 17 heading towards San Jose we saw another vanagon! We were in front of them for a bit, but I think they turned off somewhere as we lost them. Then getting onto 680 we saw another gold syncro! It was smooth sailing the rest of the and we made it home in no time. Back to the smoke and heat in the Central Valley!

Since it was our first time on a trip in the Walty Wagon we definitely learned a lot along the way and we can’t wait to get back out there with the kids!