Things your van did recently

[dsdunbar]

Spent the weekend at deception pass. It was our first camping trip as a family of 5 (our youngest is almost 6mos old now). We arrived on Friday and got to watch some of the fighter jets do their thing

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'89 2WD Westy "Grey Goose" - Manual 4spd
Crozet VA
Vanaru EJ25, Peloquin

[bus bruce]

A nice weekend of camping and breweries on the north shore of MN

[dhaavers]

[HarpertownUSA]

Little Debbie made the +/- 1400 mile round trip from PA to the Great Smoky Mountains Nat'l Park in TN without as much as a hiccup! Felt like I could've drove her another 1400 without stopping! Saw one other vanagon in the park, lots of waving and beeping ensued.

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If Sisyphus owned a vehicle, it would've been a vanagon.

"Little Debbie" - 89 Carat Weekender

[bobbyblack]

Another nice 6 hours on the road, turned 277777 miles, tried to get nice shot of Flossie at the Dunnings spring waterfall.

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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch

[dhaavers]

2000 miles in the past 2 weeks...all she needed was gas & 1/2 qt of oil...

Home--->Chicago--->Home--->UP MI--->Home
2 nights stealth+5 nights "real" camping...all good!

- Dave
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86 White Wolfsburg Westy Weekender
"The WonderVan"
<EDITED TO PROTECT INNOCENT PIXELS>

[WestyWanter]

I live in the UP of Michigan and we like to surf on Lake Superior, the best time of year for this is fall and winter when the winds are out of the north. Its been awhile since there has been waves near me but when I saw there was a strong south wind that was blowing at 25kts steady for 18+hrs I knew there would be some good waves on the north coast of Lake Michigan. Myself an a few buddies piled in an followed a few locals to a secret spot that somehow was shielded from the wind, but still only 40ft from the rocky beach. The one is me on a super clean left that went on forever... freshwater and no sharks!

Marquette MI trailsfest was over this past weekend. Being a community that is super into mountain biking there was many different races held on our beautiful single track. If you are in the midwest I highly suggest making the trip up here to ride some of the best. One of our local breweries even sports their own VW Westfalia as their trademark advertisement! They handed out free beers to anyone and everyone. Mind you the two track that the van is parked on is roughly a .25mile up hill on a grade that I wouldn't mess with my own van! Shortly after parking the van had a sizable puddle of what looked like oil??? Shout out to Blackrocks Brewery located in Marquette MI.

[timichango]

Our fan had a power-fart through one of the rear hard brake lines, causing a lot of rigmarole trying to get it fixed for this weekend (still ongoing).

Mercifully, the ol'girl did it on a slow road to the beach, and not the Sea to Sky (aka. Scream and Die) highway that leads up to Squamish, where we live. I'm ultra-appreciative of the early warning before I was in more hazardous conditions with my wife and kid in the van.

Thanks Vroomhilde!
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vroomhilde-San: Our 1991 Silver Vanagon Westy automatic + Subie EJ25

[16CVs]

My Van took me to Cambria for a visit with a friend of mine and his wife for a lovely weekend on the coast.
Since the big Mud slide I had to drive down 101 and then come back north to reach our camping spot.
Weather was cooperative and the van ran like a well tuned watch. Albiet a cloned copy and modern iteration of a Westy. Almost 20 MPG from Syncro westy and a 2.2 Subaru, traveling at or above the posted limit.
There was 1 other Westy there other then our 2. As well as a Routan van. We saw at least 3 European plated campers, most of them Fiats. As well as a Chiese couple driving a huge high end rented 35" Motor Coach.
A great weekend and a little more amortization of my bastardized Syncro Westy.

Stacy
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1987 Syncro Westfalia Triple knob (bastard)
1989 Syncro Tristar Triple knob "Swedish"
2013 Jetta Hybrid a true "Zwitter"
Samba member # 14980
Call anytime number 650 722 4914 .
Keep Your van running and upkept tastefully for the love of the hobby.
Don't let your van end up in an "abortions" thread.

[figborg]

[ams]

Our '86 Weekender took us (Mom, Dad, and three and four-year-old) from our home in Brookfield, IL up to Newaygo County, MI to visit family at a county park called Oxbow. It's somewhat of a party type campground, and the sites are packed in, but one of those places where you can let even little kids run wild. We stopped to camp on the way back at a little campground called Covert Township Park right on Lake Michigan, which was pretty cool. It was our first real trip since we bought the van last month, total of about 470 miles, and the van did amazingly well. The only problem was driving the thing in two hours of stop-and-go traffic on the way out of town. Samba people, don't give me a hard time about what I'm about to say, but I missed the automatic transmission in our other car (a Prius) while driving in this horrendous traffic. You know what I'm talking about if you and your Vanagon live in a major metropolitan area and have to run this gauntlet to get out. One big surprise was how fun it is to ride in the jumpseat, getting waves, peace signs, and smiles from other cars as they approached then passed us on the expressway. I even got out my guitar to entertain the kids while zooming along. What a joy!
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'86 Weekender

[atomatom]

up the kettle river

(edited and re-hosted)
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84 Vanagon Westy, 1.9L, California raised but defected to Canada.

[Jake de Villiers]

[Paulbeard]

[atomatom]

bah. sorry. fixed.
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84 Vanagon Westy, 1.9L, California raised but defected to Canada.

[Jake de Villiers]

[crukab]

Our Vanagon took us on a Ferry to N.Y., visiting friends near Whiteface Mtn.

All 3 Shepherds went too....
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Tom

My Pops:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=604100&highlight=
I know you will always be with me, rest in peace with no more pain. 8/13/14.....

In the yard right now:
'51 Dodge 5 window truck
'65 Bug
'66 Singlecab
'82 Rabbit Truck Diesel from CALI
'86 Doublecab W/T
'91 Vanagon carat/wolfsbrg.Tiico
'88 Dodge Ram pickup
'11 Jetta Wagon

[crukab]

This weekend my Vanagon Truck took a trip to Canton Ct., visiting my Family, pulled this old Jig-saw out of the basement:

It was so heavy I had to pull it off the stand. Cleaned it up and made in into a shelf unit for the garage,

thanks for saving that old thing for me, Dad...
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Tom

My Pops:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=604100&highlight=
I know you will always be with me, rest in peace with no more pain. 8/13/14.....

In the yard right now:
'51 Dodge 5 window truck
'65 Bug
'66 Singlecab
'82 Rabbit Truck Diesel from CALI
'86 Doublecab W/T
'91 Vanagon carat/wolfsbrg.Tiico
'88 Dodge Ram pickup
'11 Jetta Wagon

[ams]

Our van took us on a week-long trip to the Kettle Moraine State Forest North Unit in Wisconsin. We spent part of the time at Long Lake, the other part at Mauthe Lake, both very nice parks with swimming beaches and places to launch your watercraft. Experienced our first torrential rain in the van, and the original pop-top took it like a champ. We ate dinner and had game-time inside the van during the downpour, and didn't miss tent camping (previous life) one bit! We had a couple mechanical problems but nothing that prevented us from getting there and back safely. By chance, an '83 Westy showed up in the site next to ours our final night. We had a lot of fun checking out each other's rides.

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'86 Weekender

[bobbyblack]

Flossie attracted a Jeep from Ames strongly enough to magnetically pull it over on the side of the highway. The driver was apparently in shock to see us and jumped out to chat about VW's. He had a Bay Westy at home that didn't make the trip due to a severe drinking problem (10 MPG). Chatted for about 15 minutes, over which he told me of a semi local group who were camping the weekend about 10 miles away.

So, being the curious type, I threw a case of Dog Style in the back, and headed out to Randys Blufton Campground. Found an interesting array of Westy's: in the main group was a splitty, 3 Bay's and a '85 Vanagon. There was also an unrelated Bay Hightop nearby. Good folks, chatted a bit, and headed back to my ranch.

Only incident to report was a splatter of manure, which took about half an hour to wash off once home... icky! Nice farmer out that way was probably chuckling to himself as the liquid manure sloshed out on the blacktop. I saw it, but had nowhere to dodge.

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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch