stevegibb
Samba Member
Joined: December 18, 2006
Posts: 107
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 Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 2:00 pm Post subject: Love-Hate relationship with camper not what you think |
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All -- from our 2011 holiday letter on camper ownership. . .
My wife says I am impossible to find gifts for as my many years of boat and camper projects have led to oversupplies on both modes of transport. During a recent camping trip I had prepped the van for enough contingencies to be able to instantly provide on demand a hatchet, jump rope, pancake spatula, wine glasses, badmitton, electrical tape and a particle accelerator. After several misadventures, we have a new/used engine in our 1983 VW Westfalia camper so the love-hate dynamic continueth. Bear with me here but I actually love it when it’s broken down as it gives me a project, mechanical puzzles to solve, teaches me new skills (coolant bleeding, A/C charging, dash light repairs and housing the ECU this summer alone) and the strong sense that our van’s spiritual identity as a mechanically dysfunctional karmic entity goes uninterrupted. When it’s running well, I have a hate relationship with the van as we take extra cold camping trips in late October where I share bunk room with my rangy pre-teen son and miss hearing the salacious details of local Tow Truck drivers’ love lives. There is definitely something magical about our van, her perfect, nay iconic lines, the way kids take to her yellow tones and the old timers who sidle up to regale us with their VW tales. And there is an almost mystically curious way her key always winds up on the top of the jangle when I fetch them out of my pockets whispering “drive me. . . drive me”. |
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