Camping weekend

I was corresponding with a pal of mine who has been having trouble with his bus lately.  He had purchased a new engine for it, installed it but for some reason couldn’t get it running properly.  As it turns out there were a couple of screws that had fallen into the engine and toasted a couple of his pistons.  Kind of a pain in the ass.  He managed to borrow an engine from a pal of his and got it installed and it runs, in his words, “like a top”.  Good news since he’s heading camping with the family this weekend.

He said something interesting to me in one of our emails in reference to my post about the Westy I ALMOST bought.. that I am going to re-post here (with his permission of course).  I am going to edit out names but otherwise these are his words:

 It’s funny how these old things usually have ties to family memories whether it be directly or indirectly.  I think that’s what gives them their vibe and draws people to them.  I remember taking my son on his first camping trip in the Westy when he was 4 months old.  That was before I knew a thing about busses and I packed up the family and just drove.  It was a great fly by the seat of your pants trip and we had an amazing time.  I also remember driving it home in the middle of the night after holding my Grandma’s hand as she died.  I look at the memories I’ve had with the old machine and think of everyone else’s contributions over the last 45 years (51 in Mango’s case) and it’s pretty cool.  At the end of the day, they’re just hunks of metal but I’m convinced they do hold onto the vibe of their previous owners.  We’re just the stewards of them for a couple a brief period of time.  Each repair you do, each camping trip you take, it all adds to the coolness.

I thought this was very profound… Think about all t he stuff that you have done to your bus and all that has been done before you. Each bus keeps a little of the character of the previous owners and we are just the caretakers for the small time that we have them before we pass it on to someone else.  Very cool.  Thanks for that!

Well I am all packed up and ready to go for my camping weekend out in Drumheller.  It should be fun as there are going to be 9 of us all total and hopefully no drama..  I’ll take some pictures and post them on Monday or Tuesday when I get back. 

Have a safe weekend.