After some initial spring pains I am back on the road.  I do want to take the old girl out for a bit of a longer run this weekend if I can.  Maybe I’ll trek out to Nanton and check out the antique stores.  It’s about an hour drive down the highway from Calgary.  Not a lot of hills and no snow.  I figure that it’s a better what than heading West into the mountains. 

May long weekend is typically the start of the camping season here in the Great White North but with the unseasonably warm winter we’ve had here maybe it’ll start early.  We’ll see.  Maybe I’ll even get into the water diving this month. 

Other than getting to work on the heat issue it feels like she’s ready to go for the summer.  Just a couple of spring cleaning things to do like get the upholstery cleaned professionally.  It’s original and there are some stains that I am just not comfortable with.  I’ll be a little happier once they are cleaned.

Other than the odd adventure around town there won’t be too much going on.  Maybe I’ll post something on the Vee-dub club of Calgary’s webpage and see if we can all descend on one location in and around the city like Peter’s Drive in or Mckay’s Ice Cream in Cochrane…. Hmmmm   I’ll let you know how that shakes down. 

Pleasure, pain and click…

Who knew something that is so much fun can be so frustrating.    I went down to the registry a couple of days ago and re-newed the plates for the Green Monster.  It was a beautiful spring day, I had just seen the first Robin of the year, it was a balmy 14 degrees.  It was time.  After a long winter in hibernation it was time to get the van rolling.  I put the little sticker in the bottom right hand corner of the license plate  and I was good to go.  I have to admit I was a little excited as I put the key in and turned for the first time.    It took a couple of cranks as the fuel worked its way through the system and the engine started quickly and easily. 

I backed it out of the drive way and hit the road.  Not much of a drive but enough to work out any of the winter stiffness.  It was great cruising down Deerfoot at 100kph watching the world rip past me .   After about a 45 minute drive I headed home. 

The next morning I had a couple of errands to run so I thought I’d take the van out.  Perfect.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing etc, etc, etc.  I decided on the way home that I’d stop at the gym.  Once I was done I headed out to the van with a big grin on my face knowing that cruising the afternoon away would be my reward for working my ass off at the gym.  I put the key in, turned it and “Click”.  Click…. WTF ?!?  It was running great about an hour ago and now “click”?  Not even engine cranking but click…. SIGH.  Tried push starting it, tried a boost but nothing….. click.

So knowing I didn’t have the time or the tools ( yet) to replace the starter I had it towed.  I know I am going to get shit from one of my friends for this.  He’s going to tell me that we could have done this ourselves and he’s  probably right.   So at the very least the a rebuilt starter is going to be about $200 

http://store.concept1.ca/store/product/53345/Bosch-Rebuilt-Starter-T2-72-79/

So, yes it’s in the shop, and yes I’m gonna have to pay for it (again) and yes my friend is going to give me shit for it.   No estimate yet but I’m hopeful that it’s not going to be too bad.  I’ll keep you posted. 

Pictures from summer past...

With spring, and summer for that matter, approaching fast I can't help but think about hitting the open road in the Westy.  I was waxing nostalgic the other day and came across some of the pictures from last summer.  I was dropping a movie off at Blockbuster (remember them?) and there was the Wednesday night Cruising the Dub at the local A&W.  Here I thought they were helping me park the beast but they wanted me to stick around for a bit....  So I backed in, dropped off my movie and hung out for a bit while people checked out the Green Monster.

Had to post this beacuse it's AWESOME!

 A VW Bus bunkbed DIY.  I wish I had kids now so I could build one of these for them. 

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Micro-Bus-Bunk-Bed-and-Playhouse/

Has anyone ever build something like this?  I'd love to hear about it.

Camper Jam - VWs in the Badlands

I’ve been thinking that this year I need to get a little more involved in the local VW scene.  You know join the clubs, go camping with them and hopefully learn more about my bus.  There is a group called the Travelling Type II’s and they are hosting a Camper Jam in the badlands of Alberta this year.  It actually sounds very cool.  They all descend on one campground and camp out for the weekend.  They also do a cruise.  I can only imagine a convoy of 20 -30 (or more) busses cruising down the street.  Now that’s a sight!

http://web.me.com/ericvw1/Travelling_Type_2s/Camper_Jam_Canada.html

I think the challenge for me this year is going to be trying to balance diving on the weekends out at Lake Minnewanka and going to some of these events. 

Heat... winter driving....mmmmm

It's kind of funny.  The more I think about getting heat in my bus the more I think about winter driving it and how cool it would be to take the Monster to the ski hill.  Sweet. 

Sadly though it's going to have to wait for a few weeks anyway.  I'm heading for the tropics for a week of scuba diving.  When I get back though I am going to be cleaning out the Westy and getting it ready for the camping season which in this end of the country is about 2 months away.  :)   I did just get back from Cozumel Mexico and there are a ton of bugs and bussed down there. It was great but it looks like a lot of them have seen better days.  It was strange too, it loooked like a lot of the busses got converted to liquid cooling, I guess it make sense when you are 80 degrees in the winter and over 100 in the summer.  I can only imagine the issues you'd run into.

Well it’s been a long and not so cold winter here in Calgary and with the days getting longer I am getting more and more impatient to get the Westy out.   If I could get heat in the Green Monster, I’d probably be driving it this week.  I started doing a little research and I found a great site for the heating system on the bus. http://www.ratwell.com/technical/Heating.html   I think this will be my first project once a good Chinook rolls through town

I started accumulating some tools and a decent tool chest this year. I had to promise a friend Matt that I wouldn’t take my Westy to a repair shop anymore and I would at least attempt to do the repairs myself.  So a local Canadian Tire store had a 400+ piece set of tools on for about $150 (regular price about $400) and a really nice tool chest with drawers for about $125 (again regular price around $400).  I’m on my way.  I think this spring I’ll pick up some jack stands and ramps too.  Small steps right?

In a way I am really looking forward to stretching my legs a little more so to speak.  Last year I did some camping trips but they were all within a couple hundred kilometers.  I’d really like to see if I can make the trip to Kelowna and back this year.  Should be interesting as Kelowna is over 500 km away and it’s a great drive through the mountains and along the lakes.  I want to see just how far I can go in it this year.  I’ll have limited vacation time but I think a week should do it.   With Calgary as a home base, I’m thinking I might be able to get out to Coledale / Frank, Alberta for the Thunder in the Valley this year too.  Grand plans I tell you, grand plans. 

I’ll try to update the blog a lot more often from here on out.