Okay, okay. I still haven't put up pictures of the damage but I thought I'd share this one with you.  It's a great Westy but....there's something wrong with the men in this picture.

Enjoy!!

The summer winds down

I had a gentle reminder from a friend that I have been remiss in my blogging duties.  He was right.  I havent posted anything in a while and for that I appologize.  

I haven't really done much with the Westy recently since I have been on the road for work.  Actually as I write this I am in Thunder Bay.  I will be back soon and I'llbe taking the Westy into the autobody shop to get and estimate on the body and paint work that needs to be done from the door falling off. 

To be honest, I have been reuctant to take the Westy out because of the door.  I don't want to be out somewhere either diving or camping and have to door come off and not be able to get it back on.  I don't want to give up on camping this year but I might have to face that reality.   I really hope that I can get the door fixed, painted and it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg to do it.  I also hope that it doesn't snow for a while because I want to go out diving and camping still. 

Well I'll keep you posted and I WILL post some pictures of the damage from the door coming off when I get back.  

500 hits and counting

Well, I had assumed that no one was really reading this but I took a look at the stats and found that sometime last week I topped 500 page views.  Overall not too bad.  I had originally started this as a way to keep track of what I am doing with my Westy so years from now I can look back and admire all of my many accomplishments.  Some interesting things from the stats…

USA – 254 page views

Canada 207 page views

Malaysia – 10 page views

Germany – 7 page views

Austria 5 page views

Then there’s a handful of other places that have 4 or less views… the strangest place Russia.  I didn’t think that there were that many VW fans in Russia.

This weekend coming up I am going to head to Two Jack Lake for camping.  I’ll drag out the camera and telescope too and hopefully I have clear skies and good weather.  I’ll keep you posted.

Vent Windows

I need to add latches to my front vent windows.  You know those little triangular ones.  I know there are a few threads on thesamba.com about this so I’ll do the research and see if I can get them in sometime next week.  I got the latches yesterday from an online supplier for about $10 so I am happy and ready to tackle this small repair. 

I was looking online at classifieds on thesamba.com and had some guy respond.  Wow, he needs to take a chill pill.  He had both windows (complete) and they were in decent shape.  His asking price for them however was $125 for the pair plus $50 shipping.  Let me rewind a little bit here.  He send me a message on 08/03 saying that I was “2nd in line and the other guy didn't pay yet. If you want them send your address for shipping costs. I accept PayPal. If you Pay right away I will delete the ad and send the first guy an email telling him they are sold. If you want to call me my # is 909-396-XXXX.  Let me know.” 

It seemed a little fishy to me that he already had a buyer but if I paid him first he’d let me have them and tell the other guy to bugger off.  I asked how much shipping would be to me in Canada…” I'm sure its $50 to ship so the total is $175 box will be big and a little heavy PayPal is barimanXXXX@aol.com sorry I sent the wrong phone # it 909-496-XXXX Let me know I just checked the the other guy didn't pay”.

This is all in the span of a couple of hours.  Talk about impatient. 

So yesterday I was busy and believe it or not, I didn’t check my email and he sends me this…”So now  you won't answer my emails. Don't bother replying to any of my ads. I won't ship any of my parts to you”   

Seriously?  24 Hours and this guy loses his marbles and tells me that he won’t ship to me, ever.  Seems a little harsh doesn’t it?  Well I sent him a cheery email this morning thanking him for the information and that I’ll pass on these parts but it seems to me that this guy is just on the site to make some cash.  He really didn’t have the helpful, friendly attitude that I have encountered in other forums or when asking questions on the site.  Oh, well I guess a guy like this will reap what he sows. 

On a completely unrelated note I drove the Westy to work yesterday and as I was waiting at the lights at Southland and 14^th street a beautiful older beige bug pulls up beside me.  The guy rolls down his window and says “nice bus”.  I give him a smile and a thanks and compliment him on his bug.  It was in amazing condition.  I’d love to take a close look at it so he gave me the street that he’s on in the neighbourhood so I’ll take a cruise by later in the week and see if I can get a couple of pictures to post up here.  It was kinda cool having a couple of vintage VWs sitting side by side at the same stop light.  We were getting a lot of looks from other motorists.  I had to laugh at myself as the light turned green.  He gave me a wave and rather than wave back I flashed him the ‘peace sign’. Duuude.

Weekend in Drumheller

Well I survived the camping weekend.  In all honesty it wasn’t that bad.  I left Calgary a little later than I wanted as I had really hoped to avoid some of the “weekender” traffic.   No such luck.  Actually There was a huge thunder storm bearing down on highway #2 North of Calgary.  Right at about Airdre the skies opened up and the rain came, then the hail. Golf ball sized hail.   Luckily it wasn’t the really hard kind of hail that dents the crap out of everything but the kind that makes a lot of noise but no damage.  It was one of those storms that whipped in and out in a matter of a few minutes.   Over all the storm wasn’t that bad but it did leave a crap load of water and ice on the road and spawned a bunch of tornado watches for the area. 

The traffic on the #2 got backed up a little bit and I didn’t get to the campground until just after 6:00.  As you can see we got a primo location right by the porta-potty.  Luckily it didn’t smell.

The kids pretty much sorted themselves out in terms of sleeping arrangements and no drama.  All in all a good time was had by all.  We managed to visit the Royal Tyrell as well as Horseshoe Canyon. 

On another note I was down by the A&W last week on a Wednesday and there were a bunch of vintage cars there.  One of them actually came over and flagged me down.  They talked me into coming over and have a look as well as park the Westy in with them.  Since I really didn’t have anything else going on I stayed for a bit and popped the top.  I was amazed at how many random people came over to have a look and check out the Westy… here are a few pictures.

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.

The Westy I ALMOST Bought

Back when I was contemplating making the jump into the world of Westys I had a couple criteria.  One, the Westy had to mechanically sound.  As I have mentioned previously I am not THAT mechanically inclined but I am reading “How to keep your VW alive” among others to learn.  I didn’t want to get something that I had to dump a lot of money into right away (hahaha…if you only saw the bills so far). The other criteria is that the body and interior had to be good to…again see reasons above. 

Indulge me as I take a walk down memory lane a little bit here…  I remember as a kid my Dad went to a car auction and came home with a 65 Corvair convertible.  Understand my Dad was always fascinated by older cars and was a bit of a gear head even though he never seemed to have the time or the money to spend working on a classic car. The first few years we took it out in the summers for the day but overtime it didn’t get used that much and spent more time under a tarp than on the road.  Just after Easter he passed away suddenly and I went back to Winnipeg.  I can’t remember which website this one was on but it was located in St.Andrews, Manitoba which is just outside of Winnipeg.  So while I was in Winnipeg dealing with family stuff I took a day (because I needed it!) and went to look at this Westy.

Overall it was in decent shape and had about 65000 original miles on it.  There was some road wear on it but not too bad.  I wasn’t keen on the configuration inside but everything was original.  One thing that scared the bejeezus outta me was that it had basically been sitting in a garage for the past several years and nothing had been done to the engine.  So not only would I have to get an out of province inspection done on it but I would have to figure a way to get my car as well as someone to drive the Westy 1400+ kilometers back to Calgary (that’s about 870 miles for you Yanks btw).  My sister offered to drive it out West but I couldn’t do that to her. 

Here are the pictures of what would, I’m sure be the Orange Monster…  I'm sure my Dad would have loved my Green Monster. :)