Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 22:58:09 -0400
Reply-To: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Subject: Re: Most Outrageous Vanagon Stealth Camping Spots?
In-Reply-To: <f06240801c34ce49d0f8b@[192.168.1.101]>
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Keep those camping stories coming! Best reading I've had on the list
for a long time. Makes it easier to remember that fixing the buses
is not all that we do...
During my school days in upstate NY, I used to take my birthday off
for some skiing in the Adirondacks. One birthday I was particularly
determined to get away from it all. Approaching the Adirondacks from
the west it started snowing in the Tug hill area. First mishap happened
on a particularly steep downhill where (due to crappy tires) I lost
control. Thankfully the tall snow walls kept the westy on the
road as I spun downhill pointing in various directions but forward.
Thankfully these areas are almost deserted and there were no other
cars. Only casualty were the bumper endcaps and cracked plastic
on one flasher.
Stubborn and still determined I pushed on. Not long after I had to
put on chains to keep going at all. With near zero visibility I drove
for another hour or so, and the going only got slower. Finally around
9pm or so, still snowing heavily, I had to give up driving and
bedded in my down sleeping bag. (No such luxuries as propane furnaces...)
At about 1am I was awakened by almost constant buzzing of high revving
engines around me. Still half dozed off I peek out the window and
see one snowmobile after another zip by just outside the bus.
This keeps going on for another 30 min, then everything is completely
quiet and I finally get to sleep in peace.
I next wake up to a cold, but crisp and sunny winter morning.
Outside the van I realize I'm on a narrow trail, and the snowmobile
tracks just narrowly averting the bus. Walking a bit further I
realize I'm off the regular road and on a snowmobile track going
between the bar in one village and another village. The 1am
rush hour last night must have been all the villagers leaving
when the bar closed.
Having a battery as bad as my tires of course the Diesel wouldn't
start in the -20C morning temp. Thankfully XC skiing was pretty
nice from just where I was camped. Later in the afternoon
things warmed up a bit, and I got the bus started and was off
to the high peaks region. (That is high by east coast standards...)
Martin (still with "Poppie" the same '82 Diesel westy)
David Etter <detter@MAIL.AURACOM.COM> wrote: Raymond:
That's pretty funny. Another episode one evening in Guatamala
when we heard the sound of gravel moving then felt someone outside
shaking the van. I got out to see who would be bothering us on this
lonely mountain gravel pull-off overlooking a gorge 250 feet straight
down with no guardrails.
There was not a soul to be found....... it was another
aftershock and plus here we were stuck on a pull-off with a just
discovered flat tire (from a trip over a bulldozed landslide earlier
that evening). Hope was with us though as we saw the lights of cars
moving slowly down the hillside on the other side of the gorge. We
decided to stay put as it was dark and we couldn't see diddly.
The next morning we discovered that the car lights we saw had
been lava flowing down through the woods on the other side of the
gorge. COOL!
David (dsl82westy)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karin Baker & Raymond Paquette (wrote)
>I parked my '64 in a cornfield in Mexico. Woke up early to these very
>creepy loud scraping sounds, and felt the van being bumped around.
>
>Scared. Did the only reasonable thing I could think of. Hid under the
>covers. More scraping. Chewing sounds. Waiting. Sound of something like
>a creaky door swinging back and forth.
>
>Finally got up my courage to peek out. Surrounded by thirsty cows, licking
>the heavy morning dew off of my van. Ever seen the thirsty cows in Baja,
>with the cactus hanging from thier faces? One had licked my fiberglass air
>scoop too vigorously, it had broken loose and was swinging back and forth.
>
>Things sound different at night.
>
>Raymond
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