Date:         Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:02:02 -0500
Reply-To:     Maureen Stretch <mstretch@SPRINTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Maureen Stretch <mstretch@SPRINTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      One-armed Westy Handling?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Listees,

Three weeks ago, I fell and broke my left shoulder in a couple of places.
(While feeding puppies - - it shows you, no good deed goes unpunished.)
With dog show camping weekends coming up, I am seriously considering
selling my wonderful Westy to get an RV, if I can't figure out how to
overcome the one-armed problems. My shoulder is doing fine, but I
probably won't have full extension and use of it for things like lifting
up the poptop roof, for 6 months to a year or more. (I can drive it ok, w
automatic tranny and ps.)

Do any of you know of any creative solutions that would help me:

1. raise the poptop one-handed? I was a weakling to begin with- -it was
hard with two.

2. hook up and unhook the little 3 by 4 enclosed travel trailer that I
tow? That was also hard  for me to move around with two hands .

3. load and unload the Westy easily? With the dogs and their gear, it is
a lot of stuff to load for the road, move when we arrive,  reload for
home and then unload at home.

Also, I will now be traveling with 4 Lhasa dogs not two, so it is more
stuff. An RV looks a whole lot easier to handle.

I'd appreciate any suggestions from the list. Have any of you survived
one-armed camping in a Westy alone? (I could try renting friends or
friends' kids, but that's even more stuff.)

Also, I don't want to permanently modify the Westy, either.

TIA for your thoughts.

Maureen

Maureen Stretch
Natick, Mass.
91 Vanagon GL Westy "Johann"