Jaci Dawn

I searched through my 2013 posts, looking for the “Best of…” highlights and discovered that I never posted about one of our best life events. I have no explanation for the oversight!

My last post of 2013 will be a post I should have written in May.

My wonderful husband drove up to Puyallup, Washington early in the month of May. That, by the way, is a mouthful: Puyallup, Washington. But I digress. Don was meeting a man to look at a Volkswagen camper van. He took a friend who knows Volkswagens. This particular friend is the person who convinced Don that he could not continue to live without a vintage Volkswagen camper van parked in the driveway.

Parked is a key word.

This is what came to be parked in our driveway for months. All through the summer, in fact, and into the fall, while Don waited for parts to be shipped from Germany.

It is a vintage 1971 camper van in need of a lot of love and labor.

Looks clean, but it leaks oil. The tires and most of the braking system all had to be replaced. I’m a little fuzzy on everything he had to buy, because my brain does not retain mechanical facts like Marisa Tomei’s character in “My Cousin Vinny”.

I could never be that girl. My dad and my brother talked mechanics all the time. I’ve spent hours waiting in a garage for one or the other of them (mostly my brother). But terminology like Master Cylinder, Head Gasket, blown valve, lifter, clutch pad, and distributor cap are all foreign terms to me. I do best at sitting in the seat and obeying orders: “Okay, now, pump the brake five times!”

That’s one funky 1970’s front seat and gear shift. For the record, I can drive a stick shift. And I do know what the choke does.

Those are my beloved’s knees.

It came with a refrigerator which is the object sort of in the middle of the picture. It sits behind the front passenger seat and there was some issue with the drain.

It has a table, a fold down bed, a closet, and storage space above. That’s my honey in the background.

It came with the requisite Peace Sign in the window.

This serves no purpose that I can see, but it made for a cool picture.

It runs now. Don takes it out to run errands. He has yet to take it camping because he got the parts he needed right before the bad weather hit. His goal is to have it ready to go next summer for some nearby camping trips.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how you hate getting stuck behind a VW Van on a mountain pass. Yes, we will be those people.

Admit it – a part of you is also really jealous that we have this.

P.S. Don will not let me paint it. I do not understand why.