Adventure Car

Lately I have been lamenting the loss of my Volkswagen camper van. "Loss" is not an accurate word for what happened to it; it was sold to a guy named Anthony in Placer County California.  Lately I have been captivated by the Vanagon. The front view, the full frontal, is graphically captivating with three small circles in a row: headlight, VW emblem, and finally, other headlight. And those in a horizontal line in the center of what is often a lovely shade of brown, butter-yellow or orange. Delicious. (I do not normally use the word delicious when not talking about food. I usually say yummy). 

These images are borrowed from the Internet. If I can improve on these,  I will return them to the Internet and replace them with my own. 

The van I had was a 1965 camper van in my favorite car color, beige. There was no poptop but it did have a sink, tables, a closet, a bed and an icebox. It was the best vehicle for adventures (vehicle based adventures) that I ever had. The one glitch with a car of that vintage was that eventually everything had to be replaced. Sometimes it was a simple thing like the starter. Other times it was less simple but still simple for people of a certain skill type, e.g. people who are as good at putting things together as they are at taking them apart. Those less simple things included the clutch, transmission and engine. I recall driving from Arcata, California to Auburn, California, having to hold the gear shift to keep it from popping out of gear. Which makes enjoying the drive unlikely. One spring break, on a trip to San Diego with Dr. Matt, we ended up stuck in a traffic jam. It turns out air-cooled engines do not like to idle for hours. When traffic finally started to move we heard a bang coming from the back of the van and for the rest of the trip the car was running on three cilinders - but three out of four isn't bad. When I was back home I asked a kid in my figure drawing class how his spring break was. It turned out he was in a car accident on I 5, the car accident, on I 5. I told him he owed me an engine.

I'm the kind of guy who prefers form over function, so those glitches were nothing compared with how great the van looked to me. And when it worked, it worked well. It was like a great tent on wheels. And with no engine sticking out the front it was easy to parallel park.

This sabbatical and AHI fellowship has gotten me thinking about travel, adventure, camping - the stuff Lewis and Clark did. So I fantasize about a vehicle made for just that purpose. I know what you're thinking, Lewis and Clark had canoes. I like those too.