sprocket i/o

Five years ago, I stepped into a Volkswagen Bus for the very first time. I had just met this girl named Dallas (Sallad) a few weeks beforehand, and she invited me to go camping with her. The event, Paddy’s Wagens, was a yearly campout for VW Bus enthusiasts put on by the Full Moon Bus Club. I rode passenger for several hours in her 1971 VW Bus, and fell in love with both VW busses and her over the course of the weekend. I’ve been waiting to go back to this campout for a few years now, and this weekend we finally had the chance. This time, we were coming from Atlanta instead of Raleigh, and this time we managed to roll ourselves over:

We arrived sometime after midnight, so the campsite was pretty quiet. At least this year we didn’t come on the back of a tow truck. We still don’t have a working gas gauge, but have revised our mileage estimates to 150mi after that experience. Here’s my wife dutifully jotting down the mileage on the receipt:

We woke up pretty late on Saturday, and went scouting around for any activity around the campsite. We got to talk to some pretty interesting people (who’s names I’ve forgotten.. ugh) and see some pretty tricked out VW Busses:

We weren’t able to find anyone making breakfast burritos, so we made due with some watermelon for breakfast, and laid around for a little while:

And eventually brought ourselves to go hiking around the parkl There was a crazy easter egg hunt going around, so Dallas and I watched to entertain ourselves with the little kids running around, and their parents trying to egg them on:

Afterwards, we did some geocaching, and ran into Jay & Lynn on the way there. Hadn’t seen them since 3-4 years ago at Thanksgiving Misgivings! Dallas found the cache before I did:

Clover was complaining about all of the hiking, and the storm was coming in, so we headed back to camp and waited out the storm in the safety of the bus. It wasn’t anything but a bunch of rain.

We wandered around afterwards to talk up some of our neighbors. It seems that a bunch of local busses left when the storm started to roll in, but I did get to meet some people, particularly Greg and Laurel. I was too stupid to take any photos of them, however, so why not just a photo of me finally getting our grill going without the lighter fluid we left behind in Atlanta:

After some yummy brauts, we walked around to find the loudest campfire, which was with the Asheville contingent (who’s names I’ve forgot). We played the Homer Simpson variant of Operation, and had all sorts of yummy alcohol. I was a doofus and forgot to bring my camera along, and was having too much fun to leave for it. Thanks to Phil for bringing the Apple pie goodness, and to Jay for the fantastic cake. We hung out around the fire for a few hours, sharing the usual bus stories, and trying to figure out where some of the old FMBC crew were at nowadays.

On Sunday morning, we said goodbyes and headed back home:

On the way home, Clover found a chance to relax and enjoy the open highway:

At a gas stop on the way back, we performed the requisite oil check, and found that the bus needed another quart of oil to get back to normal (it only takes two quarts!). All part of the fun of having an old VW Bus I suppose. We arrived back in ATL without any incident, other than having to answer the emails and phone calls we got checking in on us after the tornado’s in the area. Thankfully, there was no storm damage in our neck of the woods.

Dallas and I had a great time there. Next time we’ll see about taking photos of some more people. Until then, here are the rest of the photos we took:

• My Paddy’s Wagen Photos
• Dallas’ Paddy’s Wagen Photos

Thanks to Bear and the FMBC for putting it all together!