A drinking crowd with a VW problem

There are t-shirts of various places around the country that say - a drinking town with a here. I.E. "Breckenridge, a quaint little drinking town with a skiing problem". And "Portland - a quaint little drinking town with a Hipster problem". Our little camping group isn't full of drunks and/or alcoholics, but we like our wine and our beer. Occasionally, we like a cocktail. 

This year at George's Birthday party,  I tried my hand at cocktails. (George is John LaTorre's bus. See Here for more)

For those who prefer an easily made drink, we had other options.

And if drinking an adult beverage is not your think, there is always eating.

Or maybe you don't like the food we brought. Then I hope you have a sweet tooth.

What? You don't like cake? Or food? Or beer? or a cocktail? Then I have no idea why you are camping with us... perhaps you just like to sing.

Or maybe traveling around is your thing

Here's the thing about us... we are an "all of the above" kind of crowd. We don't really care if you bus is new or newer.

Old or older.

Or just weird.

We want to camp, preferably with you. Bring Wine, bring wood. Drive, camp, be well.

Random Camp trip - because we can

The bus is a spontaneous vehicle. It's not a surprise (to me anyway) that Outside Magazine called it the greatest vehicle ever made. They may have been referring to the Syncro exclusively, but I'm rolling mine into the pile.

So when some of the crew asked me to join them at a random campout, and it was both cheap and on a free weekend, I didn't pass it up.

Lake Pardee, Ca. Also known as lake party in the summer. It wasn't summer yet.

Blake and Shelby are perpetually adorable.

The turkey vultures like to wait until it's warm before foraging.

But the turkeys will forage whenever they want.

I decided to try and take some pictures that I could submit for the GoWesty calendar.

Where the hell have I been?

Certainly not here. I've been focused on other projects to do much blog updates, or many VW adventures. It's been a weird year so far. So rather than spending too much time apologizing, let's just get to work. Feel free to chastise me in the comments.


Del Valle!

Outside of Livermore is a small regional park. It has a man-made reservoir and several circles for car camping. Our group likes to use it for short weekend campouts - it's close, yet just far enough. This was a good excuse for me to bust out the Tent of Awesome.

It was spring, green, and there were plenty of pretty things to walk around and look at.

Some of that walking could be done with very short legs.

And if walking isn't your style, there is always keeping warm and drinking a beer.

For your consideration, a 40 year difference study. As much as I love mine, I fully understand the appeal of  air conditioning and modern amenities. I suspect if I had a kid, I would look at my car a little differently. But since I don't, I'm preferable to the older design.

Here's another study of two different packing methods.

Modern:

Vintage:

As usual with my VW camping crew, it was a mellow assembly, excellent food, and camping fire happiness.