Third Annual Deschutes River RendezVW Roll Call

These are all the attendees of the 3rd Annual Deschutes River RendezVW in Maupin Oregon. Vehicles were asked for their name, year, model, and hometown.

The first three are owned by the host of the event.


Frau Pfankuch ('72 Westy; sic above) was laid up in Portland with carburetor problems, but her younger sibling (this diesel Golf which gets 50+mpg) brought John, Jennifer, and kids and camped out anyway. What good sports. Their daring showed in the fact that their kids are a toddler and a baby even younger than our E.

The three busses below all have the same owners. If you were in Maupin, you probably recognize Galaxy Starship as the bus that was towed to the event. Its blown head gasket was temporarily repaired on site with incredible creativity by Colin and tristessa. Two days and some RTV sealant later it powered up the hill and on home.

This handsome biodiesel Vanagon is for sale.

Moose has a Subaru engine. Synchro=4WD, incidentally.

Peter is the proud and only the third (!) owner of this gorgeous '70 Westy, complete with original Westy tent. He bought it from his Uncle & Aunt, who had purchased it from the first owner when it was only months old. He has all the original documentation for this bus, which shows it was purchased on the tourist pickup program--you go to Germany and pick it up at the factory gate, tool around Europe for a while, and ship it to the U.S. yourself. Accordingly it had its early check-ups all over Western Europe. Most astonishing among its papers though was that that tent was an $1100 option for a $3800 vehicle. In today's dollars that's a $6160 tent attached to a $21270 car. Good grief!

We admired Philip and Dolores' exceptionally neat (and neatly-lit) bus. They also own a Thing. Their propane campfire helped make them just about the best neighbors one could hope for.

That's Melissa knitting under our fancy $10 awning. It was World Wide Knit in Public Day, and she was doing her part. Note E napping on the Z bed. We're pretty sure she napped better in Ludwig than she ever does at home. Maybe it's all that fresh air. Or maybe it's the orange plaid interior.

Most of the campers were Westfalias or Rivieras, but this bus is a Dorper, converted in Canada. It sat in a garage for for a loooong time and has only ca. 53,000 miles on it. And this photo shows the first time the top had been opened in 30 years.

Totoro!

Colin's bus had been at our place in Missoula only two days earlier, and somewhere along the road he acquired another engine case. We are very impressed that he's owned this bus since he was 18 years old. Very impressed.

Mustard Seed's driver (at right) told us this was the family car when she was a kid. She was lucky enough to inherit it as an adult.

Mitch's very rough field calculations showed that Blue Moon is younger than Ludwig by less than two weeks, and certainly by not much more than a month.Doesn't this bus look extra long? Yes.

Did they ever build them that way? No.

The Party Pickle is another bus with a blog.

This van will be visiting our neck of the woods soon.

One of Bill's drivers told us it's "Bill" because it's been nothing but bills since they got him.

"Ripple" after the song, not the hooch.

We wonder how many drivers near Maupin had this very sentiment on their minds. (spotted on the back of Bertha)

"Orphan" because it was abandoned by its previous owners.

Blue II has a nice rain fly for the pop-top window...

...and a custom burner grate.

The dark panel is painted with chalkboard paint.

Annie, the oldest v-dub on site.

We realized after we got home and downloaded our photos that we had hardly taken pictures of any of the nice people we met but had a plethora of bus photos. It's unfortunate, because we really did meet a lot of great people. We'll try harder next year.