Back to Missoula

As people were leaving the RendezVW under North-central Oregon's sunny skies, Colin (about whom more is forthcoming) and I finished some unfinished business on Ludwig.

Ludwig's front brakes are self-adjusting, but the rears need periodic adjusting. We gave them a few twists and went over several other undercarriage-related things. Most important for our olfactory and mental health though was (finally!) the taming of the gasoline fumes inside Ludwig's cabin. We'll worry less about little E back there now. Late in the afternoon we bid Colin and some stragglers farewell and headed back up US 197.


I really like volcanoes for some reason. I think it's because I so vividly remember the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens when I was in kiddie-garten and was very impressed by my dad's explanation of it. To my delight (as I hadn't thought about it before the trip), we got some nice long vistas of several of Cascadia's stratovolcanoes: Mt. Hood, of course, but also Mt. Jefferson (not pictured), Mt. Adams (above, at left), and, waaay off, that self-destructive old lady St. Helens (no pictures turned out). It's weird how the landscape out there is kind of a roughly rolling table occasionally punctuated by these menacing giants, compared to around here where mountains come in nicely ordered ranges.

The sun was starting to fail as we took this family portrait along the Columbia just South of the Oregon/Washington border. We drove through Walla Walla and environs in the dark, so no pictures of wineries or the Palouse; sorry!


One of Melissa's high school chums is a current resident of Orofino Idaho, so we planned to break camp (okay, to park) at her house for the night. The next day she showed us around, and our tour included a stroll along the Clearwater River's North Fork. This unassuming locale is the home of Dworshak Dam (above center), the third highest dam in the U.S., 22nd highest in the world, and the highest straight-axis dam in the Western Hemisphere. If we'd had more time, I'd've taken us to the visitor center to get a closer look at the dam itself (I'm a big fan of dams too). Next time.


East of Orofino, US 12 plunges into the rocky heart of Idaho along the constant churn of the Lochsa River. A lot of kayaking/whitewater rafting/lunacy occurs in this ice-cold rill.


Melissa remarked that the whitewater seemed to continue pretty much unabated. The winding road had no shortage of cars with kayaks strapped to their roofs either.

We stopped along the Lochsa ("LOCK-saw") for another family portrait. We really count ourselves lucky that Esmé is so tolerant of our hauling her all around Creation in noisy old Ludwig.

Eventually the winding wound us up to the top of the road and the Lolo Pass visitor's center, a familiar sight to regular readers of this blog. We stopped to take the nature hike, but were once again stymied by snow.

All in all it was as trouble-free and pleasant an adventure as we could've hoped for. Hopefully we can make it again next year.

(miles 217,371-218,409)

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.