Tag: canoe

Texas Busfest 2015

Last weekend Melina and I loaded up Olly and headed to the Busfest, a gathering of presumably like-minded Vanagonauts and Busnuts in central Texas. It was our first time joining the throng, and we were part of a crowd of over a hundred buses, 27 of which were Vanagons. I’ve honestly never see so many VW vans in Texas, and it was actually encouraging to discover it’s not all Chevy and Ford in the Lone Star State. Not that I have anything against Ford, what with Olly being Bostig’d and all. And for what it’s worth, there was even a Chevy-converted Vanagon present. It was quite impressive.

We took the canoe, and this was also the first time we’ve gone a significant distance with the canoe on the Yakima rack, and the whole thing worked wonderfully. I was able to load and unload the canoe by myself thanks to the Boat Loader extension bar, and strapping it down securely was easy. Only bad thing was that once tied down, the back hatch was inaccessible due to interference with the straps, but if I absolutely had to get in there, it would just mean unhitching the one rear strap.

Olly fared well otherwise, as he does. I kept the speed around 65 mph out of deference to the canoe, but we had the power to go faster. Unfortunately, with the van loaded down, the aging springs and suspension were made very apparent, and I’ve decided to elevate that to the next project. Definitely not something I’m looking forward to tackling.

Two upgrades bear mention.  The first was a new mattress pad for the lower bunk, bought on Amazon. The pad fits perfectly, and added so much comfort to the bed. Also, although it takes up a lot of space when we’re not using it, it’s much more compact than other memory foam type toppers I’ve seen some Vanagon campers travel with.

The second addition to the Vanagon kit is the Rear Hatch Shelter by Bus Depot, and it also impressed us. Having the rear hatch fully open kept the van much cooler both day and night, and it was an exceptionally handy place to change clothes, providing room with fewer obstructions than the main cabin. We need to get a better mat for the ground, but otherwise it’s great.

Of course the best part of the whole trip was meeting fellow Veedubers, who on the whole are a welcoming lot. In particular, it was great to meet the growing faction of Texas Vanagon owners, who have their own Facebook page. Visiting with others I learned a few things, although not most people’s names. Sorry if I can’t remember yours the next time we meet. Probably will remember your dog’s name, though.

I enjoyed, but didn’t record the symphony of boxers I heard during the weekend. Here instead are a few pictures:

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Palmetto State Park and the Luling Zedler Mill Paddling Trail

Last weekend the clinic was closed and Melina had off on Friday due to the county fair, so we were able to take advantage and get a couple quiet nights at Palmetto State Park. We left home on Thursday evening with the goal of paddling the Luling Zedler Mill Paddling Trail on Friday. I’d never carried the canoe on Olly before, so this was a bit of a learning experience for me.

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Olly wears a hat.

The park was, of course, pleasant as always. Since it’s so close to home, it really provides a nice quick getaway. I can’t really recommend anyone go out of their way to visit the park, although the CCC building on the river is lovely. The main attraction of the park for us is that it is familiar and easy. Also, I’m not certain, but a high point along the park road might provide some interesting sunset photographic opportunity. Olly’s new cabin lights performed perfectly, and I want to install at least one more in the cockpit area. The only trouble we experienced was a bit of intermittent behavior from the fresh water pump. I fussed with the fuse and got things working again, so I suspect that I need to give the fuse receptacles a good cleaning. And of course the blower fan is still out, but other than that, the van ran fine.

With Melina’s help I managed to load the canoe on top the van, strapping it down fore and aft. I threw a midline strap on as well, strapping it to the pop top just to keep the boat from shifting. Using a set of foam blocks I was able to keep the boat off the roof and get the boat snugged down quite well. I’m confident I could travel across country that way, and keeping speeds to about 65 mph, I didn’t really take a hit to the fuel economy (about 18 mpg). Nevertheless, it was somewhat inconvenient. First off, loading the boat isn’t easy to do with a 5’4″ assistant, and I scuffed the roof a bit. Secondly, there’s absolutely no way to pop the top with the boat up there short of removing the canoe. So I’ve purchased some Yakima towers and the Boat Loader extension bar. I’ll need to add some struts to the poptop facilitate the lifting, but in the long run, it’ll be a better system if we want to take the canoe with any regularity. Plus, I will be able to throw the basket up there if I want to carry other things as well.

The paddling trail is a 6 mile stretch of typical central Texas flat water on the San Marcos River outside Luling. Luling City Parks operates a shuttle service, which ported our boat and us from the take-out to the put-in. I arranged the shuttle by calling 512-227-1724 a few days before to confirm the staff would be around, and then when we actually arrived at the Mill. We had the river to ourselves, and the water level was high enough to provide decent paddling. We enjoyed some peanut butter and honey tortillas for lunch, and returned to camp afterwards for a leisurely afternoon.

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Melina wears a hat.