Vanlife: Our First Weekend

We jumped in with both feet and bought an ‘82 Westfalia this weekend!!  We started dreaming about a Westfalia a while ago and confirmed our suspicions that we would love it when we rented one from westfaliacampers.ca in June (read about it here).  We have been keeping our eye out for one in good shape that’s been well cared for.  We stumbled upon one on Vancouver Island.  Our van was so well loved by it’s previous family that when we came to pick it up, they were taking pictures with the van and tearing up.

For this first weekend with our new van, we dropped off Theo at my mom’s (thanks Mom!) and drove 3 hours through a crazy wind storm where the highway was shut down right behind us!  We arrived at our destination with two new chips on the windshield but no major harm.  Luckily, we made it in time to have the best time at our friends’ beautiful winery wedding and danced late into the night (after the power came back on, luckily!).  Then we camped in the Westfalia and drove back the next day to pick up our boy.  Back in the ferry line-up Theo played in the back and practiced “driving”. He’s as excited about the van as we are.  The weekend was completely exhausting and wonderful all at once.

I am feeling very lucky and a bit overwhelmed by this decision to add a second getaway vehicle to our life. We hope it brings many adventures with our family and friends and moreover I hope it helps us slow down.  I think there will be lots of lessons to come, whether it’s on an adventure or fixing it up.  And I hope that our gut feeling is right about this van.  I have the same nervous/excited butterflies I had when we first bought our Wall Bed.  I can only hope this works out the same.