Buses By the Bridge 2017

This will mark our 4th Buses By the Bridge and we couldn't be happier to have had the opportunity to attend. I started out this year trying to get as many Vanagon "Vangelenos" to join by arranging a group CaraVANAGON. After many pestering e-mails, pictures and messages - 7 adventurous Vangelenos ended up making the journey. Although I heard many people camp out at the event early to get a good spot, we decided to enjoy the drive and stay at the Amboy Crater the night before. After our initial rainy meet-up of 4 Vanagons, we were off.

Once we cleared the mountains we had some beautiful weather and made it to Amboy Crater with no issues and plenty of time to enjoy the sites.

Amboy Crater is and extinct Volcano that is approximately 80,000 years old and definitely a site to behold.

 

It's amazing how some 30+ year old vans bring people together for some good times.

 

 

We wanted to get to the main event early so everyone was up by 4am and on our way with, amazingly, no break downs. Here is one of my favourite shots of the weekend and not one you'll likely see too often.

Finally arriving to find about 200 other vans/buses waiting/camping in line.



After entering the gates we found a pretty nice spot where we could all camp together - nothing beats a good pop-top party.

 

This trip also gave us an opportunity to try out the new walls for our Bus Depot awning. Overall it made a great little room but we neglected to tie it down sufficiently and a windy Saturday forced us to take it down.

Along with being a great VW gathering, Buses By the Bridge is at a stunningly beautiful venue as well.

 

The balloons did eventually make an appearance too.



The weather wasn't cooperating very much this year and rained for some of the event but that didn't put a damper on our weekend - it just meant we had to enjoy some indoor van time which was fine with us.

Last year we did the bicycle tour of the city and were able to ride along again this year.

Our adventure wasn't over after the event as we headed to Joshua Tree for even more stunning scenery.

Every year we have arrived at Joshua Tree, it says all the campgrounds are full but we managed to get a pretty sweet spot at Jumbo Rocks again.

After these shots our daughter became sick so we didn't end up spending the night and decided to drive back home but it was still a great weekend to remember. As I have said before Volkswagens are not only methods of transportation, but a vehicle to meet new people and create lasting memories. Thank you too all the Vangelenos that made it out and to Eric that made this beautiful sign.











San Elijo

San Elijo State Beach campground has almost all their sites booked months in advance which is why we feel lucky to have snagged a spot for our latest camping adventure. Situated close to San Diego, this campground offers some beautiful and warm camping even in January.

We originally wanted this outing to be a test for some new camping equipment we purchased for an upcoming trip. This is a quick video of us installing the new walls to our BusDepot awning, so far we're very impressed by the quality and functionality.

It's a good thing we did this test run as we discovered we were sent the wrong larger front wall but our 2 side walls still worked great at providing a little private extra room for us.

We now know why this is one of the most popular campgrounds as the ocean, surfing, and beach was extraordinary.

Still beautiful even though it was fairly cloudy.

I should advise that this isn't a relaxing private campground as the spots are small with limited privacy and there is a train running very close by but you can't deny that we were pretty comfy in our camper.

A quick movie and then it was bedtime.

Although this was a short one day trip, we still managed to get in a lot of activity before packing everything up and heading home.

Not to mention the excellent Hawaiian food pit-stop along the way.