Yesterday was a nice adventure. The reason for my coming to Portland was to pick up my camper van. We made it down some 70 miles or so in the early afternoon to a really beautiful and quaint river rafting town nestled in the hills. The owner of this camper van had been given it by their father in law who recently has failing health and just could not do the camper thing any longer. These people camp occasionally with a small homemade teardrop trailer and they decided that they didnt need this old van.
I spoke to the father-in-law twice about the camper to get some questions and history detailed before deciding to purchase the thing. He was an Engineer by trade which presents itself here in the form of all sorts of modifications and projects done to this vehicle by him. The good part of that is that he worked on this over time and was meticulous about it. Any changes he made were wired very well with added relays and fuses and safety precautions and such. He took very good care of the vehicle and this was the only one I have been able to find that had a very solid engine and a working air conditioner and a few other things I have been looking for. The bad about this is that he made a lot of changes. There really are switches all over the place that I havent figured out what they are for yet. And natually, none of it is labeled. many of his changes to the vehicle were to allow his wife to be comfortable with her failing health, but things got too bad for her before he was able to really finished the changes, so he stopped. So for me begins a project of investigation to see what has been done and to then decide what to do with it all.
I spent about 2.5 hours with the son and we exchanged paperwork and off I drove in my really old camper van wondering if I made a good decision or not. This, of course, remains to be seen as I try to get it back to Texas over the next few days, but so far, I think I will be able to make this into something useful for myself.
May I introduce my brand new 1987 Itasca Phasar (Winnebago Lesharo) miniature roadtrip camper.
Along with strange changes to the interior, the interior itself is, well, old. Nonetheless, it isnt too bad and I can make many improvements as this is a very good base vehicle to work with. It spent most of its life in Northern California and has very little to no rust on it. Some cleaning, painting and maybe replacing some fabrics will make this thing look much better inside.
The engine is a weak 2.2L four banger made by Renault. I knew that it would be weak, and it is. But it seems to be able to do 65mph with this three speed automatic transmission and only bogs down up inclines which really isnt so bad considering that you have everything you need behind you including a toilet, shower, kitchen, bed... And all of this getting something along the lines of 17 to 20 mpg is just super and worth getting there slower.
Last night after leaving the seller, we drove around the wine country and ended up in McMinneville at a nice place that had a restaurant on the fifth floor rooftop with a view of the mountains and the town. There was a street festival going on so we enjoyed that for a bit and then came up with a neat idea to stop at a drive in theater on the way home.
We parked the SUV nearby outside of the gate and rode the van inside. It has been ages since I have visited a drive in theater. The camper was amazingly comfortable for this. I leaned the seats back and kept swiveling them so that I could move around and put my feet out the window and all sorts of nice things. The toilet is handy and so is the fridge. In the dark for 6 hours of movies nobody noticed that the camper was so old; instead, it was a very nice respit from the road and was simply comfortable and fun to be in.
I leave you with this image.
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