Bus City 2012!

This past weekend was Bus City 2012 - an annual campout that I organize. The first 2 years the event took place at Casini Ranch, in Duncans Mills, CA. After a bad experience with the staff the 2nd year, we looked for a new place to hold Bus City. It appears that we found a great place! For the 2nd year, we camped at Schoolhouse Canyon in Guerneville, CA. It's in the north end of Sonoma county - about a 20 minute drive to the coast. It is a family-owned, small campground stuck in the redwoods along the Russian River. And Chris - the owner - and his family couldn't be more awesome or accommodating (even putting up with a VW camper last weekend who didn't want to pay!)

This year I didn't advertise the event as much as I usually do, but we had the largest crowd of buses ever! Somewhere between 30 and 32 buses showed up. And a ton of people were new to the scene (even Paul from Valley Wagonworks finally was able to come to one!)

While we weren't able to stay Saturday night (after a horrible Friday midnight breakdown of Oak who refused to sleep in the bus), we had a great time and are reminded of the great people that we spent so much time camping with a over the past 4 years.

We are working out the details for Bus City 2013 - the fifth anniversary! - right now. Stay tuned. 

Here are some pictures from the weekend. Honestly, buses were showing up all over the place so I didn't get to take pictures of them all!

The VW show at the California Auto Museum

2 Sundays ago I headed up the to California Automobile Museum in Sacramento as they were having a reception for fellow VW nut and friend, Julia Weber. Julia and Jans (her husband) have camped with us a few times and are awesome people to hang with. Julia is also on a mission to record people's VW experiences. She records their stories. And she takes photos of buses.You can see it all on her website: http://www.buspiraten.net.  And you should follow her bus on Facebook.

Of course, aside from Mr Orange, there were several awesome VWs there!

And some other rear-engine cars...

The parking lot had some VWs hanging out.

The place was a party atmosphere...

Inside, My Orange was the center of attention...

Julia's artwork filled the walls. There was even a picture of Big Blue! Now that's art!

This guy was showing off a homemade buggie. It was interesting to try to figure out where all the parts came from...