Having Camping Withdrawal

We did not make it to Sunshine Daydream in July because the temperature was over 105.We just didn't feel like we could handle that kind of heat. I was so excited for High Country this weekend, but we didn't make it there either. We tried!! We started out and got 1 1/2 hours away from home, but our bus' suspension was acting squirrely. We were all over the road. Jaws kept pulling us into the other lane and it was so scary!! We drove back home and my husband pulled Jaws into the garage to try to fix the problem. After about 20 minutes we loaded back up into Jaws and tried to make it again, but we were all of the road again. We just couldn't make it. I've been so upset all weekend!! High Country is an awesome campout with over 175 buses all camped along a mile stretch of river. And I missed it! :o( Off subject of camping..... I made new shark curtains for the back window of Jaws... they turned out pretty cute.

the VW car show

You see 'car show' and you think there are going to be a lot of pictures of cars.  Well, I took a lot of pictures of all the volkswagens but I'm not really going to post them. They were more for me to get ideas for the Volkswagen's that my husband is restoring for me.    So anyway.... my hubs drove the 1958 Deluxe bus to the show, ' Rusty' , pictured below.  You can see he did score some cheap tires for our 1970 Thing he is in the process of restoring.

Here is my sweet daughter getting a drink out of the cooler in the back of Rusty.  She is so cute.

The front of Rusty with a piece of paper stuck on the front of him by a magnet.  The paper is the story of Rusty.  How my husband found him in the woods, his side crushed in and ready for the crusher.  He husband payed I think $250 for him and brought him back to life.

My tiny guy had his shark hanging on the stirring wheel the whole show.  That is my tiny guy with his 'Indiana Jones' hat.  He's been wearing this hat for years. :o) 

The gang, all volkswagen owners, but not all are pictured.  This is Pat's bus.( the guy in the white shirt)

After the show we went to my girlfriend, Dawnn's house to eat , drink , and get in the pool.

The crazy volkswagen girls, Lisa (with baby Cora), Dawnn, and I.

NaturalBus 2012

Hey there, we're home from NaturalBus and recovered. :o)   I was actually sick the whole weekend so I stayed in the the bus a lot.  I did come out a little bit and tried to be sociable.  We started out Friday morning and had problems on the road. The bus was driving all 'squirrely'... scaring me to death. We ended up having to stop a few times for my hubs to august things under / behind the tires.  Owning a bus is not easy, there are always things to fix on it.  For real!!

We made it to the campout in about 3 hours.  It is in Natural Bridge, Va.....that is why the campout is called NaturalBus.  Mark, the organizer told me there ended up being over 50 buses this year. 

The weather was beautiful, not as hot as it usually is for NaturalBus.  It is usually in the 90s for this campout and everyone stays in the water the whole time. It was too cold for me to get in the water this weekend.  We even had a storm/tornado warning roll through Friday night and we were all stuck in our buses for about an hour. :o)  It all needed up being fine though. 

Here is my annual picture of my children with Yogi Bear.

We love our campfires. The first night I think we stayed up way past midnight, some till 3am around this campfire.

My son, a water lover ended up getting in the water even though it was chilly.

The teenagers gathered to eat.

The band this year was so good.  No one wanted them to stop playing. Mark says he'll be asking them to come back again next year. :o)

I know I've said it before... but NaturalBus raffles a bus off every year. The money goes to the Ronald McDonald House.  They sold over 1700 tickets at $10 a ticket. :o)  Pictured below is the man that won the bus.

This is me (left), Dawnn (middle) and Mark (right) in Jamie's bus.

The weekend was so wonderful with friends and family.  Our Fullmoon Bus club friends are part of our family. We eat great, the weather was great, and the company was great. 

On the way home we carabused to Sonic and eat lunch..... here is Dawnn and I having a picnic in the Sonic parking lot.  I've got my journal in my lap. I am a crazy journal girl and have written down every time we camped, when, where, and what. lol

Till next camping trip, which will be in about 2 weeks.

The Hoo~Rah

We headed to the Hoo~Rah last weekend, May 26th. It is a family campout that has been happening for 34 years now.   See my crazy daughter in the window below?!    This is how we roll when we take our canoe.  Camping on a river is my very favorite!!  And this weekend we camped on the river.

Here is a family photo under the Hoo~Rah sign.  This sign is 34 years old also. They hang it every year.

My son and I canoeing.  My hubs is in the back taking the picture.

Quality family time camping. :o) 

Basil got to come this time....

We had family game night, playing 'Apples to Apples'.   Jonah won.

The weather was great both days, Saturday and Sunday. A little hot, but we had shade and the water to cool off.

EveryBus 2012 (80 buses)

EveryBus this year started our camping season! EveryBus is really my favorite campout of them all. And we camp about once a month from March to November. The weather is usually perfect as it was this weekend. Wonderful 70 degrees during the day and cool to cold nights which makes for great sleeping. Here is the bus "Jaws" about 1/3 of the way packed. Getting ready to head out.

It took about 4.5 hours to get there with a few stops. We stop to get dinner but eat it on the way, then we stopped for gas about an hour before we got there.

My daughter didn't go with us this time. :o( She was at a women's computing conference ( my computer geeky girl). So my little guy had the whole back sit to himself and loved it. He slept on the way down.

Here is a picture of my best friend Dawnn, she carabused down with us. She owns her own bus too and is camp crazy like me. This is a good picture of the inside of our bus. You can see the hole up top, that's the poptop. My daughter usually sleeps up there, but my son got to this trip. It's like a cool cave. You can see our heater to the left. It was cold at night and we did have electric at this campout. So it was so cozy in the bus at night with the heater going. :o) The TV is a DVD player for movie watching. We didn't watch any this trip. We usually end up watching a movie if it rains like crazy and we are stuck in the bus waiting for it to stop.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the other buses, but here is the Janes' bus right next to ours. They said that 80 buses showed up to camp.

There was unicycling.

And here is the raffle bus for "NaturalBus". Natural Bus is the campout in June. They(Salem Imports) always restore a bus and raffles it off there. ALL the money goes to the Ronald McDonald House. I'm not kidding, they give away a bus every year. People tell me all the time that they wish they owned a bus..... well, here is a way! NaturalBus.net is the site and here is the link to the bus.
$10 a ticket and you do not have to be at the campout to win!

Here are our cookers. My hubs and my best friend. They do all the cooking. And we eat good! Every morning we have a huge breakfast with pancakes, bacon, eggs, and hash browns. Friday night we had spaghetti with garlic bread. Saturday night Dawnn made BBQ with coleslaw, baked beans and mac & cheese.

A back picture of out campsite. Jaws is the blue on on the end, you can see the poptop. Dawnn's bus is right beside us with the tie dye poptop. She made the tie dye herself.

Saturday the 14th was the 100 anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. My son is Titanic obsessed. So I had to make cupcakes for the anniversary. I surprised him with them at lunch time on Saturday.

A 'fossil lady' came Saturday also for the kids. My son was in hog heaven. He is saving his money for a megalodon tooth. This lady had a bunch of them. ( you can see a bunch of the buses in the background)

I was in none of the pictures. I am always the picture taker. I spent the whole weekend studying for a microbiology test that I had on Monday. In the picture below you can see my feet on my micro book up on a table. This is the only photo I am in. LOL I did end up getting a 94 on that test and it makes me exempt from the exam. Yes!! Thank you to all of my moonies for supporting me all weekend.

One of my favorite things is a campfire. Here is my little guy wrapped up in a quilt around the campfire.
On the way home we usually carabus. A bunch of buses going in the same direction head out together. A photo opportunity when we stopped for breakfast Sunday morning. From left to right.. our "Jaws", the Janes' bus, Ronnie's bus, Pat's bus, and Dawnn's bus.

We didn't realize we put them in color order. They just pulled them up and they ended up that way. teehee hee.

The weekend was fabulous! Have I told you lately that I love to camp. :o)

O Christmas Tree

We picked up our Christmas tree in our 1958 bus, "Rusty" again this year. This is one of our Christmas traditions.

It wasn't as old this year as it was last year. We didn't need to ride with the propane heater in the bus this time. Merry Christmas

SunShine DayDream

A quick post about Sunshine Daydream with lots of pictures. Sunshine Daydream is always on or around July 4th. I love this camp out because we get to camp right up in the trees.

Jonah got to bring his bike. Can you tell he loves sharks ( Jaws shirt and shark bike helmet on) with our bus Jaws ( who he named ) in the back ground?

The American flag flies high over the camp out.

A very relaxing / fun camp out. This is Mark asleep. (teehee)

Fun in the water.

The view from my bus. Pilot Mountain in NC.

My children trying to fish. They are so sweet and cute.

Lots of frogs at Sunshine Daydream. Jonah loves to catch them and set them free.

We eat soo good when we are camping. Here Dawnn is making Philly cheese steaks. Yumm.

Enjoying friends.

They shoot off the most wonderful display of fireworks every year. They are just gorgeous in the sky. I didn't get any good pictures this year of them though.

We stopped at Dan River on the way home and played in the water.

Here are my sweet children sleeping on the way home. :o)