first road trip

Saturday morning, the Westfalia started just fine & I made the decision to take her on my trip to the Kitsap Peninsula. Part of her test drive issues may have been due to the fact that the previous owner had let the oil level drop to absolutely nil. Ouch! Now that I've added oil, she smokes like crazy just after starting.

Off on a girls' weekend, I stopped in West Seattle to pick up Tracy, then it was off to Federal Way to meet up with Barb who had planned to caravan with us the rest of the way, despite my warnings that her Mustang convertible probably wouldn't appreciate lugging along behind my slow-moving Westy (we yelled our greetings out the window to Barb, as I didn't want to risk stopping the van, turning off the ignition, and not being able to get her going again). Barb reported that the van hadn't spewed blue smoke during most of the trip, as I'd half expected. We arrived at Hannah's house in Port Orchard without issue.

The next morning, I checked the oil before hitting the road again... it showed "low." A bit discouraged, I dumped in the extra two quarts I'd brought along.

Today, I'm taking a break from the van, putting off organizing/re-packing the belongings I moved from the little travel trailer to the van, from checking the oil level, from calling a rotary engine specialist for suggestions on how to reduce oil usage... or the Vanagon expert I met a few months ago who does a lot of conversions & may have a spare Vanagon engine he'd possibly let go at a decent price.