Something about Rose

23 October
Hello to anyone still following this site. Boy, the priorities sure change when a person comes off the road! While traveling, things were reduced to the more fundamental pursuits of life. Eat food, drive, buy gasoline, be tourists, buy food, eat food, camp, update the blog and go to sleep. At home there are many more things to consume a person's time and attention, plus the Phillies are in the playoffs again. I promised a summary of the trip and this may or may not be it depending on how much I personally ramble but I feel that I owe some time to our faithful bus.

Rose is a 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia camper. The first camper conversion was exhibited at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1952. Over the years the design and refinement of the camper evolved such that there were several iterations of the interior furniture layout and materials. Rose carries what was know as the Berlin design, where the kitchen is arranged down the side, behind the driver's seat.

Cook top and sink with electric water pump.

Interior design with refrigerator beside seat. A table with a folding leaf fits into the bracket along the side of the kitchen module.

The passenger seat folds flat to create a sleeping berth and when the top is lifted, another sleeping space for two is created in the, "penthouse". A hammock stretches across the front seats to accommodate a child or a, "little person" if you happen to have one. The front passenger seat swivels 180 degrees to face the living area and a stool/storage box between the front seats can be moved to become a footstool.

This is the command center.

Rose has a 4 speed manual transmission. Fourth gear is overdrive so any substantial hills must usually be pulled in third gear. She has power brakes but the steering is unassisted. The big wheel helps in maneuvering. 

Instrumentation is limited to a speedometer/odometer and a fuel gauge and idiot lights. Our fuel gauge gives up after the first 50 miles of filling the 14.5 gallon tank so the little post-it-note in the right hand gauge hole lets us know the mileage when we filled up last. We'd figure 200 miles or so as a target for the next fuel stop. This was conservative as she averaged 19.4 mpg for the entire trip, although any stop and go traffic situations brought the fuel consumption down to as low as 16 mpg. She has a nice AM/FM radio with cassette player (that does not work) and a battery powered clock from Radio Shack under the radio. Twelve volt power for the GPS or phone charger comes from the little round silver plug under the glove box via a special adapter. The round device in the passenger footwell covers the windshield washer, a tank to hold the fluid and a tube with a Schrader valve through which one adds compressed air to pressurize the tank. This last for about half a day before the pressurized air leaks out. We need to get a bicycle pump to keep this functional.

Rose is powered by a 2 liter horizontally opposed 4 cylinder engine. It has hydraulic valve lifters, fuel injection and an electronic ignition module. She had a catalytic converter as built but that has gone missing over the years in favor of a "Bug Pack" exhaust header and glass pack silencer. The engine was originally rated at 67 horsepower. In camping trim with pilot and co-pilot/navigator, she probably weighs 4500 pounds. We were granted honorary trucker status for the amount of time we spent in the truck lanes of the Interstate, and were only given the "Sacramento Salute" twice in California and once in Arkansas (I don't know what they call it there). In CA we were going pretty slow before each incidents but in AR we were clipping right along. The gesture may have been an acknowledgement of our state's role in the civil war or some other "Yankee" type of tribute. Some people!  

Raw Power!

Ramblin Rose is now all spruced up from her trip. Vacuumed and waxed with fresh oil in the crankcase and a full tank of fuel, she is ready to go into storage for a long winter's nap.

Lookin' pretty!

I envision one more post to end the blog. This is planned to summarize the trip, with approximate costs and some observations, hopefully before too long. Until then...