I appreciate minimalist camping but I am looking forward to using the
second hand ARB awning I picked up a few months back - just another blade
on the Swiss Army knife of vehicles.

This post made me think of Grumpy Old Men - "Back in the day we didn't need
no fancy protective awnings.  Instead we had potato sacks which we tied
together with our shoelaces from our hand-me down shoes.  When the sun went
down we would spend three hours taking all the knots apart so we could put
our shoes back on.  We didn't need awnings - and we liked it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x7S2H-g60c

In jest!

Bruce

On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 5:24 PM Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

>  Ha-ha, good one Dave!  Heck, I'm going to start collecting Social
> Security next month!!  And there is nobody as cheap as me!
>
>     On Saturday, August 26, 2023 at 05:20:19 PM PDT, David McNeely <
> davmcneely40@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  I built my own awning like you did.  I works very well in light showers,
> and for shade.  I like it.  In the right camping spot, I tie it off to
> trees rather than use the poles. Trees make great shade, however, the best.
> But I would never spend hundreds of dollars for a fancy factory built one.
> I'm just too cheap, I guess.  old man mcneely
>
> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 4:52 PM Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
> Awnings on a Vanagon have always baffled me.  I think it has to do much to
> do where you live and where you camp.  Sure, on Facebook and advertisements
> I've seen them all!  What are they for?....sun or rain?  I live in San
> Diego and mostly camp in the West; when I want some shade but don't have
> any, I simply move my campchair to the other side of van.  The rain we get
> out here is either a deluge or nothing.  When a deluge, I sit inside van;
> after the storm passes, I move outside again and enjoy the fresh wonderful
> smells.  I've even camped in 48 states in my van....sun or rain issues
> never seemed to be a problem.  I tried once building my own awning with
> Harbor Freight tarp and collapsible camping poles; to test, I even went up
> to local mountains during most severe thunderstorm....to my surprise, the
> rain actually hit the pavement in the campground and bounced back up!!!
> Felt silly as I was being drenched.  Hey, I'm don't mean any bad intent
> here.  Still....am curious about awnings.  Seems like a lot of hassle and
> expense.
>
>
>