First off, i'm sad to say that we missed dave S. and his GNATT//
Black Hills Rendevous by a day as we ended up leaving on Friday,
instead of Thurs.  Rats.  My wife, who spoke to dave on the phone, 
said he sounded 'really nice' and wanted to meet up with him... you 
ol' charmer you, Schwarze!

Anyway, a brief account of Life in a Westy.  While we've camped in a 
weekender version before, our family had not used a full Westy and 
all its stuff.  In short, it would be a fantastic way to travel for 2 
people.  with 2 adults and 2 (young) kids it gets small but very 
managable.  I got sorta anal-retnetive about keeping stuff in its 
place for better or worse but it does help keep the interior from 
becoming a sea of clothes and food stuff.

the Fridge:
the fridge is great but a few negative comments.  in really hot 
weather ie 80 degrees outside, 90+ inside, it would warm up to the 
high 40's in the fridge, even with thge interior fan running.  
However, the recovery really wan't all that bad and i never felt the 
food was in too much danger as we kept only a 2 day supply of 
perishables in there.  when under way, the fridge blew out a few 
times but always re-lit easily.  

HINT:  when traveling in hot areas, run both the gas AND 12v for the 
cooling power... wow does that bring the temps down!  I s'pose it has 
some dire consequence to the fridge life but it sure worked nice!

I don't know how much propane is left after 11 days but it amazed me 
that we could cook and fridge without filling up.

the Stove:
i like it.  made stir-fry for 9 on it one night!  I modified the 
grate over it so that real small pots (ie the essential coffee) 
doesn't tip into the hole over the burner.  the stove also heats the 
interior nicely :)  one observation... the heat shield and the rubber 
gasket get very hot if the van is parked so that the passenger side 
is lower than the drivers side... the heat rises diagonally with 
respect to the surface and got stuff hot that wasn't meeant to be.

the Sink:
i initially thought those Westy sinks were 'stupid' and useless, 
like our vestigial gills.  they are great!  they are super for 
cleaning up kids when on the road (just let the water drain!!!) and 
one can actually do dishes easily if you carry another washbasin and 
use the sink for rinsing.   one bad thing:  the water faucet is 
nearly impossible to turn off with wet/soapy hands.  maybe ours is 
extra stiff but that knob needs a lever or a deeply indented grip.  

the Table and Storage:
the swing-away table is nicer to use than the weekender 'lift-up' 
version cause it seems we would always have junk in front of the area 
used to lift up the weekender table.  storage is ok.  we used a big 
Rubbermaid container for keeping food in and stored all the 
eating/cooking untensils in various compartments.  this seemed to 
work well.

The van ran flawlessly except for a bout of engine missing 30 miles 
into the trip!  As Joel and Jerry have explained, this is normal 
behavior as the van is simply letting its 'owner' [hah!] know who 
REALLY is in control.  I smiled when this happened, patted the dash 
lovingly, and expressed a few words appreciation for the effort it 
was about to put forth.  It immediately settled down and ran without 
further fuss.  We frequently got 19.7 mpg in a mix of 70-75 mph 
freeway driving and mountains.  Lower mileage was also seen when 
bucking strong headwinds.  Power was uh, adequate, with the Hills 
having slow lanes when needed.  Second gear was seen up a few roads 
and third was used most the time in the mountains.  Oil consumption 
was maybe 1/2 quart or less for the 2000 or so miles.

All this in a van with 166,000 miles... 

oh. one more thing... all pre-vanagon buses waved, about 50% of the 
vanagons, and 0 of 2 Eurovans.

-dan