2011-12-14

Our great road trip! Part 1

We received a “fan question” last week via our little fanbridge widget : http://youandme.fanbridge.com/fan_questions/
Question:
"So... I was looking at your journey on the map. Quite a trip. How was that? Are you glad you did it? Will you do something like that again? Trip to Nashville any time?
Too many questions?"

So since we have A LOT to say about this wonderful trip, we thought it would be a good idea to do a couple of posts here on our blog to respond to this question because every time we start talking about this trip we get so enthusiastic and once we start talking about it, it's hard to stop...so many great memories! . So here we go:


This was really quite a journey...over 30 months on the roads of America, in a little Westfalia Van, with Blondie our dog, our music gear, our canoe and our bikes...Kind of an ultimate road trip! First of all, this trip was an old dream the two of us shared since the first day we met... We both were dreaming of traveling the wild American country in a Westfalia van, living a true bohemian life, playing music in every town we would cross, discovering every national parks on the map...Being truly free, being  “true nature child , born to be wild”.
It took a good 2 years of preparation before we were able to leave Montreal, mostly preparing the Van...With a little help from our friends, James rebuilt the whole thing, which was just a Vanagon at first; he put a Westfalia roof, found and fitted the camping gear in (fridge, stove, beds, etc), had a new engine adapted in (a Subaru engine) and learned the mechanic of it. Well, we redid everything on this van: from the breaks to the paint, passing by a new sound system (of course!) we even did the interior, covering the ceiling and the cushions with a beautiful moon and star tapestry type of fabric...really neat! Oh, and we also baptised it! We named it: Victor “the victorious” Bluesummer, or “Blue” for short. Believe us, we talked a lot to “him”, asking it to please start or to please make it up that hill! We really got emotionally attached to our Van! We love you Blue!



To be continued...