Humans being, vans gathering. That's the first thing I read after hearing about this event. We signed up the crew, got tickets and started heading towards Bend, Oregon not really 100 percent sure of what to expect.
What a weekend!!! It was full of vans, new friends, smiles, laughs, good times and so much more. Pulling into camp and seeing vans everywhere and seeing more and more showing up. I knew this event was going to be awesome but I didn't know how awesome. I don't think words can ever describe the awesomeness of this event. I don't even think I can fully recap everything it was just so rad.
Basically it all started with the pre party at Silver Moon Brewing Company. "If you park in the parking lot its going to be bumper to bumper so you won't be able to get out until the morning." Perfect I thought to myself. After spending an awesome night meeting new friends at the brewery it was time to Descend on Bend. We were a little over an hour away.
After arriving at camp they give you tips on the noisy side of camp vs the quiet side of camp. We went to the noisy side. While driving to find a camp spot I saw the Van Kookz stuck in the soft dirt so I offered to get out a tow strap and pull them out when someone from he event came to pull them out so I continued to a camp spot. After parking and spending 10 minutes there I started seeing other vans getting stuck and that became a trend with all the heavy sprinter builds.
The rest of the weekend was an awesome blur. There were so many people and so many vans that it was impossible to see it all and meet everyone. There were potluck dinners, a swap meet type thing, a teepee with a fire pit in the middle plus many other fire pits outside. We planted ponderosa pine trees. We interacted with new people. Saw many great van builds. There were vw vans everywhere. Vandrew Martian Dude did some fire spinning.....many talented musicians killed it on the stage.
This is the kind of event you have to go to to experience it. It was my 2nd van life gathering and it makes me want to go to more! Also this was the 5th year of this event and it just keeps getting better and better apparently.
One thing was it was drone city! Drones everywhere and my dog Wander the Dog hates drones. If you saw him baking and going crazy or if he ran through your camp one of the times a drone took off I'm sorry. The drone thing made it a bit much with the dogy but it was still a blast!!!!
See you next year!
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