60horsepowerprophet

Look over yonder! Ahh, the bearded days of wine and roses.

It was just about one year ago that I sold my very first VW Bus, a Chrome Yellow, 1977 Westfalia camper affectionately referred to as “Huxley” (while in proper running condition). Those of you familiar with the works of Aldous Huxley will no doubt realize why I named this particular Bus after him. Those unfamiliar will have to start reading.

I didn’t want to sell Huxley, not one bit. I was moving nearly 2,000 miles away from my home of 24 years, Davenport, Iowa to Eugene, Oregon to attend grad school. In his state at the time, Huxley would not have made the trip. And I unfortunately had exhausted all of my funds; there was no way I could afford the work to get Huxley out to Oregon. So, I reluctantly placed him up for sale on Volkswagen super-site The Samba. I priced Huxley MUCH too high, of course. But I had probably dropped at least $10k on that car in one year, not including the relatively cheap purchasing price. Rebuilding the motor alone ran me a bill of nearly $8k. Sure, I could have spent a lot less (and probably should have!) but, at the time I figured I was going to own Huxley forever. VW hero Gene Berg once said “Buy the best, cry once.” I took that to heart.

I believe I started with an asking price of $10k, totally ignoring car guy common knowledge that says you’ll never get back what you put into it. So, I lowered the price in $500 increments for a period of two heart wrenching months.

Beginning to see the light

But let us start at the beginning. Holy lord, not the very beginning. Those of you that want to know how I got into VW’s will have to ask me in person. You may, however, substitute an incredulous tale of your own, if you feel so maligned. We’re only going to touch on what got me into Busses — how this terrible affliction that will haunt me for the rest of my days sunk its oily teeth into my neck.

I had this 1985 BMW 535i. The damn thing was big, fast, and rear wheel drive. I had my fun with that dark, slobbering beast for maybe two years. The motor and transmission in that thing were fantastic. It had a growling bully of a straight six that would run like a felon for what seemed like eternity. The thing had over 220,000 miles on it when I got it and, believe me, I never babied that car. Trips to redline were standard procedure, purely to hear the sexual tones of that big, 3.5 liter six if not for the thrill of the boat hunkering down and shooting off like a grounded rocket.

Hans, the Bimmer.

But I was never satisfied with the handling. It may come as a surprise to those whom have only met me in the past few years but, a razor sharp suspension set-up is my thing. There are ass men, there are titty men and there are aluminum A-arm men. I’ve always known where I stand.

Even after a very healthy, fairly expensive suspension upgrade on the Bimmer, my disappointment in the vehicle’s handling characteristics only grew. New suspension or not, the black beast would tilt into excruciatingly frustrating levels of body roll. Totally unacceptable. So I began the research period. What sort of car was a suitable replacement?

A Porsche 944. For months it was going to be a Porsche 944 of mid to late 1980s vintage. After all they are widely believed to be one of the best handling road-going cars ever assembled. I even had a few picked out. I had finished a bit of extremely amateur body work on the Bimmer to get it ready for sale. A family vacation came before that particular endeavor. A road trip with the whole family in the mini-van to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.

Glacier National Park, 2006.

I’ve always been an out-of-doors kind of guy. I’m not one of those fiends that has gear for everything and takes it too God Damned seriously, I simply enjoy what nature has to offer on a casual basis. I’ve also always been a hell-bent traveler. This has a lot to do with growing up in Iowa. One spends most of one’s youth in Iowa dreaming of ways to get out.

To curb the rambling… It was on the highways between Yellowstone and Glacier, on the park roads and in the park campgrounds when my VW love and my outdoor love finally met. It was so obvious. I don’t know why I never saw it before, the Volkswagen camper Bus.

But it wasn’t even really my idea. I spoke to my family about the cars I was thinking about purchasing throughout the trip. We kept spotting VW Busses and I kept going over to talk to the owners and to check them out. It seemed like a fantastic way to get around, but I was still thinking 944.

Porsche 944/951. I still want one.

Honestly, the blame lies with my Mother and ex-girlfriend. The words “Porsche” coming out of my mouth in their presence called up horrific visions of bloody, 100+ mph, end-over-end wrecks on public highways. They talked me into a Bus. And with that I started trolling the internet for just the right one. I knew I wanted a bay-window Bus because I was going to have to drive the car in the salt ridden winters of the MidWest. I would sooner chop off a finger than drive a split-window Bus through the salt. A bay window Bus would still retain some of the personality, style and attitude I was after and I wouldn’t feel like lopping off a pinky for driving it in the winter.

There’s something happening here…

It came together like some kind of greasy, fated operation. It could have been written in a fortune cookie. Before listing the Black Bimmer for sale I sent an e-mail to the previous owner to let him know that I was going to switch to a VW Bus and that the BMW would be moving on to a new owner. I received an e-mail back from him the next day informing me that his boss had a 1977 VW Bus that he was looking to get rid of. Some photos were included. It looked legit. After more than a few confusing back and forth e-mails the deal came down to this: I would drive to Missouri in the Bimmer to trade it back to the previous owner straight up for the Bus.

Photo sent via e-mail of Huxley before I owned him.

The drive back did it. Two or so hours on I-74. Lots of positive attention from attractive strangers. A smooth, comfortable drive. And the overwhelming, weird, wonderful feeling that comes from driving a well sorted Bus.

A month into ownership Huxley dropped a valve. One month to decide on a new engine. Some totally absurd amount of months for the Bus to get back on the road. Unlike when I blew the motor in my Beetle, the motor kit and Bus were sent out for someone else to put together. One of the most important things a serious Volkswagen person learns, often the hard way, is that they themselves are the only people they can 100 percent trust to work on their cars. I learned it the hard way.

Huxley in the parent's garage next to Fritz, my '59 Beetle. Photo taken the day I brought the Bus home.

The Bus was done in the late summer. Not entirely done, no way. The fuel injection system needed some serious sorting out. It broke regularly and without warning. After a few weeks of this business I began to know the system like the back of my hand. I never really got the system fully sorted until right before I sold the Bus, but at least I knew where to look for problems when the engine had a hiccup.

I fell in love with that Bus. Sure, it gave me a lot of shit. Maybe it was like having a teenage kid or something. They mouth off regularly and screw up really bad every now and then but you still love them.

Camping in that Bus was wonderful. It was, of course, designed specifically for it. The interior was fantastic. It was quite roomy and covered in a delightful combination of mid-brown, wood laminate and yellow and green plaid. Sexy. It had a pop-top that enabled one to stand up inside of the Bus while preparing a meal on the counter, next to the built in, working sink. There were two fold out two-person beds in the Bus. The rear seat converted into a bed and the pop-top held a fold out bed. Super sexy. It’s because of these beds, I theorized, that a good cross section of middle-aged women would never acknowledge the vehicle when it was near them.

Interior 1.

I should mention that after the motor was finished I became the person with the fastest VW Bus in my metro area. You see, I purchased a motor rebuild kit that would increase the car’s power by around 20 percent. That little yellow brick would do 75 mph all day on the interstate without batting an eye. But the greedy mother would always ask for more, you could feel it in the pedal and in the tones of the engine. I pushed it to 90 once on a whim and it seemed like it still might’ve done more if it weren’t for the vehicle’s comically terrible aerodynamics.

Interior 2.

So, that’s how the whole Bus thing started. Within a very short time of ownership I knew that I was permanently hooked. After you camp in a VW Bus once, after you’ve road tripped in a VW Bus once you know that you’ll never be able to live without one.

A sale photo.

It was just about a year ago that Tom Ryan and his wife made the drive from Chicagoland to pick Huxley up and drive him back. There had been a few people seriously interested in Huxley but I had let the offers drop because I knew they weren’t going to finish the work I started on the car, that they weren’t going to take care of him. After one phone discussion with Tom I knew that he was the right man to adopt Huxley.

The last drive in the Bus, the last camp in the Bus the night before, and seeing another person drive it away, out of my life probably forever… it was tough. It was extremely tough. I still dream about that car. And sometimes I think I’d rather have it than my split. I can’t say that too loud around VW people, though. They’ll stomp me for sacrilege like that.

I had to drive my Dad’s Toyota Camry to Oregon and live with it for my month or so long summer term. I hated every minute of it. Eugene, Oregon is one of the air-cooled VW capitals of the nation. I kept seeing beautiful VW’s driving all over the place and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I wrote an essay about it that got published in the Christian Science Monitor and pushed out to the AP wire.

Dad's Camry at the Bonneville. The front end began to get squirly at around 93 mph.

After my summer term at Oregon I drove the Toyota back. In Oregon a blue and white 1965 Riviera Camper was waiting for me. The owner assured me it had my name on it. I got Izabela for a song and have been throwing money and miles at her since.

Baby, come back!

I’ve been in correspondence with Tom, Huxley’s new owner since he drove the Bus home. He has kept me informed every step of the way in his ownership and, just like I knew he would, continued the work I began on Huxley. He replaced all the bad seals, replaced the pop-top canvas, fixed all the serious rust, repainted the top white and more. Recently Tom told me that he was going to have to find a new home for Huxley. I’m sure he’ll wait till he finds that right person, just like I did. This past summer the Ryan’s drove Huxley nearly 2,000 miles around lake Michigan on vacation. Finally Huxley got to stretch his legs and do what he was born to do.

Most recent photo. Looking good!

Today I found Huxley listed for sale on The Samba. Tom is starting with a much more reasonable asking price. And I find myself thinking, “maybe he wants to trade for a split-window…”

Some poor, VW crazed nitwit flying high on PB Blaster fumes and gear oil said it best: “VW’s are like Pokemon, you’ve got to collect ‘em all!”

Reflections of a goon.

Day four. C-day, as it were. ‘C’ as in climb.

We could have hiked back up Elbert to finish the job that we started two days back, but it seemed like way too much of a drag to retrace our steps seeing all the same things with the exact same amount of pain and effort. Pure folly.

A quarter mile from our camp site is the trail head for Mt. Massive. Sounds imposing, right? The hike up Elbert is a Class 1, Massive is a class 2-2.5. Thirteen miles round trip at altitude (10,200 to 14,321). “We can pull that shit off no problem!”

Movin' on up.

Start at 8 a.m. Packs loaded with food, warm layers, rain gear and water. Trail immediately seems much friendlier than that of Elbert. Below the tree line the hike is casually pretty and best described as well balanced. Above the tree line, in the lower end of the alpine meadow, the hike increases in difficulty, not anything unmanageable, but noticeable. The lungs feel a bit shallow, the legs began to tighten. Keep pushing, team “Ginger Hippie” must summit a 14er.

The trail begins to get steeper, rockier; the air thinner and the footsteps smaller. Frequent breaks are now important. The head lightens, the stomach cramps, the legs scream in angst and equilibrium begins to fade on a treacherous surface headed up, steeper and steeper, to a ridge-scramble and finally the summit of the mountain. We meet a 19 year-old girl from Shreveport, Louisiana sitting on a large rock waiting to catch her breath. I chat Louisiana relatives with her for a bit, a certain stall. We carry on upwards slowing down with each boot-step. We meet an early middle-aged Couple from Canada, they are taking short breaks every ten steps or so. Nice people. One rarely meets an asshole on a strenuous hike. Rarely.

Near death?

More breaks. More energy bars, more water, more trail mix, more pain, less oxygen. Closer.

Wind. Holy mother of shit, wind. Gusts must be at least 50 mph. Gusts that would blow my car straight off the road are pushing down on us, against us, trying to trip us up, to send us out for a little fall. The higher we go the worse they get. Nervous about the ridge-scramble and the summit. We’ll surely plummet to a rocky doom. Swallow the fear and ride it out.

Ridge conquered.

We reach the ridge after a reasonable amount of mental and physical anguish. It’s not that easy to climb to over 14,000 feet having only been at altitude for two days. The view on the other side of the ridge is breathtaking, or it would be had we any breath to steal. We snap quick photos and try to find a windbreak to hang out behind before scrambling to the summit. Sweet relief. The wind whips and howls around us like the gigantic ghost of a demented lion tamer. But we have to get up, the summit is in sight.

Scrambling is one of my favorite things to do, especially scrambling to a summit. This comes from years of family vacations to National Parks as a child where the most often phrase echoing off rock formations and canyon walls was “Adam, get down from there!” Screw the hike, that’s nothing but bullshit, give me the scramble any day. The fear subsides as the concentration increases, “do I follow the path or try to find my own line?”, “Is this rock going to give?”

At the top. Windy.

Success! One 14er down. Dominated. We have just enough time at the summit to continue a tradition that began in Montana two summers ago, the pants down summit photograph. Mission accomplished. Now to relax a bit before the descent. That’s the sweet stuff.

I’ve always said that I liked going up more than going down. That’s what she said? Yeah… The problem with going back down the mountain is the consistently downward angle. This may sound like no big deal, but when you’re tromping downhill you aren’t just using your legs to walk, you’re using your legs to keep your fool ass from careening headlong out of control off the side of the mountain. It doesn’t take long before the pain sets in and it only gets worse with every step, my friends.

On the way down we meet up with the Shreveport girl that I spoke to briefly on the way up. As has been the case with the majority of the girls that hung around us briefly on the trip, she wasn’t entirely attractive and after a while it is hard to focus on what she’s saying. Lack of oxygen and a building fire in the lower extremities make it difficult to tell offensive jokes – she may not be put off anyhow. She speaks at length on the death of her good friend while skiing a 14er in Colorado. Apparently this is what set her and her sister into a competition as to who could summit the most 14ers. — It doesn’t seem quite as morbid as I type this from some mental and physical distance, but it did coming down massive.

Back to the work itself. What would push a man to such acts of physical degradation? A miniscule dose of foolhardy glory? Perhaps. But what does it gain me? Women aren’t throwing themselves at me because I climbed to the top of one 14,xxx foot mountain. Men don’t envy me because I climbed to the top of one 14,xxx foot mountain. I gain no supernatural powers of any sort from hanging out at the summit. There is no hidden treasure, no sword in the stone, no lady in the lake. So why in the hell would anyone do this to themselves?

View.

Time spent on a summit is pseudo magical. The combination of an extreme deficit of oxygen, near complete physical exhaustion, an inflated sense of accomplishment, a beautiful view and a place to finally sit down and kick back coalesces into a near religious experience (as exhaustion, delusion and/or lack of oxygen often do). Does this make it any less special? Not really. Does the user of high-powered psychedelic drugs discount his/her “religious” experience simply because he/she knows how the chemicals are working on the brain? I don’t really know, actually. But I would speculate that answer is “no” and that it probably becomes a stronger “no” with each successive trip.

If you haven’t been on the top of a mountain, do so. Get the hell out there and abuse your earthly vessel to get to a nice high spot on the globe, you wastrels. If you’ve done it, well, you know and I send you an ethereal high-five. If you haven’t, get cracking. Medical conditions are no excuse. If you’re a fatalist you’ll have no qualms on dying out there anyhow. After all, you have no choice.

There is one particular thing driving Riley and me up and back the aptly named Mt. Massive. One day earlier we had seen a billboard announcing “Hamburgers, 2 for $3! Denver Post voted #1!” Investigation was necessary; we only needed the proper motivation to guarantee the desire to pound these hamburgers into our maws with the explosive gusto suitable for such raucous advertisement. The mountain seemed like a good motivator. Yes, a good choice.

Four hours up and 2.5 hours down. Thirteen miles round trip. Boots feeling like meat tenderizers at the bottom of the trail. We soak our feet in a mountain stream until we can no longer feel them. We catch a ride from three men from North Dakota in a white Suburban. They take us the entire half mile back to our campsite.

I don’t recall the drive into town at all. In the hamburger joint things are quite clear, however. I recall walking into this tiny place and being immediately assaulted by modern “country” music. I recall the two young, feral children trying to catch the attention of the girl behind the counter, the girl with the green hair, the black shirt and the lip piercings (to match the other two visible employees). I recall saying “You guys don’t look like the type to listen to this terrible swill,” to her. “No, not me,” she replies with a giggle. And I certainly recall the food.

Riley: 1 half pound bacon double-cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake.

Adam: 1 quarter pound Avocado cheeseburger, a massive order of chili-cheese fries and a chocolate milkshake.

Both: Euphoria.

Showers at the Leadville Hostel. Brandy and Jones Soda. Two meals of canned goodness cooked under the stars. Hobo fire. Merciful sleep. Tomorrow is the last day in Colorado.

-A

A break on the way back to Leadville from Aspen.

After the disappointment of day two’s failed summit combined with the awful, full body fatigue gnawing violently at our limbs and lungs, it was decided that day three would be spent exploring Aspen. There’s a little town 8 miles outside of Aspen called Woody Creek. Lots of celebrities live there. Most importantly, though, Woody Creek, CO was the home of one Hunter S. Thompson since the early 1970s.
Getting to Aspen was no easy feet. It lies on the other side of the range that Riley and I had come to climb.

Just after the first major turn of Independence pass.

Independence Pass is one of the most ruthless major mountain roads in the U.S. It ascends from Leadville, CO. (some 10,xxx feet), to a summit of nearly 13,xxx feet and then back down into Aspen, some 9,xxx feet. The climbs are rough, the turns are sharp and the descents are terrifying. The country is among the best I’ve encountered from behind the wheel in this great nation. Hulking, blue mountains shoot up from thick, coniferous timberlines like a mongrel’s baby teeth from a Picasso nightmare. Between the peaks are wondrous, lush alpine valleys coated in a thick dusting of yellow, purple, blue and white wildflowers. Creeks shoot down valleys past long abandoned gold rush settlements collapsing into obscurity with mine shafts and deerskin jackets. There are no guardrails on the road at all which is a bit unnerving on the way up and pants-shitting terrifying on the way down. The road narrows with little to no warning at all and many overzealous, Gucci trophy wives turned reluctant Dior soccer moms blaze the trail on cellular telephones in large, black luxury SUVs. We took the bastard down in a 44-year old Volkswagen equipped with “Why the fuck aren’t you stopping yet!” brakes, an engine of unknown miles suffering near pulmonary failure from lack of oxygen, the handling of a drunken mule cart operation and a weeks worth of camping gear for two men. In the words of the hippie in the Toyota 4Runner, “That’s wicked, man, wicked!”

Second to last turn before the summit.

Aspen. I can see why so many spend so much to live here. The valley this town resides in is incredible, reminiscent of the southern European Alps. The town, though, was so loaded with people that it was difficult to get a good feel of the place. And the prices were largely ridiculous. It took nearly 2 hours of meandering to find a dining establishment offering anything under $15 a plate.
There was some time spent in an outdoor gear store which netted me a cheap pair of rain pants that I hope I never have to use and I wish that I had had one day prior.

Photographic proof for the naysayers.

The highlight of the excursion for me was Woody Creek. A small community of cabins and ranches outside of Aspen populated by ex-hippies, celebrities, corporate drug pushers and quite a few generally good people. The “heavily fortified” Thompson compound, Owl Farm, was not hard to find. Hunter’s place was only a few miles from the Woody Creek Tavern, good for him and the tavern, bad for the stiff neighbors. It’s simple. But if you want to find it you’ve got to do it yourself. I’ll tell you this much, look for the iron turkeys.

Dumbstruck and dizzy.

It’s strange to visit the home of your hero/idol figure after his death. Signs of his personality are still there: metal sculptures of bats, homemade shooting targets, a familiar looking cabin. Something vital is missing, though. There are no staccato explosions, mirthful blood curdling screams, hazes of substances or mumbled swears. I’m still not sure how I felt about being there. It was like there was something missing from the air, an invisible hole that the minds eye could only glimpse in the recollection of a day-old dream. The weird, prophetic vibrations were gone. And anyone who thinks for one moment that they can resurrect them, that they can amplify the echoes of the tiny ebbs still reverberating in the mountains is a stone cold fool. Sometimes the world doesn’t truly know what it’s lost until it’s staring into the chasm left behind.

A peek at the late Doctor's heavily fortified compound, Owl Farm.

The beer at the Woody Creek Tavern was cold and hoppy and the atmosphere was a lazy, drifting, quick witted happiness. Riley and I sat at the end of the bar and glanced around the room at photographs of the man himself, crude drawings of random patrons and splattered Ralph Stedman cartoons. The walls were covered with REAL objects. Everything linked to a particular moment in time bursting with individual energy. There are no old oil cans, no broken down banjos, no snow-shoes hanging at odd angles on the wall attempting to confuse you into the Surf n’ Turf special or the Apple-tini. The owner (I presume) of the establishment was working the bar that day.

The King's court.

—

“Will you have another?”

“Why not.”

“How about ‘yes?’ ‘Why not’ should be saved for your 22nd or 23rd.”

“Yes, yes. It should be saved.”

My mug is refilled with Flying Dog Pale Ale and just as quickly it is drained.

“We’re from Iowa, here on a Pilgrimage to H.S.T. country. Can I see some of those t-shirts?”

“Sure, I’ll pull out this box of mediums; you don’t look like you need a big one.”

“Yeah, I’m a skinny bastard.”

“Nah, you’re just medium… ya skinny bastard.”

I select and pay.

“Hold on.”

“Yeah?”

“Here, have one for the road on Hunter.”

I gulp the beer down in gluttonous homage. I feel warm inside.

—

Having a bit of a drunk on made selecting my mood easier upon pulling the Bus out of the Tavern parking lot and back onto the Colorado highway.

On the way out of town Riley, the driver at this point by his own wise decision, realized we needed to fill up before heading back over the pass. So, we turned around. And as we pulled through the city limits of Aspen I saw it, the Red Shark. The Red Shark. Hunter’s son, Juan behind the wheel and Hunter’s widow, Anita in the passenger seat. Writing this now it seems like an anecdote from a dream. It isn’t.

—

The white Chevy Silverado cruised slowly out of town with two adult black labs pacing in the bed, trying to find ideal wind conditions for that wonderful, even ear flop. I wasn’t paying attention.

“Holy shit! Those dogs!”

“What? Are they—”

“Doing it!”

Exhibitionist hounds, I tell you. It didn’t last long but it was performed with the sort of skill that says this sort of thing has been done before. The mounted lay down in the bed of the truck, not to be seen again for some time. The mount-er scanned the scene, smiling.

More later.

-A

Our campsite, caught in a rare moment when it wasn't pouring rain like a mutha.

Day two in Colorado was a bitch. Somewhere in there (I’m not quite sure where, the altitude is seriously screwing my cognition) there was a misshap with the Bus that ended in a crunched passenger rear corner. Still pissed about it but, it could be worse. That very side was home to the majority of the car’s rust so now, thanks to insurance, I get that rear corner replaced!

Riley enjoys hiking... at this point.

First thing in the morning, around 8 a.m. to be sort of precise, Riley and I set out to hike to the summit of Mt. Elbert, the tallest mountain in the U.S. Rockies (14,433). The hike started out just like any other hike, there was a sort of dumb excitement to walk slowly up hill for 4-ish miles at high altitude. It didn’t take long for the realization to sink in that no matter what kind of shape you are in at 500 feet above sea level, it ain’t enough for a hike that starts at over 10,000 feet. I’m pretty sure it was that realization that was soaking up 90% of the oxygen our poor lungs were trying to absorb.

Further up the trail.

The hike turned out to be mostly a disappointment. After we got above the tree line the path got fairly rocky/sketchy. That wasn’t the real problem, though, the real problem was the goddamned rain that soaked our asses for quite a while. For those of you reading this, a good rain jacket doesn’t do shit if you don’t have rain pants to catch the run-off. It did clear off, though, and we slowly worked our way higher and higher, 10 steps, break, 10 steps, break, etc. Riley has estimated that the oxygen level in the air at 14,000 feet is roughly 95% less than our home of 500 feet. And good Christ could we feel it.

Look Ma, you raised an idiot!

Not one half hour away from the summit another ominous cloud made its way towards Elbert. We decided that if we heard anything thunder or saw any lightening that we were going to turn around instead of summit, it’s better to be a live chicken than a dead hiker. Thunder once: hmm… Thunder twice: well… Thunder thrice: Alright, down we go.

Not the summit.

The smell of defeat was hovering about us like a cloud of mosquitoes on an Ethiopian kid. Well, we sort of smelled pretty bad anyhow. As I can recall, after we got back to camp we took a nap and then headed into town to investigate local grub. It was decided that we should go back and cook some of the food that we had brought, an over-abundance I might ad (thanks, Mom).

Cooked freeze dried cajun chicken and dinty moore beef stew, cleaned up and ran into the Bus just as the retard sky decided to piss buckets again. Rain has been prevalent on this trip. Thanks a lot mother nature, you whore.

Stay tuned for more adventure and idiocy!

-A

First and second days have been conquered. There have been highs and lows but, most importantly there have been no breakdowns. This is quite an achievement when you take into consideration a few things: we left from the Quad City area at 4:30 a.m. and arrived at our “campsite” at 11 p.m. mountain time. We drove essentially straight through stopping only to fill up the gas tank. The Colorado leg of the journey was rough on the Bus. We followed a rain system from eastern Colorado all the way to the mountain passes on the other side of Denver. Speaking of which, this 45 year-old, not entirely reliable vehicle took us up to 12,xxx feet and back down to 9,xxx about three or four times on our destination, Leadville, Colorado, without so much as gassy hiccup.

As always, the Bus drew a small crowd of looky-lous, story tellers and question askers at nearly every stop. Riley was particularly impressed by this and has stated at least twice now that he wouldn’t mind having a Bus. And thus the disease is spread. If he picks one up that’ll make two for me, the first being Melssa Hart, a great friend, writer and professor.

This bird broke the souond barrier immediately before striking this wall. He shall be remembered as a hero of his kind.

The majority of the stories and questions were fairly standard: “What year is this,” (1965.) “How many mpg’s do you get,” (Not many.)”Will you take my picture with it?” (Sure.)

There was an interesting transaction at a petrol station somewhere in Western Nebraska. A rather rotund Latin fellow of around 50 years in a Harley Davidson t-shirt, jeans, a black baseball cap and a grey mustache approached and began to regale us with a fantastic tale which is transcribed (mostly) for you right here:
___

“Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these! You need longer hair and some tie-dye, though,” he says.

“Haha, yeah, I’m working on it.”

“ Back in 1970 I took one of these out to the Freak Mountains in Wyoming for the Spiritual Gathering of the Rainbow Tribe,” he says looking the Bus up and down, nostalgia glinting in his eyes.

“Damn, that’s cool,” I say with 100% honesty.

(Some banter I don’t recall.)

“…we laid out all the peyote and the food, oh man, those were some times.” (More nostalgia in the eyes.)
“I can only imagine.”

“We played baseball against the sheriff’s department, naked! We all ran around naked, with long hair… Where are you guys headed?”

“Colorado for some hiking.”

“Oh, me too. Me and my lady are heading out to Aspen and then up to Wyoming, back to the Freak Mountains. That’s where I was ordained. There was a lot of spiritual stuff going on back then…”

“Cool, well, you guys have a great trip,” I say.

“Yeah, you too, man!”

Riley and I get back in the refilled Bus and head back to the Interstate.

“I was born in the wrong time.”

“Me too, man, me too.”

—

There isn’t much to say about the drive through Colorado that hasn’t already been hinted at in the paragraphs above. When we got into Leadville proper at around 10:30 p.m., we were pulled over by the man, a first for me in my days of Bus ownership which has been a surprise to myself and nearly everyone I tell. I thought for certain he’d be asking to search the car. Not only were the two of us dazed from a ridiculous day of driving, but we were in a “hippie van” with Oregon plates and I handed the officer an Iowa license. He let us go, though, providing that we closed the decklid on the Bus so that the license plate would be visible.

It was bound to happen sometime.

After some unfortunate exhaustion related navigational issues we pulled into a makeshift campsite between some trees at about 11 p.m., pulled out the bed and crashed hard. What did we do the next day? Well, you’ll just have to log back in tomorrow and find out, we’re too busy doing cool shit to take it all down now.

It seems like only a week or so ago that I pulled the Bus into my parents driveway for the first time. Well, as of today we’re heading back out on the road.

A few months back my good friend Riley gave me a call and asked if I would be interested in hiking some of the 14,000 ft. peaks in the Colorado Rockies. My answer, of course, was an echoing yes.

There’s something strange and wonderful about standing at the summit of a mountain. I recommend it highly. There’s a solitude and a oneness with nature that is nearly unmatched. There’s a monumental sense of accomplishment, a grand delusion that yes, you are a man of Sir Edmund Hillary’s caliber, a true champion bounding and whooping your way up to the climax of this very specific point on the globe. You’ve conquered this section and now you may move on to the next. Don’t forget to hit the basecamp bar, and at least one of the basecamp barmaids, before you go, old chap.

It’s something like that. By the middle of next week I should be able to expand from a bit more immediate experience.

Yesterday my good friend Tom came by to help me work a bit on the Bus before departure. He also adjusted the handbrake on his delightful E36 M3 in the drive. There was a lot of swearing and two German automobiles from extreme opposite ends of the spectrum jacked up at opposite ends in the drive. I had to snap a photo, it just looked too cool. For those of you wondering what I would be driving if I wasn’t so inexplainably attached to a 44 year-old death trap, well, Tom’s M3 is it.

Today the brakes will be bleed, the oil will be changed, the timing and dwell will be checked and set, the valves will be adjusted and a set of fog lights will be installed. This evening we hit the road. As you might have guessed, I will be documenting this journey right here at this very web address. Some of you have already started betting on when the Bus will break down first. We shall see…

-A

BAAAAD distributor!

After 2,923 miles on the road nearly non-stop (for a 44 year-old car, anyhow) the Bus decided that it needed to take a break. It’s no moron, this Bus. It didn’t die until the moment it got into my parents garage, much to their chagrin. That was Saturday (Friday?) night. Since then I have been working on that poor bastardized VW motor from the crack of noon to as soon as the Davenport posse picks me up for shenanigans.

Well, I found the problem yesterday, finally. The engine was missing not because of the heat but because both my brand new distributor and my spare distributor were messed up. The new one, which we ran for the first 700 miles or so, was running a faulty electronic points replacement system. That distributor was yanked out with the generous help of Rick in Sacramento and replaced with my spare 009 that was running the old points/condenser system. After a few hundred miles or so, though, the car would start to miss again at low RPMs. I have NO idea why I never once checked the points on the trip. It could have saved us a hell of a lot of headache, and a tow-truck load of money. I dare not tell my Dad exactly how much…

Well, the 009 distributor was bad. It had some play in the distributor shaft so it was closing the points gap and burning up points like a mutha.

GOOOOD distributor!

Today, with the help of my friend and fellow VW-fiend, Steve, I pulled the 009 out and put back in the new SVDA distributor from the beginning of the trip, now equipped with the original points and condenser setup. Timed it up and wouldn’t you know it, it runs great!

Shouldn’t have told the parents. I probably could have kept my garage spot.

It wasn’t until I found this bridge outside of a small Nebraska town that I recalled that hwy 30 follows the so called “Lincoln Highway.”

The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway built with the automobile specifically in mind. It began in New York City and ended in San Francisco. It was built in 1913. Route 66, which is often lauded as ‘America’s Road” was built in 1926. Most of the road today has been absorbed by Hwy 30, Hwy 50 and Interstate 80.

Both my Dad and I were completely unaware we had been criss-crossing and often treading on the old Lincoln Highway since Reno. I would never have figured it out, either, had it not been for the bridge pictured above.

A few years back I had done some browsing at this site and I decided that I wanted to embark on a pilgrimage to honor the old American ways down this vein — the first triumph of American mechanical transportation. But I forgot about it until I came across that old bridge entirely by accident. Happenstance or an overactive subconscious? You be the judge.

About two or three years ago my interest in old cars and a general interest in history began to coalesce into an interest in old transportation routes. I was, of course, initiated into it by Route 66. From there I began to educate myself on how to find remnants of the old American Highway system wherever I was. For example, Most old two-lane highways were within a mile or so of the railroad tracks that the original route was largely based on, and most old routes can be easily found as they follow quite closely a long line of power and telephone lines. In most places these poles are still there.

This little bit of info provided a sort of historical game to play, alone or with others, while on road trips through areas that might otherwise be boring. The discovery of American relics along the old routes such as the bridge pictured above, or the old Highway 61 Drive-In in Maquoketa, Iowa, or the Valley Drive-In in Eastern Colorado provides wonderful places for breaks along a cross country drive to investigate something long passed by for Super-Duper-Continental-Shopping-Malls and ethereal world-wide information highways. To investigate a time that, for some reason, I’m convinced that there was a real America. Though, admittedly, that may be a cruel trick played on me by the History Channel and an elderly society of malcontents with a tendency towards aggrandization.

Even if it is all horse shit, there’s still something terribly romantic about it all — relics of a lost nation fading slowly into the sage brush, bleaching out into obscurity. There’s an Indiana Jones aspect in there. If we are quick we can get to these artifacts before him, though — before all remnants of this society disappear completely leaving behind only rusting metal husks and confusing piles of white rubble. I want to experience the America of my Father and his Father before him before it is truly gone. And let me tell you, kids, it’s on its way out. I urge you to pile your friends into your car and trace these veins before they completely dry up. Inject some old fashioned American aplomb into these junkies one last time. I promise you they will heed you memories that will last far longer than the structures themselves.

Despite the constant set backs, disappointments and outright failures of this trip, I have to say it has been one of my greatest. Traveling across the old roads and discovering a swiftly disappearing America with my Father, probably the last generation born into it, in a vehicle as draped in American history and symbolism as any you’re likely to come across (Yes, it did come from Germany. But where, I ask did your ancestors come from?) has proved to be, at the very least, highly educational, if not outright epic. It’s really too bad the old man will never step inside that car again.

Route 66 is calling…

- A

Yesterday I pulled eastern Colorado and 1/4 of Nebraska. Driving on old Highway 30 which goes straight through quite a few small Nebraska towns. They all look essentially the same: the edge of town is bordered by a few grain silos that probably have the name of the town written on them. Then there are the ranch houses, fairly run of the mill, some dirty and some with well kept gardens. Most have a pick-up truck or two in the driveway/yard. Moving in to the center of town you run into abandoned gas stations. Where do these people get their fuel? And then the old main street, which looks exactly like it did when the town was first erected in 1896 or something. Then there is the bar. It has a Coors or Budweiser Neon light in the window. Leather faced men in cowboy hats peer through the window between guzzles of Bud while some godforsaken newer “country” music plays out of blown out speakers. On the other side of town is another abandoned gas station and then a small, weather beaten sign requesting that I ‘Come back soon!”

They don’t quite know what to make of me. Some West Coast wierdo driving through in a bright blue and white “hippie van.” Exhaust burbling, Hendrix blaring from the opened windows, a European license plate on the front. “And you know something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” I wore my Iowa Native t-shirt just in case any shit rose up. So far so good. It won’t be long before they realize I’m here for their daughters. And after a few hours they will never be the same…

For those that say there is nothing of any interest in the Midwest, I give you this:

Most of you won’t give a dripping crap about the above photo, but some of you will understand quite well. Ninety-year old man. Untouched junk yard. Cars from the 30s to the 80s. I’m the first guy to knock on his door and he wants to sell. Hanging out in a Wells Fargo parking lot right now till I meet him at 1 o’clock. Wish me luck.

-A