Summer 2017 Trip to El Prado

[andrewlandon67]

Alright, I finally got off my ass and decided to put some words and pictures up of the trip my brother and I took last summer in our grandma's heirloom '70 Westy.

First, a little back story. Our grandmother has owned this bus since about 1980, and it's served every possible role in the years since, from a work truck hauling rent house materials around, to a daily driver for a little old teacher lady, teaching my mom to drive a stick, and even a meeting room for rent house deals! It's been driven to Lake Powell, all throughout the Colorado Rockies, and a great deal out onto the eastern plains and into the midwest. In 37 years, this bus has become a huge part of our family and our collective identity, and we all absolutely love it. My little brother even went so far as to drive it to prom two years in a row!

So I'd imagine you'd be surprised that when our grandma suggested a bus trip down to a rockabilly/hotrod festival in eastern New Mexico in early June of 2017, my brother and I both were unsure. Her plan was to take both the '70 and her '01 Eurovan camper down, having her strange friend Dan and his even stranger wife piloting the new van, and my brother and I in the '70, with her switching off riding in both cars on the way down. Then, after a week or two of indecisiveness, I realized that the weekend after the N.M. event was the El Prado/Blackstar campout and show in Los Angeles, and that I'd really like to go see that. I talked a bit with my boss and we made the decision to take two weeks off of our lives and go experience a big SoCal VW show firsthand. I also wanted to have an excuse to visit the famed Gene Berg shop, so I took the plunge and ordered a shifter for my '67, making sure to note that I'd be picking it up in person in a few weeks.

Our grandma was more than willing to let the two of us loose in her beloved bus for nearly a week and a half, just two brothers in their early 20s, trundling our way through the southwest and getting in everyone's way a bit, but the bus needed some work first. I, working at a VW specialist in Denver, wouldn't have a problem with that. Two weeks before the trip and I pulled the bus into the shop for a long weekend of pulling the motor, resealing EVERYTHING on it, setting the carb and distributor up the way I'd like, and just generally going through everything to make sure we'd have a stress-free trip. Two days later, I dropped the reinvigorated bus off at my grandma's with strict instructions to drive it around and work any and all kinks out of it. The next two weeks were a blur of anticipation and packing, both for ourselves and for the bus, with me putting together a spares box to rival anyone, including a full gasket set, a spare points 009 timed to the motor currently in the bus, several fan belts, stock Solex jets, etc etc.

Finally, our Thursday night departure was upon us. My brother came over to our mom's house and we loaded all of our gear into his little Subaru Legacy wagon for the short jaunt to G'ma's, our last real drive in a modern car for two weeks. Within minutes, we were nosing onto the freeway and shifting into fourth when all of a sudden the Subaru's clutch pedal went straight to the floor and didn't come back up! We were sitting on an entrance ramp with the sun starting to go down behind us, our trip in jeopardy before it even started, with the hood up. I looked and finally found the culprit, a broken clutch cable, not a good omen for a two week trip in a vehicle known for cable issues. I ended up rev-matching the shifts and managed to limp it to grandma's, where the bus was already parked in the street behind the Eurovan with the side doors open. We quickly moved clothes, parts, tools, coolers, and other assorted crap from car to bus, parked the Subaru and locked it, and got ready to leave.

Before we set off, I took this shot of the Bus with our last Denver sunset for two weeks behind it.


More to come later, mostly Cal Look related...

[andrewlandon67]

We stopped on the very southern edge of the metro Denver area for gas around an hour later planning our route as we waited. Our plan was to stop for the night in Pueblo, CO and continue on to our destination of Tucumcari, NM by leaving the interstate and cutting across the wide-open plains of northeastern New Mexico the next day. We split up as my brother, my grandma and I were going to camp in the '70 and her friends would take the '01 and get a hotel for the night. We had a quick picnic style dinner, moved some stuff around to fold the big bed down, and went to sleep.



The next morning we awoke early with the sun to find our campground was much more desolate looking than it'd been the night before, which made us all the more anxious to get on the road. We went further into town for breakfast and to top off the gas in the bus, then got back on southbound I-25, with the sun shining and the bone stock 1600 DP humming away beautifully behind us with my brother at the tiller. Stopping once for supplies in Trinidad, we were making good time but the climb south of Trinidad helped to remind us that we weren't out to break speed records, then we dropped down through Raton and started making our way through the state. We finally approached our turn off of the interstate at Springer, stopping to make sure both vans had full tanks before heading into the empty wasteland that is northeastern New Mexico.

We only went east on the state highway for a short while before turning south onto a smaller, more rural road that was supposed to pass through a few little towns before meeting up with interstate 40 at Tucumcari. The nose of the bus turned south, with only my brother and I in it, brought a bit of a shock. We'd expected large, empty vistas in New Mexico, but the color that greeted us was a huge surprise. Rolling tan and green grasslands, as far as the eye could see and maybe even further than that, with the bluest skies any of us had ever seen in our lives speckled with clouds like a live action version of the opening scene to Toy Story.



We quickly passed through the few towns on our route, in shock from how run down they were, but still showing signs of life. Most of the buildings appeared to be well over a century old but were still in use in their condition. Roy, Solano, and Mosquero all passed us by in the same manner, fading away into the grasslands as quickly as they had appeared. The road had turned dead east after Mosquero and as we cruised along, we were surprised to see a bright yellow steep grade sign to our right, and as the road curved lightly to the right, the land dropped out from underneath us. After a couple of wide switchbacks, we landed in what can only be described as the desert. The pavement had gotten rougher and more sunbleached, and instead of rolling grasslands we were surrounded by dirt and scrubs as far as we could see. We looked in the mirrors and sure enough, we'd just come down what looked like a small mountain range, losing as much as 1000' in elevation in just a few miles. The contrast was startling as we headed further out into what we'd expected of the whole state of NM, with still a good drive ahead of us.

More later tonight.

[andrewlandon67]

The drive from the drop to Tucumcari was uneventful, the bus still trundling along as happy as ever. We arrived mid afternoon and discovered that even being so far north, Tucumcari is almost unbearably hot. We drove around town a little bit to find a place for our dinner picnic, and then went and got our camp set up. The next few days were a blur of incredible cars, beer, and live music. Rockabilly has never really been my thing, but even I'll have to admit, it was a perfect soundtrack for a four day weekend in a town very reminiscent of the town in the Cars movies. Eventually it all had to end, and with the old folks heading back north in the '01, Tanner and I were at the mercy of ourselves and the bus. We hung around for a little while, nursing hangovers from the late night before, but around noon we had decided to fill the tank in the bus, clear off some of our grandma's more kitchy bus accessories, and set off into the desert. With the exception of a violent rainstorm and the accompanying winds around Santa Rosa, we did pretty well and made it into Albuquerque in the early evening. While on the road, we'd texted a girl we both knew from the punk scene in Denver who had moved to ABQ and asked if she'd be up for hanging out while we rested ourselves and the bus. We spent some time at the bar that she worked at, and then she took us to her house to let us clean up a bit and watch the last bit of sunlight hitting the rock escarpments over the eastern side of the city.


Here's a stupid millenial selfie of the two of us doing what we do best on our first night in Tucumcari

Once the sun went down, we all said our goodbyes and got back on I-40 West, not quite as ready as we thought we were for the long drive across the desert. We'd brought along a good car phone charger and a couple of little speakers to put on the little mesh shelf under the dash of the bus so we didn't totally lose our minds. Around 11 that night we were still making decent time, only having been slowed down by the climbs west of ABQ where we discovered that we could still at least pass the heavily laden trucks to our far right. We were somewhere around Houck and were both exhausted so we decided to try and find an open parking lot to sleep in. We pulled up to a truck stop, filled the bus up to make sure it got done, and organized the back of the bus so we could both sleep, and parked as far away from the idling trucks and buzzing lights of the pumps as we could. Unfortunately this wasn't far enough, and at 1 in the morning, after we'd both been lying awake for at least an hour and a half, we gave up and decided to try and make Flagstaff. We pumped up the speaker as loud as it could go, and set off into the night.

The majority of this trip had been without any music as our grandma had been with us for most of our time on the road, and we doubted she'd enjoy our hip-hop and our doom metal, so we stuck with the sound of the engine while she'd been with us. As soon as we all parted ways though, we immediately let fly with whatever we could think of listening to. A good description of our collective musical taste would be eclectic, as throughout the trip we'd listen to everything from rap supergroup Run the Jewels, to doom metal legends The Sword, and everything in between. That night we were deep into The Sword's sci-fi concept album about spacefaring bandits, both as a way to keep awake, and as motivation for our trip. While we'd been on dozens of trips together with one or both of our parents, we'd never been out for so long just by ourselves, so there was an element of the classic adventure to our trip. In our minds we weren't two skinny kids from Northwest Denver out in the middle of nowhere in a crummy old car, we were adventurers in our ship, going where none had gone before, conquering new and unseen lands! Eventually we realized that even the greatest adventurers need sleep at times, so we plotted our course for the Flagstaff Walmart's parking lot. Driving across the eastern AZ desert in the deepest hours of the night is one of the most stunning things I've ever done. I've seen clear, 10 below winter nights at 11,000 feet that weren't as clear as this sky. I never had thought I'd be able to see that many stars at once, and Tanner compared it to the night sky in the Minnesota Boundary Waters, with nothing around for as far as it's possible to conceive. We pulled in well after three in the morning and barely had the energy to set up our sleeping arrangements before we were out for a few hours at least.

For all of our travelling on this trip, we'd piled our crap all together on the outside of the large bed in the rear so that one of us could stretch out and sleep while the other drove. Tanner had driven to our attempted stay in eastern Arizona, while I got us to Flagstaff and then drove down into Phoenix the next morning. We'd stopped around an hour or so south of Flagstaff to have some breakfast and so that I could (probably pointlessly) jet the carb up to compensate for our upcoming drop in altitude. While I'm not sure that it actually helped us or not, I certainly felt better driving it rich into the heat of central AZ than running it lean, especially after we pulled into town and stepped out of the bus. We knew it would be hot, but even Tucumcari hadn't prepared us for the blast furnace that is the Phoenix area. Again, we'd gotten a hold of some family friends who lived in town to tell them that we'd be coming through, and they offered to buy us lunch at a restaurant. After we'd eaten, they offered us their home to shower off and get some rest, and even let us park the bus in their garage for the day. We eventually stayed so long that they bought us dinner as well, but finally at 7 in the evening, we hopped into the bus which, despite being inside a garage all day, was still hot to the touch, and set off west once again.


This shot was taken by our friend Tim as we left his and his wife Anne's house, after arriving there almost 8 hours earlier.

Despite our day of rest and relaxation, Tanner still wanted more rest so he could drive later in the night. We'd propped the decklid open for the drive out of PHX as it was still in triple digits with the sun starting to go down, and I was driving in nothing but shorts. Tanner meanwhile, was laying in nothing but his underwear with one of his feet propping the rear vent window open in an attempt to cool himself off even just a little bit. Neither of us had ever experienced heat like that before, and we were both grateful when the sun finally set and we were able to breathe again. By that time we'd turned south off I-10 onto 85, and from there we'd get onto I-8 to take us to San Diego where another old family friend was waiting to see us. The night cooled off rapidly, and we were both soon wearing all of our clothes as the bus chugged its way across Arizona and up into Yuma. We'd stopped for gas and caffeine at around 11 at night, and were walking back to the bus when out of the corner of our eyes, we see a breadbox shaped flash of red and hear "What's up, hippies?" We looked over to a pump a little ways down from where we were parked to find a man in his late 50s to early 60s, with long white hair and an equally white moustache, stepping out of a red '66 non Westy camper bus with no shoes on.

After introductions, we learned that he'd been driving from somewhere in eastern Texas by himself, and was heading to the Blackstar Campout just as we were. We talked for a little while longer, but the road was calling to all of us so we said our goodbyes and went off, once again, into the black of the desert night.

Don't worry, we're getting to the exciting VW stuff very soon...

[karl h]

epic trip! thanx for posting. dont want to be a smartass, but dont pop the engine lid, it does the opposite of what you are trying to achieve, it sucks hot exhaust gas into the engine compartment and therefore cooling is worse

[Martin S.]

And that "hot" exhaust gas is probably cooler than the Arizona heat! 

[modnrod]

Great road trip story!
 

[andrewlandon67]

epic trip! thanx for posting. dont want to be a smartass, but dont pop the engine lid, it does the opposite of what you are trying to achieve, it sucks hot exhaust gas into the engine compartment and therefore cooling is worse

And that "hot" exhaust gas is probably cooler than the Arizona heat!  

Will definitely keep in mind for the next trip, although by then I hope I'll be able to add a little extra oil cooling to the engine somehow, even with just a type 4 cooler conversion or something. Glad to hear you're all enjoying the story so far!

[andrewlandon67]

As we headed west out of Yuma, we had no idea what the road ahead of us for the next few hours would entail, all we wanted was to get to our next stop in San Diego that night and get some sleep. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, we were surprised to see the bright lights all along I-8, presumably for the border, which we were as close to as we'd ever been. Neither of us had known how close we would be to Mexico, and we both thought that was weirdly exciting. Nevertheless, we pressed further and further into the California night with the bus humming away beautifully. We ended up slowing down unexpectedly when the earth began to rise once again underneath us, but we still made it to our destination in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego around 2 a.m., parking on a side street and crawling into the back.

When we awoke, we texted yet another old family friend who lived in the neighborhood and spent a good day catching up and enjoying some of the more fermented offerings of the city, as well as sampling some very special homebrews, but we needed to feel like we'd done something that day, so we headed north along the coastline and met up with a friend of my brother's who lived in Aliso Viejo and slept on the couch/floor of her apartment, grateful to be indoors for a night. We awoke the next morning to a cool, overcast sky and headed north on I-5, excited to be off the road in just a little while. We eventually got off I-5 somewhere in Anaheim for a bathroom break, some caffeine, and our next main destination.

I hopped back in the driver's seat and Tanner laid in the back to catch up on some missed sleep from the night before and we weaved our way through some industrial neighborhoods before finally laying my eyes upon one of the most glorious sights I've witnessed.



We'd actually made it to Berg, and better yet, weren't just there to ask questions and snag Zots for ourselves. A few weeks prior to leaving, I'd made the decision to call ahead and order for my car with the intention of stopping in to pick it up, as well as a Berg hat for my then-boss. I went in and talked to Al a bit and picked up my order, as well as plenty of Zots and a few stickers for my toolbox and the car, and then since it was early in the morning and nobody was waiting around the front room, Al offered to take me for a little tour. Stashing my stuff back behind the counter, we walked in back and I was greeted with a sight that I'd not expected to see at all.



Not one, but TWO famous '67 racers, collecting dust next to a gorgeous '51 split, surrounded by some rather serious looking parts and engines. We turned over to our left and got a little bit of a treat.



Two full sets of real, magnesium BRMs stacked up on the floor. Having never seen a pair in person, to my knowledge, I was floored. Al asked if I'd like to pick one up, which I most certainly did, which was yet another huge shock. I knew that being proper mags that they'd be light, but I wasn't really prepared for HOW light they'd be. I damn near fell over since I'd braced myself to be lifting something heavier than a beer glass, but found that a real BRM doesn't weigh much more than a few feathers. Gently setting the one back down on top of its stack, we continued our tour a little more rapidly, and I didn't take many other pictures but rest assured, my jaw didn't come back up for at least an hour afterwards.

I picked my stuff up from the counter, thanked Al profusely, and we hit the road. By this time, it was midmorning on Wednesday and we knew the Blackstar campout would be starting soon so we pointed the nose of the bus towards the park and hit the gas.



A shot I took of my shifter, still the best one for a hot street VW, and I'm still happy as can be with it.

More to come later this week.

[Sam K]

Thanks for the hat!

[Andrew]

Great story, thanks for taking the time to put it into words for us.

Andrew

[andrewlandon67]

Great story, thanks for taking the time to put it into words for us.

Andrew

Thanks! Like I said, I've been wanting to get this done since we got home from the trip, and I finally organized my thoughts enough to get it done!

Thanks for the hat!

No problem, Sam!

[Martin S.]

That picture at Berg's is priceless! what an amazing shot. When I visited they showed me around too.
At that time they showed me their new cam break-in machine, pretty cool! Also Dee had a gorgeous Thing for sale coulda should woulda... 

[andrewlandon67]

Alright well there's not much going on at work today so I figured I'd update this a bit

We found our way to the park from Bergs, pulled in, and started setting up camp nearby some other early bays. Before too long, we had everything moved around and the top popped and had started meeting our "neighbors," a young couple from down near Yuma with their two dogs and their '70 non-Westy camper who had shown up earlier in the day. The next four days are a blur of camping, great people, ACVWs, beer, sunshine, beer, dust, ants, and beer.


Here's Tanner walking around shortly after our arrival, beer in-hand and opened.

We went into town a couple of times with some other folks we met, and we did go to the OCTO meet Saturday morning, but beyond those things, we were more than comfortable staying at the campsite with occasional walks around to check out any newcomers. I sincerely can't describe how much fun we had during the campout, whether it was meeting new, incredibly friendly people, or just seeing cars around that all have their unique stories and little things about them, Cal Look or otherwise. We spent late nights hanging around strangers' campfires and surrounded by all sorts of interesting VWs, only to head back to our little mobile cabin and do it all again the next day. Saturday evening came, and with it came the local crowds, with hundreds more cars to the campout. It was this night that we were doing our usual stagger around the campgrounds when I noticed a couple of cars that didn't quite fit in with the slammed busses and Resto-Cal type 3s...





Yep, among the patina and the "hoodrides" were two simple looking, cleverly disguised, in-the-steel, California Look DKP cars. I had hoped to see at least one of the famed rear quarter window stickers, but here were two cars with them! My beer-soaked mind was thoroughly blown as we walked back to our campsite, hoping the next day would bring even more.

More to come, including a dropped jaw and a long drive home.
Thanks for reading!

PS, can anyone tell me who those two cars belong to?

[leec]

Think the blue 65 is Jason Fosters.

[volkskris]

The brown 66 is Darrell Bomgaar's

[andrewlandon67]

The brown 66 is Darrell Bomgaar's

Think the blue 65 is Jason Fosters.

Thanks guys!

The rest of that Saturday night was spent socializing, wandering around, and drinking beer with whoever invited us into their camps. Eventually we both grew weary and retired to the bus, falling asleep to idle chatter and aircooled clattering all around. We awoke to find most of our "neighbors" awake making pancakes with their family who had arrived the day before. Slowing our morning down for coffee and breakfast with them, we couldn't really see the show area but we'd noticed most of the cars around us had disappeared. We'd decided to pack early in the morning so that when we were ready to leave, we'd only have to get in the bus and start driving. We finished organizing our things and then headed over to the show.

We've both been to the Denver Bug-In many times, and some of the other smaller VW shows around here so we thought we'd have an idea of what to expect, and man we were wrong. Aircooled VWs spread out on the grass as far as the eye could see, looking like every year of every model VW ever sold, in every possible condition. It didn't take long for me to search out what looked like a bona fide Cal Look car, in the form of a gorgeous Blue '67 with t bars, shaved turn signals, and BRMs.



I stopped to ogle a little bit, but the morning was still young and I knew we'd run into more. We kept wandering around, walking through the Type 3 area, and checking out some of the vendor tents. We hung around there a little bit, then walked back to the show in search of more lookers, as well as other vintage nonsense. As I was checking out the "handiwork" on the monster truck VW, I saw what looked like a lowered front end supported by a BRM and immediately lost interest in what I'd been looking at before.

Tucked away on the western fringe of the show was a line up of cars that were a little different from almost everything we'd seen up to that point.



I started looking closer and noticed that most of these cars had a little sticker on them, yep, this was the D.K.K. lineup and I'd never seen anything like it. Simple, tastefully modified, and almost all of them packing IDAs under their beautifully polished decklids. Some had chrome and bumpers, some had T bars and BRMs, but then I was drawn in by a gleam of olive green.



I spent a good 15 minutes walking around this car, analyzing every detail, from the lasercut D.K.K. badge on the hood, to the all-black '67 slotted wheels, to the painted over SB-12 headlight rings. Much like Ratto in the '90s, I was blown away by this car that was so radically different to anything that I'd seen in my hometown. We have a couple of Cal Look cars here, but mostly it's resto-cal crap with too many accessories, "patina" shitboxes that couldn't get over a flattened leaf, and stock drivers. But here, in the promised land, was this lineup of cars that had useable ride heights, simple paintjobs, and this aura that they would be happier kicking V8 ass on the street than sitting parked on a manicured lawn for the day.

Leaving the D.K.K. cars behind so as to not get drool on them and kept wandering, in awe of the amount of interesting, well done cars that surrounded us as far as we could see. Neither of us had ever seen quite so many splits, ovals, and lowlight Ghias before and we were both in a daze. Eventually we realized that we still had a long drive back to Denver over the next few days, so we walked the swap meet one last time and said goodbye to an older guy we'd met a few days prior. He was sitting with another old guy friend of his enjoying smoking some sort of wrapped up plant matter, which they offered to us. I told them thanks but no, and Tanner accepted. We soon parted ways and started hiking back up to the bus.

After a week and a half of driving, beer, cars, and desert vistas, we were finally heading home. We'd decided to take a different route back to Denver, taking I-40 east to Flagstaff, then heading north through the reservations to Durango, CO, then from there we'd make the arduous drive across the great Rockies on US 285, as we were both tired of the interstate traffic pushing us around. After his encounter with the old guys, Tanner was in a bit of a daze so I picked up the first stint of the drive. The bus made the long climb out of the valley without a hiccup, but as soon as we dropped down into the California desert, we were hit with a crosswind the likes of which we'd never dealt with in the bus before. Slowing down to only about 50 mph or so and countersteering as much as I dared, we slowly headed into the interior of the continent, in awe of the natural formations surrounding us.

I hope to be finishing this story up soon, so thanks for reading!

[wolfswest]

Good reading! 

[andrewlandon67]

Alright it's time to finish this up, thanks to everyone who read through it!

We trundled along at 50 mph or so as any higher speeds felt outright dangerous with the crosswind threatening to push us every which way. Before long, one of us noticed a rather alarming clunking noise coming from overhead and we looked up to see the wind attempting to pick up the camper top! We decided Tanner would go sit in back and hold on to the handle until we got to an exit to tie it down more strongly. Up ahead was the city of Victorville so we pulled off and made our way to the In'n'Out for a mid afternoon burger as we'd been so preoccupied with handling the bus that neither of us had eaten since early that morning! Sitting indoors and enjoying our food was one of the few comforts of the trip home, even with the wind howling as if it were trying to carry the building away, but soon we had to get back on the road. Looping a considerable length of rope over the roof of the bus and back down under and and back over again three or four times, then tying the tightest knot we could think of, we were back pointed up I-15, hoping that the winds would soon die off.

Turning onto I-40 at Barstow, the winds were howling as hard as ever, my co-pilot still in a daze in the passenger seat, I started to just focus on the scenery around us. Far from the red sandstone deserts we'd been through over the last 10 days, the stark white desert floor contrasting with the small shrubs that grew all around and up onto the blackened volcanic hills around us. It was every bit as much of a shock as our thousand foot drop to the desert in New Mexico several days back, but this just kept going on and on forever looking less like Earth and more like a 1930's Sci-Fi novel's idea of the surface of Venus. As we made our way further and further, I kept being distracted by this jawdropping landscape until a gust of wind would try and move me out of my lane into the path of a large truck and I'd regain my focus for ten minutes or so, then find myself drifting off again. Playing some heavier music helped, as did putting my mind back to the last week of VWs, beer, and travelling. I remembered the little signs we'd put up in the rear windows for the drive home. Cut up cardboard from a beer case with "Show us yer PITS" scribbled in thick Sharpie had gotten us some smiles and more than a few little waves from people passing, but nobody seemed willing to stoop to our level of weird.

Soon enough the sky began to darken as the sun made a beeline for the horizon and we were through Needles, making better time than we'd expected for being even slower than usual. Tanner was out of his daze by now and we switched places for a little while. By 11 p.m., we were approaching Flagstaff with the wind still hounding us, but we were excited to have made it and done so in a good amount of time! Earlier in the day, we'd gotten a hold of yet another old family friend who lives outside of Durango, CO to ask if she'd be willing to put us up the next night, which we were both excited about as neither of us had seen her in a number of years. We pulled into the very same Walmart parking lot we'd slept in on our way out and noticed that there were easily three times as many campers as there'd been before. Careful not to make too much noise, we nosed into a spot and quickly fell asleep, both excited at the prospects of the next day.

Waking quickly and again swapping out the main jet in the carburetor to better match the high elevations we'd encounter over the next two days, we were on the road by 8 am, heading northeast out of town on 89, seemingly ready for whatever weirdness the Rez had to offer us. I'd driven this road at night many years prior with some friends from Durango to Phoenix and back and I was excited to see it in the daylight. As we continued north, the land got flatter and more red, going back to the small shrubs we'd seen throughout the rest of Arizona and New Mexico from the big pines of the Flagstaff region. Eventually we reached the junction with Highway 160 headed towards Tuba City, an oasis of civilization in the desert and an important hub for the Navajo and Hopi people around for miles and miles. Stopping for gas near the entrance to the town, we elicited quite a few stares from passersby as I doubted they had expected to see two scrawny white city boys driving an old VW this far out into the Rez lands. We soon got back on the road and were making good time, although the wind from the day before still hounded us and seemed to change positions so as to always hit directly at the left side of the bus.

Eventually I got tired of driving and Tanner was antsy to get behind the wheel after a morning of doing nothing but sit. I pulled off the highway onto a little spit of dirt and stepped out of the bus so Tanner could slide over. The wind was fiercer than I'd expected and it blew my hat clear off, setting it down about fifteen feet away. I turned around to grab it and as I stepped forward, I noticed two scroungy black dogs making their way across the highway towards my still tumbling hat. I stood up and waved my arms around shouting and they finally took notice of me. I slowly edged towards my now stopped hat lying on the dirt and picked it up, without breaking eye contact I backed as quickly as possible towards the idling bus and jumped in. Both terrified, Tanner and I had a little time to freak out, me about these dogs just materializing out of the desert, and Tanner about having had to sit and watch the whole ordeal. We decided then and there that neither of us were leaving the safety of the bus while we were still in AZ.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, stopping in Cortez for a fill up and a driver change, and as we pulled into Durango, I remembered why I wanted to come this way. The city is so far out from the rest of the world that it's grown up on its own, and still has a real Old West authenticity to it, like it'd survive with or without the college and tourism. Nestled at the southern end of a wide, flat valley and bisected by the mighty Animas river, Durango is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever seen, and is very high on the list of places I'd be happy living. We puttered through the older part of the town and before I got too nostalgic, we cruised up a beautiful canyon road heading into the moderately heavily settled wilderness area between Durango and Bayfield. The backroads took us deeper and deeper into the hills, but as I'd driven them dozens of times in the years I lived down there, I knew we'd be alright. Eventually we made it and as we parked in the driveway, we saw a very familiar face come to greet us.

We spent that night laughing, eating, and drinking and catching up, and we were excited to get to sleep in beds inside a house that night. We awoke to sunshine through the great green pines and packed up our stuff, having breakfast and saying our goodbyes as the bus warmed itself for hopefully the last long day, and possibly the most punishing. We had elected to take 160 to 285 which included a number of large passes, the greatest of which was Wolf Creek Pass, with a ski area at the top and an extremely steep grade on either side. The drive up to the pass was pleasant, and the wind from the previous two days had finally left us alone and we enjoyed the first leg of the last day's journey. We eventually began to climb the pass as slowly and steadily as we dared, keeping the bus in second and never going above 25 mph, with people absolutely FLYING past us, and after an hour or so we reached the top and stopped for a breather and a slight photo op.



You can clearly see our makeshift roof strap and the tarp on the rear covering the skateboards we'd not had the time or place to use on the trip, and as we climbed into the bus, we knew the hardest part of the journey was now behind us. We stopped for fuel in South Fork at the bottom of the pass and switched places, with Tanner ready to try and drive us the rest of the way home. The day passed without incident although the wind had decided to rejoin us as soon as we'd descended the pass. Our conversation was nearly endless, going from how ready we were to be home to how epic our adventure had been. We filled up one last time in Conifer, just a few miles up from the metro Denver area and when Tanner stopped the bus, he realized that his eyes had been tricked into seeing the world still coming at him as if the bus were just plowing through the world. After this he agreed to let me steer us home, stopping at our mom's to unload before dropping the bus off at our grandma's house. We dropped down into the front range in the late afternoon and we both didn't much recognize it. Everything was weirdly green and we hadn't really seen much of that for a few weeks. It was then that we remembered that Tanner's car had snapped the clutch cable on our way to get the bus, and that we'd have to limp it to my then-work.



We quickly got my bug started and set off once all of our crap had been taken out of the bus, me in shock at how low and fast my bug felt, even with the tired 1641 singleport with a stock carb. Getting the bus parked and in the garage, we said our goodbyes to the faithful machine that had carried us through deserts and over mountain passes, through tiny villages and one of the biggest metropolitan areas on the planet. It'd been our home for two weeks and we'd never gotten tired of it, never felt cooped up, and it'd rewarded us with absolute reliability the whole way. We felt sad leaving it, but we knew that eventually we'd do it again.

Thanks all for reading my incoherent rambling! I've been wanting to get this all written down somewhere pretty much since we got back. I hope you all enjoyed seeing in through my words and maybe you'll be inspired to do something similar!

[Brian Rogers]

Thank you for a fun narrative on road tripping here in the west.

[Jim Ratto]

Makes me miss my '71 camper Bus. I sold it far too soon. Never fulfilled all the plans I had dreamed up for it. Nice story. When are you coming back out?

[Andrew]

Very enjoyable read, thanks.

[andrewlandon67]

I'm glad y'all enjoyed reading it, I had fun going back through and re-living it while typing this whole thing out!

Makes me miss my '71 camper Bus. I sold it far too soon. Never fulfilled all the plans I had dreamed up for it. Nice story. When are you coming back out?

Those early bay windows make for damn fun cruisers, even if they're not as fast as the later ones. I'm hoping to go back next summer (2019) for either the Bug In, Classic, or Prado again. Not sure if I'll be in my grandma's bus or my '67 but I'm working on getting a friend of mine motivated to build his Notch to come along!

[modnrod]

Great road trip story, thanks!
 

[karl h]

very nice story, thanx!