dokodemo

The weekend of Feb 6, 2004, I flew with my wife, Maki, down to San Luis Obispo to
look at a VW Vanagon for sale. I had been looking at them for some time,
and gotten a sense of their values and states of well-being (or lack
thereof). Finally, a very tempting listing came through the Vanagon email
list. I talked with the seller on the phone and in email, and decided it
was worth going down to California to investigate. As a bonus, the seller
was within a very short distance of gowesty, a shop filled with VW experts
and a warehouse of parts.

We arrived in SLO Thursday night after an uneventful flight. I always
like taking the puddle jumpers, as we had to from Los Angeles to SLO.

We picked up a rental car and went to look for something to eat in
downtown SLO. We had just missed the Thursday night market/bbq the town
is known for. However, we saw a huge group of illuminated bikes down at
the end of the main street. Walking over, I got the sense I knew what was
happening, I saw burningman-esque costumes, many bottles of beer in hand,
and lots of electroluminescent wire on the bikes. I had assumed this was
a "Critical Mass" ride, where the bikes go out to show to the cars that
they are vehicles as well. I asked a young woman on an older style of
bike with a bannana seat and a sissybar. She said "what?" when I asked
about Critical Mass, so I rephrased the question, "What's going on here?"

"Bikes 'n' beers.

"Oh? That, is like, you ride bikes and drink beer?"

She looks at me like I am slightly dense, which I realize I am, and she
elaborates:

"Yes, its great! You should come! First Thursday of every month!"

"Oh, um I don't have a bike. I am just in from Seattle."

"Yeah there's a keg, and we ride around and --"

She is interrupted by some unanimous WHOOP which rushes through the crowd.
I suddenly feel very cut-off from the people on bikes and wished I had
rented a beach cruiser from the airport instead of the crappy Mazda
Protege which was cumbersomely parked a few blocks up. It didn't have
flashing LED strobe lights, it didn't have a fur-covered set of handgrips.
We left the party and went on to some grill that was full of younger kids
taking advantage of the late happy hour 22oz Budweisers. I took half my
dinner to go, to worked up to really eat.

In the morning, I woke up an hour late due to apparantly screwing up the
clock as I set the alarm. As a result, I got up 15 minutes before W. was
to arrive with the van. Maki went to try to get our free breakfast to go
as I waited for W.

Towering over San Luis Obispo is a large foothill with an "M" on it. This
hill, and its shape in profile, reminded me very much of Mount Sentinel in
Missoula, Montana. In both cases, we see a large white "M" on the side of
a pointy, competant little hill of a mountain. I took a few snapshots of
it as W. pulled up in the machine.

I gave it a look-over inside and out, and was pleasantly pleased by its
exterior condition. In the meantime, Maki came out with some goods from
the restaurant, and I drove the van the 20 miles out to Los Osos, where Go
Westy! is located.

I dropped the van off
for an inspection, and got to know the grounds and
the staff a little. Its a pleasant little place in a pleasant little
town. There are vans everywhere, aircooled, watercooled, syncros, buses,
vanagons, eurovans, carats, porsches, splitties, and... other vws.
I talked about the van and what I needed checked, and about VWs in
general. Chris, the fellow I worked with, was knowledgable, helpful, and
friendly. He only spent about a half-hearted sentence trying to sell me
one of his restored vans before giving up. He repeatedly said I had a
"nice one", so I took that as a good sign.

I spent some time playing with the Australian sheepdogs that live/work at
Go Westy, and checking out the other local wildlife such as this little
lizard.

We walked over to a nice little coffee house, I think called "Cad Coffee". They didn't seem to know how to use their espresso machine, kindof a break from the Seattle coffeehouse style.

After a while we went back to GoWesty, chatted with Chris there, and
looked at many other vans. They had lots of them. Other customers were
coming and going, and I talked to a couple of them about their experience
on larger wheels. Those who had them were glowing, a man who lived at Big
Sur was raving about driving on Highway 1 with them. He also noted his
speedometer was very accurate when compared to his GPS readings. I am
unsure about why this works, but it is interesting.

I asked about the lack of "bus ratings" on the tires they sell, and was
given a long rap about the gowesty decision to sell these tires. I was
shown the employee vehicles which use them.

After a while, I got the laundry list of problems with this van. The most
disturbing was a cracked coolant pipe. Less important to me were the air
conditioner compresser needing work (it worked, but not as cool as it
should be), power locks disconnected due to intermittant problems, and
some other minor ailments. I discussed these findings with the owner,
talked about price, and decided to buy it. I was able to get the coolant
pipes replaced at gowesty, and at the same time I had larger rims, new
shocks, and more powerful headlights installed. I took a risk on the
unrated michellan tires which gowesty sells.

The work was to take several hours so Maki and I got in the rented car and
headed up the beach to the Hearst Castle. We drove through a few very
nice beach towns and then knew were getting close to the castle when we
saw zebra grazing on the side of the road.

The tour is to be highly recommended. It inevitably has a "touristy"
flavor to it, as a bus shuttles you up the road to the castle, there are
souveneir shops before and after the tour, and so on. However, the tour
was led by a very knowledgable guide, a lover of art, a speaker of most
romance languages, and a mountaineer named Mr. Troutman. It was very
interesting, I was unable to comprehend commanding the view from the
palace, and then imagining -owning- all of the land within site. The
jumbled architectural and decor styles are mixed very well; it is as if it
is no small thing to have a 2,000 year old greek vase next to a merely
1,100 year old chinese statue modified to be a lamp.

We finally had to head back to Los Osos and pick up the van. We drove up
to Palo Alto, where a friend is studying at Stanford. we had pho with him
in Palo Alto, and parked on the Stanford campus for our first night in the
van. We drew the curtains, opened the skylight vent and cracked the side
windows, and slept very soundly in our sleeping bags.

After breakfast and a tour of the beautiful Stanford campus, we continued
up to San Fransisco and across the Golden Gate bridge. We remained on 1
for a fantastic 2 hours or so... winding through the little towns, the
hills, and the beach-side cliffs. Driving the van was a joy, though
indeed it was a little, ahem, slower on the hills than the cars I am used
to driving.

Time finally becoming an issue, we headed across the Napa Valley, through
beautiful vinyards and farms, to meet up with I-5.

Once we merged with I-5, I started seeing billboards for Granzellas, which
a list member had mentioned was worth stopping at. We got a parking space
right in front and stepped inside. This is another place with a tourist
flavor which should by no means be skipped for that reason only. A fairly
nice Italian deli (though with European and even Asian imports from all
over to boot), strangely enough, located on I-5 in the otherwise vacant
no-mans-land north of Sacramento. We had some pizza and took a break from
the road. We browsed at the selections, excellent picnic food- and
realized we were already well-stocked and they don't really offer anything
that can't be had at other good delis. That being said, if I were ever on
a trek north on I-5 again, I would surely stock up there on the way.
What a boon to the weary highway traveller. Imagine a camping trip with
herb-stuffed feta cheese, fresh cantaloupe wrapped with prosciuotto parma,
a host of olives, capers, and honeys, fresh bread, you get the idea.

We continued on towards Mount
Shasta, and started looking for a place to
camp. Around Mount Shasta is a "National Recreation Area" which on the
map seemed to offer ample oppurtunity to camp. I took several exits, but
all they offered were RV park camping, flooded with sodium light. We kept
looking and explored the minor backroads looking for a place to
stealth-camp for the night. The only promising dead-end was already
claimed by a camper. There were unwelcoming "no parking" and "no vehicles
beyond this point" signs all over, deep in the woods. So I got back on
the highway and kept looking. Finally I got tired, and stopped at the
Weed rest area.

There were a few trucks and people sleeping in their cars around midnight.
I pulled into the darkest area, we drew the curtains. I was a bit amped
up from driving still, so I sipped a Sapporo lager I picked up in
California and ate a slice of leftover pizza from Granzellas. Not the
best day of my life in terms of food choices, but under the shadow of Mt
Shasta and with the stars glowing like their lives depended on it, that
was a fairly decent midnight snack, and served to have me knocked out in
my sleeping bag in very short order.

The next morning, the windshield glass was covered with frost, though the
sun was blazing crisply and there was not a cloud in the sky. I had slept
so soundly, I was excited to wake up and get on with the journey.

Along the way we saw some interesting giant spools, and imagined the
enormous sewing machine which would use them as bobbins.

As we eased into Oregon, the rain came a
bit, as it seems to do every time I take I-5 through that area. The rain came and went, and we saw the
beautiful neon-green valleys full of sheep that make the I-5 corridor
through the area so enjoyable. Had to stop for "full service" gas, and
some delicious gas-station coffee.

Eventually, with the arrival at Portland, we started seeing signs
mentioning Seattle, and inched closer to home. While the initial jounrey
is complete, I expect and hope it is really just beginning.