A Westfalia Education

Silencing the Roar

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 May 2014 21:49:00 +0000

If you thought we've forgotten about our first love, Penny Bus (as Sadie calls her), in the wake of our recent orange-rimmed purchase, you're wrong! We have been patiently waiting for some parts to arrive for what turned out to be the best replacement of our year-long relationship with our yellow love.

Her new muffler and gaskets arrived last week! Something that might not be exciting on most vehicles is quite the opposite for Penny. For those of you who don't live in Cheyenne and have not experienced her firsthand, describing her noise like a rabid thundercloud rolling down the street is being kind. Miss Penny was loud and was prone to backfires about every block or so. I mean not conspicuous in the least, right?

Jason was positive that the new muffler would quiet her and pretty sure that the lack of pressure from the gaping rusty hole in the old one was the cause of the incessant firecracker noises, so we set off to prove him right...

We, of course, brought along our little blonde helper, complete with her new tool belt to help Jason with her Penny. She was also excited to help out Grandpa on his Jeep while Penny got her new muffler, although was not too excited about the loud grinding and sparks that were going on in that arena!

A few twists of the wrench and the old muffler was off the back of Penny, clearly showcasing the wear and tear that was causing her street battle cry.

While all this was going on I was tasked with the only job that the boys would allow me, the pregnant one, to do in the shop...scrape the shipping labels off the new muffler. I know, you are impressed. Here's a shot of me and the belly completing this obviously arduous task...

We were even joined by a faux fox family, courtesy of Sadie getting bored in the shop and going out to help Grandma in the garden. She needed to make sure that we were staying on task in her absence. Such a 3-year-old slave driver.

Soon the tailpipe was attached, the gaskets mounted and the whole shebang was attached to Penny's rear. Now the moment of truth...the key was turned and she hummed to life, quieter then ever before. OMG we have a bus that sounds reliable! The looking reliable part will come later. Excitement wasn't even the word.

After our success Penny's day was not quite finished. Now that the engine cylinders had the proper back pressure from the pretty new muffler, the timing of the engine needed to be set properly. Jason busted out the timing light, but quickly found that these older vehicles are much easier timed by ear. He and Sadie set to work.

After using a handy measuring device printed off the computer he successfully found 29 degrees BTDC (before top dead center) and worked on lining up that mark with the center of the crank case.

He made a few adjustments and judged her almost perfect! There are still a few little things to be adjusted out, but we are eagerly awaiting new tie rods, rear wheel bearings and cv boots in the mail this week to be installed this coming weekend. After those are put on she will be deemed camp ready. I can't wait!

Check back in for more of these smiling cheeks helping to install the new parts next week :)

Our First Beauty Pagent

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 May 2014 18:34:00 +0000

It turns out that we already had the VW's on the Green car show on our calendar even before Pedro was a twinkle in our eye, but after we acquired our pretty boy we thought it fitting to enter him in the show! Our saving grace was the inclusion of the Daily Driver class, which fit very well into our imperfect double cab's agenda.

My parents were very heavily involved in showing their Triumph TR3 when I was younger and I tagged along with them to many a show, so this Sunday definitely brought back memories. All of the gathered exhaust of the classic cars even smelled the same! Needless I was pretty excited to bring my little girl to her first show...

It was an early 6:30 morning to get down to Denver in time, but the heavy eyelids were totally worth it. We arrived at Clement Park in the midst of a bustling crowd of fellow VW's. It was pretty amazing to see so many great vehicles all at one time! We were promptly directed to park in Bus Row, which was (I think) appropriately the first lane to greet the show-goers, and then it was time to shine him up!

After all the road grime was adequately cleared away and our show number was secured in the windshield corner we set out to see what the rest of the show was about. A slow meander through the swap meet (which, unfortunately, did not have the door handles or carburetor that Jason was eyeing) and an extra-small VW t-shirt for the little one later we decided to dive into the rows of cars.

We found tons of bugs, a size-able number of buses, two other Bay Window Double cabs (ala Pedro) and to my excitement, two Things (which I must say were done up beautifully). For those of you that don't know, when our newest little human addition gets a bit bigger I will be investing in a Thing as my daily driver. Groan all you want, I love them!

There were also a decent amount of new, souped-up VW's entered in the show, but we skimmed past those as our interest really lies in the oldies but goodies! We cast our vote for the red Double Cab (above) for Best in Show and headed across the street to Red Robin to grab some grub and air conditioning. Our first taste of summer in the Rockies for the year was HOT!

When we returned it was the perfect time for Sadie to crawl into her tent and take a snoozer before the awards ceremony. Nothing like sleeping in a bus tent in the middle of bus row!

While we were relaxing and waiting for our little one to wake up, we overheard a couple gawking at Pedro and talking about the yellow and white double cab that they have down in Costa Rica. Could it be? While searching high and low for Jason's new truck I had fallen in love with a yellow/white version that I thought was the one. The only downside? It lived in Costa Rica. Had I not been 5 months pregnant we would have seriously thought about venturing down there to pick up that little gem.

Things always work out how they should though, as we have a great addition to our car family in Pedro. It did turn out to be the owner of the truck I loved, so we chatted with them for a bit about this funny coincidence and our mutual love for the buses!

If you happen to be looking for a beach trip and want to grab a great little number, check out this listing... Pretty Little Double Cab

A little while later we meandered down to the club tent to hear the announcement of the winners. It was great to sit out on the lawn and soak in some much needed sun, no matter what the outcome of our class!

Pedro didn't end up snagging the best in class, but it really turned out to be a great day with my family and one that we will definitely make into a yearly adventure. We already have plans to be entering both of our beloved buses into the daily driver class next year, as Penny's upholstery should be done here in the next few weeks.

Keep peeking back for what I'm sure is going to be a fabric adventure (hopefully not nightmare) and for the rest of our VW-filled summer!

If you happen to be in the Denver area next year make sure to check out the show and click here for all of the club's pictures of this year's attendees!

Are We There Yet? - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 May 2014 20:36:00 +0000

It was day three of our trip and boy, it was an early one. We zombie ate some breakfast (although I was pretty enthralled with the automatic pancake maker at our hotel) and sleepily stumbled out into the cold, morning Montana air. We loaded our bags into the backseat and proceeded to get comfy for the ride to come. Just as I had buckled my seat belt and wrapped the trusty blanket around me Jason attempted to turn over the motor, but to our chagrin with no avail. Oh hello, day three...

He fiddled with some things but could not get the engine to fire, so a call to his dad was in order. After we got a laundry list of things to check Jason set out to find what was wrong, process of elimination style. I was a bit skeptical, so I retreated inside to see when the nearest Carquest opened and where we could acquire a uHaul. It was too early for optimism.

I went back outside to help Jason turn on the engine when he needed me to (I have total mechanic skills, I know) and about 20 minutes into me flicking the key back and forth Pedro roared to life. Now if you know me well, you know I don't get overly excited very easy. Oh man, I was excited. It was a blur of happiness, but I think I recall screaming and jumping into my amazing mechanic's arms, 5 month pregnant belly and all.

In hindsight Jason claims that this little mishap brought us closer to Pedro, but I would have been happy bonding in some other way. And for those of you who are curious, the points in the distributor had gapped too wide which kept the electricity from flowing. And now we know.

We were happily back on the road and trying to soak up the endless scenery, since Cheyenne doesn't offer much in the way of pretty. A few hours passed and we arrived at Little Big Horn Battlefield in Crow Agency, MT. Both of us love a bit of history, so we were excited about this stop and to make it even better we got out of the truck and the weather was gorgeous. Not only did I get to soak some of the past, I got a bit of a tan while doing it!

I had never been to a battlefield site before, so it was interesting to learn about what led up to the battle and then read the markers that explained exactly what went on under our feet. The graveyard at the site is pretty extensive, as servicemen from all conflicts can request to be buried there. We saw headstones from the mid-1800s all the way through the Vietnam War. Including that of General Custer, who was supposed to have his famous 'last stand' on that very hill. The memorial standing for the tribesmen involved was also pretty exceptional and gave some insight into the injustices that they had to face at the hands of the US government.

With some summertime color on our face and a bit more knowledge in our heads we were off again, this time finally on the last leg of our trip. And because that was the case, we were pretty elated to see this bad boy about an hour down the road...

Now, of course our lovely state greeted us with a nice gust of wind and seemingly crappy weather, but since that's the norm when crossing any border of this state we had to admit we were happy to be home.

One gross (bordering on funny) experience that we did not foresee was the bug massacre that we were carrying out on our entire drive home. Apparently driving a flat faced vehicle does not allow for the bugs to get caught up in any air stream and fly over us, the only option was splat. This was all well and good when the bug guts splatted clear, but mid-Wyoming we hit a swarm of something different. I had to get out and take a picture to memorialize this monstrosity, as it looked like we had gotten pelted with a carton of eggs. I mean, we still had no tunes so this was entertainment, right?

Along with a million fly and mosquito carcasses, plus that swarm of yellow-guts bug, we also managed to ensnare two butterflies in the crack of the front vent. I nicely asked Jason to save one outside of the Pizza Hut we stopped at, but even with all of his efforts (he took off the vent to save the little guy) I'm afraid we were just destined to be bug sadists that day.

With one more fill-up in Casper and a chat with a motorcyclist who followed us and flagged us down to chat about the bus, we were almost home! The rest of the drive was uneventful and around 9pm we pulled up to our driveway, exhausted but so happy to be home. I must say, the outside of our house is infinitely cooler with our dual VW situation.

I'm pretty excited to see what's in store for a summer full of Penny restoration and camping, as well as attending our first VW show in a few weeks! Quickly, a speedy thank you to the best roadtrip and life partner a girl could ask for. How could I say no to taking our little boy on his first road trip before he was even born! And also to the 30 people who waved, honked or let us know in some other way how stellar our ride was. Yes, we kept count. We agree, these VDubs are a pretty awesome breed.

Still in the Slow Lane - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 May 2014 19:19:00 +0000

Day two...Pedro greeted us outside covered in chilly spring dew and roared to life. It was a beautiful sunny day so in good spirits we fueled up and prepared for another long drive. What is a better way to start the second day of our journey then a day two selfie and some scenery...

As we approached Spokane, WA highway signs were announcing an event called Bloomsday, which happened be held the very same morning that we were passing through! A quick google search told me that it was a downtown festival held all day. Sweet, we were in. We pulled off only to see about a million people running, the Bloomsday 5k apparently. A bit further on down the road I spotted a suspended sky ride going into a waterfall smack in the middle of downtown. How could we be here and not ride it? I coerced my handsome driver into taking us downtown, only to find out that almost all of the streets were closed and parking was not to be had. My dream of a random Washington gondola ride was kaput, but it has officially been added to my bucket list. Spokane we will be back someday.

A few gondola-less hours later and we proudly crossed the WA/ID border. A high five for one state down and we were successfully chugging through Idaho.

While taking advantage of our free hot breakfast (all of the billboards were pretty excited about it) at the hotel that morning Jason picked up a brochure for a resort town in Idaho called Coeur D'Alene which we promptly put on our itinerary for the day. After a bit more googling (googling and farm signs were really the only entertainment) we found out that the Coeur D'Alene were a pretty large tribe named by the French settlers in the 1800s. They are pretty spread out over the WA/ID area and are the namesake of numerous things we passed, including the town, river and mountains. Just in case you were wondering!

We rolled into town and decided it was time to give Pedro a bit of a rest. We parked him on a picturesque downtown street and got out for a little stroll. Along the way we took in a bit of the waterfront and kissed a moose...nothing wrong with that. We hopped back in the truck and were on our way again!

One or two 35mph mountain passes later (I have lost count at this point) we see a pretty cool looking building off to the side of the highway and soon after a sign for Old Mission State Park. Another state park merely 5 feet off the road? Done!

The cool building turned out to be Idaho's oldest standing building and was the refuge for Catholic missionaries and missionaries-in-training in the 1800s. They would use the compound as a jumping off point to preach to the Native Americans and nearby mining camps. The church was pretty great to see and always makes you wonder how these pioneers pulled off such a feat of architecture in the middle of nowhere. The view didn't hurt the experience either.

Finally, two states down! As the rain and Montana sign welcomed us we were nearing closer to the close of our second day. Rain greeted us over every single mountain pass but always opened back up to shining blue skies. We took a blue-sky'd opportunity to stretch our backs at serenely wooded rest stop and soak in a bit of sun.

After a quick conversation with a guy who was oogling Pedro as we approached (we learned all about his buses, too) we were back on the road and ready to do some more mountain climbing. A trip over the Continental Divide and the sun began to set as we ventured up the Tobacco Root Mountains. At the top of the pass we stopped for a bit to let Pedro's butt cool off. Spoiled truck. I couldn't get enough of the views as we were driving and snapped more pictures then I know what to do with.

We were aiming for Billings but settled for Bozeman since our eyelids were getting mighty heavy. Pedro guided us to a Holiday Inn where we tucked him in for the night and we tried to shake off the feeling that we were still moving while actually sitting still.

Wyoming was getting so close, I could almost feel the wind. One more day to go!

Livin' Life in the Slow Lane - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 May 2014 21:48:00 +0000

So now we have two. I guess that can be applicable in more then one aspect of our life...since my last post we have found out that a tiny bus-loving boy will be arriving in October to bring our cute kid total to two (plus the doggies)! Life also finds us one more Bay Window heavier these days. I figure what is one more to make our driveway look awesome and to keep Penny company.

It all started after we got Penny and Jason officially caught the VW bug (not the like the car, like the addiction). He proclaimed his love for the double cab version and added it to his automobile must-haves. A few months later a beauty with orange rims popped up on theSamba.com and his drooling commenced. Fast forward a few more months and he firmly decided to sell his 2010 Tundra so he could snap up this Seattle-based double cab. It has a back seat for the babies? I was sold.

The seller was awesome about sending us a plethora of pics and videos to quell any real fears we had about purchasing a vehicle sight unseen. While also assuring us that our new beauty had never let him down so would mostly likely be good for the long trip home. (We were aiming for a trailer-less trip) Within a day of the Tundra selling we put down a deposit and bought one-way tickets to Seattle. Everyone needs a good leap of faith now and again. Penny had potential, right?

A few weeks later and off we went. A flight into Seattle, a rental car and a drive down to Olympia, WA later and we were proud owners of our newest baby who Jason has deemed Pedro. We assured the owners that we would take good care of him, as it was clear that they had done so for the past six years. We gave him a test drive, handed over the check and we were off!

We had mentally and otherwise prepared ourselves for the stereotypical VW unreliability to rear its ugly head on the trip, so we had prepared a list of uHaul places along the way and purchased a set of tools upon arriving in Olympia.

About a mile into our journey Pedro was already stuck. We were parked in the car rental place and Jason couldn't find reverse to save his life. While trying to find it the gear stick seemingly popped out of place. My experienced car guy put his tail between his legs and called the seller for some help. Five minutes and a spare gear shift later, they figured out that it had popped out of the canal it was sitting in below the floor of the car. A quick dismantle and reassembly and we were good to go! I optimistically figured it was just the juju we needed to complete the rest of the journey without a hitch.

We headed back up to Seattle, as that was the trail head of our real journey...I-90 here we come. We were planning on making a stop in downtown Seattle to check out Pike Place Market and Starbucks, but the torrential downpours deterred us. Instead we enjoyed the wet view from the window. And here is Seattle...

Past Seattle, but not far into the trip, we encountered the Snoqualmie Mountains, our first of many mountain passes to traverse. We took a deep breath, flicked on the hazard lights and putt-putted up the mountain at 35mph. Ahh, life in the slow lane. To our amazement he made it without a hitch so we treated him with a fill-up on the other side. Maybe we should have been having higher expectations for this little guy all along?

On a side note, we were graciously gifted by the seller with a gps to act as our effective speedometer since the smaller front tires don't allow the dashboard speed-o to calibrate correctly. If you can make it out below normal highway speed for this baby is clearly 90!

This happened to be a dual purpose trip for us...get Pedro home and see some interesting sights along the way. We saw a sign for a petrified forest that was close to the highway so we satiated our wanderlust and pulled off. We were greeted by the creepiest of creepy towns and were even welcomed by this gem of a sign. 'We've been expecting you...'

We cautiously continued on down the road past a few trailers and front yards that resembled junk yards to find Ginko State Park. Now, the surroundings were pretty crazy but the petrified wood that had been pulled out of lava flows plus the gorgeous view of the Columbia River definitely made the stop worth it. It may have not quiet been a forest as the sign promised, but hey, maybe someone thinks some chunks of rock/wood spread out on the ground qualifies!

Plus, there were dinosaurs. How could we not have been pleased we pulled off...

One random spot down and we were back on the road. And yes, the road was still I-90 as it would be for most of the trip, but driver beware...eastern Washington is flat, flat, flat and the road is oh so straight. We contemplated just letting the wheel go and setting Pedro to auto-pilot. The farmers around that neck of the woods are very considerate though, with our lack of radio and terrain I was very entertained by all of the signs on the highway fence illustrating what crop was growing next to us. Jason might have been getting a bit annoyed at hearing, 'Alfalfa....Sweet Corn....Potatoes' for three hours. Personally, I thought it was better then silence!

We pulled off in the rinky-dink town of Ritzville, WA for the night, got dinner as the sole 10pm patrons of Jake's for Steaks Diner and called it a night.

Stay tuned for Day Two of our travels in the next post....will we make it home? Perhaps I'm writing this from the side of the road while Jason wields a cardboard sign that reads, "Stranded in Amazing Truck, Help!"

Probably not, but don't turn that dial!

Two Carbs in a Pod

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 17:27:00 +0000

Hooray, we have our first Penny restoration deadline! We just reserved our camp spot in June for a week of exploring Yellowstone (on foot and in our yellow friend). We will be putting in a lot of elbow grease over the next few months to get her ready for the 8 hour road trip. We are pretty excited for our first real outing as bus parents! Hope you readers are enjoying our journey...

It has seemed like forever that every time we'd start up Penny, Jason would assure me that when we got the second carburetor rebuilt she'd purr like a kitten. Well, after all that assurance it's finally happened! We were excited to receive our first box of parts for 2014 last week, complete with a carb rebuild kit, sway bar clamps and a new service manual to guide us through the tricky syncing process (plus a myriad of other future processes, I'm sure).

This weekend it was over to the shop we went, of course puppies and box of goodies in tow. The right carburetor had been rebuilt in the fall, so lefty was the one on our agenda. After we unscrewed, detached and got greasy, Penny found herself down one part and we got to work. Jason, Van and I were clearly pretty excited to be back in the shop...

We busted out the new pieces and carefully disassembled the carburetor, Jason all the while being an amazing teacher and schooling me step-by-step.

After it was all apart and the pieces in what looked like organized chaos, we cleaned the metal parts and replaced the ones that needed replacing.

After everything was bathed and replaced, Jason championed the effort to put the puzzle back together correctly while I cheered him on from the sidelines. All the while learning that my virgin auto-shop lungs need a bit of fresh air from time to time to avoid feeling like my head is going to explode. (I'll toughen up if it's the last thing I do!)

We placed that small, unassuming part back in Penny's hindquarters and sure enough...purred like the beautiful kitten she is. Unfortunately, we ran out of time for the sway bar clamp installation and the carb syncing, but that will be first up when we return from vacation next week. It was great to drive her home sans the subtle backfiring that had become her theme song. After diving into our new manual and some successful syncing she might be ready for her first mini winter road trip!

A Very Volkswagen Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 17:36:00 +0000

Merry Christmas readers! I hope that Santa treated you well this year, I know he spoiled us. All the wonderful things under the tree were definitely just the cream cheese frosting on our decadent holiday red velvet cake this year. The holidays always serve to remind me just how amazing a family we have and this year was no different.

It's because of our generous family and friends that we have officially become the bus family. After all the unwrapping was complete it was quite obvious how much Penny has become part of the clan. I knew I saw her potential! We found ourselves with a custom bus blanket for camping, a phone cover, an amazing documentary, a restoration guide, a toddler-sized tent and some goWesty cash to get her nice and tuned up! Check out our loot below:

Cold Weather Intermission

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 17:44:00 +0000

Hello again long-lost readers! I apologize profusely for our hiatus from the saga that is restoring Penny, Wyoming weather and holidays have been getting in the way of our progress! We have, however, been taking Penny out for the occasional cold weather drive and although she's excited for the other carb rebuild kit to arrive, she's chugging along pretty nicely.

Her yellow is barely peeking out from beneath the freshly fallen inches of snow this morning, while we are waiting eagerly for the thermal cover to arrive that was on backorder. (So many buses that need to stay warm!) And just as a holiday side-note, a shout out to Bed Bath & Beyond for satiating the needs of us bus enthusiast parents who want to pass along the tradition to our kids by giving this beauty to the masses:

And to the myriad of friends and family who have sent us excited text messages about their discovery in the BB&B store! Thanks for thinking of us as your go-to VW family :)

Also, one more holiday thank you to Mama Hammock for the great new hand-painted addition to our Christmas tree this year. Penny is officially a part of the family.

We hope that everyone has a great holiday season and is as blessed as we are with great friends, family and hobbies to make their every day the best that it can be. We will catch up with you after the holidays when we start back on our list of Penny improvements!

A First Time for Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:34:00 +0000

It's a fact that I like fro-yo...a lot. Love might even describe my affair with frozen yogurt better. Me begging Jason to get some of the frozen fabulousness on a random Wednesday night after dinner isn't an unusual occurrence in our house. Last night was pretty par for the course.

Long story short (minus all the amazing ice cream creation details) we were driving back in Penny from our impromptu fro-yo date and I hear from the drivers seat next to me, Uh oh, she's going to go. Sure enough, 30 seconds later she sputters to a stop. Luckily we were able to turn off into a side street to escape the busy main road we were on, but it was unsettling nonetheless. Jason got out to investigate and I started to dig in my wallet for my trusty AAA card. He gets back in, turns her on and surprisingly she was good to go.

But only until 5 minutes later when the same thing happened. We were under the impression that the carburetors (which are due next for a rebuild) were getting flooded because after letting her sit for a minute or two she kept turning back on fine. Finally, we were about three blocks from our house and she failed for the third and final time with a failed attempt at resuscitation. We had to abandon ship.

Luckily we were within walking distance, so we unloaded the puppies and set out for the house. I felt bad leaving her behind!

About an hour later Jason went back to see if he could facilitate a rescue and discovered that the fuse that was connected to the fuel pump wasn't connecting correctly. He was able to nurse her home and we will be in the market for a new, better fitting fuse in the next few days.

Maybe this will be the worst that we see from old Penny, but I will have my shiny gold AAA handy card just in case!

Our Girl & Her New Kicks!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 15:54:00 +0000

Penny, along with the new tires, rims, lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings, had been waiting patiently for Saturday to come. (I was pretty excited too!) We loaded the whole family (daughter and dogs included) and all of the new parts into the bus and headed over to Jason's Dad's house for the big install. We usually try to do all of the sizable restoration projects over there, as a huge shop that houses every tool imaginable tends to come in handy.

Just as a reminder, here is the before shot:

I was assigned the task of cleaning up the rims and making sure all of the old break dust and gunk no more. Ever the tidy child, Sadie was pumped to sit down and help me with this first task..

I got them all shined up and we tested out all the new accessories to make sure they would fit. It was like Cinderella and her glass slipper...perfect!

Meanwhile, Sadie had lost interest in shining up the tires (par for the course of a 2 year old attention span) and she wandered over to help Jason hoist Penny up in the air. After a furious arm workout the bus was high enough that she was ready for the tire swap!

Me and my helper then used our new found knowledge of power tools and took all the old wheels off. (Our combined girly arm strength wasn't quite enough to actually pull the wheels of, but we tried!) She was a pro at helping Jason wheel them away though, all the while singing "rolling, rolling, rolling!"

You could sense Fat Penny's excitement as she hung there, shoe-less, in anticipation. Perhaps I'm personifying the bus just a bit too much, but I swear she was excited.

A few lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings later she was ready to go to the ball with her Prince Charming!

I Like a Fat Girl...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 14:30:00 +0000

In this day and age, it should go without saying that your life is not as private as you think. We put a lot of personal information on the internet and all it takes is for someone to Google your name and this information is displayed for all to see. I know this because a salesperson recently Googled my name, found out I am passionate about a fat chick, and used this information to harm my reputation at work. I'll explain...

I received a package at work last week from an address I had never heard of. This is not unusual as the nature of my work makes me a person of interest to salespeople. However, this was not a typical prospecting package containing some cheesy trinket. It contained a book about fat girls. Beautiful fat girls! It contained the history of my favorite kind of fat girls starting from when they were split windows through their transformation to the bay window. How could someone know I have been spending so much time with Fat Penny? I thought to myself. Then it dawned on me. We have been blogging about Fat Penny and our love for this fat girl is available on Google for everyone to see. This guy must have seen that I like fat girls on Google, I thought. This suspicion was confirmed in the last line of the letter attached to the book. It read "While doing research, I discovered that you are passionate about VW buses. I hope you enjoy the book."

So salesperson, I know you are reading this and I just want to say that it's pretty uncool to out a guy at work for liking a bigger lady.

Fat Penny on Gilligan's Island

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 15:03:00 +0000

As I've mentioned before, we promised Fat Penny new shiny shoes and break lines upon our safe return from the camping trip. A myriad of incompetent people, horrible customer service, six visits to a ghetto motel/bus station and a wheel-stealing Greyhound bus made procuring both of these things quite the process.

Pull the Gilligan's Island Theme Song tune out from the back of your head and hum along with our tale...

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a frustrated pair
That started from this capitol city
Aboard this vintage bus.

The guy was a handsome one,
The lady blonde and tall.
They wanted to make Penny shine
But they were the only ones, they were the only ones.

The brakes were a bit rough,
Without new ones she was doomed,
To O'Riley Auto Parts the couple went
They got three lines but the fourth was lost, the fourth was lost.

They kept returning to the site of this uncharted store
With Grumpy Pat
The Sad Lady too,
The Lug Nut Guy and his pal,
Finally got our fourth break line
After three weeks and six trips
Here on O'Riley's Isle.

So this is the tale of the bus restorers,
They're waiting for a long, long time,
All they want is some old stock rims,
It's was an uphill climb.

They bought the wheels from theSamba.com
They were put on a big Greyhound,
The girl was a tid bit nervous,
But was sure they would make it just fine.

Her first trip to the Rodeway Inn
there was only one box there,
Two wheels for a bus of four,
Where could the other half be?

They put those two back on the bus,
Denver bound they were.
Our guy and girl were sad,
Six visits later the wheels were there
Here on Fat Penny's Isle.

I'm proud you made the the whole way through, and now will have that tune stuck in your head the rest of the day! You're welcome :)

We were pretty convinced that we were never going to see the second half of the wheels after they had been sent back to wherever they came from by some wonderful motel employees, but bright and early Saturday morning we received the call saying our precious cargo had arrived...again. I told the lady to watch the box until we arrived and we rushed over to grab them so they didn't disappear again.

They now have a new set of tires on them and we're just patiently waiting for our lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings to arrive. Stay tuned for the unveiling of Penny's new shoes in the next week or so!

Damn the Vacuum! (no torpedoes here)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 15:17:00 +0000

Consider this post the official preface to our camping trip (if only time travel were really possible)...

Working on Fat Penny (she doesn't have a waistline so her name has been amended) is a bit of a hassle at the moment as we currently don't have room in the garage to work on her. Our weekends since we picked her up have consisted of gathering the parts we have accumulated during the week and driving her over to my dads house where Fat Penny can be properly attended to. In addition to this being a pain, we were making the trip illegally. Wyoming state statues clearly state that the bus must have at a minimum working headlights, brake lights, and turn signals (they also state that any vehicle whose maximum speed is 25 mph must have a slow moving vehicle sticker... Fat Penny might meet this requirement). None of those things worked and we were without wipers too.

Aside from illegally operating a motor vehicle, getting the bus to my dads was no easy task. She had to be nursed over because the previous owner thought that screws shoved in the ends of cracked vacuum hoses was a suitable replacement for vacuum plugs. Any vacuum hoses that were lucky enough to survive uncut were too brittle to maintain vacuum. This didn't always make for easy idling at stoplights.

With a huge list of to-do's, I headed over to my dads house in hopes that it would be my last illegal trip.

First on the agenda was to replace all the vacuum hoses plugged with screws with real vacuum plugs. This wasn't a monumental task which makes it even more confusing why someone would cut corners. I guess sometimes spending $1.59 for vacuum plugs is to much!? The biggest issue causing loss of vacuum was the line that runs from the firewall to the brake booster. It looked as though it was original and nearly turned to dust in my hands. The ends of the hose were frozen to the metal lines but with a carpenters knife and some four-letter words, they came right off.

With all the vacuum hoses replaced it was time to turn my attention to the rats nest wiring. The brake lights and turn signals were an easy fix. There were missing and burned out bulbs to be replaced and a ground wire that needed to be plugged in.

Tracking down the problem with the headlights was a bit harder. At first it appeared as though it was going to be as simple as changing some fuses. When brand new fuses didn't solve the problem I resorted to shaking the fuse box. This didn't seem to help either so, I tracked down the fuse box layout on ratwell.com and discovered that the headlight wires were not correctly plugged into the fuse box. Problem solved.

Last on the list was the wipers. We had been caught in a rain storm the week before while driving the bus and we had to pull over and wait for the rain to stop. Luckily for us Penny is a camper and we could wait out the storm in relative comfort. Unlucky for us, Penny is a bit disgusting on the inside and we relaxed in filth. OK, back on track now. The wiper motor wouldn't even turn on so I began the process of tracking down the power supply. I didn't even have to climb under the dash thanks to the gaping hole where the stereo is supposed to go (makes for a decent cup holder). The power supply had been unplugged. There are only two reasons I can come up with for why this was the case. 1) the previous owner/s were not that bright (see: plugging vacuum hoses with screws), or 2) there was an undiagnosed wiring problem and by plugging in and turning on the wipers I was going to start a fire. With my fingers crossed that the previous owners were knuckle-draggers, I plugged in the power to the wiper and hit the switch. No fire!

I had a little bit of time left in the day so I decided to take care of one issue that has been bugging me since we got the bus. That issue?...the spare tire on the nose of the bus! WHY!? Yes, I get that its a camper but that doesn't mean it has to look like one. That spare tire completely ruins the lines of the toaster...eh, I mean bus. It consumes valuable real estate that is better suited for the VW logo. It also wreaks havoc on the nose sheet metal. For all those reasons, I cut the mount off and the spare will be moving back to where it belongs.

It doesn't take much time to do things the right way. I guess luckily for us the previous owners didn't realize what they had in Fat Penny otherwise we would have never found her. We have been extremely lucky thus far that the problems with our bus are the result of operator error and not fatal flaws, and for that we are thankful.

Yes, the Curtains Match the Drapes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 19:09:00 +0000

It goes to say that I'm not much of a whiz in the kitchen or on the sewing machine, for that matter. The first is irrelevant in this situation but usually seems to go hand in hand with the second. Penny was in desperate need of curtains, as the old ones were yellowed and could actually be described as crusty. (Yuck!)

Our first trip to the fabric store was only about a week after we had acquired our new charge. In the midst of perusing tons of fabric bolts the 2 year old had a bit of a meltdown so we had to abandon ship. We tried a week or two later and after much back and forth about color schemes, texture and durability we finally settled on a white and grey damask. Eventually we want to paint Penny white with a gunmetal grey pop top, so these curtains would fit in perfectly and will look decent in her current state of school bus yellow. (I'm sure you've caught on that I have a hard time not making stupid faces in photos...enjoy.)

We enlisted the help of Jason's mom for her sewing expertise (as well as kitchen expertise, among many other things). I wasn't of much assistance as the pieces were cut, measured and carefully stitched together... although I was trying to be a great cheerleader and learn a thing or two in the process! I was a bit short in my fabric measurements so one more trip to the store for the back window curtain is on our agenda, but all-in-all they came out exactly how I imagined!

The family (including the dogs) piled into the bus for the inaugural hanging and now I'm happy to report that no one can peer in at us sleeping during our camping trips anymore! Nothing to complain about there.

A very big thank you to Mama Hammock for taking the time to make Penny even more awesome then she already is and for being patient with my lack of cutting and measuring skills! The curtains came out great!

Right On Babe, Penny Made It!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 15:05:00 +0000

We were packed and ready to go...apprehensive but ready. Should we be taking Penny on a trip so soon? (it's only 45 minutes, but still!) She had been running so smoothly around town but our faith in the 27 year old tires, aging brake lines and notoriously unreliable engine was not at an all time high. We both must have had either a good feeling about the trip or a death wish becuase we just smiled at each other and set off on our way.

We were avoiding the interstate for safety reasons, but the highway that we had to take up into the Wyoming mountains still provided us quite a steep grade to climb before we reached our destination. About 20 minutes into the trip everything was going well, but we decided that it would be a good idea to pull off and double check. (We weren't nervous at all...okay, maybe a little bit.) Jason opened the engine compartment door only to be engulfed in smoke. Oh great. After a bit of inspection he proclaimed that it was just old oil burning off from the outside of the motor...no biggie. We climb back in and cross our fingers. (Come to find out later after a beer or two that he was a bit less optimistic about the smoke as he made it seem. Apparently I'm somewhat of a pessimist who has to be calmed in situations such as that. Hey, it worked.)

The driver may have been annoyed as I was motivating the bus up the steep hill, chugga chugga, choo choo! The little vanny that could, but I'm pretty convinced that is what got us up that big hill. Maybe that and the fact that Penny is pretty awesome. Whatever the cause, we made it to the turn off safe and sound while breathing a collective sign of relief because that part was over. Now it was time to test the tires.

The last 20 minutes of the trip was on windy dirt roads that have been made into washboards by the multitudes of summer traffic. Needless to say it didn't make us overly comfortable to be traversing this terrain on rubber that was as old as we are. I distracted myself with the gorgeous scenery and before I knew it we reached a spot that was perfect for us to make our camp. We looked at each other and simultaneously proclaimed, Right on babe, Penny made it! (a little line that we picked up from a list of 50 things you find yourself saying as a bus owner.)

We got some strange looks, a wave from a fellow Westy owner and even a 4x4 full of rednecks screaming hippie, hippie at us (we retaliated with a peace sign) but all-in-all we were pretty elated about the success of our first outing. Never could we have imagined that a month and a half after towing her back from Salt Lake City, relatively pessimistic about the condition of the vehicle we just bought, would we be road tripping with her. See, I know she had potential!

Click here to check out some more Penny pictures from our trip!

Preface to the Maiden Voyage or What's in a Name

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 14:00:00 +0000

It's official. The bus, Jason and I are going to go camping this weekend! Our plan was to go on our first outing next summer once she's all spiffed up, but now that the motor is running decently we're itchy. Itchy to feel the wind blowing through our hair as we make our way to Vedauwoo at a snail's pace...all the while listening intently for any sound or bump that would indicate our motor isn't as primed for action as we thought. Sounds like fun right?! Personally, I can't wait. (check out the awe inspiring-ness that is Vedauwoo if you're not familiar here)

With our weekend destination set it was time for me to get this baby camp ready. Over the winter we will be reupholstering, turning our carpet into hardwood and refinishing the wood wall covering...HGTV here we come! But in the meantime I needed to transform our mess of a bus into something relatively respectable, clean and most importantly, not gross.

Yes, we already cleaned but that was more like degunking, now it was time for the spring cleaning to commence. As much as we'd been getting plenty of praise for our bus while driving it around town, the inside was nothing to write home about. Ripped cloth, dirty carpet and an even dirtier dashboard and floor mats were what I was up against.

My tools of choice were a Shop Vac, paper towels, spray and one brand new set of 600 thread count sheets that will be our temporary cushion covers (of course we have to sleep/sit in style). Oh, and a can of Armor All which I was instructed not to use because that would be the epitome of polishing a turd. Oh Jason, every girl deserves a facial now and again...of course she will be Armor All'd.

I turned on my Tom Petty station on Pandora (it's become my bus music) and went to work ripping out fabric, scrubbing like Cinderella and going vacuum crazy on the carpet. Things even started to look up just after I managed to get all of the fabric out and the cushions vacuumed.

As I was scrubbing the dirt-caked plastic floor mats in the front I was thinking about what we should name her. We had been pondering it and had even been told by a few different people that it was time for a name. Jason and I were pretty adamant that she had to come by her name organically and nothing had sounded just right as of yet. And then it dawned on me as I was silently praising my bus for shining up so nice and getting excited about actually seeing crud free mats...she shines up like a new penny! It was perfect, as Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles played softly in the background, Penny fits. That's it!

Luckily my co-bus owner agrees, although he's still not off the polishing a turd bandwagon just yet. Below our semi-shiny bus with her after-camp-prep clean and a new moniker!

Rite of Passage

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 17:00:00 +0000

The bus is finally running and street legal. I will go into detail about just how we got the bus running in a later post, but for now there are a couple valuable lessons that we have learned from driving the bus around town that I would like to discuss.

LESSON ONE: VW buses are not the most reliable vehicles (granted our bus sat in a field for the last three or so years, but the fact that buses are unreliable is confirmed by the next lesson).

LESSON TWO: Everyone has a story about a time their bus or a friend's bus broke down. As you may be assuming from reading lesson one, we now have a story about a time our bus broke down.

I had taken the day off to work on our house and was excited to run some errands in the bus. However, the bus (as it sat at 8 A.M) was not running. I suspected the carburetors were badly out of sync and headed outside to remedy this. If you own a bus, you know that syncing dual carbs is not an easy task. It requires a special tool and a lot of patience. We don't own this special tool, so I relied on patience (kind of) and ratwell.com. After an hour or so of adjusting mixture screws and throwing temper tantrums, I finally got the bus to idle and it was time for a test drive.

I started small by making an attempt around the block and it went surprisingly well. I pulled up in front of the house and the idle had smoothed and the backfiring was at an all-time low. Its ready for the next test, I thought, so the dogs piled in and I turned the bus towards my dad's house. At each stoplight, the bus purred (and sputtered a bit but it didn't die!). Wait till the old man sees this, I gloated to myself. My confidence in my mechanical skills was riding high. Then it happened.

At the last stoplight before my dad's house the bus was sounding better than ever. The light turned green I eased off the clutch and we were on our way. I shifted into second, third, and finally fourth! This was a milestone as the bus hadn't previously been able to go fast enough to make fourth gear a viable option. I think the mental fist pumps I was going distracted me from realizing that motor had died sometime after shifting into forth gear.

It wasn't until the road leveled out and I stepped down on the gas that I realized I had no power. I quickly analyzed the situation and decided that a left turn into the McDonald's parking lot was a good idea. (A left turn on a busy street in a vehicle that wasn't running!? I'm amazed how these thoughts pass into consciousness, are processed by 28 years of acquired logic and reasoning skills, and are finally given the cognitive stamp of approval.) I had to hit the brakes to time the small opening in the oncoming traffic, and with the little momentum left in the bus I made a left turn then died shortly after clearing traffic. With the traffic backing up behind me, I began to panic.

After a several minutes of key-turning, gas-peddle-mashing fury, I realized that I couldn't hear the fuel pump turn on. SHIT, I yelled! In a fit of rage, I pumped the gas peddle as hard and fast as I could determined to force enough gas pass the pump and into the carbs to get the bus started and running long enough to reach the parking lot. Satisfied that I had done enough pumping, I cranked the key and the engine roared to life. I put the gas peddle on the floor, side-stepped the clutch and the bus lurched forward throwing the dogs to the rear of the bus and giving us just enough momentum to get safely to the parking lot. The worst was over. Eventually, I coerced my embarrassed step-brother to tow the bus to dad's house where we found that years of poor wiring choices had left the fuel pump without power. It was a pretty easy fix.

If you have read this far and you own a bus, I'm sure you have a slight grin on your face as you know that breaking down in a bus is a rite of passage. It's something you get used to and eventually plan for when taking trips in a bus. We have been officially initiated into bus ownership and I feel pretty good about that. Our bus has transitioned from the eyesore in front of our house to a part of the family and I'm not sure exactly why yet. What I do know is that many other bus owners feel the same way. I will leave you with a quote I found that best sums up why we will be bus owners for life.

"Sure, they broke down, ran badly and slowly, but while in a state of disrepair, what other vehicle solicited the milk of human kindness as the did the lowly bus as stranger after stranger stopped to kibitz on what was wrong with it and what the proper prescription for its healing should be? Many a new friend was made alongside the road or at the parts store or junk yard because of the VW Bus."

A Budding Mechanic

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 14:00:00 +0000

So, I'm a girl. Most people assume I'm a really girly, girl. I must admit that I do obsess over my hair, outfits and refuse to leave the house without makeup, but I also have a pretty mean tomboy streak. I grew up loving cars, sports and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That being said, I was really excited to get greasy and learn some new manly skills when this bus came into our life.

This weekend I learned things! We're waiting on a few parts to be delivered, so we figured that it would be a good time to make some small diagnostic efforts and see how the engine is really running. Before tackling the engine Jason and his dad took a giant pry bar to the tie rods, which were quite bent. (Never fear...this is a temporary fix, as we are planning on ordering new ones in the very near future). This served to quiet the squealing of the tires that was present whenever we drove it anywhere...who knew having two front tires that faced in the same direction was so important! (Hopefully the dumbfounded looks from other drivers that clearly said, what is that god-awful noise coming from that beautiful piece of yellow machinery will cease to exist.)

I was instructed on how to use the ratchet & socket to extract the spark plugs from the engine and after a quick Google search we figured out that our particular plugs needed to be gapped to a measurement of .028". I ratcheted, gapped, applied some thread lubricant (since they are aluminum heads) and put them back in.

Next, it was time to check the compression on the pistons. We were shooting for between 85-90 psi on each piston for a ship-shape diagnosis. I was optimistic (it has potential!) but readings between 75-120 made us less hopeful that the engine was not in need of a complete rebuild.

On top of needing new spark plugs (we realized that a good set of Bosch plugs instead of the montage of different ones in there might do us some good) there are a few other diagnostic checks that we need to make before tearing the whole thing apart. Nonetheless, it was fun to get my hands dirty and learn a little bit more about how to make this baby run!

We Need to Drive it Where?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:29:00 +0000

It has come time for our bus to be legal. From the looks of things it hasn't been registered since between 1996-1999, but that's about to change. Armed with the Utah title, bill of sale and a wad of cash we stroll into the court house on a mission. The title clerk knocks us down a few rungs when she informs us that in order to get the title transferred to Wyoming a VIN inspection needs to be performed at the police station. This police station is inconveniently not located in front of our house and requires us to drive the bus there. Drive?! And not just down the block, but on real roads! This was going to be quite the feat.

The next day we arrive home on our lunch hour and cautiously get in the bus, realize that the seat belts are currently of no use and start her up. Miraculously, between the squealing of miss-aligned front tires and the grinding of trying to find the evasive gears, we make it the mile to the downtown police station. The officer's expression was priceless as he walked out of the station and caught a glimpse of our yellow beauty. He remained stern and made no comment, but a look was worth a thousands in this case. He confirmed the VIN matched the title and sent us on our way.

After a few more lines, forms and signatures at the courthouse we were officially co-owners of a shiny new 1973 VW Westfaila Campmobile. Maybe those adjectives are a bit too flowery for our new baby, but sometimes it's a face only a mother and father can love...rust spots, squealy tires and all.

QT8CASE9UYR5

Surprise...It's Leaking!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 14:00:00 +0000

If you have read the previous posts and looked through the pictures, it should come as no surprise to you that our VW bus was not watertight. The driver side of our bus came from the factory with a rear vent window that initially seemed like it was just jammed in a slightly open position.

After getting the bus home, closing the window and protecting the interior from further water damage was at the top of the to-do list (three plus years of sitting in a field with an open window had badly stained the wood paneling next to the fold out bed).

The Odyssey:

A check of the weather forecast revealed that we were in for a unseasonably wet week so, I headed outside armed with a screwdriver convinced that this was going to be an easy fix (oh the naivety of first time bus owners). It took a matter of peeling back the vent window's weather seal to reveal the cause of the frozen window. The entire upper part of the frame was rotten from years of leaking.

Well, I will just order a new one and we will have it fixed by the end of the week, I thought to myself. So, to BusDepot.com I went. Nothing. Ok, surely WolfsbergWest.com will have it, I reassured myself. Nothing. This continued until I exhausted the list of VW bus part websites. With hope dwindling and thoughts of what did we get ourselves into racing through my head, I checked the last place I could think of.

TheSamba.com, for any other VW newbies, is the holy grail of VW information. Here I began to find out that I was not the only one that was trouble finding a driver side rear vent window for a VW bus. In fact, the rear vent window is such a sought after item that there are several forums solely dedicated to hunting them down. Here is a summary of my research: Good luck finding one. With my tail tucked between my legs, I sulked back outside to cover the window with plastic wrap and duct tape.

The next day, I was telling my dad (the person that taught me everything I know about cars) how I had struck out in my attempt to locate a vent window. In typical dad fashion he began to tell me a story of a time that he helped one of his buddies restore a VW bug and that they had found the hard-to-find parts in Fort Collins from a guy named Al.

Bria and I, got to Fort Collins as fast as we could. We tracked down Al and he proceeded to tell us that he had sold all of his VW parts long ago, but pointed us in the direction of VRBA parts just down the street. The place was closed on Sundays so the search would have to wait until Monday.

Luckily, when I called on Monday, the guy that answered the phone knew exactly what I was looking for and headed into is parts yard to pull the window for me for $75. Finally, the bus would be watertight. If you are reading this because you are looking for a rear vent window for your bus, give this guy a call. You can find his number on his website www.vrbaparts.com.

The Installation:

The driver side rear vent window is a very simple design making removal very simple. Removing the rest of the rear window is unnecessary to replace the vent window. There are two tabs on the inside of the frame that keep the vent window frame in place. From the inside of the bus, use a screwdriver to peel back the weather stripping and reveal the tabs. Next, bend the tabs back and simply push the vent window out. If there's any rust on the body metal after the window is removed spray a quick coat of rust encapsulating paint before you put the new one in.

The installation is just as simple with one caveat. Apply ~~petroleum jelly~~ (thanks to the nice folks at theSamba.com, we now know that petroleum jelly eats rubber so use dish soap) to the weather stripping before attempting to re-install the window.

Once the window is in, simply bend the tabs back in place and voilà, you have a nice watertight window.

A Little Dirt Never Hurt Anyone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 14:25:00 +0000

Cleaning is one of my least favorite things to do in life. People who work with in a 500 foot vicinity of my desk can attest to that fact. Mind you, I'm not a dirty person (I do shower) I just selfishly hate spending my time picking up after myself or others. (I realize it's not one of my better qualities) Be that as it may, one of the first orders of business on this new acquisition of ours was a deep clean.

The bus (from here on out known as she - according to some she's temperamental like some females who are clearly not me) had been sitting, unloved somewhere in Utah for the past 3+ years. Seems like the last time she was registered was in 1999, so more emphasis on the + part of those years. I was expecting bugs, roadkill and other unmentionables to be stuffed in every nook and cranny, so we prepared ourselves.

After a trip to the dollar store to stock up on any and every bargain priced cleaning supply they had, we ventured in. To my surprise it wasn't as bad as I was expecting! No bugs, no nested creatures in the cushion foam and no STD filled used condoms (although the germs could still be lurking).

A few hours of hard scouring, scrubbing and a healthy dose of the Tom Petty station on Pandora found our bus much closer to shiny then it was before. I would show you an after picture, but I'm not sure you would really notice a difference (dirt and rust all look the same in pictures, right?) But nonetheless I feel much less icky sitting in the bus now then I did before and that is what I call progress.

Utah Bound

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 15:09:00 +0000

Bidding is so easy, really just the click of the mouse. Such a big commitment in one tiny finger motion. I clicked and then picked up the phone, "Jason, I bid on a bus."

We had been talking about investing in a fixer-upper VW Westfalia Campmobile for a few months, but hadn't found the right one. How could anything be more right then an email from eBay in my inbox stating that one of our watched items had been re-listed. Sold. Apparently we were Salt Lake City bound and one more vehicle heavy - the total now being 4, in addition to the 2010 Tundra, 2007 Mini and 1968 Mustang.

The 6.5 hour drive was long, but made a little shorter when we reached Utah and actually had some scenery to take in. (Western Wyoming isn't the most attractive road trip route, in case you were thinking of taking a drive.) Mid-afternoon we reached an unmarked store front which matched the address on the PayPal invoice. (Strange?) We were let in and discovered that it was a buzzing office attached to a warehouse which appeared to house tons of items for sale on eBay and similar sites.

Five guys pushing, two wooden boards and 30 mins later our new-to-us bus was loaded onto the trailer. It begrudgingly started up which was a good sign, although it sounded like the engine had definitely seen better days. I kept pointing out it's potential to Jason, secretly hoping that he wasn't hating me for my semi-impulsive bidding. Come to find out, 10 minutes later, he wasn't hating me for my bidding, but he was hating my choice of a hotel smack in the center of downtown Salt Lake City. After we de-stressed a bit from towing our new "toaster on wheels" through the unfamiliar city blocks (more him then me since I was just the backseat driver) we settled in for the night and tried to forget that we had to pull this thing out of the deep valley that is Salt Lake the following day. After 2 hours of searching we finally found a restaurant that had a bottle of wine to serve us after our long day. (We're not Mormon, give us some booze!)

The next day after 8 hours of scenery-less driving back through Where's the Next Town Wyoming we found ourselves home safe, plus one relatively unattractive vehicle (it has potential!) and hoping that the neighbors were going to have mercy on our new project that has to be parked outside the house.

What did we get ourselves into? Hopefully by next summer the potential I saw on eBay will be realized in the form of a beautifully restored white and grey 1973 VW Westfalia Campmobile with a kick-ass HGTV'd interior. Wish us luck!