So when wcfvw69 tossed an invitation my way this year, do you suppose I detoured from Los Alamos to Phoenix to load up again, "like a python who managed to swallow a calf" as I put it in a PM? You bet. We also got to test my distributor on his nifty distributor tester, and I got to drive his 1776cc Type 1 bus. Then I swallowed the calf. It was a very philosophical gorge. Politics, religion, meaning of life, distributor advance, child-rearing, emissions standards and CHTs, beer, I enjoyed our visit and slithered off to digest in the desert:August 14, 2015
After a thoroughly enjoyable visit with wcfvw69, loaded up like a lion after a nice meal of ox, I camped here.
I was so loaded down with prey that I had to pop the top. No way I could fold up in my usual piteous homeless curl on the back seat. It was pretty good up there, a nice cross-flow through the open screens. I missed the dawn shot by only a minute:
Took a moment to consider the essential vehicle lurking under the Westfalia accoutrement. It is a VW bus, saddled with silly curtains and sinks and a big fiberglass lid:
But this VW Bus has taken well to its lot. These Westfalia-equipped VWs drive just like any other VW bus, and I hardly suffer the initial pangs of pity I used to feel as I hit dirt paths and rocky ascents. They just do it:
After my morning ablutions, I attacked the stupid cheap foam armrests that curl away from the door panels:
Dremelled the plastic nuts to recess them a tad, and dremelled the arm rests themselves:
What a glorious new secure fitment was mine to enjoy . . . not:
Phuckett, let's go to San Diego:
Take the center path here, if you want to visit me after the apocalypse (coming soon to a nation near you).
Bring your own water/beer and a goat or a chicken:
It got hot pretty quick, and the CHTs went right on up to 445*at 60 mph. This will not do. Pulled off and retarded the timing 4* to a max of 24* BTDC. That helped enormously. Suddenly, I was no more than 423* at full throttle indefinitely, with a drop down to the low 400*s as soon as any hill climb occurred:
Stopped by in Yuma AZ at the Offroad Buggy Supply shop where I bought the wide differential side seals for Chloe's original transaxle in October 2011. Bought four more. They still know me there, somehow. Maybe because I still launch into diatribes about the EMPI crap festooned on the walls . . .
California happens a mile west of Yuma.
Realized with remorse, that my entire 2018 Itinerary Southwest Desert Experience is just yesterday and today:
Here's a quick shot along the aquaduct alongside the Imperial Dunes.
Met a pile of five young kids in a rental Nissan SUV here. They were stuck just off to the left. I offered the floor mat and desert detritus method of extrication. Dumb driver! Kept smashing the accelerator and spraying us and digging the Nissan further down. When the undercarriage contacted the sand, I gave up helping them.
Seriously folks, Finesse Still Has A Place.
Watched him "smart phone it in" to a tow outfit. Oh well, kid, my engine's in the rear. Delicately drove off on the exact same sandy path as they were stuck in . . . "Remember to hydrate, kids! See ya." (I love my old Volkswagen):
Imagine the distress upon viewing this Chevron price list with my newly richened mixture , I am barely getting 13-14 mpg AND we have road signs promising "high winds today":
God didn't like my cavalier attitude. The headwinds were trying to blow me back to Arizona. One gust was so damn fierce that it blew my left wiper blade off the arm. Broke the little cheap plastic springy retainer snap clean off. I had to stop and paper clip it to the arm, in the pepperysandy wind on the hot day with the $4.59/gallon gas:
Approached the weird and wonderful landscape that portends the grueling 4,000 foot climb east of San Diego:
It was slow going with the wind. But it was so beautiful that I did not mind:
There is the Imperial Valley (?) from whence I came coming into view as the road winds up to the Tecate Summit:
Good bye desert. I hardly got to say hi. I was freezing by the time I got into San Diego's big interchange with I-8 and I-805, freezing! Jumped into Southern California Drive Like You Mean It mode, and we strafed the available 6 lanes. Camped/collapsed into unconsciousness somewhere near my morning's appointment at xyzzy's. Thank-you, NaranjaWesty, for your aplomb. Look at that, the Pacific Ocean: