What a fricken pleasure it was to leap into NaranjaWesty (I checked the oil, I did that) and blast into the foggy night for Miami. The filthy windows grabbed every droplet of fog and ensconsed me in a blindingly chilly damp night of sailing the interstate. "Blindingly"? Yes, blindingly as all of the millions of droplets turned on and off in a stroboscobic sequence under the halogen streetlamps that Florida just has to litter the landscape with at every intersection, rest area, weigh station, and bridge, but it was excellent to be back in an air-cooled Volkswagen.
Drove a foggy four hours to burn off the over-energy from drawing maniacally to get the Dakota Beige Westy sticker completed, and to tire out my anxiety at the serious engine surgery that awaited. Conked out in a rest area and awoke in a fog, that same fog from the night before. Yeah, but a Maringelb Westy still manages to cheer the place up:
Trotted like a gimpy cow around the rest area and hit the road to Panera for coffee and final confirmation that Dakota Beige Sticker was ready for printing. Forgot that people spontaneously come up to talk about their old Volkswagens:
Pulled off at the very wildlife refuge where I restored NaranjaWesty's vent window, but today was just to get in a quick shave and another wobbly walk/trot to loosen up my seized joints in the 82* afternoon, yes:
Oh, I did a repair even though I was past due to arrive at Homosassa to see the Weisswurst Baby Goat Big Pig Proud Rooster Menagerie. I replaced the engine hatch seal, the first new seal on this car:
It is always a pleasure to see Weisswurst and family and my animal pals who hosted the first days of getting NaranjaWesty in shape:
This little creature was rejected by her goat family/goat peer group, and had to befriend the people of the farm to fill her days. Dottie is her name, and she loves to be held and to follow us around the farm:
Farmer Weisswurst and his blushing bride in front of the BIG Ford:
Well, you can take the farmer out of Hollywood, but can you take the Hollywood out of the farmer? LOOK at this swank set-up that has sprouted where cooped chickens once roosted . . . :
Bob The Goat and his concubine Mrs. Goat, I photographed at my exhaust refurbishment visit in December 2015 or the windshield channel visit in winter 2016, I cannot remember which, but here we are in 2019:
One of my piglet pals from December 2015, such a big handsome pig now:
Then I got to do my annual Drive The Fleet. This is the Jeep that Weisswurst's lucky kid gets to drive:
The namesake diesel Vanagon, Weisswurst, from the driver's seat:
I always miss my Vanagon after driving a Vanagon. We had an excellent dinner as usual, then I took my leave to get to Miami:
Miami, where serious engine surgery on a bus named "Sunshine" awaited, as did a mystery bucking that had plagued "Valentina" exoticdvm's Westy for far too long on their trip back from Alaska. I felt the pressure building. But Miami decided to toy with me by presenting yet another deluxe traffic jam, this one not even on a Friday afternoon. Rain had incessantly drummed down on poor NaranjaWesty all the way across the Big Cypress Swamp, and it ceaselessly dumped incessantly on all of us sodden suckers stuck on the slick Palmetto Parkway. I wasn't having any of it. Crabbily, I crankily caught this BMW in my withering wet disdain:
You call that a BMW? I call it a failed stylin' cuz we hip monstrosity from their southern California design studio.
Many many seemingly hours later, I pulled into the Ian's Home For Wayward Traveling Westys and parked my trusty trusty NaranjaWesty to the side of the garage entryway with no idea that it would sit exactly there stone cold sat set still for longer than any IAC appointment I have ever executed . . .
Colin