the volkswagen microbus trip

I have owned two old VW microbusses. One was a 1969. She was stripped inside with a caprpet remnant laid down behind the two front seats. Banged out to about 1500cc with some custom carb work, I drove her from Phoenix to Laurel, Montana in 22 hours with a huge sign painted on her side:

MONTANA OR BREAST!

The machine had no heat and I made the trip through Utah, Wyoming, and the narrow, windy roads of Yellowstone Park by holding up a gas heater I bought in Flagstaff to melt a one-foot area I could see though while scraping off the ice with an ice scraper on the inside of the windshield while driving as fast as I could as I managed three wicked gears. THREE! There was a green wool army blanket duct taped to the ceiling so the “cab” would retain most of the “heat.” Then I turned East on I-90 at Livingston around 8:00AM and the sun melted everything away.

I put the Beatles on the boom box.

That bus is the closest I’ve felt to being a motorcyclist while not being on a motorcycle. Crazy drunken stripper on heroin *** excepted.

Then my brother Scott bought a ’76. It had a fridge and a bed and curtains and college chicks smiled at us when we drove by. The problem was that we lived in Phoenix. Even with a rebuilt motor, it exploded on us on the freeway as Tadd and I cruised to our music store to buy strings for our bass and guitar machines. It was 110 degrees. What did we know? We had enough money for strings and a couple of Colt 45’s at the quicky mart. Not a rebuilt motor.

Stupid Germans. Like everything in the world is a brisk alpine field. Let this be a lesson to you.

********.

I made that cold trip a day before Christmas and I did find Montana and breast. If I recall, it was turkey.

Yum.

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