Wagen West
Why should I make a point of rust free cars? In looking for a proper rust free AZ camper van I called on an ad in the Phoenix Arizona Republic. Turns out the seller visited AZ but lived in South Dakota. He was selling a 1993 VW Camper van, fully renovated, rust free, ready for a trip. Shiney red with a white top. We put a deposit on it and flew over to finalize the sale. Smooth as clockwork.
So, we spent the next six months toodling around; starting in Yankton, South Dakota [Yankton is a nice little town, but it's downwind of a cattle holding facility. Whew!], ending up in Phoenix. We lived in Scottsdale for 12 years until Michele's family and my profession brought us back to New Jersey in 2006.
The image is a copy of the postcard Michele cooked up to herald our trip to friends and family. Sweet, huh? It just turned up in a cleaning spree. [You know how the quarantine has made house cleaning a thing.]
We enjoyed driving and making home in that van. Even had a guest for Thanksgiving breakfast in a snowy Boulder, Colorado. Because of the cold nights — we did have a little heater in the vehicle though — we adopted the habit of wearing caps to bed. Now, I can't sleep without one. Heat escaping from the top of the head sort of thing.
One thing to make the trip interesting was keeping an eye to hippie type shops to get stickers. We put them on all over the side and back windows. Cool, man.
The van was also a conversation starter. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa we met a Native American family and were invited to spend the night at their home on the Res. In Santa Fe, New Mexico some kids asked if they could catch a ride with us to go to San Francisco for a Dead concert; it was all those Grateful Dead stickers I think. Another kid approached me and asked me if I wanted some "paper". "Paper", as in LSD, is my take on what he was peddling. Those stickers!
BTW who's old enough — and travelled enough — to get the Burma Shave reference?
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