Wonderoom

It takes roughly six days to drive from North Carolina to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State if you are on your own and have to stop to sleep occasionally at random rest stops. You sleep only fitfully because you are overloaded on coffee and thus paranoid, laying in the back of your van curled around an oversized torque wrench in case any of the many psychotic killers who lurk at your average rest stop were to try anything. It takes six days because the van only goes 60 mph unless you are going down a very steep hill out of gear. This is a van that needs frequent breaks in the mountains, a van that is burning oil, a van that you have tuned and lubricated and hammered and cursed and caressed and bled on plenty, banging knuckles and slicing open thumbs. This van shares your blood. This van gets the job done, though, in the end.

1969 Volkswagen microbus. I bought it because of the romance, because of the history, but mostly because of the price. There is no other way I could have afforded a van at the time except to buy a quarter of a century old, rusting piece of the past with room to sleep in and symbolic weight aplenty.

Ode to the beast I probably spent more time lying under than any lover. Lying on my back, dirt and dust raining down on my face, on the side of the road while cars sped by. In the wind, in the rain, in the snow. Duct tape on the oil filter. A medium sized hole on the driver’s side floor where you could see the road pass under you as you criss-crossed the country multiple times. Fred Flintstone could do no better. Ode to the shifting mechanism so bent that even had someone wanted to steal the van, they wouldn’t have been able to locate first gear. Ah van, my old friend, ticket to the secret club of all those other fools who are privy to your ways. From you I learned what a sticky mess replacing CV joints really is, and what it’s like driving on freezing days with no heat, your windshield icing up so bad you have to stick your head out the window just to see the road.

I also learned just how much of the landscape you can see from a microbus. And just how many people you can shove inside. I gained independence just by having you around. I lived in you a few times. I did share my blood with you, and I’m not sorry.

But I’m also not sorry that I now own a brand new Toyota.

Write a comment