It was a great trip with the old man. It's kind of funny, my dad and mom have always been VW people. When I was a kid we had a 79 Champagne edition passenger bus and a diesel jetta, but my dad got rid of the bus because us kids were always cold. Who knew it would have a lasting effect on me? My parents used to live in Germany (Army based) through the 70's and he has many good VW stories of traveling in their 69 beetle through the Swiss Alps and sucking a valve in Italy and the cool split window bugs he used to see. He said he used to do complete engine rebuilds for $150 for all the GI's at his army base in Germany because the Germans used to overcharge "sucker" Americans who were clueless on how to repair their aircooled engines. However, on this trip it almost seemed like a right to passage because my dad didn't make any attempts to work on the bus he just watched me and held the flashlight, like passing the torch. He would congratulate me once we'd get back on the road and light up a cigar.
Also, while we were in Graceland we met a German guy who told me he "learned how to drive in one of those." The man was in his late 60's and I'd have to imagine that it would have been and old 36 horse split window bus, kind of neat to think about. Of course my dad had to try and impress the man with his 30yr old barley recognizable German phrases,
the man just smiled.
I also wish I would have been able to take pics of all the VW buses and beetles just sitting in fields and junk yards along the way, hundreds of them. It seems that their idea of a junk VW greatly differs from ours here in the midwest. The guy who owned the VW parts yard next to where I got my bus in New Mexico said that he thought my bus was a rust bucket and couldn't see why I traveled this far to bring it back home. We also saw a high top westy bay window bus in passing in Arkansas and got the fellow VW acknowledgment wave.
