Livin' Life in the Slow Lane - Day 1

So now we have two.  I guess that can be applicable in more then one aspect of our life...since my last post we have found out that a tiny bus-loving boy will be arriving in October to bring our cute kid total to two (plus the doggies)!  Life also finds us one more Bay Window heavier these days.  I figure what is one more to make our driveway look awesome and to keep Penny company.

It all started after we got Penny and Jason officially caught the VW bug (not the like the car, like the addiction).  He proclaimed his love for the double cab version and added it to his automobile must-haves.  A few months later a beauty with orange rims popped up on theSamba.com and his drooling commenced.  Fast forward a few more months and he firmly decided to sell his 2010 Tundra so he could snap up this Seattle-based double cab.  It has a back seat for the babies?  I was sold.

The seller was awesome about sending us a plethora of pics and videos to quell any real fears we had about purchasing a vehicle sight unseen.  While also assuring us that our new beauty had never let him down so would mostly likely be good for the long trip home.  (We were aiming for a trailer-less trip)  Within a day of the Tundra selling we put down a deposit and bought one-way tickets to Seattle.  Everyone needs a good leap of faith now and again.  Penny had potential, right?

A few weeks later and off we went.  A flight into Seattle, a rental car and a drive down to Olympia, WA later and we were proud owners of our newest baby who Jason has deemed Pedro. We assured the owners that we would take good care of him, as it was clear that they had done so for the past six years.  We gave him a test drive, handed over the check and we were off!

We had mentally and otherwise prepared ourselves for the stereotypical VW unreliability to rear its ugly head on the trip, so we had prepared a list of uHaul places along the way and purchased a set of tools upon arriving in Olympia.  

About a mile into our journey Pedro was already stuck.  We were parked in the car rental place and Jason couldn't find reverse to save his life.  While trying to find it the gear stick seemingly popped out of place.  My experienced car guy put his tail between his legs and called the seller for some help.  Five minutes and a spare gear shift later, they figured out that it had popped out of the canal it was sitting in below the floor of the car.  A quick dismantle and reassembly and we were good to go!  I optimistically figured it was just the juju we needed to complete the rest of the journey without a hitch.

We headed back up to Seattle, as that was the trail head of our real journey...I-90 here we come. We were planning on making a stop in downtown Seattle to check out Pike Place Market and Starbucks, but the torrential downpours deterred us.  Instead we enjoyed the wet view from the window.  And here is Seattle...

                                                   

Past Seattle, but not far into the trip, we encountered the Snoqualmie Mountains, our first of many mountain passes to traverse.  We took a deep breath, flicked on the hazard lights and putt-putted up the mountain at 35mph. Ahh, life in the slow lane.  To our amazement he made it without a hitch so we treated him with a fill-up on the other side.  Maybe we should have been having higher expectations for this little guy all along?

On a side note, we were graciously gifted by the seller with a gps to act as our effective speedometer since the smaller front tires don't allow the dashboard speed-o to calibrate correctly.  If you can make it out below normal highway speed for this baby is clearly 90!

  

This happened to be a dual purpose trip for us...get Pedro home and see some interesting sights along the way.  We saw a sign for a petrified forest that was close to the highway so we satiated our wanderlust and pulled off.  We were greeted by the creepiest of creepy towns and were even welcomed by this gem of a sign.  'We've been expecting you...'

We cautiously continued on down the road past a few trailers and front yards that resembled junk yards to find Ginko State Park.  Now, the surroundings were pretty crazy but the petrified wood that had been pulled out of lava flows plus the gorgeous view of the Columbia River definitely made the stop worth it.  It may have not quiet been a forest as the sign promised, but hey, maybe someone thinks some chunks of rock/wood spread out on the ground qualifies!   

Plus, there were dinosaurs.  How could we not have been pleased we pulled off...

One random spot down and we were back on the road.  And yes, the road was still I-90 as it would be for most of the trip, but driver beware...eastern Washington is flat, flat, flat and the road is oh so straight.  We contemplated just letting the wheel go and setting Pedro to auto-pilot.  The farmers around that neck of the woods are very considerate though, with our lack of radio and terrain I was very entertained by all of the signs on the highway fence illustrating what crop was growing next to us.  Jason might have been getting a bit annoyed at hearing, 'Alfalfa....Sweet Corn....Potatoes' for three hours.  Personally, I thought it was better then silence! 

We pulled off in the rinky-dink town of Ritzville, WA for the night, got dinner as the sole 10pm patrons of Jake's for Steaks Diner and called it a night.

                                             

Stay tuned for Day Two of our travels in the next post....will we make it home?  Perhaps I'm writing this from the side of the road while Jason wields a cardboard sign that reads, "Stranded in Amazing Truck, Help!" 

Probably not, but don't turn that dial!

Two Carbs in a Pod

Hooray, we have our first Penny restoration deadline!  We just reserved our camp spot in June for a week of exploring Yellowstone (on foot and in our yellow friend).  We will be putting in a lot of elbow grease over the next few months to get her ready for the 8 hour road trip.  We are pretty excited for our first real outing as bus parents!  Hope you readers are enjoying our journey...

It has seemed like forever that every time we'd start up Penny, Jason would assure me that when we got the second carburetor rebuilt she'd purr like a kitten.  Well, after all that assurance it's finally happened!  We were excited to receive our first box of parts for 2014 last week, complete with a carb rebuild kit, sway bar clamps and a new service manual to guide us through the tricky syncing process (plus a myriad of other future processes, I'm sure).

This weekend it was over to the shop we went, of course puppies and box of goodies in tow.   The right carburetor had been rebuilt in the fall, so lefty was the one on our agenda.  After we unscrewed, detached and got greasy, Penny found herself down one part and we got to work.  Jason, Van and I were clearly pretty excited to be back in the shop...

We busted out the new pieces and carefully disassembled the carburetor, Jason all the while being an amazing teacher and schooling me step-by-step.

After it was all apart and the pieces in what looked like organized chaos, we cleaned the metal parts and replaced the ones that needed replacing.  

After everything was bathed and replaced, Jason championed the effort to put the puzzle back together correctly while I cheered him on from the sidelines.  All the while learning that my virgin auto-shop lungs need a bit of fresh air from time to time to avoid feeling like my head is going to explode.  (I'll toughen up if it's the last thing I do!)

We placed that small, unassuming part back in Penny's hindquarters and sure enough...purred like the beautiful kitten she is.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time for the sway bar clamp installation and the carb syncing, but that will be first up when we return from vacation next week.  It was great to drive her home sans the subtle backfiring that had become her theme song.  After diving into our new manual and some successful syncing she might be ready for her first mini winter road trip!

A Very Volkswagen Christmas

Merry Christmas readers!  I hope that Santa treated you well this year, I know he spoiled us.  All the wonderful things under the tree were definitely just the cream cheese frosting on our decadent holiday red velvet cake this year.  The holidays always serve to remind me just how amazing a family we have and this year was no different.

It's because of our generous family and friends that we have officially become the bus family.  After all the unwrapping was complete it was quite obvious how much Penny has become part of the clan.  I knew I saw her potential!  We found ourselves with a custom bus blanket for camping, a phone cover, an amazing documentary, a restoration guide, a toddler-sized tent and some goWesty cash to get her nice and tuned up! Check out our loot below:

Cold Weather Intermission

Hello again long-lost readers!  I apologize profusely for our hiatus from the saga that is restoring Penny, Wyoming weather and holidays have been getting in the way of our progress!  We have, however, been taking Penny out for the occasional cold weather drive and although she's excited for the other carb rebuild kit to arrive, she's chugging along pretty nicely.

Her yellow is barely peeking out from beneath the freshly fallen inches of snow this morning, while we are waiting eagerly for the thermal cover to arrive that was on backorder. (So many buses that need to stay warm!)  And just as a holiday side-note, a shout out to Bed Bath & Beyond for satiating the needs of us bus enthusiast parents who want to pass along the tradition to our kids by giving this beauty to the masses:

And to the myriad of friends and family who have sent us excited text messages about their discovery in the BB&B store!  Thanks for thinking of us as your go-to VW family :)

Also, one more holiday thank you to Mama Hammock for the great new hand-painted addition to our Christmas tree this year.  Penny is officially a part of the family. 

We hope that everyone has a great holiday season and is as blessed as we are with great friends, family and hobbies to make their every day the best that it can be.  We will catch up with you after the holidays when we start back on our list of Penny improvements!

A First Time for Everything

It's a fact that I like fro-yo...a lot.  Love might even describe my affair with frozen yogurt better.  Me begging Jason to get some of the frozen fabulousness on a random Wednesday night after dinner isn't an unusual occurrence in our house.  Last night was pretty par for the course.

Long story short (minus all the amazing ice cream creation details) we were driving back in Penny from our impromptu fro-yo date and I hear from the drivers seat next to me, Uh oh, she's going to go.  Sure enough, 30 seconds later she sputters to a stop.  Luckily we were able to turn off into a side street to escape the busy main road we were on, but it was unsettling nonetheless.  Jason got out to investigate and I started to dig in my wallet for my trusty AAA card.  He gets back in, turns her on and surprisingly she was good to go.

But only until 5 minutes later when the same thing happened.  We were under the impression that the carburetors (which are due next for a rebuild) were getting flooded because after letting her sit for a minute or two she kept turning back on fine.  Finally, we were about three blocks from our house and she failed for the third and final time with a failed attempt at resuscitation.  We had to abandon ship.


Luckily we were within walking distance, so we unloaded the puppies and set out for the house.  I felt bad leaving her behind!

About an hour later Jason went back to see if he could facilitate a rescue and discovered that the fuse that was connected to the fuel pump wasn't connecting correctly.  He was able to nurse her home and we will be in the market for a new, better fitting fuse in the next few days.

Maybe this will be the worst that we see from old Penny, but I will have my shiny gold AAA handy card just in case!

Our Girl & Her New Kicks!

Penny, along with the new tires, rims, lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings, had been waiting patiently for Saturday to come.  (I was pretty excited too!)  We loaded the whole family (daughter and dogs included) and all of the new parts into the bus and headed over to Jason's Dad's house for the big install.  We usually try to do all of the sizable restoration projects over there, as a huge shop that houses every tool imaginable tends to come in handy.

Just as a reminder, here is the before shot:

I was assigned the task of cleaning up the rims and making sure all of the old break dust and gunk no more. Ever the tidy child, Sadie was pumped to sit down and help me with this first task..

I got them all shined up and we tested out all the new accessories to make sure they would fit.  It was like Cinderella and her glass slipper...perfect!

Meanwhile, Sadie had lost interest in shining up the tires (par for the course of a 2 year old attention span) and she wandered over to help Jason hoist Penny up in the air.  After a furious arm workout the bus was high enough that she was ready for the tire swap!

Me and my helper then used our new found knowledge of power tools and took all the old wheels off.  (Our combined girly arm strength wasn't quite enough to actually pull the wheels of, but we tried!)  She was a pro at helping Jason wheel them away though, all the while singing "rolling, rolling, rolling!"

You could sense Fat Penny's excitement as she hung there, shoe-less, in anticipation.  Perhaps I'm personifying the bus just a bit too much, but I swear she was excited. 

                        

A few lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings later she was ready to go to the ball with her Prince Charming!

I Like a Fat Girl...

In this day and age, it should go without saying that your life is not as private as you think. We put a lot of personal information on the internet and all it takes is for someone to Google your name and this information is displayed for all to see. I know this because a salesperson recently Googled my name, found out I am passionate about a fat chick, and used this information to harm my reputation at work. I'll explain...

I received a package at work last week from an address I had never heard of. This is not unusual as the nature of my work makes me a person of interest to salespeople. However, this was not a typical prospecting package containing some cheesy trinket. It contained a book about fat girls. Beautiful fat girls! It contained the history of my favorite kind of fat girls starting from when they were split windows through their transformation to the bay window.  How could someone know I have been spending so much time with Fat Penny? I thought to myself. Then it dawned on me. We have been blogging about Fat Penny and our love for this fat girl is available on Google for everyone to see. This guy must have seen that I like fat girls on Google, I thought. This suspicion was confirmed in the last line of the letter attached to the book. It read "While doing research, I discovered that you are passionate about VW buses. I hope you enjoy the book."

So salesperson, I know you are reading this and I just want to say that it's pretty uncool to out a guy at work for liking a bigger lady.