Volksbloggin

Having an opportunity to sail with Avi’s 26 foot McGregor sail boat had us all filled with excitement. Son Nick and I were exited to finally be on a lake together. He has never been sailing, and I have only on the ocean near the Channel Islands out of Ventura Harbor with my old friend Steve George back in the mid-80s. I didn’t make it out far before I was laying down below deck for the rest of the trip. I LOVE the ocean from the threshold of the sand and sea; not from the deck of a boat on the open seas. Looking ahead to being on a lake, without the swells of the ocean had me ready for a day on the boat.

Let’s back up a couple days… Sunday, July 4th, 2010. I plan to leave for Huntington Lake on Monday morning at around 4am to miss the heat in California’s Central Valley. It can be 103 mid day this time of year and I had every intention of missing it in the bus. Although the bus has these very nice functional old skool wind-wings, I did not want to NEED them. At dusk on the 4th, a few friends and Nick and my daughter Lucy are listening to a groovy Santana cover-band while waiting for it to get dark enough for the spectacular fireworks show.

So, there I am, reading Donald Miller’s first book “Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance” which I am enjoying very much. It’s the travelogue of two guys that take a VW bus from Dallas, TX to Portland, OR over the course of a few months. Being in an old VW Bus, there are often breakdowns and problems that they encounter. Both being Christians, they also often dialogue about their faith. They once broke down when the shift lever lost its connection with the transmission. They were in the middle of the desert on a lonely road and it has been nearly an hour and nobody passed them from either direction. They had the bright idea to pray. One of them even prays boldly that a mechanic would show up. The next car that blows past them is an old beat up station wagon. It passes them and then slows down. The guy driving gets out and after assessing the situation, is able to wire the car back together with a clothes hanger well enough for them to get to Las Vegas junk yard to look for a proper fix from a donor bus. Once they get to Vegas, they pray again and they find a bus with the part. While laying (thankfully) under the bus they are talking. I get to a passage that I read to my friend Terry which reads;

Don
Yeah.
Why don’t people believe?
Why don’t they believe what?
In God.
I don’t know. Not everybody has a Volkswagen

I have found that having a Volkswagen has stirred something deep inside of me that has not been stirred in a long while. Then, just a couple minutes after reading that to Terry, my phone rings. It is Avi who is on his way for an overnighter at with the Boy Scouts at a campground north of Santa Barbara. He and his two sons would be going there for the night then heading to Huntington Lake around noon on Monday.

“Rich, I have a terrible problem I may need your help with,” Avi says with highway noise in the background. ”I have lost a wheel on the boat trailer on the 101 in Agoura Hills. I have pulled over to the shoulder in the fast lane and the boat is too big for a tow truck to get off of the freeway.”

I looked to Terry and said I might have to leave. I explained to him what Avi told me. He has this apparently undersized single-axel trailer for his large sail boat. He has rarely had it on the road since he has it dry docked usually at Marina del Rey. The trailer simply is used to move the boat from storage, to the ramp to launch the boat. Before leaving on his journey, all the lug nuts were checked and tightened, and the hubs were greased up. The tire that was now missing was one that had a missing lug. So, there were only four out of the normal five lugs.

Avi tells me, “What has happened is the lugs have simply sheered off the hub. I guess they were too old.” I tell this to Terry and we both look at each other in awe and don’t exactly know what this could mean. I ask him to send us a photo from his cell phone. THIS is what he sent. As you can see… the lugs have all sheered off. Hmmm. Unbelievable. Avi is back on the line and tells me that the Highway Patrol is there. He will have to call me back.

After seeing this, Terry turns to me and says, “Rich, I have a new hub for our work trailers and a set of bearings at the shop in Ventura. I can go there in the morning and see if it is the same one as he needs. First he needs to get it off the road asap.” When Avi calls back, he has been given his old tire that the Highway Patrolman had fetched off of the side of the road. It had a big gash on the sidewall and was now flat. The holes for the lugs were also all stripped out so the nuts had apparently been loosened and the wheel was now bouncing around while going down the highway. By the time they got to Agoura, the poor (old) lugs had had enough and just simply broke off and just like that, Avi was stuck.

The next call was Avi telling me that a full-sized low-boy flatbed trailer was on the way to get them off the road. He said this, but had no idea where to take it. Terry and I came up with a plan to have it put in a local church parking lot for the night and Avi could sleep in it waiting for morning. Terry said he could be at the boat at 7am to see what needed to be done. So, the plan was forming and it was ready for the fireworks.

After the show, I drove the bus over to the parking lot to meet Avi and his boys. When I arrived, they were tucked in the back of his vehicle watching a movie on the portable DVD player. After I transferred some of their meat items from a cooler to the bus to take home and put in the refrigerator, I told them the story of the book I am reading and how I had read the passage to Terry. I then told them how serendipitous it was that Terry, being a mechanic with a trailer hub available, was there when Avi called in need and that he offered his help on his day off. They laughed and said they were glad I had a Volkswagen. The boat arrived safely and found it’s way to a nice corner of the parking lot where Avi and the boys would sleep. After saying my good-byes, I went home to get some sleep too.

When morning came, I made a latte, got dressed and headed over to the church where Terry was already working hard at assessing the situation. At first we had hoped that a new wheel would not be necessary, but after seeing it in the morning, it was evident that it was indeed needing to be replaced. I went to a local tire store with Avi’s son, while Terry went to his shop to get what he could from there. Thankfully, they had a single tire and wheel that were perfect for our needs and I ordered they install the tire and balance it. Then I went back and had Avi pay for it. Terry had stopped at a trailer supply store and came back with a new set of bearings for the other side and an additional wheel which Avi took back to the tire store and used for the other side. All were installed to the trailer and now with two new wheels, a new hub and tire, freshly packed bearings and new hub caps installed, we were finally ready to hit the road. Whew, its was 11:45. After we drove back to my house to clean up after the morning work, we finally were on our way at around 1:30 that afternoon.

The long road would first take us up I-5 over the Grapevine. This was the initial test for the bus since I had changed out the vacuum hoses. Everything was going great. Avi did not want to go over 55 MPH towing the boat, and the bus was very happy at this speed. When we began the grade near Magic Mountain, we simply pulled to the slow lane and let gravity take its course. 55, 45, 40, to the top of an incline and back to 55. If I downshifted to 3rd, I could get sometimes good speed and be back up to 50. Nice and easy. “Slow and steady wins the race.”

I have discovered that with owning a VW bus, my entire person has taken on a new “chill”  factor. There is not a lot that shakes me. My “eternal optimist” is back. I am taking everything in stride. I have a bus. I know it will need some work. When the shifter gets out of alignment, I will pull over, get the 13mm wrench out and the long flathead screwdriver, and make an adjustment. I expect it. No biggie. I actually smile when things happen. What choice do I have? I enjoy the view from the side of the road. I look down and say hi to the squirrels. I get a drink and go to work. I have thoughts of getting a personalized license plate that reads “NO HURYS,” but I am fond of its given plate “064 SEA” since I love the ocean so much, so for now its-all-good.

As we approach the northbound top of the Grapevine near Gorman, Avi signals that he needs to pull over and get some gas. So I let him lead and I follow him to a station. All the boys peel out of our vehicles and get into the air conditioned mini mart. The boys use the facilities, get some snacks, and are back, ready to go. We have both filled up and he takes off. I on the other hand, attempt to start the bus, but its a NO-GO. I try again, again. 7-8 tries and there seems to be no way its going to start. I guess it is too hot from the long climb. So, I go back and open the engine lid. I can not push-start it with a car in front of me in another pump. I smile… and wait for them to get out of the mini-mart. I called Avi and say to him that he needs to wait a while for me to get started. A few minutes pass and the guy in the Suburban finally shows up and leaves. I figure enough time has passed, so I get out and close the engine lid and on the second try, the bus starts and sounds happy to be running again. I drove over to the parking lot where they were waiting and waved them back on the freeway and we were on our way again.

After many hot hot miles driving through the Central Valley, we made it to Fresno with no worries. We again stopped for gas one last time before climbing to 7500 feet at Huntington Lake. The climb from Fresno was also without trouble. I was so excited that the bus was faring so well and that Avi’s boat trailer continued to support the sail boat all that way.

Once we arrive to the campground, we park the boat near the ramp, and return to set up camp. It is dusk and hard to see. The boys are all working hard to get the tents set up and we are all hungry. So, since I am sleeping in the bus, I go to the food duties, while Avi begins blowing up the air mattresses with his cigarette lighter powered air pump. I started a fire in the pit and we roasted mini kosher sausages in a bit of oil.  That and some fire roasted pita bread and we had dinner. Later the next morning, we find out that all but one mattress is worthy of use. It belongs to Avi’s youngest son who weighs all of 50 lbs wet. The rest of our air mattresses were depleted soon after we went to bed.

Our first morning, we had a simple breakfast of cold cereal, then packed some things for lunch and headed over to the boat ramp to get the sail boat into the water. The first thing to do was to raise the mast. As simple as this seemed it might be, took a long while to do. I went to the location where the mast would eventually connect to the boat and removed the bolt that would be used to hold it in place. I had a couple of the boys to the the boats stern and help put the mast into position by lifting it, while I put this bolt into place. No easy chore, but we finally managed. I later suggested to Avi that he replace this bolt with a proper stainless pin with a quick-release pin foe easier maneuvering. under pressure. So, with Avi at the bow ready with the bow lines, the boys and I all lifted the mast into position. Once there, the lines were all secured and we were ready to raise the sails. First, the main sail, then the Furler sail which I dub “Das Fuhrer” because it gives us so many problem, plus I can not really understand Avi’s Australian accent when he says it. Having a pretty green crew, we took our time while Avi was explaining every step of the way. Time went pretty slow for a while, and after about 2 hours we had everything in place and we shoved off from the deck. While motoring out to open waters, Avi, the captain, orders that music be put on. Seconds later we hear Jimmy Buffett serenading us with “A son of a son of a sun of gun, a son of a son of a sailor…” This became our theme-song for the next few days as the boys would sing it in unison.

We were out for an hour or so when we noticed that there were some of the most beautiful cloud formations being created just over the horizon. I was in awe at these huge white billowing clouds against the thin dark blue sky. I was also wondering if they would pose any weather issues as we sailed our way through the day. We tacked and jibed our way to the other end of the lake and the boys were wondering if we would ever stop to eat. We made our way to a private dock where we tied up after lowering the sails. No more than 2 minutes later, the first huge rain drops began to fall. While we were below deck, the upper deck was being pelted with random drops of rain that eventually dissipated to nothing. We enjoyed our meal of pita bread, hummus, cheese, fruit and jalepeño cheese pretzel bites . Once finished, we hoist the sails again and make our way to the dock where we unload. Avi motors over to a place where he can anchor offshore near our campsite and I take the dingy over to fetch him and one of his sons back to camp. A fun day of sailing.