Just what the Doctor ordered!

Whew!

What a long strange trip it is! Lunches are finally over at Dayboat! It left a smoking crater of my mind... Lisa and I were so tired from putting in mega hours. I felt as though I lived at Dayboat during July and August. Standing on the other side of madness life seems so tame. Damn does time fly! Last week when we had a day off, both of us were slumped over the keyboards of our laptops nodding, barely able to keep eyes open. Unable to move. In contrast, this week I actually felt rested.

The Wheel is turning and you can't slow down

You can't let go and you can't hold on

You can't go back and you can't stand still

If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will

Time still marches forward. No, time hurls forward. When I was a child I used to measure the passing of time by the dates on containers of cream. The date inveriably was always one month ahead of whatever time it was. Cream lasts forever and time passed slow that way. As I got older I realized that time moves even faster. I recently read something to the effect that time was like a roll of toilet paper, the closer to the end the faster it goes. I try to appreciate every moment - good and bad.

Won't you try just a little bit harder?

Couldn't you try just a little bit more?

Won't you try just a little bit harder?

Couldn't you try just a little bit more?

We wanted to just relax and visit farmer friends on our first real day off in months. To celebrate we decided we needed a little medication for the soul. We drove over to Paul and Jean Offers' Doctor's Inn (http://www.peisland.com/doctorsinn/) in the Tyne Valley and toured their wonderful organic farm and Inn.

Round round robin run around

Gotta get back where you belong

Little bit harder, just a little bit more

Little bit farther than you than you've gone before

Paul and Jean's Inn and farm is like a respite from the busy hustle and bustle of life. A place where time is better passed armed with a glass of red wine on the veranda or a beer on the porch. Paul and Jean were kind enough to share their story with us on how they started the Inn. We chatted on the porch nibbling on Jean's homemade pickles. When you stay at the Inn and have dinner they pick the vegetables for your meal in the late afternoon. The flour for your bread is milled in the kitchen by Jean. Life does not get finer than that!

So long the human race has strayed from the path. We lost good bread and got wonder bread... personally I find it a wonder that they can actually call it bread. It is refreshing to find good people like the Offer's living right. It's nice to see progress happen on an individual level all across the US of A and Canada and other parts of the world... The simple joys of life being celebrated!

Small wheel turn by the fire and rod

Big wheel turn by the grace of God

Everytime that wheel turn round

bound to cover just a little more ground

We walked thru row after row of beautiful vegetables and fruits... passed artichokes (they don't grow here - yeah, right), leeks, greens, the original tomatoes (original sin?).

They grow an incredible amount of vegetables in a small amount of land. It made Lisa and myself think about the benefits of settling somewhere in the not too far distant future. Growing our own food supply.

One LOVE, ASWAH...

p.s. the healthy RED BULL:

p.p.s.s. One happy HOUND! Loose Lucy running through the tallgrass...

The Kaya Beautification Project... the second post

Not much time to describe all that has happened in my life during the last week. Seems Lisa and I will be at Dayboat and perhaps other projects for a while. We are becoming blood brothers with Mister Schwanz... long (short) story. We are excited at what it could be. WE are excited to make a mark on the Island (PEI) culinary scene. We are excited to get to know our farmer and fishermen friends better. We are excited to be here!

The VEEDUB, Kaya - herself, is beginning the first phase of her conversion... the make up. For so long Lisa and I have wanted some out there but still tame imagery on the bus. Ken Mitchell is helping us realize that dream... here is the preliminary shot of what will be painted in a few weeks. Kaya might get the major change next year - conversion to four wheel drive and some other features. WOWZERS! Boy that gets make excited!

Kaya Paint Job UPDATE:

Here's the color scheme and now the driver's side!

ASWAH

the Kaya Beautification Project

The Overview:

Lisa and I bought an inexpensive 1989 VW from Pop Top Heaven in 2005. Perhaps we should have spent more money from the jump, perhaps not. I suspect we ended up with a Vee Dub from a guy in Texas who had passed away and it had sat in Texas for a few years before the heirs sold her. She had some dry rotted rubber and faded paint. Whatever... she's our addiction now. Like anything worth anything in life. Addictions progress from rather adolescent moves of not knowing the playing field to becoming an expert. It was the same when I embarked on collecting rare cook books. If I only knew then what I know now! I shoulda, woulda, coulda... well, truth be told... I DIDN'T! So shoot my white ass for not being a mechanical smart genius!

Over the few years that 'Kaya' has been ours we have had many a high and many a low. The highs include some of the most breathtaking scenery in our windows to wake up to... like the morning we woke up in a remote campsite with Lucy our wonderhound softly growling to three gigantic bull elk within ten feet of our Westy. For two hours, Lisa, Lucy and I laid in bed drinking Chai, Coffee and eating Blueberry Pancakes watching those enormous beasts nibble on greenery and rut. Or the time we camped on a cliff high above KeysCanyon in Alaska with the foot of a glacier on the otherside. Fellow vee-dubbers will agree in various ways about the joys of these vans.

I would like to note that I use the terms Vee Dub, V-Dub, VW, our bitch, Westy, the formal VW Westfalia and Kaya rather interchangeably. A lot really depends on the particular moment as to how I phrase my salutations. Kaya is the hippie/rasta name we gave to her... usually in the moments where we feel the most connected to her. The bliss moments of life.

The low moments occur when something, usually rather drastic occurs... transmission fluid draining all over the place, crankshaft breaking, O2 Sensor dying and the hundreds of mechanics that have done more damage then good. Strangely enough, at least in my crazy ass life, goodness always pervails... the low moments are never that low... the transmission died in the very town where the best VW transimission shop is located; the motor died but Lucas at GoWesty made good and we came to a fair conclusion... perhaps things in life happen for reasons... best friends never met, finally met. Maybe I lead a fortunate life? Maybe I did good and had a heart of gold in a former life and Jah the almighty is just paying me back.

I think only those smitten with Vee Dubs will sympathize with me here. I will have Kaya regardless of anything. I will own her till the day I die. We have been through too much in life together to stop being together. The guy I work for seemed rather shocked that we would want to keep Kaya rather than buy the latest greatest. Shit, even Lisa and I thought about buying a vehicle from Earthroamer. I even got as far as talking directly with Bill Swails about it. Let me say that Earthroamers are amazing vehicles. We could afford one. I covet one in a materialistic way. Fuck, who wouldn't? Go to http://www.earthroamer.com/ and check it out. God's gift to expedition travel. Maybe I would buy one. But there is something about Westy's, an underground brotherhood - a mystique. Pull into any town and count the buses. If there are a lot of buses, there are a lot of cool folks. Just about any town in Northern California, Oregon or Washington is chalked full of these aging machines. I know I could walk up to 99% of VDUB owners and have an instant friend who would help me. No buses, uptight fools. Case in point Essex, Connecticut - Those people are so tightly wound it is beyond belief. They wouldn't help anyone, even their own children.

So back to the buses. They are aging and mechanically challenged. But I make ok money and have no intentions to buy into the trapping of our modern need to buy everything culture. I will love her till the day I die. Yes, Lisa and I do not care about flat screen TVs, the latest phone, laptops, movies, hollywood actors and all the bullshit 95% of the world seems to care about. Throwbacks to another time? Maybe? Or actually progressive thinkers who live today. PROPHETS!

Enough ravings. Lisa and I have decided to start the Kaya Beautification Project. A sort of spa treatment for our 19 year old vanagon. This year is bringing many new and important upgrades and visits to at least four great vee dub related shops. Check back frequently starting next month to see the progress and how the road trip across America is progressing... Featured will be trips to Connecticut to one of the East Coast's best mechanics ever, Fred Newmann, owner of Mechanical Advantage in Barkhamstead, CT. Amazing, thorough mechanic and extremely trust worthy. Next stop will be Karl Mullendore in Gapland, Maryland. Karl is an underground legend in the world of Vanagon's. The kind of person people revere in hushed tones. The only time I met him I felt as though I was ontop on a mountain with the oracle. Afterwards we are shooting WEST for visit in the Chicago area then down to Amarillo, Texas to Sewfine so Kaya can have a new dress, ok - a new interior then off through the land of the ancients to California and GoWesty. GoWesty has to be one of the more controversal shops in the realm of VWs. Everyone wants a GW pimped ride with all the things they put in it. But no one wants to admit that that sort of craftsmenship costs a lot of money. They regularily get slammed on vw boards. I personally have been there a few times and have found both Chris and Lucas to be two cool cats. Yeah, they are pricey but they are great as well.

So follow us on our adventure. We will be posting quite regularily from the road. We are also searching for a hippie cabinet maker to redo our cabinets. We have some ideas but no definite leads. If you know someone please email me at: aswah1964@yahoo.com

The trip will also feature fantastic stealth spots that ony two fools and one wonderdog can get into in a Vanagon, reviews on BBQ pits, microbreweries and other unique features along the way... Join us... If you want to help finance the trip, renovation costs or tag a along for a leg of the trip please write your request on the back of a hundred dollar bill and mail it to us...

ONE LOVE, ASWAH, Lisa and Loose Lucy

Giant Halibuts and the Dark Life they LEAD!

All goodness happens at the PEI Farmer's Market on Saturdays! I ran into Mickey Rose of MR Seafood while buying vegetables a few Saturdays ago. Mickey told me that he had a 168 pound halibut and it was looking for a good home. At first I thought "Damn, that's a big fish! Too much for me to use before it's freshness was a thing passe. Impossible! But I have to admit, that big ole halibut stayed in my mind.

By the time I got to work I started schemeing on how to fit it into our budget. I told my Sous Chefs David and Andrew about it. David was so beyond enthusiastic about it that I had to get it. I called Rodney and Mickey and asked how long before I got it. I love both of these guys. If you purchase fish wholesale or retail on the island you need to think about getting fish from these two folks. Super high quality fish at rock bottom prices! AND AMAZINGLY COOL GUYS to boot!

Over the next three days we sold over fifty percent halibut to our guests. I had invited any guests who were in the restaurant when the fish was delivered to come and look at it. Almost every table came out to view the beast. The best three preparation had to be Grilled Halibut Louisbourg which was grilled halibut served over hand rolled Saffron pasta tossed with lobster, scallop and mussels in a white wine, mushroom and tomato confit sauce; Wild Halibut Szechuan - served on Bamboo Rice Risotto with Raymond Loo's Summer Cabbage and Broccoli in a Ginger, Shiitake and Green Onion Sauce or the grilled Halibut on Saffron Fettuccine with locally foraged Chanterelles, Pancetta and Soleil's Leeks... wowzers!

On a side note:

I say Halibut lead dark lives because that one came into the kitchen later that night and busted a cap in Duncan's Ass during service... sort of a swim by... YEAH DAYBOAT!