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