Yesterday I paid a visit to Jim’s VW repair shop in Monterey Park, just east of Los Angeles…  Jim is around for 41 years but decided recently to retire… another good old VW fellow will be gone anytime soon…

Seems that Jim recently became the owner of Chuck’s old convertible, Chuck had that car forever…

. Kind a cool a convertible with signwriting huh?

ok I have to hit the road again… today I drive to Arizona to visit another good old friend…

I scored a couple of real cool Westfalia’s on my trip through Nevada…

First this ubercool and clean 1973 westy in Reno Stead airport, You didn’t believe I was gonna let the white whale flying, did You?

Owned and maintained for the last 17 years by the commander of the airport, very frequent pilot that has loads of experience with aircooled engines… the car is maintained as a plane, believe me or not! the engine runs like a swiss watch, and this baby drives you to heaven in seconds!

second I had this ubercool and very original 1979 westy from Chuck… long-term owner, and very deep VW aficionado, self-declared that this was the best driving VW he ever owned!

Last but not least Francisco sold me his cool 1975 Westfalia, that is good value for money, but need some “finishing”….

No Francisco, sorry, didn’t take your split…:( that was too much of a project for me…:)

But You do have a cool garage for sure!

and now… back to work, next case is waiting!!

Monday after I delivered the buses to the port I hit the road east… straight to death dry Nevada

I made a short stop over at my friends Gary’s place in Sonoma California…

The trusty white whale performed flawless as always…

Gary was hit hard by the fires in Sonoma, Napa and santa Rosa area… lost a couple of cabins in the mountains and a load of VW parts… he saved these as a souvenir, this “used to be” a “pile” of 36 Hp cilinderheads, melted to the ground…

One of Gary’s customers had his vanagon in for service, I liked his license plate a lot…

… For You To Go 75 (Mph) … not bad on a  slow VW bus!

From Gary I drove straight (and mainly in dark) to Reno Nevada… to see the skyline of Reno in morning light

Nice… Nevada, rural as it can be … let the next VW hunt start here…

Where I was think I’m going?

ok, hope fully its worth it… rural track straight to?

…. my friend Mitch home…. to check out his nice line up of buses!

and from there to Reno Stead airport…

Was the white whale gonna want to flying? Shall we build wings on it?

Do You recognise this control tower? changes are larger as You can think off, as this is THE world-famous tower out of the movie Top Gun!!

ok enough talks, time to take my friend Mitch to lunch… sandwich anybody? you bet!

Inside is beautiful and full of decoration…

and the sandwich was … well … great!!!!

more buses? well done! this is the bus from the infamous tomTom junkyard in Utah… Almost empty now, Mitch saved this bus!

ok, time to hit the road again… nice drive on Highway 95 south… unfortunately (again) it was dark most of the way…. but… I experienced an unforgettable Sunrise…

so… welcome back to California, for my next adventure…. stay tuned!