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This is the final route we took. 1035+ miles

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A perfect ending

We popped another hose outside of Coleman, Tx.
We're low on coolant..a little less than a gallon.
No cell service.
Options:
  1. Wait 1hr to cool, pull the hose and risk losing more coolant than we can add and stuck.
  2. Wait 1hr to cool, pop the cap and add coolant and trry to get to Coleman who knows how far down the road

We choose option 1. We used paper towels to help plug the. holes, trimmed the hose past the small hole at the end and replace it, put in the rest of the coolant and got on down the road.

 I kid you not, Coleman was 3miles down the road! Knowing that would have changed things a bit.

  We stopped at a mom-and-pop auto store and picked up more coolant as well as some more clamps and hoses.

  We didn't stop again until we were pulled over by a cop 8 miles from home to give us a verbal warning about our temp tag being expired. We got gas and were home by 830pm.

Thus ends Tigger's first adventure with us.

Lubbock morning

  At first glance some might say that Lubbock has little to offer the wayward traveller.

Yet, if one is lucky enough to look for a coffee place before the garages open up, give up looking for lack of time and terrible icy roads, turn down a random road to head back and stumble upon a little place called:

It's basically the Hooters for coffee.
Young 20somethings in their knickers. Bra and panties. Cup sizes are of course B,C,D.
It was well below freezing as all the roads had a nice glazing of ice and here these gals are clad only in their unmentionables.
Oh Lubbock, you serve a fine cup of coffee.

  From here, we went to three places that had VW listed in their name or as their forte. Dealership and the other two wanted nothing to do with it. It really made me thankful for Austin Veedub.
  What now you ask? Welp, nothing to do but get to a McDs to use the free wifi and do some work.
   11am: Done with that, now get down the road.

Lubbock

 

  Plan: Spend the night in Lubbock, wake early and be first in line at one of the garages that will look at the van and do a diagnostic on the cooling system, give our employers a heads up, try to do some work to stay on par with the workload and get on down the road, home Monday evening.

~Simple

 

 We find a hotel near the VW dealership and I call a buddy of mine that lives there, tell him where we are staying and ask for dinner recommendations. He suggests Bryan's steakhouse he says it's good and cheap. "It's the place with a big bull out front" he says.

 

yeah..that's a lot of bull. To scale, it's bigger than a minivan both in height and length

 

 

  It's essentially a steak house set up like a fast food joint. Get your tray, order your drink, choose your steak(sirloin or ribeye), size and temperature, maybe a side of fries or bakes potato? Salad bar is included all for around $10. The salad bar was pretty great..homemade ranch, hot beans, noodles, etc.. The selection was kind of random but it was pretty vast and it all worked. I got seconds.

We got our room and I became keenly aware that I hadn't showered in three days.

That done, we were asleep by ten.

There's no drive like snow drive

  When I bought the van they told me that it had studded snow tires on it..I thought that was a bit overkill. I mean, yeah I looked a the forecast for boulder and THEY were going to get snow, but didn't think that this storm was bound for the coast!
  Anyway Kori/Larry, thank you so much for giving me one major thing that I wouldn't have to worry about. Here are some road shots going through NM.

Not too bad as long as I can see pavement

Getting ahead of it now

Lunch time in Clayton, NM

I think I'm going to give Jason the key, fold the seats down into the bed and sleep in the back.

 

Jason had a homemade burger which he said was delicious, just falling apart in his hands.

I had their twist on the French Dip Au Jus. The roll and juice were good, but what set them apart was that they used smoked brisket instead of sliced roast beef. So good and hot and perfect.

 

  After a 40 minute nap, I awoke in Dumas, Tx and we overheated and had to stop.

 

  Maybe I'm the jinx and I should have stayed asleep.

 

   Now the situation starts to look dire. We are getting a coolant leak from what looks like the weep-hole in the side of the water pump. This is an early warning for the pump to be replaced.

The lady at (where do you think?) Auto Zone tells me that it's an order part and could be here by Wednesday. Hmmm what to do, what to do..

I google VW places in Amarillo and there is one as well as a couple of possibilities in Lubbock.

We let the rig sit and cool down, tighten up all of the clamps on all of the new hoses, top it off and get down the road.

  We get to Amarillo and things are going really well. No blow outs, not leaking too bad and only had to stop a couple of times for overheating..we decide to press on to Lubbock and get a room.

Sun, Auto Zone, a hose and snow

8am: Yep, that's snow. At least it's no longer 15F, it's hovering in the mid twenties thanks to the cloud cover.

And the hits just keep on coming

 

Shameless Auto Zone plug:

  I never really noticed but there is an Auto Zone in nearly every town..it's pretty crazy. The hours of

operation are great(only place open on Sunday for instance) and each was staffed (the ones we visited) with other auto enthusiasts. This added to the ease of doing business. By the end of the trip, Auto Zone to me was like Toys-R-Us to me my kids.

 

We replaced the hose, refilled and bled the system, dropped the wrench and coolant ran down inside my sleeve to my elbow, bought some hose tape, coolant, etc. and were on the road by 10am.

Hey, we're getting pretty fast at this.

Sunday

This statue was in the "courtyard" of the hotel. Simply amazing art.

 

Let's get outta here and get something to eat before Auto Zone opens at 8am.

 

 

Goodbye hotel

 

For breakfast..nothing open but Denny's since it's Sunday.

The sky is looking like snow..man this storm is relentless in its pursuit.

Before breakfast is done, it begins to snow.

Gremlins gumming up the works

  We were so busy with watching the temperature gauge and not sleeping that we were unable to update the blog in real time. This is a run down to catch you up on the happenings Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
  My last post was dinner of Pho preparing to add coolant and bleed the system expecting all things to be good once that is accomplished. Ahhh...what naivete.
  Well, we did that and got on down the road.

 1am 28F: We blew a hose on the south side of a pass that separates Co from NM on the highway next to Raton, NM. This was a HUGE blow out, no reairing this bad boy without supplies. Time to call AAA and hunker down for some shut eye as the storm starts to cool everything down.

 

 3am 15F: Tow truck driver calls asking where we are..to get him to us I have to use the moon as a reference so he knows North from South. 30minutes later, we are warming up in his cab.
 4am: Truck left at Auto Zone parking lot, and dropped at the nearby Colt Motel.

~Ring bell for assistance
  We were met by a sturdy woman...very bear-like. One that was roused from her hibernation to dance. It's and understatment that she was not pleased. $40 and on a scale of 1-5 this place got a solid 2/3 of a star for function.
  4:30am: Open the door to our room and a distinct smell combo of old wet dog and stale cigarette smoke leaps up our nostrils to greet us. Choice, ask the bear in the office for another room or get to sleep. hmmmm...
  4:31: set the alarm for 7am and then.....ahhhh sleep...

Dinner in Monument!

With the storm bearing down on us and the temperature dropping, the hot broth, meat and vegetables really hit the spot. Some I didn't even know I had.

Checklist

Rental car - CHECK

Diner lunch - CHECK

Purchase van - CHECK

Interlochen cuisine

This place..

 

Total diner style food with a skandinavian flare.

On this trip, we decided that we would not eat at any chain restaurants which we were familiar.

 

This place was perfect..the food was fresh and the able-to-purchase swag was reasonable and kinda cool. For pictures of what Jason and I had to eat you can look at the Checklist post. He had the denver omlette and I had the *new porkchops and eggs..

I was satisfied and would return often is I has access until I had a sample of everything. It all looked so delicious.

Practicing patience

Note to self - when getting a rental car, go mid range price, not low range.
One bus per thirty minutes gives one ample time to reflect on latest descisions.

Arrival at D town

Arrived

The Van!

This is what I came all this way to see...

 

What do you think?
hmmmmm

First thing

A little history:

I contacted the seller via TheSamba.com and had a great conversation that ranged from local politics to the weather. We even covered a good number of things about the Westfalia (which from here on out will be referred to by it's given moniker: Tigger).

My neighbor and good friend Jason is going to accompany me in the morning of Dec 8 to fly out to Boulder, pick it up and drive the 1000+ miles back home here in Austin.

Jason is a great asset as he not only has the entire Mojo Nixon anthology, but also has mechanic skills that are likely superior to mine. Also, adventures are better when shared.

Here are some more pictures of what the seller sent me.

(Note: you can click on the picture to embiggen it)