$2500 weekend.

Whoa! That was a long 3.5 day weekend. In light of my recent car woes. I've decided to sell my '04 and go completely classic aircooled VW. I began the weekend looking for an old VW I could drive around while I restore my other two. I came this close {} to buying an old Karmann Ghia convertible on Sunday but it needed a top and brakes to make it roadworthy. So instead of buying, yet another project, I've come to the command decision of starting the restoration of my bus. I'm going to do my damnedest to get it on the road in two months or less. I'll be spending every day of every weekend in an effort to accomplish this task.

So to gear up for my escapade I needed parts. Lots and lots of parts. In case you didn't notice, it's missing a few. So away to the internet I went. I spent all day Monday on the phone digging up all the stuff I need to make it legal and safe. I made on huge order of miscellaneous stuff that cost me almost $1K. I also dug up some used stuff that can't be bought new. The problem with the used stuff was that it was all at a VW yard in Tennessee and cost me another $340. In the process of digging up all this nonsense I found a deal on an engine that I couldn't pass up.

So Tuesday I firmed up plans with the guy in TN and played phone tag with the engine dude while setting up my garage to receive the bus which was, until then, parked where you see it in the picture under a tarp. When L. got home we pushed the thing into the garage and got a phone call from engine boy who agreed to my low $200 dollar price for his engine. We drove over an slapped it in the back of the Subaru and used L's new GPS, which we bought Sunday, to find a Thai restaurant that we liked in the area. We were both pooped when we got home. We plopped into the bed and slept like bricks.

My alarm went off Wednesday morning at 4:00 AM and 4:15 and 4:30 (Damn snooze button!). I was on the road to TN by 5:00. Four and one half hours each way. The drive there was accentuated by loud rock music and 85 mph speeds. The guy who ran the yard, Joey, was a real talker and yapped my head off while we loaded my car with sheet metal cut form other old VW's. I took me an hour to get out of there. I took a different road home and the scenery was beautiful. I love SE Tennessee. It's beautiful. The end result was me being home at three in the afternoon. I had the old engine pulled from my bus by four PM and found more parts I need in the process. It was about this time that I got a call from my good friend Tom. He had broken the seat in his truck and needed me to drive over with my welder to help him fix it. After a brief dinner, I drove over to his house and we glued the thing back together. We finished up around eight thirty and I was on my way home for some much needed sleep.

Today I woke up early and headed to the tool store to get a couple things for the resto. Then I was off to work.

I thought about it a little while ago and realized that the reason this whole thing started was because I didn't want to pay $2500 to fix my car that isn't broken.