Road trip 2002, California to New York, I’m writing this 2 months after the event so people places and all that good stuff could be altered slightly however I’ll try to keep to the truth and if something needs to be embellished I will take the liberty to do so. Hold on.

Well it started when I was stuck out in California with my current job, living in the only affordable housing I could find with two coworkers who also happened to be members of the San Fran cheerleading team. (Unfortunately they’re not female although they do try). To make a very long and fairly complicated story short, I wanted out and the only viable option that presented a solution to my housing and transportation needs was a VW microbus. I looked around for about a week, kicked some tires and finally settled on a 1978 model with a 2.0-liter engine and some good karma. I got her, named her Anya and immediately moved in. No offense to the cheerleaders.

Two months later I received a transfer to Chicago thus the chance for road tripping.

At this point I still knew very little about my home on wheels so before setting out across the country I set about getting some help for the journey. The only person that could not only wrench on VW’s but also provide comic relief and actually take time off work was my brother Anson. Also known in his younger years as arson for his passion for lighting things on fire. I called the wayward bro, he thought for about a second and then agreed to join the quest for niftiness