As luck would have it… Alpine, CA

There have been more than a handful of false starts for this trip, but as everyone keeps reminding me it is an adVANture.  So I guess that solves that, we’re not on a trip but an adventure and our van Dolores is calling the shots.  So far, although I’m not sure I agree with her every decision, I can’t say I question her judgment.  She has a way of showing us that awesome people exist everywhere in the world.

If we had tried desperately to find the one place in the nation we could land that could help us solve the little pickle that we’re in, I don’t think we would have found a place with this much talent, kindness and the background to help us perfectly.  The VW world is amazing, and sometimes small. The VW/Subaru motor world is even smaller, and turns out just as amazing. 

Our predicament of being towed back to San Diego with a giant paperweight and little budget to make it anything more than that, made me understand how you see VWs left in corners of fields. Prior to this I had always asked myself how you could leave such a classic vehicle to rust away? Now I fully understand – they end up there because they push you to a breaking point.

Evaluating the cost of a new engine and the serious blow it would have on our budget coupled with the lingering feeling of even if we did put another new engine in Dolores, did we have the confidence in her to drive her all the way south? Or would we need to start thinking about other options…  Could we even afford to sell the van? Could we ship it home to work on it?  Could we burn it to the ground in the Days Inn parking lot?

Our day had started at 5am for the border crossing, we didn’t want to end it with a decision that might rule out the plan that we’d worked so hard for.  We decided to sleep on it. George, unable to sleep combed the internet while sobbing softly for a solution until the wee hours of the morning.

As luck would have it the next morning George got a single phone call. The man on the other end of the phone was Steve of S&S Motors and pretty much our hero.  Not only is he arguably one of the best Subaru motor builders in the country and a super nice guy, he’s also a winner of the Baja 1000. Our hero Steve allowed us to stay on his property and work on the van. During which an important and exciting discovery was made: nothing was wrong with the motor itself. Instead, the new starter we had installed during our Denny’s breakdown a few weeks earlier was a cheap-o part; a bearing in it had failed and jammed against the flywheel making the motor seem seized.

George, being the awesome husband that he is, took one for the team. To work off our time there he got to partake in his favorite construction past time of hanging drywall on the ceiling of their new dyno test area – just a cool 1000 sq ft in 97-degree weather. 

Between that and recovering from some binge working on the van we’re taking a few days and a few miles to make sure Dolores doesn’t have any other tricks up her sleeve. San Onofre happens to be the perfect place for this; sun, waves and an awesome vibe - easily my favorite beach in California so far.