Alice

[ChapinBusDude]

*** Portland, Oregon, 1974 ***

I named her “Alice” after “Alice Springs” in Australia – a place I’d never actually visited. Volkswagen really hit its stride when they introduced their bay window 'Transporter'. Alice was born early in the year 1970 and almost immediately moved to California from Germany. She had spent the past two years parked in a barn in Oregon after a move north from Sacramento to somewhere in rural Oregon named Beaverton. I spotted her out of the corner of my eye as I drove down a bumpy county road that looked as though it led to nowhere. I did not actually see her, but my vdub bus alarm went off just the same. I turned around as soon as I could and started a search for where I’d had seen her. She was about a quarter of a mile off the road in a barn behind an old wood construction farm house. All you could see of Alice was her front side or nose as Volkswagen guys call it, but that was enough to set off the alarm. I was never uneasy about stopping to talk to someone that owned a Volkswagen of any kind, but someone that had a bus was usually a breed above the rest. They drove a vehicle that clearly stood out in a crowd, one that most people ridiculed as ugly, but secretly worshiped as beautiful. Whoever owned this old farmhouse even parked his bus in the garage, leaving a brand new Dodge Dart parked out in the daily rains of the northwest. Or at least that was what it looked like.
The farmhouse had a front door that just didn’t look like anyone ever used it. After staring at it awhile, I walked on around the house and found a back door that looked more promising and knocked. After only a few seconds a man opened the door and looked me over from my head to my feet. I suppose I was a typical product of the sixties including straight long hair and a couple weeks growth of beard. I noticed the scrutiny but also picked up that it was without distaste – a trusting smile greeted me and asked, “What can I do for you my friend?” I replied, “I was driving by your place when I noticed the bus you have parked in your garage. I’m looking for a VW bus to drive and wondered if yours had a price that I might be able to afford”. The man introduced himself, reaching his hand out in greeting, “I’m Calvin Stoller, pleased to meet you”. I shook his hand and figured that many years of hard work had gone into the strong and confident grip. “I’m Curtis”, I said. Mr. Stoller explained that the bus had been trapped in that garage for the last 24 months. “That big windstorm we had a couple of Decembers back got ahold of the barn and pushed it over on top of the bus. I haven’t driven it since”. Never one to not ask the obvious question, I asked, “Do you have a tractor?” “Yup.” “Can we pull the bus out of the garage so I can have a look at it?” “Are you serious about buying it”, the man asked in reply. I was always looking for a VW bus; I had wanted a newer one for a couple of years now. “I’m serious”, I said. Stoller and I walked to a shed that was to the left of the barn and after unlocking the double door, Stoller walked in and climbed up on a 46 horsepower 1964 John Deere tractor. It cranked up with no problem and Stoller maneuvered it to the front of the bus. Allowing the tractor to idle, he went back to the shed and dug around till he found a length of chain, then hooking it up to the front axle of the bus and then the tractor; he was ready to pull the bus out. “Are you sure that you’re interested?” he asked. I nodded and Stoller climbed aboard the tractor again. As the John Deere started to pull, the bus jerked a little. I noticed that the wheels weren’t turning but instead were just hopping along – the brakes had locked up. As the bus emerged from the garage I understood why Stoller had asked me so many times whether I was “really” interested in buying his bus. The garage began a slow and painful collapse, beginning at the rear and progressing forward as the bus moved. The bus had been holding the garage up, but no longer, and as Stoller and I watched, the garage collapsed into a large pile of broken lumber. Where the cross-beams had lain, the bus roof had huge indentations as deep as 4-5 inches.

There looked to have been at least three beams that supported the barn that had been resting upon the buses roof. As I inspected this damage, Stoller followed me around and commented on how the bus had driven him and his wife from California without trouble. As I opened the side cargo doors, a musty smell of wet carpet escaped the interior of the bus for the first time in months, but Stoller pulled the soaked carpet back to show me the rust-free cargo floor. For every problem area, Stoller had something good to show that balanced the deal back out. I gave the man $100 and told him that if the engine and tranny were good I would bring him another $100. Two hundred dollars was still good money in ‘74 and once the bus was running, true to my word, I showed back up on his back door step with the other hundred.
When I decided to move across the Mississippi River to a small mining town called Little Switzerland in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, Alice and I had a bit of a “talk”. The conversation was friendly for the most part. At first I just sort of side-stepped the whole deal about the drive, we traded small talk about sunshine and skies that were colored something called blue. Alice was intrigued of course but didn’t really believe – she said something about Wonderland and a girl she’d heard of that was also named Alice. Having read that story as a child I felt that we were making real progress, almost a kind of bonding (if a person can bond with an old VW bus). I was sitting in the driver’s seat of course. That always gave Alice a sense of peace; like the whole world could be falling apart but her little half-acre was just fine. I knew the time was right so I laid it all out in front of her. It’s about 3500 miles from the end of the Oregon Trail to the far side of the country in North Carolina. Any way you slice that, it would be a real trial to move a temperamental bus that far. I didn’t have a whole lot of cash, but that was probably just one of many excuses. It all came down to this: the only proper way to move an old Vdub bus is under its own power. “Open highways”, “Route 66”, “see the sights”, “meet the locals” - this was how it went...

*** Portland, Oregon, June 1978 ***

Curtis’s buddy Vancleve loved VW buses as much as he did. Van was visiting Portland for a state-required certification class for his teaching position at Oregon College; after a pitcher or two of beer he had finally agreed to help Curtis drive across the country as wing-man. They figured with two it would be an easier ride with Alice - with some good wrench turning, they were pretty sure they could make it. Pretending it was a long camping trip, they loaded the bus with gear that might come in handy - of course with tools and spare bus parts. It wasn’t that they were lacking confidence in Alice; you just never knew when they might run across another “Bay” that was broken down on the same trail they were traveling. Van had this thing that measured barometric pressure that would tell how high the elevation was and Curtis would use that to tell Alice how well she climbed the mountains. He also had a map from some new company called Rand-McNally that they could use to search for junk yards and VW parts if needed. But the most important thing he had were his hands with which to drive!
Anyone contemplating buying a VW bus should remember “they may be weak, but they’re slow”. The route Curtis and Van chose was a careful tradeoff between speed and heat. Would they climb a 9500-foot Rocky Mountain pass in the northern US where the temperatures were cool, or do they stick to an 8000-foot pass in the south where the temperatures were hot.

Saturday, June 25th

They chose a hot ride and a low pass and on June 25th around six in the morning, started south on state highway 99 out of Portland, Oregon. The drive first took them by Corvallis, where Van lived, and then Eugene, where there is a road headed east toward their first really interesting stretch, the Willamette Pass over the Cascade Mountain Range. Most well-meaning people not from Oregon have no idea how to pronounce that word – it’s “Willamette” “dammit” (rhymes, get it?). A pass is a low spot that allows easy passage over an otherwise high mountain range. Although “easy” is always debatable when driving a VW bus, this one was just under a mile high, peaking at 5,128 feet. Alice climbed the mountain with very little trouble although at speeds limited to around forty miles per hour. The scenery was breathtaking with a layer of diamonds floating on high mountain lakes sparkling in the brilliant noon sunlight. The surrounding forests of Douglas Firs, the defining northwestern evergreen tree, lined the highway as sentinels until they reached the final few hundred feet of elevation gain. As the bus approached the summit the winds picked up and the surrounding terrains grew suddenly sparse. The firs were replaced by low Sagebrush and an occasional hardy blue berry bush. The wind blew from the west, pushing Alice along, and also bending the tall grasses of the pass into a permanent eastward lean. As they crossed the Cascade’s highest point at the pass the beautiful sight of high plains desert came into view stretching out before them. The narrow two lane highway descended in a terrifying series of sweeping mountain curves that dropped precipitously on one side and rose vertically on the other. As they plunged toward the desert below, the bus picked up speed. The curves in the road seemed sharper and harder to control and though the buses brakes undoubtedly heated to elevated temperatures, the road’s grade eventually lessened and the final stretch to the base was one mile as straight as an arrow. Curtis was surprised by the sudden change in vegetation as they drove down the eastern side of the Cascades Mountains. It was as if the eastern side received none of the abundant rains that he had grown accustomed to while living in Portland (on the western side). He could only imagine that the mountain range served somehow as a 'weather-break', absorbing or possibly blocking the rains from crossing into the deserts of Oregon.
Alice was running low on gas as they motored into the southwestern Oregon town of Klamath Falls. Most Oregon towns and cities outside of metropolitan Portland have retained a characteristic trait more representative of the 'wild west', whether that meant the durable clothing of the local wranglers or the corner saloons that serve the local brews of someone named McMenamin. Having never been through these parts, they were glad to see that there was a Standard Oil gas station ahead and off to the right….

To be continued…

[busdaddy]

[Jim Bear]

Yeah. I'm lost.
_________________
"You're either on the bus, or you're off the bus." ~kk
'85 Vanagon Westy - George In the Stable 2020-?/'74 Weekender - Ophelia In the Stable 2007- ?/'69 Beetle Convertible - SOLD 2017-2020/'67 Beetle - September SOLD 2013-2016 /'67 SO42 Westy - Sage SOLD 1996-2001 /'69 Transporter - Baby Blue SOLD 1995-1995/'72 Westy - Nelly - SOLD 1990-1995--STOP FRACKING

[NoBudgetVWGarage]

Excellent! Subscribed
_________________
1969 Transporter
1968 Ghia
1959 Ghia Hot VW Drag Car

[justcruzin]

[telford dorr]

Good descriptive storytelling. I liked it. It would be better to make it a web page that you could post a link to - you could format it better (more paragraph breaks), wrapping the text around pictures, etc.
_________________
'71 panel, now with FI
'Experience' is the ability to recognize a mistake when you're making it again - Franklin P. Jones
In theory, theory works in practice; in practice, it doesn't - William T. Harbaugh
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. The pain is only felt by others.
Same thing happens when you're stupid. - Philippe Geluck
More VW electrical at http://telforddorr.com/ (available 9am to 9pm PST)

[richparker]

I noticed that the post after busdaddy had been deleted. Oh the comedy!
_________________
__________
’71 Westy build
Adventure thread
’65 Deluxe Build
’63 Deluxe Build

[westcoastmarek]

Are Curtis and Frank LeClerg the same person?
_________________
1979 Westy Auto
----------------------------------------------
sold...
1979 VW bus, 2L FI, now with a rivi top
1971 7 pass. deluxe
1974 Beetle

[ChapinBusDude]

You all really make my day!!!

I am a writer and am working on a book. It happens to include a prominent chapter that documented "Curtis" and his trip across the US. This of course really did happen and as with all cross country bus trips was full of excitement. The bus pictured in the story was the same bus that made the drive (notice the cool toilet paper dispenser). Mr. Stoller is real and the bus really was holding up the barn! Vancleve is a real guy as well and is a good buddy of mine. The book is not really about VWs as much as it is about a guy that lives in underground NYC, in the old abandoned train lines (Brooklyn) that is a lot like you and me....

Sorry for the confusion about the red bus being for sale. I should not have mixed these two things (story about the bus, price of the bus) together, but it was too cool: truth is better than fiction.

Peace!

[Red Fau Veh]

[Wasted youth]

[notchboy]

[shiningstar76]

Great story, but please don't bring commercial interests into the forum. I already have to listen to home depot commercials on gd radio I really screws with my cooking
_________________
KK4NTP
96 Tacoma
86 4Runner
My bus caught on fire and is now on the other coast with someone who gave me money for it.

[busdaddy]

[ChapinBusDude]

Guess I won't be quittin my day job then But I definitely enjoy writing!!! It's almost as good at taking your mind of troubles as hand sanding an entire bus....

[notchboy]

[ChapinBusDude]

Yeah, newbie here. I will fall on my sword for that one. I may even have to change my Samba name to escape that stigma... Except that you will all still know its me because I always write like that. This forum is the greatest!!! I'm kind of, well, old. Don't even own one of those cell phone things, you know, that you can talk to people from everywhere and your voice just sort of finds its way there....

I restore these buses about one every year or two. Takes about 50 - 150 hours per project. You really can't get your cost of time, but it's sad to see a bus in the woods rusting. The one that I am getting ready to start is kind of sad looking, but it will look like this red one did when I'm done.

[ChapinBusDude]

… Glancing briefly in the rear view mirror and noticing some sort of small car Curtis signaled a right hand turn and as was his custom threw his arm out of the driver’s side window for good measure. He looked at the speedometer as he turned into the station and for no particular reason mentally noted five miles per hour. Quite suddenly they felt their bodies being jerked, thrown back into the old VW bus seats and looking at the bare sheet metal roof directly above their heads. Curtis was still trying to unwind what was happening as he bounced off the seat and was thrown forward and into the large, horizontally mounted steering wheel. With his body and head passing the horizontal plane he glanced randomly at the speedometer again and noted that this time it inexplicably read thirty-five miles per hour. Bouncing off the steering wheel and back to an upright position, Curtis's first view through the broad front windshield was of a deep ditch, a culvert that was filled with very large gray granite boulders that were used to prevent erosion. The watercourse ran along the side of the road between the gas station and the highway. A large pipe was buried under the gas station’s driveway allowing the springtime flash flood rain waters and snow melts to pass the station. They were barreling toward the ditch at 35 MPH! In the time it takes a person to blink an eye, Curtis decided that the ditch was not going to be a very good place to park the bus and began looking for alternatives further to the right, toward the gas station parking lot perhaps. As his eyes began a scan to the right he began to pull the large steering wheel in a matching direction. In another blink, his eyes made contact with a new and unpleasant parking choice, two gas pumps with wide-eyed customers waiting for their tanks to be filled by the station attendant. Everyone screamed and scattered as the bus seemed sure to crash in the small mushroom cloud of a gasoline pump explosion. He pulled the steering wheel to the right for a second time, this time the high speed and tighter turn radius would not allow the right wheels of the bus to remain on the ground and the bus began a slow motion slide on the two driver’s side wheels toward the concrete block building of the gas station. A VW bus on two wheels cannot be effectively steered. Curtis quickly turned the steering wheel back to the left, into the path of the building allowing the right wheels to bounce back down to the ground, and then immediately restarted the turn to the right - Alice missed the corner of the building by inches. Finally, another wide-eyed customer who had just exited the restroom around back was clouded with the dust and gravel of her passing before she slid to a stop. The entire automotive adventure had lasted a mere five seconds.
As Curtis sat waiting for his breathing to begin again, Van jumped out of the bus to check out the back. Most folks forget that old Vdubs store their engines back there. Van was the first to realize that we had been hit by something and knew that the back of the bus was the absolute worst place for that. What he discovered was not at all encouraging, but after looking under the bus, he did not find the fatal sign of pouring oil. So at least that much was good. He started pulling on the mangled engine lid hoping to get a look at the engine itself, but the damage to the back had made that impossible. The dual tailpipes that had originally extended parallel to the ground were now pointing at a disconcerting forty-five degree down-angle.
The engine was still idling!
Van walked around to the driver’s door and told Curtis to shut her down, which he did. He finally climbed out and together they walked to the back of the bus, and after looking at it awhile, looked back toward the gas station. Parked off to the left side was an Oregon Electric Company bucket truck. The dirty white truck had what looked like a rusty winch that was mounted to the front and protruded like an angry fist looking for something to punch. It looked as though the winch had been pushed back into the engine compartment of the truck as well as into the bus engine compartment. The driver was standing beside his truck looking toward the bus. Even from a distance he had the obvious look and build of a man that had known the hard frigid winters and the scorching desert summers of western Oregon. His truck had a cloud of steam that found its way through the cracks around the hood and escaped through the front wheel wells of the truck – a busted radiator. A pool of water formed as a stream poured onto the pavement under the truck’s engine. After a minute or so the man started walking toward the bus and as he walked up asked if everyone was OK. The local sheriff's deputy showed up, and then a tow truck came and backed up to the front of the bucket truck. It hooked up as the cop filled out his forms, asked some questions and told everyone to call insurance companies. As the tow truck hauled the bucket truck off on a hook, Van and Curtis got back into the bus, this time with Van driving, cranked her up, and drove off. That’s another thing about Volkswagens.
That night they stayed somewhere in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands of Nevada. One sidewinder rattlesnake had crossed the path while driving past Pyramid Lake on highway 447. But when they turned off to the right, off the highway, about a half mile off the road, all they saw were scorpions and later in the evening, bats. They decided that sleeping under the bus was a bad idea since the heat of the engine would probably attract critters they didn’t want to be near, so Van and Curtis slept in bags off to the side of the bus. The stars were painted across a canvas of deep blue and finally black. The thick band of the Milky Way zigzagged above them and they were thankful, though sore, and looking forward to a good night’s rest.
Sunday, June 26th
The following morning dawned early in the Nevada desert. The smallest hint of dew covered the ground and sleeping bags and as the sky grew lighter, they were loading Alice for another day’s drive. This day’s ride would find the two passing through Las Vegas and onto US 66 heading east. The temperatures topped 110 degrees as the bus motored through Vegas. Air-cooled Vdubs were primarily designed with the colder climates of Bavaria in mind so it was fairly certain the engine was not happy as the bus puttered up the mountain just east of the Hoover Dam toward the Arizona state line. Alice seemed to be in a pretty laid back mood at this point and would only climb the mountain slowly, around twenty miles per hour. Actually this was the first real indication that a problem had been brewing: the engine which normally ran on four cylinders was now inexplicably running on only three. Curtis steered the bus to the side of the highway for the slow climb and after what seemed an eternity, crossed the summit for the more steady descent into Arizona and the small town of Kingman.
As they entered the outskirts of Kingman, Alice wanted to shut off whenever she would slow for a traffic light. They would coax her each time, having to work the brakes to stop and the accelerator to keep her idling at each light. But she had other plans that day and wanted to stop in Kingman, and she did – the engine shut off and she coasted to the side of the road. They looked at each other and then to the nearest building, a cinder block building with a huge hand-painted mural of US Route 66 and an arrow pointing to Kingman saying “you are here”. On the mural was a painting of a VW bus and the words, “VW Specialists” stenciled beside.

Looking at each other, and then at the mural once again, they were both thinking about karma. Van was always a bit of a skeptic - they called them-selves specialists but what he had experienced led him to doubt. Why didn’t they simply let their work speak in their favor? He also loathed the idea of turning the bus over to another for repair. But the long drive and stifling heat had reduced even Van’s enthusiasm. They got out of the bus and pushed her across the road into the parking lot for the night.
Van remembered seeing a motel some distance back, so after parking Alice between two other buses, the two started walking west. Kingman on a Sunday afternoon was otherworldly. Though the town's businesses seemed to be closed for the day, many automobiles and trucks, hot rods of all kinds were on the road. Mostly older teenagers driving ’56 Chevys, the car that seemed to be the preferred ride, but others were cruising in Fords. There were no Volkswagens. As they passed a diner - closed on Sundays - a horn sounded from behind, and a beer bottle shattered at their feet. Further along they passed a Tasty-Freeze ice cream shop, and then the only joint they saw open for business, what looked to be a gambling and booze dive called “The Mohave”. The place looked to be just opening for the evening as they passed on by in favor of a place to lay their heads.
The manager of the motel was sitting in a high backed rocking chair on the porch beside his office door. The Canyon Inn was the name on the sign by the road. Across the road was a giant open area with a few faded gray cinder block buildings. The area stretched far into the desert and was surrounded by a rusted eight foot chain fence topped with barbed wire. Directly across from the motel was a cracked concrete drive, completely overgrown with weeds that led to the group of buildings. The road was blocked by a high double gate, chained and padlocked. On both sides of the gate identical and faded signs indicated what had years before been a military base of some sort - “The Kingman Army Airfield”. As the two approached the motel they received the expected scrutiny of someone of the prior generation that did not quite approve of their looks: faded jeans, long hair and beards. The cars continued to pass, horns honking and voices calling out to one another. The man looked surprised to see a Sunday customer and was simply watching the parade of cars. Van and Curtis had in fact walked up to the motel, not a typical method of arrival. There was a lone car parked in the motel’s parking lot, a white 1960 Plymouth station wagon. “You boys just passing through?” the man asked as they stepped onto the motel’s small porch. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you around here before.”
Curtis looked at Van who stepped forward and replied, “We’re headed east and need a place to stay tonight while our car is being worked on. It broke down about a mile on down the road in front of the VW repair place.” The man nodded and worked his way to his feet.
After checking into the room, Van said that he was going out for a walk and would be back in a while. “Where are you going?” Curtis asked.
“I’m going to find out something more about this town, Kingman Arizona. Surely there’s something worthwhile that happened here at some point, something more than kids in hot rods throwing beer bottles. I’m going to find out what that army base across the street was all about. Probably the only reason this town is here is because of that place”.
Van left and Curtis stretched out on the bed for a nap. Time passed, his mind would not slow and his eyes would not close. He wondered why Van was so interested in finding out about this town. It was just another spot on the road between two other equally meaningless spots. They had driven for two days now and had only made it into the western side of Arizona, not a lot of progress, at least not the distance they had planned to cover. But they had already seen plenty of excitement with the wreck in Oregon and the night in the desert of Nevada. And now they were broken down and hoping that someone that called himself a VW specialist was in fact what he claimed.
Curtis had never really had a specialty before. He was never driven to achieve great things, to receive titles or recognition for any sort of accomplishment. His old man had been regular army for his entire life and Curtis had moved from one place to another till finally this year he had decided to move out on his own. Now he was headed east as far away from his old man as he could get. He’d never been a kid that fit in with the rest. He hadn’t stayed in one place long enough to make friends or to learn what stability was all about. He learned early on that it was a waste of time to try to befriend someone. It was also a waste of time to make plans for a future that would change as fast as the seasons of the year. Curtis had never known motivation; never experienced the desire to do something that would somehow make him better. It had been much simpler to give up any notions of achievement and instead to perfect a lifestyle of relaxation (some called it dependence). His old man, the Army, his submissive mom, the schools that never seemed to care what he did, they all just wanted him to make no trouble. Curtis had learned how to work this system over a period of years and by the time he was seventeen he had maneuvered his father into supplying him with his basic needs plus more just to keep him quiet and under control. In his mind the Army had taken his dad away so the Army owed him something. Everyone owed him something dammit.
Realizing that he was never going to fall asleep, he hopped from the bed and grabbing his only reminder of his father, his army-style cap, he headed out the door into the now setting Sun. Van was nowhere to be seen of course, and anyway, he had decided that Van was way too serious about life. He headed down route 66 looking for the beer joint they had seen along the way. He didn’t have much money, but maybe someone would buy his beers for him. That was the way that Curtis always thought. One day it may even be his downfall.
Sometime later that night after a number of beers the hard way Curtis found himself sitting on the sidewalk in front of the Mohave. Van was standing over him looking down as though he were God standing in judgment. Van had finished college and achieved some sort of degree. He had held a high paying job for the past two years working as an instructor teaching in the new field of electrical engineering after graduating from Oregon College. During their frequent visits in the summers when Van would share the rent with Curtis in Beaverton, he would try to explain what was happening in the world where he worked. He would talk about something called transistors that someone at Bell Telephone Labs had invented in 1947. They were something he was certain would change the world for good, but Curtis thought that maybe a beer would do the same thing. They had first met as kids in a military town in eastern North Carolina. Fayetteville was the home of Fort Bragg and the Psychological Warfare Center where both their fathers had been stationed. Van always seemed to look at Curtis in ways that were confusing. Sometimes it was disappointment and other times it would lower into a look of disgust. Sitting on the filthy sidewalk, Curtis noted that this time it was disgust. What did he expect from me he thought? I’m only twenty-one years old for God’s sake. Though he had not really wanted to, the walk back to the hotel provided a chance for Curtis to sober up a bit. He was relieved that Van had remained silent. The last thing he was ready for was a lecture. And the last thing he saw as his head hit the hard motel pillows was Van switching on a bedside light and grabbing a book from the bag he had brought along from the bus. Something philosophical he thought; then he started snoring.

[Jim Bear]

I am still so lost... I think that "chapters" are being floated here as they are written? What is up with this post?

[Tcash]

What year did you take your picture?

May, 2004

???, ????

Nov, 2006

http://www.roadtripamerica.com/murals/Arizona-Kingman-02.htm