Pomona road trip,
John Matt and myself left friday at 1pm to deliver Shanes 1958 beetle to it's new owner in LA. 1;15pm Friday, with a few questions we pass thru the border and are underway. We have allowed 24hrs for the drive and want to stick to the plan as best as possible. To keep the schedule we have promised ourselves a stop at our favorite Newport beach side pub for a cold LARGE beer as soon as we arrive.
The rain is pouring down all the way to Seattle, once in Seattle the weather clears to a beautiful sunny afternoon (this is the last time we see rain). While passing thru Seattle we spotted Cooter and his home built pick up/tow truck (imagine this guy showing up to tow your car)
We made a stop at Franklins VW shop to chat and pick up my dropped spindles for the Bus.
We cross into Portland and switch drivers around 7pm from here on out we switch every two hours and continue thru northern California. Somewhere around stockton in the early morning hours one of the wheel straps came off and we snapped this pic as the sun was coming up.
We refueled in the middle of California and snapped a shot with the first palm trees we could find.
As we approached the Grape vine (mountain pass into LA) We passed a slammed early bay window bus (first cool VW we saw)
Matt took the challenge of driving over the Grape vine and into LA......being the newbie on the trip he had no choice but we made him think it was a good idea. It's funny how when your doing 75mph on the hwy you gotta be in the slow lane as everyone else is doing 90-110mph.
above pic is us passing thru down town LA on the way to long beach.
Our drive took us thru Long beach and passed West coast choppers as they were filming a episode of Monster Garage.
While heading for our rendezview with our beer we spotted this....well.....um....unique Aerostar.
Note the gold running boards, Gold ladder?, reverse offset wire wheels and a host of other custom mods. We stopped laughing just in time to drink our first beer at Mutt lynch's, if you ever make it to Newport beach ya gotta stop by for the beer.
Note there is no rain, just blue sky........i'm getting thirsty just looking at that. The first beer went down way to quick and the plan was for one beer then off to Pomona to the swap. Well....... then came #2
after #2 out came the camera to show you why i didn't want to go yet
This is our server, as john and matt kept talking i was busy taking pictures of all the sites
Oh yeah, then came beer #3......... and then more pics
John and Matt are still talking VW.......I'm still taking pic's
Ok now were all done our three beers (that works out to 7.5, these things are big)
Here is a shot just outside of Mutt's
And then we had one more at another place a few steps away.......and then a pic of three drunk guys at 2pm
After a few hours we have met the buyer of the car and done the deal, now on to Pomona!
What do think we found as soon as we arrive? a MULLET!
The swap was huge and we were there around 6pm and bought parts until 10pm then ate and went to bed. Pomona opens the gates at 5am and we had to get some sleep. 3am some hick fires up his sand rail and revs the motor until the security shuts him down.....so much for sleep. 4am, the place is a buzz with swappers. All the venders are selling to each other so we get up and start buying. Sun comes up at 7am, it feels like the afternoon. 9am were eating burgers and fries for lunch cuz it feels late and they dont serve breakfast.
We all end up buying what we came for, i got some 40 ida triples for the porsche bus along with a bunch of other stuff. Matt got a nice t3 roof rack for the notch and john found what he needed.
The show is huge and we never saw all of it, it works out to just over 15 miles of vendors! On the way thru we spotted this weird chopped bug with a roof grafted into it.....took a pic for a laugh. The guy went to all that work but forgot to weld up the chrome holes
We try and leave at 12pm but it takes 1hr to drive out due to the amount of people.
I'll post Part 2 tomorrow.............Stay tuned for \"The disapearing body metal\" and all the pics of beetles and busses we found along the way.
