The Bustache's Blog (17)

Looking back, I realized we never finished our review of camping at South Carlsbad State Beach. So, without further ado, pretend it's still August, it's 95 degrees outside and the beach sounds like a lovely weekend get-away. Are you there? Good.

When we last left you, Westi had just saved us $500 by helping us avoid a ticket.

After our positive…

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Happy Halloween, interweb peeps!



While we encourage costumes every day of the year, we revel in any holiday that makes them more universally accepted.

Saturday's "Night on the Town" Costume: Marvin the Martian

Pew, pew, pew....

(In case you didn't know, that's what a ray gun sound looks like when typed out!)…

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Last week was HOT is Southern California. While much of the country was sipping steaming cups of hot pumpkin lattes in crisp fall air, we were gulping down ice water in a sweltering 97 degrees sun.



With such weather, there is only one thing to do - GO CAMPING!



And so, we we headed off for some RnR in the Santa Ana mountains. The campground was a full 3087 feet above sea level. We were glad Bustache is was ready for a challenge. I'll review our most recent camping…

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Or, Bustache and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - The Finale

Last you left us, Steve, Westi and I were driving Bustache from LA to Orange County in SoCal's "Storm Watch 2011."



Sometimes I intentionally make bad decisions. Take this scenario, for example:



This is me on any given Friday night…

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Um......



The post I was supposed to have up today isn't ready yet. You know, the Finale to this fine piece of work?



Yeah, a busy and fun weekend left me with no time to devote to my new favorite hobby. What is a blogger to do!?!



Quick! I must employ Survival Strategy #1 - Buy time by razzle-dazzling your readers with pictures of cute babies, monkeys and,…

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We've had countless good days in the Bustache. But this post is about the worst day we've ever had in the Bustache.



It was early March, and Steve and I had just spent the weekend with my sister and her wife in Joshua Tree. For those of you who have never been there, Joshua Tree is in the desert about 180 miles east of LA. It's a weird and wonderful land with wacky trees and wonky rock formations - as if it was created by Dr. Seuss himself. We hiked, climbed rocks and cooked some…

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It's confession time on the internets... I have a problem.



In our house, we refer to it as the "P" problem - as if it is too powerful to be named... like Lord Voldemort or the porcupine-like creatures from "The Village" (did anyone but me actually see that? I still have faith that M. Night Shyamalan will return to his glory days!).



This particular problem manifests itself in every room of our house. And I know that I'm the… Continue

My dad is hilarious. Not the obvious kind of hilarious a la Adam Sander or Robbin Williams or Jim Carrey. More of a subtle surprising hilarity that catches you off-guard.

 

In fact, "funny" probably wouldn't be a characteristic many people would associate with him. He's a proud introvert and engineer (shocking to see those two words associated, I know!). He's often described as smart, thoughtful,…

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Steve and I have spent the last 2 years living with a friend from college. He's been a great roommate, but he went and got his MBA. Now he's moving up to Burbank to make some moola in the entertainment industry. We wish him the best of luck... but he's left us in a dilemma.



We currently live in a 3 bedroom place. Bigger (and more expensive) than a couple and their dog needs. Sooo... we can find a new roommate, or, find a new smaller/cheaper place to live.



I prefer the… Continue

As another weekend greets us, I thought come back to the original purpose of this blog - To bring people together, just as the Bustache intended.



You might have noticed the "I've seen the 'Stache!" tab on our blog. It's a connection tool that we hope gets lots of use in the future.



The Bustache is like one big "Come say hi. Sit down. Stay awhile. Share your story. Take a Picture."…

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Missed Part I? Read it here.



When you last left us, Steve and I just hatched a plan to get us out of a nightmare mini-bus in Zambia.



"Can you pretend your sick?" Steve whispered.



I nodded my head, started breathing heavy, rocking my torso and holding my hand over… Continue

We took Bustache to get his breaks

checked last weekend. On our way back from Ventura a couple of weeks ago, we noticed Bustache making some peculiar noises every time we slowed to a stop. Sometime it was a high-pitched squeaking; sometimes it was a more alarming “thump, thump, thump.”



We brought him back to the same mechanic we took him to before our Yosemite trip, and the moment we walked in, he asked us “How’d it go?”



“He made it to Yosemite!” Steve…

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Steve and I went to Zambia this past spring. We truly had a trip of a lifetime. We visited Victoria Falls. We saw lions, giraffes, leopards and elephants. We met fabulous people and learned about another culture. We ate great food and, um, interesting food. We would go back in a heartbeat.







But we had one experience that we would much rather not relive. And, it saddens me to… Continue

It’s September 11^th and that means something. 11 years ago, it was just another day at the beginning of the school year. Now, we say "September 11th," and we all become a part of a tragic national memory.



With this being the 10 year anniversary, there is a lot of talk about “never forgetting." And, so, I've been thinking a lot about what this means to me.



Right now, this childhood idiom sums it up best:…



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The first time my mom rode in the Bustache, she laughed, "Now THIS is what I remember about VWs."



"THIS" did not refer to the faint smell of sun-baked plastic or the decidedly 70's green, orange & brown interior color scheme. It did not refer to the bread-box shape of its body or even the "put-put-put" of the engine.



Nope, what she was referring to was the "production" it took to get us all in the bus and ready to go. You see, the Bustache has a number of "issues" that… Continue

We’ve had the Bustache for almost a year, and in that time we’ve driven him as far south as San Diego, as east as Joshua Tree and as north as Malibu. So, we’ve stayed pretty much within a 90-mile radius of our Orange County home.



It was time for a bigger challenge, and my family’s annual Yosemite trip was just what we needed. Yosemite is 422 miles and, more importantly, over a 5000 foot elevation gain from where we live. We knew this would be the adventure we were looking… Continue

We are certainly not the first people to discover the joy of VW Bus ownership.  Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the open road in a combi and have experienced the magic.  The earth-shaking rumbling of the engine, the reverberation of its “aerodynamic” body responding to the wind, the excitement of accelerating from 0-60 in 11 minutes… What?  This doesn’t sound like the enchanting encounter alluded to before?

You’re right.  It doesn’t.  But it is.  I promise, it is!  And…

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