Eugene

I woke to another warm van in the casino parking lot. The shuttle bus that transports the lazy gamblers the fifty yards to the entrance was circling the lot every few minutes. I knew my shabby van with, not only curtains drawn, but my orange towel hung in the windshield, was a sore thumb. So I split.

I still hadn't decided whether to stay on the coast or whether to head inland toward Eugene. I knew I probably wouldn't go to the Oregon Country Fair, although I had originally planned to meet a couple of friends there.

I wanted to see some more of the coast, so I drove north to check out the big dunes.

Unfortunately, the coast was cold and foggy that day. There was nothing to see. So I took highway 38 toward Eugene.

The first feature of that leg was a wetlands restoration project that featured a nice place to view herds of Elk enjoying their new digs. That proved a good place to pull over and eat breakfast. From there, the highway follows the Umqua river for several miles under the shade of some pretty green trees.

Immediately inland from the coast the weather was sunny and hot. While packing for my trip it occurred to me that I really had no idea what to expect temperature wise. I think of the Northwest as cooler than California, but it is summertime and some folks told me to expect sunny warm days. Here it was. No air conditioning. This is the reason I didn't go to the South for the summer. Let the sweating begin!

Once I left the shady river zone, it was sunny rolling hills.... more sunny rolling hills..... and then after another hour or so....... Eugene.

After that leg, I started to notice a new noise. A troubling one. Rusty has a manual transmission, and when I'd rev the engine high enough to shift.... at the top end, there would be this awful rattling sound.

I'm not the most mechanical guy. I know the basics about how an engine works. But I don't feel all that confident about discerning a harmless noise from a fatal one.

I could tell the noise followed the engine speed and not the wheel speed which wasn't good. It could be something as simple as a fallen screw bouncing on the engine, or something as serious as a loose piston. I know that I'm driving a car that is very old and questionably maintained. I am painfully aware that the engine could, in theory, crap out at any time. It didn't seem to be something I could ignore.

The good news is that I'm now in Eugene - home of many old VW vans. I looked online and found a number of specialists in town. So I tried to visit a couple of them so they could offer their expert opinions on my new mystery.

But it was after 6 on a Friday. They had all closed down, some for the whole weekend.

Hmm.

I parked Rusty downtown, and pulled my bike off. I took a leisurely tour, looking for someplace good to eat or fun to hang out. But Eugene is a college town, and this is summertime on a festival weekend. All I could here were the proverbial crickets.

My phone rang, and it was Chad, my friend who was working at the country fair. I had hoped to see him while I was in Oregon. He told me he was in Eugene at his friend Shauger's house and they were about to grill. I told him about my noise worries and, to my great joy, he told me Shauger used to own and work on his own VW bus.

This is one of those times when I thank the gods of serendipity. It seems like when something goes wrong on a trip, there is always a solution - even if I don't see it at first.

I get by with a little help from my friends; One love; It takes a village; insert your own cliche here.

Shauger and Heather live in a wonderful house in town. It turns out he is a very interesting guy with great artistic and engineering skills, and no surprise, is a burner. It would be Heather's first year on the playa this year and we spent the evening telling stories and getting her psyched up.

In the morning Shauger took a look at Rusty and quickly determined that the rattle was harmless. It appeared that a rusty piece of the muffler mount had finally separated, but only left a tiny space between the metal parts. The vibration at high revs caused it to make contact and make the rattling sound. I pushed the pieces further apart with a screwdriver.

Jankification complete.

However there was a catch. After opening the engine hatch to take a look, Shauger noticed that when I first started the engine, a six inch stream of gasoline shot out of one of the worn, frayed hoses attached to the fuel injector.

Although it stopped after a few seconds, it was too serious to be ignored. Gasoline spraying on a hot air-cooled engine could start a fire. And that would be very bad.

So after a delightful brunch at a local favorite breakfast spot, Keystone Cafe, we stopped at an auto parts store who gave me a small piece of hose for free.

With some coaching, I proceed to do my very first VW engine repair. I cut two pieces of new hose and replaced the old cracked ones. It made me nervous to repair something so vital. But also made me feel good that I could do it... and even better that I was that much less likely to burst into flames during my trip.

Thanks Shauger, Chad, Heather, and Eugene.

Time to pick up Darren at the Portland airport.