Hiatus

Usually when you see white smoke coming out of a VW van, someone's getting stoned. Unfortunately my smoking van experience isn't quite so pleasant. After consulting with several specialists, enthusiasts, and gynecologists, it has been decided that the best course of action is to ship the car back to L.A., have it worked on (which hopefully won't take more than a week), and then start again. If this trip were a Nintendo, we'd be pressing the reset button. And although this would have happened anyway, it's still fun to say that Oprah killed my car.

Sometime in the next hour Trudel will be picked up from the Flying J Truck Stop in Winslow, Arizona, where I have been living for the past two days. A transporter will take her back to L.A., and there's an outside chance I may hitch a ride as well. If not, I'll be on the 7:40pm Amtrak out of Winslow tomorrow, arriving in L.A. Saturday morning. I'm surprisingly Zen about the whole thing; after the car trouble I've already had, I've realized you have to accept the fact that these things happen and there's nothing you can do but fix the problem and move on. I've got nothing but time, right?

My dad and I would like to give a special shout out to Roadhaus.com and the A.I.R.S. VW Rescue list for helping us figure out what was wrong, who to talk to, and what to do.

In the meantime, today is Thursday, so that means it's time for the Randomshow Radio Update! Yesterday's segment with Robin and the rest of the Schnauzer Logic gang was a hoot - the Oprah story seems to be a winner. Because of time constraints he had to cut the part about Havasu Falls, but you, dear reader, have already seen the pictures, and as we all know, those are worth a thousand words. Of course you're going to want to listen to the whole show, but in case you're in a hurry because you're chasing Oprah across the desert just to get her picture, my segment starts about 1 hour and 13 minutes in.

This morning's segment on KSCO was also a winner - I've found it's a lot easier to do these radio segments when I actually do interesting things. Again, I really appreciate Robin capturing, editing, and hosting these segments. One of these days I'll actually get around to plugging his blog and podcast during the segment. You have keep in mind, though, at 6:45 in the morning when you're woken up in a VW Van in the parking lot of a Flying J, it's hard enough to remember who you are, much less remember a plug.

So stay tuned! The trip is far from over, and during this brief downtime the site will still be regularly updated. I appreciate all you guys who regularly check this blog out - it makes it feel like I have someone along with me on the road. And I've seen blogs that have thousands more readers than this one, and their comments sections aren't anywhere near as active! Keep reading, keep commenting, and I'll keep on tripping.