Drove my cherry '65 bug over the Santa Cruz mountains from Palo Alto, CA to Santa Cruz, Monterey, La Honda, Pescadero, etc. for gigs from 2000-2004. I sold it when I moved to where they salt the roads in winter. The car is still running like a Swiss watch.
However, in 1968 I attemped to drive a '60 VW bus loaded to the gills with gear and band members from Providence, Rhode Island to a small town outside of Pittsburg, PA for a high paying society gig. We were the hard rock part of the music bill at the most elaborate party I have ever seen. Think billionaires at play.
That nice little bus burned a piston when we climbed the bridge into New London, CT on rt. 95 South. We ended up taking GREYHOUND BUSES all the way. We got our gear into cars of party goers to get home. Total nightmare, but the gig went so well, I can hardly believe it. We where even written up in a nationally syndicated Sunday newspaper magazine of the day, though the write-up mostly expressed astonishment at how loud we were.
There is more to tell which I will skip to protect the guilty, but after an engine swap, the VW bus lived to see me though a couple years of college and gigs until I gave it to another band member who was part owner. He gave it to his sister, who painted it purple and set off for CA and the Haight-Ashbury scene. I think she ended up hitch-hiking to San Francisco after the bus died, and narrowly escaped ending up as a hooker for survival. The old days...
