5 minute read
Sherri's Turn
What do I remember about our Baja Bug? A whole lot of laughter but not a whole lot more.
We got the little white VW sometime in the mid to late 70s and immediately the guy-in-the-garage started hacking away at the stock fenders preparing to transform it from a street VW to an off road Baja Bug.
It was our first four-wheeled venture into the off road scene. Until then everything in the dirt had been on two wheels for him and me. Me, very little, but there was that yellow Yamaha 175 I had a little bit of fun on. And him very much. He still has two wheels as his main off road fun and it's been that way for well over 50 years.
But back to this little bug. I hadn't thought about it in years until this month when we got inspired by photographer extraordinaire Neal Rideout who has a passion for Baja Bugs.
He sent us some fun photos for last month's Celebrate America feature and that's when we hit on the idea of doing a full-on reader photo feature of Baja Bugs. We had no idea how many were still out there, because we rarely get photos of them. I have a feeling that will change as the Baja Bug owners have discovered - as you can tell by 30 pages worth of photos this month - the magazine and will probably be regular contributors now for all of our monthly photo features.
So we got inspired to dig through old photo albums and dredge up our own memories. As soon as I mentioned the little white bug at dinner one evening with friends, Jack Reilly started laughing. "I know what you're thinking about," I said. He just nodded, still laughing. "The window!" And we all kept laughing, just like on the day it happened.
We'd towed the little white bug through the snow and ice in the mountains on our way to the desert. I recall worrying and fretting that it was going to slip off the road around the tight turns and drag us down over a cliff. I thought for sure we would die that day. It wasn't on a trailer, couldn't afford one, we sunk whatver money we had into the modifications for the bug.
Once we arrived at our destination it was so windy we decided to keep on driving to find somewhere in the desert that wasn't as windy. We found a cozy little spot quite a few miles to the east and there we really did almost die.
The guy-in-the-garage had a thing back then about backing up steep hills. We set up camp then the two of us took off in the Baja Bug at night. This was an unusual area we'd never camped in before, and wouldn't necessarily be considered an off road spot, but there was dirt and hills and no wind. He came upon a big steep hill and maneuvered the car until he got it just like he wanted, put it in reverse and up we went, higher and higher until we hit a flat plateau at the top. He continued backing up several feet even after the car was fully on the plateau, then stopped and we both got out. Only to discover that a couple more feet and we would have fallen off the back side of this huge man made hill. Turns out we were at some type of a quarry and to this day I am thankful we didn't back off that cliff and die.
But getting back to the window that 40 some years later still has us all laughing.
On the way home at the end of the weekend we decided to check out our usual spot in Ocotillo Wells and see if the wind had died down. Sure enough it had, so we unhitched the Baja Bug, and all four of us piled in. The back seat, with no seat belts, held the brotherin-law-in-the-garage and good friend Jack Reilly. The guy-inthe-garage just floored it and we started flying all over the desert, in and out of sand washes and over bumps and ruts and rocks.
In the back seat they held on however they could. Jack found pressing his hand flat palm against the side window helped him keep his balance while they were being jostled around. But all of a sudden, air rushed in and his hand was flailing outside the car, as the window had popped right out of the car. He was trying to tell the guy-in-the-garage to stop so we could get the window, but he was laughing so hard he couldn't get the words out. About that time when the guy-in-the-garage realized Jack wanted his attention as he turned to look at him, his straw hat fell down in his face totally blocking his vision, but he still kept the gas pedal floored and that made us all laugh even harder.
We went back and got the window, then eventually headed home and I don't remember another thing about that car except the laughter. A few years ago the guy-in-the-garage ran into an old friend at the DMV and his friend said "Remember you sold me that Baja Bug? I drove it for years!" We hadn't even remembered who we sold it too.
Memories! Isn't that what this off road adventure is all about?
Hope you get as much enjoyment out of this month's special reader feature as we've gotten working on it.
