by 
By Don Capestrain 
When we purchased our 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia camper in 2005, we were lucky enough to receive a thick stack of paperwork and repair receipts along with it. I was surprised to find that it provided a complete history going back to the original purchase documentation.
John Hitchcock from Kenwood, California, originally purchased the Bus using Volkswagen’s tourist delivery program. On April 12, 1978, he and his wife took delivery in Luxembourg. After five months of traveling around Europe in their new VW, it was loaded onto the Orange Ace cargo ship in Emden, Germany, and arrived at the port of Alameda, California, on Nov. 2, 1978.
I also learned that I am the fifth owner. I found the Bus for sale in the classified ads on the VW community website TheSamba.com and had corresponded at length by phone and email with the fourth owners, John and Nadine Yarlott, in Boise, Idaho.
I made the stressful decision to buy it without actually seeing it in person. I considered flying out to Boise and driving it back to Ohio, but having it trucked was actually about the same cost. Given all the unknowns, I thought trucking was the better option. When it arrived and I saw the condition of the fuel hoses for the fuel injection, I knew I definitely had made the right choice.
John and Nadine enjoyed traveling and camping in the Bus for 2-1/2 years but decided that a classic Airstream trailer was their camper of choice.
I found email addresses for the second and third owners on many of the service receipts and reached out to both to see what more I could learn about the history of the Bus. The third owner, Johnny Bassett, responded and explained that he bought the Bus in June 2001, put a rebuilt engine in it, drove it hard for a little over a year, and sold it to John and Nadine.
The second owners replied with quite a different story. Julie Threewit and Colin Hupp live near South Lake Tahoe, California. But they didn’t buy the Bus from John Hitchcock — Julie is his granddaughter. After John died, the Bus remained with his wife but did not get driven much. When she died in the early 1990s, everyone in the family knew that their resident “hippie” should have it, and that was Julie.
In our initial email correspondence, I learned » that Julie and Colin named the Bus “Sweetpea” and had many travel and camping adventures in their nearly 10 years of ownership. As time went on, the list of expensive repairs needed for Sweetpea was getting long. Julie and Colin were trying to start a new business, so they made the difficult decision to let their Sweetpea go. Julie said she cried when Johnny drove the Bus away. She was so happy to find out that it was still on the road with an enthusiastic owner who would take good care of it. The years rolled by and Sweetpea, now known as Tortoise, rolled on, with Julie and I staying in touch as Facebook friends.
Late in 2023, after successfully completing a 1,600-mile trip around Lake Michigan in the Tortoise (see Jan/Feb 2024 Autoist), I finally felt as confident as I ever have that it was ready for “the big one”: A cross-country trip. And no cross-country trip would be complete without a visit to Julie and Colin for a reunion with their Sweetpea.
Determining the “anchor” destinations for the trip was easy: The first was Seattle, home of our daughter. The second was Burbank, California, home to my brother-in-law and his family. The third had to be South Lake Tahoe, the home of Julie and Colin. Planning the route, schedule, activities and accommodations to connect our Ohio home with these destinations consumed almost every evening in January of 2024.
The result was a 35-day itinerary that began on June 1, 2024, with a route of over 7,500 miles, avoiding interstates in favor of federal and state highways. I planned our travel days to and from the West Coast to be longer, but no more than 330 miles per day. From Seattle to Burbank on the West Coast, each day was only 100 to 200 miles to allow time to stop and see some of the sights.
We would spend three nights with our daughter in Port Angeles, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, for day trips to Olympia National Park; three nights in Burbank visiting with family; and two nights in South Lake Tahoe. Otherwise, we would be in a different location every night. My wife Sue recognized that we are not quite as young as we used to be, that we could be facing many days of hot weather and that we would be driving in a noisy, slow vehicle without air conditioning. So, we made one big concession to creature comfort and planned to “camp” in hotels, motels and AirBnB’s for the entire trip.
To prepare the Tortoise for the journey, I visually inspected everything I could — lubed the front axle, changed the oil and filter, gave it a tune-up, checked the tire pressures, stowed critical spare parts and tools in every nook and cranny of the Bus (and there are many in a Westfalia Campmobile!), and prepared a printed spreadsheet listing all of the stowed items and their storage locations in alphabetical order for easy reference should an issue occur.
On the morning of that June 1, we packed up the Bus and set out after lunch for the relatively short 260-mile drive to Wabash, Indiana. We were very excited to begin the journey, but also wondering if we were wise to attempt this odyssey in an underpowered 46-year-old VW Bus. As the days and miles rolled on, our confidence grew. The little Tortoise ran like a top, albeit a slow one. Seeing the beautiful countryside while motoring along to the happy sound of the air-cooled flat 4 was in itself one of the best parts of the trip, but of course we had many lovely experiences outside of the Bus as well.
Along the way to the first anchor in Seattle, some highlights included the Wide River Winery, high on a bluff in Clinton, Iowa, overlooking the Mississippi River; beef brisket barbecue pizza and beer at the hole-in-the-wall Backdraft Bar and Grill in Holstein, Iowa; renting bicycles and riding a portion of the recreational trail around Sioux Falls, South Dakota (and being dumped on by rain); hiking around Devil’s Tower, Wyoming (for movie fans, no Close Encounters of any kind were had); hiking along the Yellowstone River in Billings, Montana; crossing the Continental Divide on US 12 near Helena, Montana; having an al fresco dinner at Finn Restaurant overlooking the Clark Fork River in Missoula, Montana; amazingly beautiful scenery along Route 200 from Missoula to Spokane; a lunch stop in the Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth, Washington; and arriving safely at our daughter’s apartment in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle.
Highlights from Seattle to Burbank are almost too numerous to list, but the best of the best included Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent and the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park; downtown Astoria, Oregon, and crossing the bridge over the Columbia River to reach it; hiking at Cape Lookout, Oregon; the solitude and beauty of the Oregon Dunes; driving and hiking among the magnificent redwoods along the Avenue of the
Giants in California; the coastal views at the Mendocino Headlands and Bodega Bay, California; a picnic lunch in the Bus overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and then driving across it; exploring Monterey and its 17 Mile Road; crossing the famous Bixby Bridge in Big Sur; San Simeon’s beach and its amusing and entertaining elephant seals; hiking in Topanga Canyon; and dinner at Duke’s in Malibu followed by the challenge of LA traffic in the dark on “the 10,” “the 405,” and “the 101” to get to our Burbank accommodations at The Tangerine, a “retro-chic” restored motor lodge.
After a great weekend visit with Sue’s brother and his family, we started our two-day journey along the eastern Sierras toward South Lake Tahoe. On the first day, we arrived at our AirBnB in the little town of Big Pine midafternoon, checked in and then made the Tortoise climb to over 10,000 feet of elevation to visit the Bristlecone Pine forest, about 20 miles northeast of Big Pine. The Bus was quite out of breath by the time we arrived, and so were we after just a short hike! But it was well worth the effort.
The next day, June 25, we began our journey to South Lake Tahoe. We made a lunch stop at Mono Lake Vista Point and arrived in time for a beautiful hike in Van Sickle Bi-State Park before heading to our hotel to get ready for an informal dinner meet-up with Julie and Colin. As it turned out, Julie was leaving for a vacation early the next morning, so this would be our only opportunity to meet.
As I was getting ready, I began to get a little nervous. Yes, Julie and I had been “Facebook Friends” for years but had never met. I knew nothing about Colin, really, and neither Julie nor Colin knew anything about Sue. Would the ownership of the same Volkswagen Bus be enough in common to get us through the evening?
The plan was to meet at their favorite locally owned restaurant/bar called The Divided Sky at 6:30 p.m. I decided it would be fun to arrive a few minutes late so they could see their old Sweetpea pull into the parking lot if they had any view of it from where they were waiting. Turns out they were seated on a second-floor outdoor deck on the front of the building and were on the lookout.
They saw us coming long before we pulled in. As we did, they snapped a couple of photos from the deck and came out into the parking lot to meet us. Joyful introductions, hugs and handshakes ensued. Julie walked in front of the Bus and gave it a big hug, too. A few tears were shed, first by Julie, then by Sue. I gave Julie and Colin a tour of Sweetpea/Tortoise, and we headed into the restaurant.
The answer to my earlier question was a resounding, “Yes!” We had a delightful evening getting to know each other, sharing stories of our lives and travels, and marveling at the way that little green VW brought us all together. I’ve often said that I’ve met the most interesting people because of my VW “affliction,” and it was certainly true that night. What a magical event!
Toward the end of the evening, when Julie learned that we would be staying another full day in the area, she arranged for us to be onboard a 40-foot sailboat charter tour of Lake Tahoe the next day. A friend of Julie and Colin was the charter boat captain! The voyage was amazing, and it turned out that Justin the captain had owned an air-cooled Vanagon at one time, so another VW friendship was made!
On Thursday, June 27, we began our trek eastward toward home. Our route took us across Nevada on “The Loneliest Road in America,” US 50. It was a surreal drive — sunny, hot and dry, with virtually no traffic and nothing but wilderness for very long stretches. Besides the drive, the other Nevada highlight was the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in the town of Ely. It is a fully operational railroad and workshop running both diesel and steam-powered excursions daily. We took a steam-powered train ride and walked through the workshops and office museum. Sue said I was smiling from ear to ear the entire time. I do love trains!
Continuing east into Utah, we again climbed to over 10,000 feet, this time on the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive in Great Basin National Park (speed limit 35 mph, luckily). Our Colorado highlights included the fossils at Dinosaur National Monument and climbing the 7% Rabbit Ears Pass grade on US 40 to 9,400 feet at a maximum speed of 35 mph in second gear! Thank goodness for the truck lane.
Nebraska and Iowa were mostly unremarkable on the route we chose, and then things began looking familiar as we backtracked into Indiana. We saw a few fireworks from the hotel window on the evening of July 4 in Logansport, and at 2:15 p.m. on July 5, we pulled into our driveway.
After 35 days on the road, it took a little time to decompress and realize what an amazing journey it really was. We were so blessed with beautiful weather nearly every day, beautiful scenery, friendly people, safe travels with no mechanical maladies, the opportunity for Julie and Colin to see their old VW still on the road making memories, and best of all, new friendships made — in person.
Stay tuned for Nova Scotia by VW Bus in summer 2025! 
Don Capestrain | don.capestrain@gmail.com
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- WINTER BUZZ KILL: VW’s new EV van takes a 428-mile test run, requiring the utmost patience for its driver.
- CHICAGO AUTO SHOW: A technology organization is one-upping the popularity of exhibits in Detroit and the Windy City.
- CAR LOVE: What evokes this feeling for an owner of first- and second-generation Beetles?
PLUS OUR REGULAR COLUMNS AND FEATURES:
- Small Talk – VW + Audi at a glance
- Retro Autoist – From the VWCA archives
- The Frontdriver – Richard Van Treuren
- ID.Insight – Todd Allcock
- Editor’s Turn – Fred Ortlip
- Local Volks – Activities of VWCA affiliates
- Classified – . . . ads from members and others
- Parting Shot – Photo feature