Rolling Down the St. Johns

After I graduated college, I purchased a 1973 Volkswagen Westfalia camper mobile for $1,700. I loved that microbus. It had a fold-down couch/bed, a tight kitchen area with a sink and fridge, a pop-up top with another bunk and a rear-mounted, air-cooled 1700-cc ‘pancake’ style engine, so called because the cylinders were stacked on top of each other like a pile of flapjacks awaiting some sticky maple syrup.

One of my first trips in the van was from Ouray, Colorado, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to visit a college buddy. It was a short trip on the map, but it seemed to take forever, crawling up mountain passes and downshifting my