big sur

lkm and i went got out to big sur last week. it was mid-week camping in september at big sur, which is the equivalent of catching beck playing at a taqueria when no one else is watching. big pfieffer was empty, so we got a site sitting in a redwood grove way in the back and made a little hippie camp:

went for a short "hike"

cous cous is the best camp food. if you remember to take it with you.

the next day pulling out of the camp site parking spot, a suspicious tree stump jumped out in front of the car and caused some havoc. when i took a look at the bottom of the jetta, there was gasoline spewing from a line under the car. turns out we crushed the gas return line, that blue tube right there.

duct tape fix? maybe. but probably not. its a pressure line and the gas would work its way past the tape. so if we drove home, we'd be looking like something out of a cartoon: a long trail of gasoline trailing us home for 30 miles, with only a spark needed to start up the fireworks.

with no real place to be after camping, we were able to stick around a day to get a AAA membership reactivated and take the tow home. back in monterey we found a great garage that took to the problem like a mechanic should: chuck and duane of fraley's auto repair (which was named del monte auto repair before) went out to supply shop and found a metal coupling to replace the damaged section, rather than replacing the whole line. a tire rotation and $60 later, we were set to go. can't say enough about those mechanics... they were great.