North by Northwest

It's been a busy Summer for us, filled with ACVW visitors and visitations, and this past week was our busiest yet. Eliana and Marc are a couple from Miami who are on an epic diagonal voyage across this great continent, from their home to Alaska. We heard tell of their trip on the Samba, a clearinghouse of vintage VW information and home to (probably) the biggest ACVW forum on the whole internets. We'd been planning on going to Glacier National Park one last time before our year pass ran out, and since it was on their way we decided to go together and give Valentina and Ludwig a chance to get to know one another.


They'd purchased their beautiful 1978 (truly one of the best years for bus engines) Westfalia on Valentine's Day (hence her name) this year and had just gotten her back from the shop before their departure. Unfortunately, they'd been having problems with her since early on in their trip, and by the time she'd gotten to Montana she'd been through several mechanics and a lot of tinkering already. But since having had her checked out in Bozeman a couple days before hitting Missoula, she seemed to be running okay. We met up behind our apartment early Wednesday evening and I took Marc on a drive in Ludwig to try to impress upon him the joys of having truck tires fitted to one's classic Type 2.


While out, we noticed copious smoke and commotion to the East, and wouldn't you know it but Mount Sentinel (the one with the "M" on it) was on fire. We went back for the gals to show them and watched the spectacle for a while. It got worse before it got better and eventually scorched nearly 400 acres. Our friend Ben has some better photos on his blog here.


Eliana and Marc wanted to see the National Bison Range on their way to Glacier, and left the next morning. We got a call late that afternoon that Val had a breakdown atop the range and refused to start. Several hours of fiddling later, the park rangers told Marc that they were going to have to get the bus towed. We had planned on meeting the Floridians at the Polson WalMart for the night anyway, so we just drove up and spent the night in Charlo behind the Senior Center instead. Valentina got worked on the next morning by Rochelle (who cut her mechanicking teeth on air-cooled VWs with her grandfather), who determined it was a weak ignition coil and maladjusted dwell. Ah, the pains of having a bad coil. Sometime in the late 1990s near Lincoln (NE) I came within a heartbeat of pushing my beloved 1967 Type 3 (Freida) into a creek over a coil problem (actually coil wire in her case). Marc and Eliana are shown above waiting for Rochelle to give Valentina the go-ahead.

(Obligatory artsy hubcap photo.)

Val was full of energy as we tooled past Flathead Lake and on up toward the park. In an instant it all changed and she wheezed to a stop a little past Hungry Horse. At Melissa's suggestion, Marc called Rochelle back in Charlo. Luckily he caught her as she was on her way out the door, and we both learned a thing or two (or three) from this small-town mechanic about troubleshooting the ignition system. Upon inspection it turned out that the points were the culprit--the little nylon rider that rides on the cam in the distributor had broken, slamming them shut and thus unable to offer any spark to the plugs. I replaced them, but lacking the proper teeny-tiny screwdriver I didn't replace the condenser, the points' partner in crime. Valentina easily roared back to life and we powered on.


Running well again, we stopped along US 2 at the Goat Lick overlook, where the road briefly passes through the park near its Southern tip. There's a spot there on the Middle Fork of the Flathead where Rocky Mountain Goats climb up the banks and lick the rocks. V & L took the time to steel themselves for the pass over the Great Divide just ahead (It--Marias Pass--is actually not all that bad). Above Melissa is showing everyone where we are in relation to everything else on the map. Eliana, the pair's shutterbug, took some good photos of the goats that you can see on their blog here.

Zipping down US 2.

A little later we arrived at Two Medicine Campground and pulled into this nice spot. Tops popped, camp struck, we settled in for a nice rest after a good day's driving. The meal was in a Mexican vein and the illicit fire was raging. Esmé slept like a rock. In fact, Melissa thinks she sleeps better in Ludwig than anywhere else. That's a good sign for us.
(to be continued)

(miles 218,529-218,741)