So, a few weeks ago I needed to head to Colorado to help my brothers fix a cabin we have up there.  Another friend of the family lives in Little Rock, he was going to join us for that work, and I hates me to fly (uh-huh!) so I asked Jason , in Little Rock, if he would like to share the drive from LR to Colorado.  He said "get yourself to LR and we'll do that." It's 500 miles to LR from Chattanooga.  Looking at a map I see that I will have to, cross the wilds of Alabama and the mysteries of Mississippi.  Something in me wonders whether the people or the state of Mississippi will welcome an old long-haired hippy, even passing through.  No GPS, no i-phone.  I decide to do it old school with an atlas and a smile.  I decided to take the scenic route via highway and leave the Interstate to the trucks and all them.  I planned my route to cross the mighty (HOLY SHIT SHE IS BIGGGGGGGG) Mississippi at Helena, because the other crossing was at Memphis and honestly Memphis contains the most messed up system of roadways ever.  Two months prior, my wife and I drove the truck out to Oklahoma (don't ask) and passing through Memphis was like passing 200 kidney stones through 20 possible urethras with only one of them being the one that goes "out".  What a spaghetti mess.  We got turned around (construction, lack of signage, etc. etc.) and joined the other 95% of Interstate drivers on surface roads passing through Memphis looking to get back on the interstate ....I swore never to do that again.
  So, two weeks prior to my Colorado trip  I tuned the Connie (74 Super), did the oil, adjusted the clutch, did the valves and timing...and the carb.  Well, Connie is my daily driver and she's running like a top for that following week.  The next week (week before I plan to drive to LR) it is hard to start in the mornings, so I get home and spray some carb cleaner in there.  Seems to be better.  But on the morning I leave for LR (5 am, uh-huh) I get 1/2 a mile from the house at the bottom of a hill and she dies at the stop light (you know the one on Dodds near the Kaku's where the crosswalks have a push button but there are not any Pedestrian Crossing lights, yeah that's the one).  After a cycle or two waving people past me I push her under the overpass, out of the way.  Go to the back, and everything is there...so I get a little gas from Kanku's in a Sprite bottle that was rolling around next to the pump and dump the gas in the carb and VROOM!!  I head home to do some diagnosis or whatever.  More Carb cleaner.  I let is set for a bit, and it starts right up!  "Victory!"  Down the hill, again, Connie dies at the SAME stop light.  Like something does not want me to go on this trip?  I don't want to waive people past, I jump right out and push her under the overpass (next to that empty Sprite bottle I left the first time.  But i take it with me this time.), and call my wife to bring the tow bar and the truck.  It's about 6:30 a.m., there is a bit more traffic and while I am waiting  for my lovely wife I put my head down on the steering wheel and rest my eyes for a bit.  10 mins later I wake up, check the time and expect my wife REALLY soon so I start looking in my mirror.  Well, in front of me I see flashing blue lights and hear a siren and figure that it must be the police doing some good for someone who needs help.  The flashing lights whip a U-turn under the overpass and stop right behind me!!  Well, I get the registration out o the glove box, then a second police car pulls up to block my front side...and there is a fire truck right behind him!!  The first officer looks at me, and I spy, uh-huh, out of the corner of my eye, my truck and my lovely wife coming down the hill , stopped at the red light.  The officer asks if I am OK, I say I am, and he waves off the fire truck. Then he says that some mindful commuter called in that a little orange bug (Connie) was under the overpass on Dodds and that the driver must be dead or passed out drunk (no, ma'am I was just napping, thank you very much).  Being neither deceased nor intoxicated, the officer waved off his fellow and then he departed.  My wife backed up, I did the tow bar thing, and she towed me back to  the house, with that "Only you could have two police cars show up and not get arrested" look in her eye. 

I had a boss who used to tell me to "listen to myself", usually he would tell me those words after I had done something pretty bone-headed and found that I regretted it. I would say, "I just KNEW I should have such-n-suched, instead of..."  What he was telling me was to learn to listen to that tiny, quiet voice. You know the one.  The one that says something like, "tie your shoes before stepping outside today." or maybe, "Tighten that nut a little more." or something like that.  My boss, Cliff the Kahuna, told me that humans are in touch with every possible outcome along the multi-universe as we travel along it.  That idea is kind of common, now (multiverse, quantum divergences, etc.) but it was pretty woo-woo stuff back then.  Cliff said that we are usually only conscious of the immediate 'now' but that our whole consciousness is always everywhere in space and time, spread out like gossamer filaments of fog, so if the future me sees that not tying my shoes will lead to a little stumble which will lead to me drop (oh maybe) a shovel and a rock bar on my foot, then that future me will call back over space and time to warn myself.  BUT that is a tiny little sliver of consciousness and it may be yelling or it may just be talking.  Either way it is really hard to hear that voice among the noise of the here and now, but if you train yourself to hear it, it's like the mama seal who can pick her baby out of the braying cacophony of a seal colony.  Ever heard one of those?  Put it on your bucket list.  Seeing that will change your life.  So, after I tuned the Connie weeks ago, in the back of my mind all week I had kind of wanted to just do something to the carb since I had done a really thorough job with the valves, and points, and  timing but really kind of felt like I had left-out the carb, like the kid who always plays second string right field will, at some time, be the one that is not on the bus when the team gets back home, eh?.  I had tuned the carb per the instructions from Tim at Volksbits.  It sounded nice, ran well.  What else was there to do??  A simple rebuild, of course.  But...  Why?  Because (dummy) your future self is trying to save you time and hazard while the present me is just thinking about saving money (12 bucks at NAPA). 

Here is the weird part.  The points that were in Connie on the day I left for LR had been in there for about 8 weeks.  They were "fresh" and were clean.  While I was putting together a kit of tools and spares for the 500 mile trip, I found a set of Bosch points and condenser that I had ordered and put in the Connie Box years ago, and forgot about.  So when Connie just died 8 weeks back and I found the points as the culprit (the spring had cracked) I wasn't aware that I had another new set somewhere around the shop.  I bought a new set from NAPA.  Real "quality" stuff from (china, mexico? who knows?) somewhere but the point is that they were not Bosch.  The spare points, in the trunk, next to the tool kit, in Connie, are Bosch.  Genuine German.  Why is that weird?  As I drove away, for the third time, at 10:30a.m., toward LR with a freshly "rebuilt" carburetor, Connie was REALLY humming.  We made it through Alabama with the sunroof open, clipping along at 60-65 mph and Connie and I were in love, all over again.  I gassed up the first time and found I was getting 33 mpg.  WTF??  For real?  Real AF, since the mileage-to-replaced fuel ration confirmed this at the next fill-up somewhere about 30 miles outside of historic Oxford, Mississippi.  I paid for gas and had some fried fish at the convenience store because it was about 8 p.m. and Connie had, in the past 10 minutes, started to stutter a bit.  I worried that maybe I had pushed too much and the valves had been too hot or some such.  Connie started, but ran rougher the further into Mississippi we got.  I admire Mississippi's DOT.  They are super thrifty.  The state highways are paved only once every 65 years, or 80 if no one complains.  The way-finding signage, like "HWY 87" with the little arrow pointing in the direction of the highway, is absent from most intersections.  And why not?  The only people needing to know how to find their way through Mississippi are those who are not from Mississippi and probably don't belong there, so why cater to them foreigners?  "Do not enjoy your time here, interloper" is what that seems to say to me.  Fine, just let me and Connie get outta your hair, Mississippi.  As the HUGE sun is turning red in the west, just hanging out at eye-level of the west-bound traveler, the stuttering gets really bad.  The motor lunges and stutters, alternately, but we keep moving.   Occasionally a hammer blow rocks the tranny and knocks it out of gear.  I find a spot where the shuddering and hammering is minimized.  If I keep accelerating, the stuttering and hammering are not so noticeable, but as soon as I let off the gas the shudder comes back like riding a bicycle at 20 mph with two flat tires over those wakey-wakey rumble marks on the side of the interstate.  And I feel that hammer through my behind, to the top of my head.  The whole car shudders.  The mirrors project uselessly fuzzy images of the deepening purple landscape.  I do not want to stop in Mississippi.  Not here.  Not near Clarksdale MS where Robert Johnson (or Ralph Maccio or Stevie Vai) sold his soul to the devil.  Oh hell no.  Please no.  It is now totally dark and I see a sign (in Mississippi? ) telling me to turn this way (at the light) for the Delma Furniss Hospitality Center.  I have to think.  What am I doing here?  Where should I turn?  Should I go straight?  I have been so intent on keeping the accelerator in the "not so deadly" position that I have blanked out on what other goal I may have had.  Fortunately, I remember (tiny voice) that name, Delma Furniss, because...it's so fabulously unusual.  It doesn't even sound like a person's name.  I can see a geyser in Yellowstone or a hole to hell in Kansas called the "Delma Furnace".  As I was planning my route I googled (as you do) Senator Furniss.  I made a rhyme about him and so when the sign flashed by I knew I had a few miles left before I crossed the mighty Mississippi.  I knew I had to turn. You should go to google maps.  Drive the route from Clarksdale to Helena.  The google street view of that intersection shows there are signs for HWY 49.  That sign is NOT there, today.  It was not there that night.  As I rushed into the really eerie Mississippi night with an earthquake moving through my Bug and me, I was looking for the sign that would point me to HWY 49 and the non-interstate bridge over the mightiest river in North America.  That sign is not there, but, there is a traffic signal and some part of my brain remembered the sign that mentioned those needing to reach the Delma Furniss center should "TURN LEFT AT SIGNAL".  I did so at the signal, but had to slow down and incur the most severe quaking so far.  The lid popped off of my genuine insulated YETI cup that was between my legs( there are no cup holders in the Super Beetle, so what exactly makes it "super", you ask?  If the major difference between the standard and the luxury models of modern cars is the range of colors available, heated seats, and the number or size of cup holders, how can the Super beetle be "super" without freaking cup holders?  It is because the super beetle has real MacPherson strut steering, like an adult's car, not the old trail arm steering - found on earlier and non-super Beetles - like you built on that first soap box racer you almost died on in 6th grade) and I could hear the tool box in the trunk hopping between the lid and the deck.  Please please please don't let me stop in Mississippi where hating hippies is the order of the day and the devil took Robert Johnson's soul.  I make the turn at the tail end of the stale green signal and punch the accelerator to the floor, gaining some smoothness.  Nursing the speed, finding the rare interval of "smooth" which is now really close to stalling,  I drive over the bridge and finally see the Mississippi beneath me, or rather sense it.  There are lights at some barge docks along the near bank, and a vast lightless dark everywhere else. Have I mentioned that this is one really really big river?  Holy smokes it is vast.  A miracle.  And I am driving with a crotch full of tea that was shaken out of my insulated YETI cup between my legs, one hand on the gear shifter (to keep it in gear, mind you), and both eyes shaking out of my skull.  The world is foggy and fuzzy looking I am being shaken so much, and as I crest the bridge I pull into neutral, shut off the motor, and glide down the western side of the bridge where, at the bottom, a traffic signal stands between me and the empty parking lot of the Arkansas state welcome center (closed for the big 3-day Labor Day weekend).

Fortune favors the prepared, and the blithe.  The light turned green while I was coasting down the bridge.  I coasted into the lot, and even had enough gravity juice left to park in a spot around the side.  I have never been so happy to get out of the car.  It is now midnight, and I phoned Jason and told him I was stopped at the welcome center and that I would try to fix the car.  As I am saying this I realize that I have been awake for the last 19 hours straight and had been stressed for the last 2 of those.  I doubted that I could fix myself a glass of water, much less fix the car, in my current mental state.  Maybe I would nap for a few and then try to fix it, then drive the next 2 hours into the really wild unknown Arkansas back roads to his house?  Jason had different ideas.  He said he could come tow me to his house.  He is 2 hours away and we were planing to leave at 5 a.m. to make it to Colorado the next day.  That's like really nice but not very practical.  He says I should get my heater out on the seat next to me because I am not in a happy part of Arkansas and he will be there in a couple of hours.  So I do some yoga, and pop the rear deck to look. It all looks good.  I call Nick and tell him about the huge sledge hammers that were pounding the back of the motor about 300 times per minute as drove for a half hour through Mississippi.  Nick is cool headed.  He accepts that I am calling him very late.  He offers advice.  So I check the points...and they are not the clean things I worried over this morning.  I try to set the gap and it just will not stay set.  I nap.  Jason has a step father, Jerry, who is probably the coolest old dude I have met.  Jerry can do just about anything and he has done lots of other things.  He's a smart, practical guy.  Jerry lives next door to Jason so when Jason asked to borrow Jerry's open flat bed trailer to pick me up (2 hours away at midnight) Jerry says "no".  Jerry says "Come to my house and I will hook up the toy hauler to my 5th wheel and we'll both go get him".  Jerry is amazing.  As a sideline he hauls classic cars around the southeast US.  Not just classics that you would see in a driveway, but the ones that you don't get to see because they are parts of private collections.  All that to say that Jerry and Jason showed up at the welcome center at 2 a.m. with a really nice low-loading car hauler trailer that was made to roll classics on and off.  Fortune, eh?

Jerry and I talk about cars, hunting, and life during the drive.  He did a little work on VWs that he or friends had owned in his younger days.  Dune buggies, busses, etc.  He says that I can keep Connie in his garage until I return from Colorado.  His garage is 25 ft tall and built to hold about a dozen cars.  It has a concrete floor, tool racks like a NAPA store, benches like an ASCE school, and a slot machine that has yet to pay the big jackpot.  Right now there is plenty of room in that garage.  Connie gets to sit, safe and secure, whenI go to Colorado, two hours from then.

Upon my return to LR, Jerry and Jason and I  put Connie on jack stands, pull the rear wheels and I walk through a full tune up, starting with the valves.  They are EXACTLY where I left them.  The points are a little fuzzy.  Jerry offers to clean them up and while he is walking to the bench he discovers that the spring has cracked, just outside of the rivet that holds it down, so they look OK and even move relatively OK but will never set a steady gap.  I say "screw it.  I have a new set in the trunk."  I have genuine Bosch points and a condenser.  With new points installed  I touch the ignition and Connie roars to life.  My soul soars.  Everyone gets hi-fives.  After a good full night of sleep I thank Jerry and Jason again and drive for 12 hours straight to Chattanooga.

The moral of the story is, don't drive through Mississippi I guess.