So You Owned a VW Bus: Recent Episodes
Ryan and Miracle Ireland
We interview those who have dared to drive, ride in, or simply inhabit the coolest vehicle ever created—the VW Bus. Each episode we talk to one VW Bus owner and hear about their adventures and misadventures.
Take one last ride with us as we take questions from our listeners and past interviewees in the series finale.
Does a bus need a name? How did our bus, Adie, get her name? Can you rename a bus? We get to all those questions and more in this episode.
Way back in the summer of 2021, one month before embarking on the trip of a lifetime in our 1979 VW Bus, we called into the flagship show of Happy Productions—a Wednesday night program called The Happy Trucker Show. Now, with the trip behind us, we decided to revisit the interview and run some commentary on our past selves.
Does a bus need a name? How did our bus, Adie, get her name? Why name a bus? Can you rename a bus? We get into all those questions and more in this detour episode.
Back in 2018, James and Miranda put their bus, Adie, up for sale on eBay. An unwitting guy from Ohio named Ryan Ireland would buy this bus and later produce a podcast called, “So You Owned a VW Bus.” It’s only fitting that the penultimate episode of the series be with with Miranda and James as they talk about their journey with Adie and the guy from Ohio who bought it.
The VW bus runs on gasoline and luck, but the inhabitants are often fueled by coffee (as is the case with us). Before we got into the VW part of the interview with Carson we geeked out about coffee and fine wristwatches. And, we gotta say, this guy knows his stuff.
Carson is a professional musician with a story to share. For him, the VW bus is an emotional journey that has come to define his relationship with his father.
Bonnie Larsen bought her bus as her marriage of many years was ending. Working on the bus and becoming part of the greater VW community helped her heal and move on, she says. As part of her journey, she opened up an online store, ToolMomStore.com
Amanda and Matt Hakola have owned a few buses before finally finding their current bus and landing in Oklahoma. Their bus is also the mothership for their business Ragtag Resilience—an approach to stabilizing food systems by doing a lot of little things that add up to change. (They farm their .15 acres and grow lots of amazing foods to feed their family and sell at market.) Their business caught the eye of Leonardo DiCaprio’s personal chef during the filming of Martin Scorcese filmed “Killers of the Flower Moon” in Oklahoma. Amanda and Matt catered for Leo and the film’s wrap party.
Pat invited us out to camp at his place near the last stand of tall grass prairie in Kansas, where has been working on a novel narrated by a VW bus—an imagined memoir of his VW bus which was salvaged from a field and filled with clues about its past life.
Join us for the last leg of our 49-state adventure. This season we meet Jarah, the Linnertime DJ at Happy Productions as she makes plans to take her bus on the road. We stop to meet Pat, an author who wrote a memoir told from the point of view of his bus. In Oklahoma, we sat down with Amanda and Matt, two local food advocates who kept Leonardo DiCaprio stocked with fresh healthy foods while he filmed “Killers of the Flower Moon.” In Minnesota we finally caught up to Bonnie, a road warrior whose bus provided her with escape and healing after a divorce. Carson shared the heartbreak of his family’s bus—a story about addiction and anger, recovery and, yeah, even trombones. Then, in the closing week of our 14 month journey, we met up with Miranda and James, the original owners of our bus, Adie. They even brought along Miranda’s dad, Ken, who worked on Adie a lot over the years. And finally—there’s us. Miracle and I sat down (after some urging from our interviewees over the past year) and shared our thoughts on this wild, wonderful time we’ve had producing this series and, as Geoff from season 3 would say, living the dream.
Oh, the Sullivans! We love these people. Jarah is the daughter of Emma and Shawn Sullivan, our friends and podcast syndicators at Happy Productions. Jarah is super cool and is carrying on the family legacy in more than one way. You should check out her band, Dellwood, and definitely listen to her radio show Linnertime, which airs on Happy Productions from 2-6 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Jesse "VW" Marshall is back for a third episode. We chewed the fat and then Jesse boiled it down into and put it into his Vanagon. He has his own method for making biofuel and walks us through his process.
VW people are by nature obsessive people. Maybe obsessive isn’t the right word. We are driven, passionate, and—well, obsessive, might be the right word. Oftentimes, we have interviews where our VW bus owner reveals they have another passion. Perhaps the best example of this is Birding By Bus. Marc and Eliana are professional birders who had so many stories to tell, we thought it was only right we bring them back for a detour episode that focuses on birding. And this detour might hold the record for our farthest fetched episode: they will take us all the way to Attu, the most remote island in the United States.
Colin Kellogg of Itinerant Air-cooled fame has logged more miles on the road than most humans. When you live on the road full-time in your VW bus, you sometimes bed down in strange places and make friends (and enemies) out of your nighttime visitors.
Jeremiah Woods is the owner and operator of a bed and bus-fest called Camping in the Woods. Each rental unit is a decked out VW bus themed around a movie or an idea. Located in Golden, British Columbia, the scenery is stunning. It’s no wonder Jeremiah was able to secure a sizable check from the Canadian version of Shark Tank called Dragon’s Den.
Tim from Tok. Is there any other way we could cap off this season than with our Alaskan road savior? We were in sorry shape when we were towed into Tok. And we were complete strangers to Tim, yet he and his wife Maria were welcoming. They shared their time, expertise, food, and wisdom with us while Miracle recuperated from her long-standing injury and the bus was repaired. Before we got back on the road, Tim was gracious enough to share his memories of coming to Alaska and finding his split window bus. He weaves in his philosophy and also outlines the laws of the land here in the far north.
Zach Wallace has just about the coolest fleet of vehicles in all of Alaska—a squad of Vangons, including a Syncro. Luckily for those who travel north to Anchorage, he rents them out. Last Frontier Westys has been in business for only a couple years, but his love for VWs has been around for, well, generations.
You’ve probably heard of Birding By Bus—the personal endeavor by birders Marc and Eliana that turned into a world-traveling business. We had a chance to catch up with these two in Wasilla, Alaska, and hear all about the start of Birding by Bus and how it became an online sensation. And, if you’re anything like me (a real dunce when it comes to our avian friends), you’ll probably learn quite a bit.
Pete Wedin is a fishing boat captain and guide who let us camp out at his place in Homer, Alaska, for a couple of nights. We all became fast friends. We sat down with Pete over a halibut dinner (excellent by the way) and a couple of cocktails. Following in the long tradition of seafarers also being experts storytellers, Pete regaled us with tales of the bus he owned forty years ago when he first came to Alaska as well as his current project—a bay window he is restoring.
George is a young guy with enough stories to fill a lifetime thanks to his Vanagon… and his Subaru. Even though he lives and works in Homer, his adventures have taken him south to Mexico and everywhere in between. We caught him on his break at Buttwhackers just long enough to catch a few of his stories.
You hear us mention the sponsor who paid for our healthcare whilst on the road, Jan Michalski Foundation, at the end of most episodes. Who are they and why in the world would they sponsor a podcast about VW buses? Plus, you’ll hear about how many times our healthcare coverage came in handy.
About a year before we launched season one of So You Owned a VW Bus, we interviewed Rajan Kose—a close friend and one-time Volkswagen school bus driver in Colorado.
Jennifer and Jonn’s VW story is a love story. High school sweethearts and now husband and wife, their mutual love of VWs of all types has been present ever since their first date when Jennifer pushed her way into Jonn’s heart…
Erik Schmid is the founder, owner, and operator of Red Bus Brewing in Folsom, California. But even more importantly, he owns a VW bus. The story of how he started a brewery, how he came to own a bus, and why his marketing is amazing are all intertwined.
Jason Hall is a veteran with quite possibly the most elegant bus we have ever seen in person. Take a ride with Jason as he tells us about the personal journey he took to get the bus and where he plans to take it.
When we interviewed Shawn and Emma Sullivan at Happy Productions, they told us the story of how they acquired their bus (who is now also the Happy Productions logo), Cosmo. The story was simply too long for our regular podcast, but it is a story that needs to be shared.
We were passing through Escalante, Utah, and met a young couple, Ian and Kaitlyn. Even though they had a sweet home in the heart of this mountain town, they had previously lived in their 1986 Syncro. We got to hear all about how they managed living in the bus—through turbulent weather and life circumstances.
A guy with so many stories we had to make a second episode! You already know Jesse from the first episode of this season where he talked about leaving his job as a mortgage banker to start the world’s first mountain bike shuttle service called Coyote Shuttle. When we arrived at Coyote Shuttle, a gentleman was talking with Jesse about a welding job. Jesse is Moab’s go-to guy for fixes and emergencies. In fact, during this interview, he worked on our bus…
We sat down with Paul Austin, the owner and operator of Austin Automotive in Canon City, Colorado. Even though Austin Automotive doesn’t specialize in air cooled VWs like our bus, Paul is more than knowledgable about bay windows like ours. He was willing to spend an afternoon giving our bus the once over before we climbed our way across the Rocky Mountains.
Buckle up, folks! This is a good ride. As we crisscrossed California, we stopped by the GoWesty campus in Los Osos to interview the founder and president, Lucas Valdes. It’s hard to imagine, but at one point in time, Lucas’ VW operation was considerably smaller. Lucas talks about how he started in the VW world, what it is like to grow a business, and some of the adventures he’s had along the way.
This episode is really special. When we started out on our 49 state adventure, we received a lot of encouragement. But then we got a message from a woman Ryan used to work with at children’s services some fifteen plus years ago. Her name is Sally Doyle. Even though Ryan and Sally worked together for years, he had missed an important detail about Sally’s life—she owned a VW bus.
We met Eric through the old VW network. I read a review of Jerry Steimel’s book Chasing Zorba in Vintage Voice magazine, so I looked up the editor, who happened to be Eric. I dropped him a line with a story idea. Before long I was writing an article for Vintage Voice. When it was all said and done, Eric said, hey if you’re ever out in Las Vegas, let me know. We sat down with Eric and learned quite a bit about what it takes to be a VW photographer.
We were cruising around Moab, Utah, when I spied a stretch Vanagon parked on a side street. The side of it read Coyote Shuttle. A google search and a couple phone calls later and we were sitting down with Jesse Marshall (his wife calls him Jesse “VW” Marshall), the owner and operator of Coyote Shuttle. Even though I had called to get the story about the Vanagons, he had lots more stories…
Our favorite chef is back to share with us the story of how he became a chef. It's hilarious and heartwarming and sweet and savory.
Join us for some detours from our usual VW bus talk.
We begin each episode by asking people to say and spell their names so we can accurately record it for the podcast and blog. Sometimes it is harder than you think. Also, Nellie has a story about a horse.
Remember Ben from last season? He road tripped across the US with his best friends Tom, Ed, Tim, Joe (and not-best-friend, Pete)? We were able to catch up with Tom, the ringleader and planner of the trip (now an acclaimed author), and he told us more about how the trip came to be, how he remembers the trip, and what it means to have a group of life-long best friends.
We met Jennifer and Alice in Austin, Texas, and they were both eager to tell us about their VW buses and what the VW bus community means to them, but the real story was how these two became fast friends over their mutual love for Vanagons.
You might be surprised to find out that before David Dotson was Dolly Parton’s right hand man for her nonprofit, he was a VW bus owner. We had the good fortune of interviewing David at the Dollywood Foundation Headquarters in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (in what would be the last interview ever conducted in that building). Tune in to hear David’s VW bus story and about the important work he’s done as CEO of the Dollywood Foundation, including The Imagination Library.
What do you do when your bus breaks down at a gas station in Sopchoppy, Florida and it’s dark and getting colder by the minute and you know no one in the area? You go home with a stranger named Brian Blackwell (nicknamed Blacky). Well… that’s what we did anyway. We met Blacky when he picked us up on the side of the road, but learned a lot more about him when he offered to let us stay in his house for an entire week. Turns out, Blacky is an avid VW collector, runs a wakeboard ministry, and a successful hunting business. Listen to hear all about Blacky’s super-sweet VW collection, but also what would drive him to offer refuge to two total strangers.
Before we even set off on this journey, Leslie Lentz, reached out to us to say that her VW bus shared the same name as our rescue dog and faithful canine companion, Jolene… But could we make it all the way to Ontario, Canada for the interview? We could when Leslie also agreed to be our “quarantine address” in Canada. Hear about Leslie’s bus, Jolene, and how Leslie’s VW bus connects her to the music festival scene, BusFusion and a larger community.
Colin Kellogg, the Itinerant Air-Cooled Mechanic, is a hard person to catch up with, having zig-zagged over 300,000 miles across the US in his bus teaching other VW bus owners how to repair and maintain their own VWs. As luck would have it, we were able to meet up with Colin in sunny Florida and he was kind enough to share his story with us. Buckle up. It’s a wild ride, with a lot of twists and turns, but we promise you’ll learn something.
We connected with Jason Vogen, of OldVolksTV, as well as VolksAmerica and VolksMania magazines, in Austin, Texas right around the time that Volkswagen was premiering the new ID Buzz at SXSW. Jason was there and got the inside scoop. Hear how people reacted to the newest member of the VW bus family and also about Jason’s own VW bus obsession, his dream bus, and the close-knit VW community in Austin.
After staying several days at McIntyre’s Home for Wayward Buses and Wandering Souls in Miami, Florida, we finally convinced Ian McIntyre—VW bus enthusiast, artist, friend to all, dog whisperer extraordinaire, and all around renaissance man—to sit down with us for an interview. Tune in to hear why Ian created this home-away-from-home in paradise for fellow travelers.
Xavier Laurentio is a larger than life, colorful character. He's been a bodyguard, an actor and is now a bonafide chef in New Orleans. We met up with Xavier at his home in NOLA and he told us about leaving his home country of Spain for the States, his travels and adventures across the US in his first beloved VW bus, what it was like to lose everything to Hurricane Katrina, and his future plans for his new bus.
Jaymi Millard, VW collector and bassist for the band Slaughter (yes, that Slaughter) loves pink guitars, has a pink beard, and has a VW bus story or two to tell. We caught up with Jaymi in his Tennessee kitchen to hear a few tales from the hundreds of buses he's owned.
The bassist from the band Slaughter. A bona fide New Orleans chef who lost everything in Katrina. A Canadian whose bus shares the same name as our dog. The CEO of the Dollywood Foundation. The Itinerant Air-cooled guy and his friend who runs McIntyre’s Home for Wayward Buses and Wandering Souls. A pastor who owns a wakeboarding ministry and took us in for a week. Two friends who met through their VW club. One of the guys who runs OldVolksTV and saw the new ID Buzz when it premiered. Season five is jammed packed with stories and drops on April 18, 2022.
Oh, and remember Ben from last season—the guy who road tripped with four of his buddies? Well, we caught up with Tom, the ringleader, and got his perspective on the adventure. Check out the entire season as we relay tales from (mostly) the south.
Before setting off on our 49 state bus tour in our VW, Adie, we made a post on a Facebook forum asking for interview recommendations. This guy, Shawn Sullivan, messages us to ask if we wanted to be on his radio program called The Happy Trucker Show. We were on the program and instantly liked Shawn. As it turns out, he and his wife, Emma, own their own digital radio station, Happy Productions, out of Minnesota. Their logo is a cartoon rendering of their 1974 bus, Cosmo, hence their interest in what we were doing. Soon we appeared on their Afternoon Delight Program which is hosted by the both of them and they began to air our podcast on Wednesdays. At the end of October, we were in Wisconsin and decided to make the extra jaunt over to Minnesota to meet them in person.
We were driving through Wisconsin when the recently rebuilt engine in our bus, Adie, completely seized on us. Luckily our friends, Shawn and Emma, at Happy Productions Radio were a mere 250 miles away and their long-time friend, Sam Weyandt, at Dune Buggy Supply was not far from them. Even though we had never met Sam, we knew the bus would be in good hands. We had Adie towed and the engine swapped out. We sat down with him at Dune Buggy Supply in Minnesota on the day we picked Adie up.
We were traveling through Canada when we were able to catch up with Susan and her husband, Brad, as well as their dinner guest, Linda, at their cottage on the shores of Lake Pemichangan in Quebec. We spent the day doing a little work on their Eurovan and ended the day sitting around the table eating fish that Brad caught himself and drinking some wonderful red wine. Outside it was cold and rainy, but there in the lakeside home everything was cozy.
We caught up with Steve Roberts, who owns the old army surplus store in Jasper, Ontario. It’s an old white cider block building that looks fairly nondescript from the outside. But once you step inside, you realize it is a sprawling, wild place. We followed Steve from room to room—sometimes hidden room to hidden room—in this old surplus store and around each corner there’s another VW-lover surprise.
We traveled across New England and into Canada, into Michigan and the upper Great Lakes States to bring you stories from folks who have had an adventure or two in a VW Bus. This season we've met collectors, mechanics, businesswomen, and more than a few roadtrippers.
We sat down with my former neighbor, Ben Abramczyk, at his house in the quaint little village of Alpha to reminisce about an epic bus trip he took nearly fifty years ago. It is a story fueled by beer.
While in Quebec, Canada, we met a woman named Nellie Surprenant who owns a pale blue Vanagon. While life, relationships, and even the van’s name have changed over time, her love for the VW has remained steady.
We were a dozen states into our 49 state tour when our exhaust system developed a crack. I jumped on VanAlert and found a place called the VW Garage in Portland Maine. The shop owner, Cory Sterling, hooked us up with a metal fabricator and welder named William Bruce. William is a fellow VW owner and after he patched our exhaust system, we decided to do an interview right there in the parking lot along their very busy Main Street.
Ces Saavedra contacted us before we departed on our 49 state tour in our own VW bus, Adie. She sent me this picture of her six buses lined up on the shore of Lake Norman and said, you need to come to North Carolina. We put her on the map right away and a mere 12 weeks into our journey, we were able to meet her and her husband Doug and their pack of dogs.
We were staying in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, with a VW collector named Gianfranco Martinelli and his family when the weather took a turn and they invited us to stay in their spare room. We stayed with the Martinellis for a few days and became fast friends. We sat down with Gianfranco to ask him about his VW collection—where it all began and where it might take him.
We caught up with Andrea Bowker and Peter Kraiker—a couple of soft-spoken hardcore adventurers in their Old North Toronto backyard. They own a magnificent 1982 matador orange diesel Vanagon Westfalia named Babe. Babe has been Peter’s mobile office and a makeshift ambulance.
We sat down with Eric Caron, organizer of West River Westies, in his home in southern Vermont after a weekend of hanging out with him and his friends whom you met in the previous episode. He’s had a lifetime of bus adventures and the wisdom to go with it.
We sat down with a brand new bus owner, Tracy Carlucci, while we were visiting Connecticut this past September. Even though she has a brand new old bus, it’s been a long road getting here.
We heard about John’s Car Corner from folks all the way from Connecticut through Rhode Island and up through Massachusetts. Everyone said you need to stop at John’s Car Corner and talk to John. They were right. Soon we were standing in the shop itself, just outside of Westminster Vermont—it a mix of parts store, workshop and museum. And John is your parts guy, the lead mechanic and curator. Traffic whooshes by outside and a couple regulars stop by to sit at the counter and chew the fat.
We were returning to Ohio from our shakedown trip to Michigan this past July so we used VanAlert to find a place to stay and we found Nate’s driveway. It turns out Nate’s driveway was a bit more posh than we expected. He asked us to drive around back where he had an honest to god full campsite set up, complete with a roaring fire. A huge pine forest towered over us and the sky was completely clear. And if you listen closely enough you can hear the hoots of owls and the yipping of coyotes in the distance.
We interviewed Ken, the owner of a mutt bus in Massachusetts inside of his actual bus. It’s an impressive creation where functionality and self-reliance rule. Even cooler—Ken is a bus muralist.
Every once in a while—not often—but every once in a while, our bus, Adie, needs a little extra care. We stopped at a shop called PiperBus automotive in Connecticut, owned and managed by Tracy Tulloch. It’s one of those hidden gems we’re glad we found tucked away in New England. The shop has a small footprint, but tracy really packs in the work.
Before we left on our 49 state tour in our bus, Adie, we met up with Jerry shields, at a local coffee shop. He’s a man with an appreciation for the finer things in life. Just take a look at his bus, Velma. She’s a keeper.
We had been staying in David’s driveway as we ventured toward Salem Massachusetts. Even though he insisted he didn’t need to be interviewed, we decided otherwise. Over the breakfast he prepared for us, we had a little conversation with him about his time driving VWs.
Over a year ago, we were camping in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. It was our first trip in Adie and we had only started to kick around the idea of a VW Bus podcast and a multistate trip, when we met Geoffrey Heigh. We were walking around the campground when we struck up a conversation with this man, Geoff, who had this great New England accent and started telling us about his day kayaking out on the rapid filled river that carves through the forest of Ohiopyle. It turns out, our new acquaintance is no stranger to adventure. Lucky for us, Geoff gave us his New Hampshire address and phone number when we met him. As we moved from apartment to apartment over the next year, his number stayed on our fridge. And I was determined to interview him someday. When we set off on our 49-state adventure, we stuck his number on our bus fridge. We finally caught up to him at his New Hampshire home in the early autumn and he’s even more of an adventurer than we first realized.
We were traveling through Southern Vermont when we were invited to hang out around the campfire with some VW Bus area celebrities. Check out this unedited literal fireside chat with these folks.
We've hit the road in our 1979 VW Bus, Adie, and are making our way across North America—49 states, five provinces, and two territories. Along the way, we're interviewing fellow VW bus owners. Join us this season for the New England leg of the journey as we chat with VW mechanics, brand new bus owners, veterans of the road, and even a true adventurer.
A couple months ago I had our bus, Adie, at the local gas station and this woman comes up to us and starts telling her story about being in high school and driving her bus under the influence. We appreciated her candidness and finally got a chance to sit down with Stephanie at her home just outside of Waynesville, Ohio, and hear what led up to this incident.
John is a man who came prepared for an interview. He had a ton of stories about the two buses he has owned—one that we drove around Chicago and the other that he calls The Chalk Bus.
Grab a cup of Blue Bus Coffee, everyone. That's Kevin Anderson's own coffee company, by the way. Rest assured, you won't need the jolt to keep you awake though. Kevin has some wild stories to tell from his time riding around out west.
We met up with a fellow bus owner, Jessica Messer, at a winery called, MAWBY in Traverse City, Michigan. As we drank our wines, she told us about her adventures in and around Lake Michigan as well as her plans to turn her bus, Poppy, into a professional mobile party service.
When we met Joe outside that brewery in Xenia, we had been driving by in our bus and saw a really sharp looking bus. Joe is a one-man bus-renovating machine.
This season we have expanded our horizons—interviewing folks from Michigan to the Finger Lakes in New York. We are serving up ten new episodes that include entrepreneurs, artists, champions of the community, and bold adventurers.
Now this bus is one wild ride. A 1958 panel van. The outside has been spray painted and airbrushed with murals. The once solid walls have portal windows and the wheel wells have been cut out. The front of the bus has a giant pair of steer horns. But the real stories reside with Brett—an actor, musician, and the proud owner of Juicy Lucy.
Sometimes we interview people who take a while to warm up to the mic. Not this time though. We interviewed Basim Blunt, a Dayton-area radio staple, who was more than willing to share stories of his two VW buses. He took us on a ride that starts in his youth as a frat guy and takes us into the fatherhood years.
Meet Melanie Moore—a real-life hero who uses her VW crew cab to deliver sell and deliver books. Known as The Cincy Book Bus, she is a recognized figure in the Queen City. Best of all, all the profits she makes go directly to child literacy efforts.
As many of you know, the good ol' slug bug, the beetle, whether it is super or standard, is the gateway into bus ownership. We met a man, Lew Hann, who perfectly demonstrates how one goes from beetle to bus. And his story begins wayyyy up north.
This season starts in the Finger Lakes of New York—the land of wine and waterfalls where Ryan and I took our bus, Adie for a long weekend. We met a couple, Bo and Susanna, who lived in a VW bus in Germany many years ago. And they have stories...
Neil is a close friend of ours. In fact, I actually lived with him after my divorce. Miracle too—a couple of divorced people living with our friend, Neil Webster. Now Neil has owned a whole lotta VWs. And even though we usually don’t talk about other VW makes on this program, it is worth noting that Neil’s love of the VWs happened, well, right after a divorce.
If you’ve owned a Vw Bus for any length of time, you’ve probably got a tale of roadside breakdown woes. We met a woman, Lynda Hardman, who had more than her fair share. In fact, she swears her bus had a curse. She’s seen everything from flaming stoves to the crunchy demise of her not-so-beloved ASI Riviera.
We interviewed Selwa Whitesell of Yellow Springs. Currently she has a modern tow-behind camper sitting in her driveway. She has biked in New Zealand, camped all over. But her first camper was an unusual VW Bus she owned when she was just sixteen, married, and pregnant.
When I bought my VW Bus I was told I was a lucky man because I lived in Dayton, where a very talented VW mechanic lived. His name is Norm Vocke and he owns Oak Grove Import Auto Service.
On the first decent spring day of 2021, Miracle and I donned our masks and drove out to Yellow Springs, the nearby hippie village at the north end of the county where we live—Greene County. Now, Greene County is a bit of misnomer—by and large the county is deep red with nearly every elected seat filled by someone identifying as conservative. Except Yellow Springs. Everything about Yellow Springs is liberally charming—from muraled breakfast places and its art house movie theatre, to the banners at the entrance of town that say, “Love is love,” or, “Black lives matter.” They moved here decades ago, in a cross country venture that began with… well, a yellow VW Bus they called “the cool bus.” Also, they made their own teepees.
Welcome to to “so you owned a VW bus” a podcast fueled by the stories of VW bus owners—past and present. Each episode we talk to those who have dared to drive the iconic Volkswagen bus and we hear about their adventures and misadventures.
Chris’s interview covers the two topics everyone wants to talk about—love and money. We interviewed Chris just south of Springfield, Ohio, at a barn sale where he’s selling all manner of leather goods—suitcases and coats, furs and hats. People come and go from the barn where the sale is taking place—the same barn where he is temporarily staying. Farther back on the lot is his 1985 weekender edition vanagon. It’s one shade of brown and he calls it The Groundhog.
Every owner of a bus knows what it is like to break down on the side of the road. That moment of panic. The frustration. How their partner immediately gets stressed…
Well, we met a woman, Jen Hunter who uses her moments of stasis to keep moving forward. Jen is an artist and we met up at her studio, Vagabond, at Front Street Galleries in Dayton Ohio, in the old warehouse district. Across the street is an active warehouse where trucks come and go. Down the hall, some musicians were jamming. It is definitely not the ideal recording location, but it is the right place to conduct this interview.
In early autumn of 2020, Miracle and I conducted our first interview for our podcast with two Irish sisters, Peg and Moira. They messaged us on Facebook after Miracle put out the initial call for stories and told us about what they called their Irish Catholic edition VW Bus. As you might imagine, with a name like Ryan Patrick Ireland, I grew up both Irish and Catholic, though my childhood van looked nothing like theirs. (Ours was a giant Chevy conversion van and we toted a pop-up Coleman camper behind us.)
We sat outside Peg’s house on a quiet street with the birds singing,the occasional car passing by. Moira bicycled over from the other side of town to join us. It immediately became obvious that these two sisters have stayed close over the years as the stories of the Irish Catholic Edition bus poured out one after another. In this episode, we hear about a particularly memorable family vacation in the mountains of Pennsylvania where their brother was faced with an impossible decision…