I totally concur about Mark's shop!  I could have spent hours hanging
out there, checking out all the, um, decorations.  Mark put my new
engine in way back when . . .  I actually had my van towed all the way
from Charlottesville to get the work done by Mark, on recommendations
from people on this list.  I'm very grateful for this list and the
knowledge, and sometimes wisdom ;^), contained herein.

Marc

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Joy Hecht <jhecht@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I recently found myself in Roanoke Virginia, where two nice women drove up
> alongside my van and handed me a slip of paper with the name of a repair
> shop, saying "if you have any trouble with your van while you're here, come
> visit us, we work on all kinds of VW vans."
>
> Well, Matilda was having some slight incontinence problems (otherwise known
> as dripping fluids), and I figured maybe I should have this looked at while
> I was in town. �So I took her over to Salem Imports, Mark Dearing's repair
> place in Salem, VA (next town over from Roanoke), and he replaced my water
> pump.
>
> But what struck me was the wonderful character of his shop! �Especially as
> I'd had a dream, the night before going there, that it was clean and pretty,
> with red-and-white checked curtains and a cleaning staff scrubbing the
> bathrooms (plural). �Not!
>
> I thought it would be fun to seek out the vanagon repair place with the best
> character - Mark's is definitely a contender! �So do have a look at some
> pix, and see if you can top this:
> http://picasaweb.google.com/hecht.joy/VanagonRepairShopsSalemImportsSalemVA#
>
>
>
>
> Joy
>