>It's a little wierd if we're traveling with people from outside out family
>when some one shouts "Vanagon" and points like they've just spotted an alien
>spacecraft!  People outside the family, just don't understand.  :)
>
When I was a kid we played "bug", but later I learned of the painful "slug
bug" variant and quit.  By the time we had our own kids there were not
enough bugs left about -- we had a "highway bingo" card that had a "red bug"
spot, and it became the hardest spot to fill.

Last week, I drove the truck down to get groceries and whatnot at our "local"
Costco -- like most stores an hour's drive away.  We came out of the store to
find a "Van-again" family clustered about the truck, patiently waiting for
our return.  They were the owners of a '91, and wanted to find out if I _made_
the truck -- they played "Van-again" but apparently had missed out on any idea
that there could be such a thing as a Transporter Syncro Doublecab Pickup.

God knows how many points they are going to award for the first sighting of
the even-more-rare Singlecab -- I told them there was one in the San Jose
area.
It would not suprise me to see a '91 GL prowling the south bay looking, kids
hanging out every window, lusting after a glimpse of the legendary beast.
They certainly expanded their scoring tables last week.  I told them I had a
red Kombi Syncro, too, so they'll be on the lookout for Vanagons whose side
windows don't open now, as well.

Fanatics.

It is getting a bit distressing to go on long trips and see so very few of
these things (or any VW bus) left.  Where we live, we see many every day,
mostly Westies headed up to Yosemite, but several local ones as well.  The
"bay area" of California is VW-bus-heaven -- so many there that your cries
of "van--again" would get mighty tedious.  Too bad the Dead are gone -- I
used to work right next to Shoreline in Mountain View, California.  When
the Dead were in concert there, many hundreds of VW buses gathered each
time, filling the streets, the local Safeway parking lots -- thick would
be the infestation!  I'd guess that the "geographic center" of Vanagondom
would lie near Los Gatos, California, on the road between San Jose (and the
"bay area") and Santa Cruz -- the time-warp to 1972.  It might be interesting
to plot this with Joel's "stats", although his figures are a little loaded
in that e-mail is more prevalent in the bay area than anywhere else in the
world, so the figures are skewed somewhat by this.

Malcolm H.