Oil and Vans

This town is not named after natural gas or water.


Building oil rigs along US 65 south, those two guys were really up there doing something important.


One of the thousands of these wells along US 65 South


Spare key comes through


This is Darrin. He is a service guy at the GMC place in Bakersfield. Darrin is a good man who took care of SuperVan. I have never had anything but luck with the number 13, which happened to be my service tag#


It was bound to happen. Even the space shuttle breaks down now a again. I noticed a "clunk" in the front passenger wheel area about 1,000 miles ago. It was not going away. I decided to act before it became a big deal. It was two stabilizers. I found a dealer in Bakersfield CA and GMC came through and fixed it for free, via warranty. Give credit where due. Van purring like a kitten.... no like a bear.

And, I always, forever, have hid a key under my car/van/bike. Today it paid off. I locked the keys in the car, of course with the engine running, at a gas station in Lyndsay, CA. No problem, reached under to the undisclosed hiding place and pulled out the spare.

For a long stretch of US 65 out of Lyndsay towards LA there are a lot of pumps, that are pumping natural gas, oil or water, but I solved the mystery when I came on the town of Oildale. I got the clue.

One more van note I want to remember. This thing has more bells and whistles than I can figure out. This morning, at 6am, I tried to open the side door by hand and the alarms went of, the horn started blowing, sirens wailing, lights flashing, every camper in the place furious I am sure, and I did not know how to turn it off, and I hid the keys in a shoe in case one of the bears was looking for them. It was a debacle. When I got the system under control, I drove away with my lights off.