A month of vacation, well, sort of...

I was working on the final push for priming and painting and my back started getting more sore each day.  I over did it, and the brace I wore the last two days didn't help core strength, so by lunchtime on Tuesday, my back was done.  My back went out and it was the worst it has ever been.  It took a couple weeks to get mobile, while watching youtubes to learn how to realign my upper and lower body.  Since I took a hard fall a couple years back in Oz, my alignment has been off, which created something known as Lateral Pelvic Tilt.  I've been doing a ton of research and eating like an athlete training for competition.  I signed up at the YMCA and started with Aquafit, gentle yoga, restorative yoga, hatha yoga as well as pilates.  I also had a chiropractor visit, a rolfing session, and have a gym trainer giving me exercises and stretches to fix this LPT.  After so much down time due to a lack of core strength and the injury that happened over two years, I decided this is the time I truly need to apply myself to proper back care to ensure as close to a 100% recovery as possible or deal with a worsening situation for the long haul.

Taking the last 4 and a half weeks off really helped in so many ways.  I've never taken so much time to work on my health without work getting in the way, so I'm grateful to have used this time for my number one priority, my health.

I'm slowly getting things together to bring the Karmann Ghia around to sell this season, as well as prepping the house for rent.  I purchased some closeout deck tiles for upper deck and really like the effect.

I also made my way to the Bob Baker VW Fest last weekend in Carlsbad.  There was a huge turnout of some super rare, beautiful classics.

Yesterday I met Axel, Chad and Jen's 2.5 year old.  We had a good time catching up in Mission Beach, our old stomping ground and hit a local favorite, the Mission Cafe for lunch.

Lastly, I started prepping Floyd for travels, by removing the canvas from the poptop and dropping it by the local upholstery shop to use as a pattern to recreate what was quickly becoming threadbare.

Here's some photos of the times...

The tiles on the front deck.  I realized after laying them that the their is a difference in color based on the way the light hits the fine grooves.  I might fix that after doing the side deck and seeing the difference.

Chad and Jen were in good form, vacationing after Chad's school trip brought him and his class to San Diego for a class vacation.

I couldn't resist inspiring Axel with a little red VW.

When he woke up from his nap, he was super excited about his new toy.

Some of the many buses at the show...this one sporting safari windows.

An early lowlight ghia like the one I have, only this one is restored.

I love the green color on this ragtop bug.  I think it is Agave.

A few cousins showed up too. 

Floyd's turtle top.  You can see the screen is torn in many places...as is the canvas.

The nice thing about this rare poptop design is you can stand inside the bus, and ventilate the inside much better as well, plus still have a full length roof rack for work.