Brew Time

C and D’s older brother Josh, who has to be one of the nicest and most patient people ever, has been totally re-hauling the ’54 to get it road worthy ever since the Finn family was able to dig it out of the Colorado snow. Josh has taken the whole frame apart and painted it, put in a new drive shaft, and even took the engine and the gas tank from a ’97 Suburban and stuck in the ’54 so we won’t have to fill it up that often.

 Conner and Josh

At one point or another the whole family has worked for the San Juan Timberwrights carpentry shop making timber frame houses.  Luckily the owners, Tammy & Mike, are super cool and have let us all use their shop to work on the car.  We came up this month to help finish it and then get on the road to Taos.  I’ll eventually help reupholster the interior but in the meantime I just crash in on bro-time a lot and hang out. 

Speaking of bro-time: evidently the San Juan Timberwrights is a large part of the Arboles community and every day at 4:30pm the shop shuts down and they all have “brew-time”.  Men come out of the woodwork to have a cold beer from the Durango Ska brewery and shoot the shit for a minute.  It seems such a romantic aspect of small town life to me since we never did that back home, and it happens every day like clockwork.

L to R: Brian, Jesse, Josh, Dan, Denny, and Conner

The beer comes out of a “kegerator”—a freaking brilliant idea!  They modified an old fridge to accommodate a keg and they attached a tap to the side for easy access refills.  Beer mugs are kept iced in the freezer and every month they all chip in and get a new keg.  Brilliant, I do say.