Archive for Roadtrips
August 12, 2007 at 9:37 am · Filed under Roadtrips
The Region 1 Rally that I attended was fairly quiet and I had only planned to go for an overnight, so after breakfast with my hosts Rick & Sandi, and catching up withe some other friends, I packed up the tent and headed homeward. I could certainly have stayed longer and chatted more, but the sky was brilliantly blue and the air was crisp and the trees were green … and the Route 100 was calling.
My friend Chuck, surrounded by aluminum
Route 100 runs down the spine of Vermont, and it is without a doubt one of the most beautiful and fun roads to drive in this nation. It’s not fast, but that’s not the point. It is particularly scenic, passing through little villages and over small rivers, up and down hills, and past antique houses. There is a bit of every sort of Vermont life set alongside Route 100, and as you travel along it you can be a voyeur of small-town life, and even drop in for a moment on a whim.
With the right vehicle, the driving is fun too, which is why I saw motorcycle and ragtops and a bevy of Corvettes all running down the road, probably going nowhere in particular. The Honda Fit may be an econobox but it is fun to drive, so it was a great “fit” for the road too. I didn’t feel the slightest bit jealous of the Corvettes as I swung around curves and through tall stands of trees and over narrow old bridges on my way home.
This time of year along Route 100 you’ll see Farmer’s Markets, town fairs & festivals, sidewalk sales at the art galleries and antique shops, and people doing their ordinary business at farms, in their gardens, and at the tiny general stories that are the centerpiece of almost every town. In a few weeks, the drive will be even more colorful, as the fall foliage begins to strike the upper elevations around late September. It would be worth doing the drive again — just to do it — but we’ll have to be on our way west by then if we want to see anything in Montana before the snow threatens.
If Eleanor had been with me on this ride, I would have stuck with Route 100 all the way north to Waitsfield, and then cut over the mountains to our parking spot. We don’t often go for drives just for driving’s sake, but Route 100 in the summer is an exception.
Of course, it helps to be driving a fun car that gets 40+ MPG on the open road. That way the trip isn’t tainted by the knowledge that we’re burning $50 worth of gasoline. My trip to and from Bondville, 200 miles in total, cost me just $15. I’ll miss that when we have to say goodbye to the little car in two weeks. However, if I can plan things properly, it will be waiting for us in the driveway in Tucson when we finally arrive there in 2-3 months.
The other reason to get home soon was because the lake was perfect: calm, crystal clear, and reasonably warm. I wanted to get out on the boat again. Steve towed me around on the wakeboard and since I was feeling confident I pushed a bit and tried some new basic moves. It’s easier than I thought and a lot of fun. I was able to reliably cross the wake in either direction, ride the wake, make S-turns, ride out bumps (caused by crossing our own wake), and even do a fakie several times. Of course, there were plenty of crashes too, but I’ve even learned to crash comfortably, so except for water up the nose it was a great time. We’ll try again today.
Our forward Fantastic Vent (of the three we have installed) has suffered from a strange defect since we installed it last year. It’s a 14-speed wireless remote model, and it would occasionally exhibit a “surging” behavior at certain fan speeds. The fan would speed up and then slow down to nothing, then repeat multiple times and eventually shut down altogether. I talked to Fantastic Vent’s representative at the International in Perry about this, and she recognized the problem as an issue that struck some of the early units.
She called me last week to follow up. I told her the problem was still happening and she promised to immediately contact the factory about it. Two days later, a brand new vent “upgrade kit” arrived via UPS. This kit replaces the circuit board and gives me a new remote control.
Talk about GREAT SERVICE! The Fantastic Vent people have always run a top-notch organization, but this level of care and responsiveness really shows their dedication. They are one of the few truly “customer-focused” organizations out there. I’m not basing this just on my experience, but on the reports of many people I know who use their products and have also had great customer experiences.
I’m thinking now of making a minor change to our itinerary and crossing west through Ontario to Michigan. This will bring us right past Imlay City, MI, where Fantastic Vent is located, and in which case perhaps we can arrange a factory tour. I love factory tours, and I’d like to take a look inside their organization to see how they have created their culture of customer service.
June 19, 2007 at 2:10 pm · Filed under Roadtrips
It has been a challenge to update the blog since the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Not only has cellular Internet service been absent or unreliable, but the relentless pace of driving nine hours a day has completely obliviated the enjoyment and adventure we usually get from traveling.
No longer, however. We are back in New England for the summer, and there will be no more spine-compressing, gas-and-go travel for a while. Well, not until July, but I’ll get to that issue later.
Our stay in De Tour, MI with the good doctor and his wife was extended out of sheer laziness. I needed to catch up on sleep and our hosts were making it far too easy to stay. Eleanor paid her way by giving Lynn a cooking demonstration on Saturday afternoon and making another dessert too (something with chocolate sauce, banana, pound cake … who knows, but it was good).
So it was Sunday morning before we finally swatted away the mosquitoes, hitched up, and headed north to Canada. Regrettably the trip through upper Ontario from Sault Ste. Marie and eastward along Rt 17 was less interesting than I had hoped. The country is mostly flat, with small hills, and there’s not a lot that captured our attention. I was hoping for a series of interesting local features: farmer’s markets, bakeries, crafts, cultural museums, piney lodges, general stores, short scenic hikes, etc. Mostly what we saw were the routine roadside and rural emblems of commerce: farm implement dealers, gas stations, motels, and the ubiquitous Tim Horton’s. As result, we stopped only for gas.
Gas turned out to be its own potential adventure. Many gas stations along Rt 17 do not have “Pay at the pump”, which we have come to regard in the US as a virtual right of citizenship. Instead, the upper Ontario stations offer an anachronism: full service. A real human being comes out and pumps your gas — something usually seen only in the two US states where pumping your own gas is still illegal (Oregon and New Jersey).
We discovered the dark side of “full service”: no service. Since we were driving on a Sunday afternoon, many stations were closed. Towing a trailer, one does not have a lot of miles in the tank between 1/4 full and Empty — and the fuel stations (“gas bars” locally) along Rt 17 are occasionally spaced rather widely.
It finally came to a point where we had our choice made for us. If the next station didn’t have gas, we would have to park there overnight until it opened. The prospect didn’t bother us much; we’ve slept in weirder places. But as it turned out, not only was there an attendant on duty, but he was happy to spend a couple of minutes comparing US and Canadian candy bars with us. (Consensus: Canadian candy bars are way better.) We came out of there with 80 liters of gas and an interesting chocolate-peanut-caramel crunchy thing called a Cadbury Wunderbar.
Along the eastern end of Rt 17, north of New York state, the scenery turns more to exposed granite outcrops and tall trees, so it starts to feel a bit like the Adirondacks. We stopped at an Irving truck stop for dinner and then relocated to a nearly deserted Wal-Mart for a very quiet night, before making the final few hours past Ottawa and across the border once again.
US Customs are always unpredictable, but with a few simple preparations you shouldn’t have any trouble getting across the border with a trailer. I get asked about this a lot, so we have an article slated for the Fall 2007 Airstream Life on exactly that topic.
In New York we stopped in to see Colin Hyde and Suzanne Brown, who are leading the team that is building Matthew McConaughey’s custom Airstream. That’s another thing we are documenting in the magazine, so I took some pictures for the next issue and interviewed Colin about the latest details going into the trailer. (Congas, a digeridoo, and solar panels, among other things.) We’ll have those pics and a description in the Fall magazine also.
Colin and Suzanne invited us to their house for courtesy parking, so we delayed our arrival in Vermont by one day and spent the evening in their driveway, near their 30-foot 1950s Airstream Sovereign.
And now, after a short trip across Lake Champlain on the ferry, here we are, parked under the cedar trees in Vermont. Whew!
June 15, 2007 at 10:16 am · Filed under Places to go, Roadtrips
“Anywhere there are miners, you’ll find pasties,” said the lady at Joe’s Pasty Shop in Ironwood, MI. The last time we saw pasties for sale we were in Oxford, England in the mid-1990s. Apparently the tradition of making these baked meat-and-potato meals started with miners in Cornwall, England. Since the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is loaded with iron mines, the tradition spread here.
And now you can find pasties in virtually every town along the Upper Peninsula. We made a spontaneous stop at Joe’s new location along US Rt 2 and bought two fresh hot traditional pasties for lunch, and a few more frozen ones for dinner.
They were superb. One traditional pasty (which is a thin crust stuffed with diced potatoes, onions, and shredded beef) was enough for Eleanor and I to split for lunch. Sorry there’s no picture of it, but it was so delicious we ate it before the thought even occurred to take out the camera.
By the way, pasty rhymes with “nasty”, not “tasty”, which is really unfair since these things are just terrific. The ones we got at Joe’s are even better than the ones from Oxford — and in saying this I apologize to the nice people in Oxford who sold us nice pasties back in 1995.
All along the northern shore of the UP you can find pasty shops, and this inspired the idea of a “pasty tour”. It would be probably the most fattening trip you could take (other than a cheesecake tour) but probably also one of the most delicious.
Last night’s stop: Straits State Park within sight of the “Mighty Mac” (the Mackinac Bridge). Next stop is the end-of-the-road village of DeTour Township. The town is really a detour, but I think in recent history the name has been tarted up to seem more exotic with the capital “T”.
June 10, 2007 at 9:15 pm · Filed under Roadtrips
We are cruising right along, unfortunately at the speed of the average American vacation: 65 MPH. If I ever claim to have “seen it all” in America, please remind me that we passed about fifty sights, towns, overlooks, forests, parks, and festivals today — all of which I would have liked to have stopped and explored.
We tried to start off slowly, with a cruise through Provo Canyon near Salt Lake City. This little detour takes you through a spectacular canyon drive, and past Bridal Veil Falls. We stopped in for breakfast in the Airstream and a short hike to the falls.
At the base of the falls is an abandoned aerial tramway. This must have been a spectacular ride when it was running, because the tram line runs steeply up the cliffs to a little observation station about 1000 feet above. We did an article in the Spring 2007 issue of Airstream Life on aerial trams all over the country, and I would have liked to have included this one, but it’s only an abandoned wreck now.
We did a little math and realized that unless we stepped up the pace, we would have no chance of getting to Vermont by Saturday. In fact, we’ll probably be a couple of days late. So we hightailed it through Wyoming all day, stopping only for gas and a slice of highway trivia called Little America.
Little America is almost the Wyoming equivalent of South of the Border, or Wall Drug, or The Thing? or any other number of famous highway stops. It’s a hotel, truck stop, restaurant, and gift shop spread out over several acres alongside the highway. Their billboards are relentless along I-80, extolling “31 inch TVs in every room!”, “24 hour restaurant”, “24 hour mechanic”, etc. We ignored most of them, but they got us with the last billboard: “50-cent cones!” How can you say no to a 50-cent vanilla/chocolate swirl soft-serve ice cream in a cone?
I don’t care what anyone says, Wyoming is an absolutely beautiful state, and even the drive along I-80 is fascinating and constantly changing — even without ice cream. I’ve driven it twice and enjoyed it both times. This state is loaded with diversity, from Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, to the fossil beds, to the oil fields, and then to the green piney mountains between Laramie and Cheyenne. We’d like to spend more time in Wyoming on a future trip.
We were tempted to spend the night in Cheyenne. Not only will there be an article in the Fall 2007 Airstream Life about a famous Airstream owner who happens to live in Cheyenne (and whom I’d like to meet in person), but there’s also a Sierra Trading Post outlet there. We’re going to buy a family tent for use this fall and winter and Sierra Trading Post might have been a good spot to shop for one. Too bad the outlet was closed early today (Sunday). They even have RV parking, so I can recommend it as a convenient stop right off I-80 in Wyoming.
Tonight we are in a municipal park not far from the state line, in Kimball, Nebraska. According to “Don Wright’s Guide to Free Campgrounds (Western Edition)” this park allows free overnight RV parking. The cops have cruised by once already and didn’t show any interest in us, so I think we’re all set for tonight. This park is notable for one thing: it contains a decommissioned Titan Missile standing up on end in one corner of the park. Free parking and a genuine Cold War artifact — beats the heck out of the usual campground.
Our Google Earth location.
March 12, 2007 at 8:21 pm · Filed under Roadtrips
Although the blog is “officially” paused for a few days, I find that after 17 months of daily entries I am compelled to write down some of my observations, lest I forget them. Things are happening so quickly and with such vibrant color that I can hardly keep track of them all; Both visual stimuli and personal encounters are engaging and exciting now that I am free of work concerns for a week, and I am finding that I notice more details. Even the tamales Eleanor made last night seemed to be full of subtle flavors, and so I ate more slowly and anticipated the next course: a slice of Dutch Apple pie left over from our visit with Mike & Sam last week. This is the delicious difference of vacation.
Along the road east from California there seemed to be more to explore than when we went westward, too. Coming down from Octotillo Wells we passed at least a dozen wonderful-looking spots for boondocking. You could spend a year in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and never spend a night in the same place. I wish we had time to try them all.
Then the shimmering blue stripe of the Salton Sea appeared. At first I thought it was a mirage, because I’d heard the Sea was slowly evaporating (which it is), but the Sea remains quite large. A lot of new development is underway on the west side, replacing what had been a very quite section of uninhabited desert. I don’t know who wants to live there beside a vanishing and overly-salty artificial lake with environmental problems, but apparently there is demand.
Along I-8 the highway passes through strange contrasts: stark desert bordered by canals filled with fresh water, then lush green landscapes, then desert again. In places the green is so widespread and rich with carrots, avocados, broccoli, and grass that it appears to be the norm, but then I would remind myself that every inch of that green is courtesy of irrigation. Without the canal system bringing water there would be little other than cactus.
There are many more things we’ll want to explore off I-8 later. There is a massive area of tall sand dunes where the four-wheelers play, parking their “toy hauler” RVs in flat spots near the highway. There are so many that they seem to form their own communities on the weekends. There is an interesting petroglyph site, and the RV mecca of Quartzite. There are Native American historical sites, and small towns.
In Yuma we stopped at a grocery store, and got a knock on the door from a couple that told us, “We’re one of the very few people full-timing in a Safari 30 bunkhouse!” I said, “Well, now you’ve met the other people full-timing in the Safari 30.” Turned out they had read the blog, knew about details of our trailer like our disc brake upgrade, and had subscribed to the magazine. This sort of chance meeting is happening more to us lately. I think we’re becoming notorious.
Let me try to convey where we are now. You drive along I-8 to a tiny truckstop town called Gila Bend. Pick up fuel there, because it’s going to be a long way before you see it again. From Gila Bend, take the lonely two-lane strip called AZ 85 straight south to Ajo, 60 miles away. In Ajo you can find some groceries, food, and gas, but only if the grocery is open (it wasn’t on Monday). Ajo is a tiny land-locked copper mining factory town, but the copper mine is closed and now most of the residents work for the Border Patrol.
Continue south through the intersection ““ hard to call it a “town” ““ called Why (and the “Why Not Café”), and about 25 miles later you’ll reach the formal entrance of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
The Ajo Range
Two things happen as you enter Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. First, the cactus starts to change to a mixture of saguaro and organ pipe, with other common Sonoran desert plants: ocotillo, creosote, prickly pear, palo verde, and cholla. Along the eastern side of the road the view is suddenly dominated by the jagged purple volcanic ridges of the Ajo Mountains, which look stunning in the late afternoon sun.
Second, you may encounter a Border Patrol checkpoint. They aren’t interested in people heading south, but it is commonplace to stop for a check when heading north. Usually this entails nothing more than a quick question from the agent before they wave you onward.
We arrived at Organ Pipe near sunset, so there was just time to dump the tanks, fill up with fresh water, and run over to Bert & Janie’s trailer, just a few spaces away. Emma insisted on a “super quick, quickest bike ride ever!” so we quickly unfolded the Birdy Bikes and pedaled around the campground to the setting sun.
It is warm here, as I had hoped. Last time we were here (January 2006) the nights were around 40 degrees with a strong cold wind. Now, in March, it is running 80-90 during the day and dropping only into the mid-60s at night. Bert & Janie have been sleeping with all windows and entry door open, with a fan running. Janie warned me not to come by their trailer late at night because she had the bear spray ready for an intruder.
Saguaro cactus pointing at Venus
It is rare that we get to sleep with the windows open, because it is usually too cold, too humid, too smoky from nearby campfires, or there is too much pollen. But in the dry desert it is remarkably comfortable, so it was with some glee that I opened all the windows for a night of really fresh air. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument offers no hookups, so there is no option for air conditioning at night, which is actually good since with AC we would have had the trailer sealed all night and not enjoyed the fine night air. We’ll do the same again tonight.
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