Paul's Journey

Old Time Pilot

2011-12-03T13:13:00.000-08:00

2010-05-12T08:06:00.001-07:00

Okay, I'm back in CR house-sitting our three houses, Gary's, Vince's and mine. I returned after a month in the U.S. I won't bore you with arcane details because I know you like the colorful stuff. I've been here for 12 hours and, so far, nothing colorful has happened, thankfully. I'm sure that will change. My yard needs cutting, and the ants have decimated the plants I had put on the ridge behind my house, as usual. Good thing I had Omar the Peon plant a bunch of natural stuff as backup because those are growing fine. It's cloudy now, which is a change from when I left. Then it was the dry season. Now it's the rainy season, although it hasn't rained in the last 12 hours. My new gate and barbed wire seems to have done the trick on the cow problem. I see no evidence of cow activity, and I never got a word from Vince or Gary about my alarm going off while I was back in the states. There were quite a lot of dead bugs in my house, though, especially around the sliding glass doors. Those doors are typical of the quality of stuff in Costa Rica. There are gaps that let all sorts of bugs into my house, as well as sand and dirt in the dry (windy) season.

Well, I better sweep them up now. I swept last night when I got in but I guess I missed a few hundred or so. The toucans were noisy this morning, but I didn't go out to look for them. I'll have more time later. And I'm just waiting for the biggest bug, Fabian the motorcycle cop, to show up and bother me. At least, now, with the new gate, he can't blast down my driveway, go along my narrow front yard, spin around on the side, then park his bike in front of my house, then slowly remove his helmet like he's the Terminator or something - all while I'm peacefully on the computer and barely awake in the morning.

www.journeysbypaul.com

2006-09-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, I've got an actual website.

www.journeysbypaul.com

My new trips will be on that site. I'm going to the south of France on October 2nd.
Thanks for checking on my journeys.

paul ogier

Hurricane Hunter Sept 12 & 13

2006-09-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well, finally on Tuesday evening, I got the big, overhead waves from Florence that I’d been traveling for.
From 5 p.m. until sunset on Tuesday, the smallest wave I caught was head high, and there were a couple that were two feet overhead. I surfed again at 6:30 the next morning with the same size waves, and then again at 3 p.m. And do you know where I had to drive to finally get this great surf? Back to Rye Beach in New Hampshire (ten minutes from my house).

I awoke in Ocean City, Maryland, and the wind was still onshore, and the surf was like a washing machine, so I determined that if I left at 8 a.m., I could cruise up the NJ Turnpike in light, pre-noon traffic. (NJ Turnpike - One of my favorite sights in NJ)

That would have me crossing the George Washington Bridge at about noon, and get me back in New Hampshire by 5 p.m. Everything worked according to plan, and I was at home before 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, and surfing at 5 p.m.

Here’s a rare picture of Leon and a short board. If Leon starts riding a short board more often, then maybe he won't always catch waves one hundred feet farther out than everyone else with his 10-foot board, and the rest of us can catch more waves. Wishful thinking. Just kidding, Leon.

The following pics are just assorted waves and anonymous surfers at Rye Beach.

The pictures of the waves I took are all waves that were on the inside (close to shore) so they are only about head high. The bigger waves were breaking outside, and my cheap digital camera doesn’t have a powerful zoom.

All in all, it was a fun trip driving down to Cape Hatteras, and I especially liked Atlantic Beach, NC. I can tell you one thing for sure. It was a lot easier driving the Infiniti cross country with it's cruise control and satellite radio than it was driving the VW bug cross country. And with the XM radio set for hours to the E Entertainment channel, I'm now an expert on The Monkees, Jerry Lewis and Roseanne Barr. Just ask me anything.

Another point: This travel blog takes too long to upload pictures and edit, so I'm going to try and get a web page to document my next adventure, whatever that will be. I do have reliable information that another hurricane named Gordon, or George or something may be going up the same path as Florence. I might rest up a bit, then load the car and search for it. Or I may just take a nap in my hammock, and wait until it gets up here.

P.S. Thanks to anonymous for identifying the aircraft in my previous blog as a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey--a tilt rotor aircraft. You get a free subscription to Paul's Journey.

Hurricane Hunter Sept 11

2006-09-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I woke up Monday morning for the big surf, and guess what? It wasn’t big. In fact, it was not as big as it was on Sunday.
I walked out on the beach, and there were two guys out trying to surf but the wind was strong, and they were drifting down the beach at a good clip. I didn’t see them catch any decent waves, but I did take one picture of one of them paddling out. I decided that if I wanted to catch some of the remaining swells of Florence, I better move up the east coast without delay. I checked out the map, and decided to drive up to Ocean City, Maryland.

I packed, left my motel room, then stopped by the pier to see if anyone was surfing there. There were no surfers, but I did snap a picture of a fisherman with the typical gear on his way to the pier to catch some of them ‘Blues’ that have been running. (fishing talk).

On the drive to Maryland, I took a picture of a strange military aircraft that flies like a plane, but can rotate the engines and propellers so that it can also hover. Can anyone name that plane? I can’t.

When I crossed the ‘brunnel’ at the Chesapeake Bay, I took pictures this time for the anonymous person that requested it.

(By the way, you can click on any of the pictures to see them bigger.) The wind was blowing so hard when I was out in the middle of the Chesapeake, I had to slow down to 60 mph for fear of my surfboard snapping the bungees.
The bay was all whitecaps, this time.

It was a 6 hour drive to Ocean City, and when I got there the seas were so rough that the only rideable waves were the ones I saw in the channel when I crossed over the bridge connecting the mainland to the seaside city.
There was a local surf shop called Malibu’s on the boardwalk, and the owner told me he was going to try and surf early in the morning if the wind switched from onshore (from the ocean) to offshore (from the beach).
When I talked to him, the wind was blowing about 30 mph, and the tourists walking along the boardwalk were having difficulty going into the wind. The owner told me the only people who were surfing were some kids that were going to be driven about 2 miles upwind. The plan was them to drift back to the shop while they surfed. There were some kite boarders out, though.

The boardwalk is quite interesting; another seaside subculture. There were plenty of people walking up and down it despite the wind, and there is an amusement park at the beginning of it. Later, I had to drive several miles to find a wifi location, and I have never seen so many hotels and motels in one place.
I stole the following history off of a website:
It all started when, according to legend, Isaac Coffin built in 1869 the first beach-front cottage to receive paying guests. People came by stage coach and ferry. They came to fish off the shore, to enjoy the natural beauty of the Atlantic Ocean pounding against the long strip of sandy beach, to collect seashells, or just to sit back and watch the rolling surf.

So anyway, I’ll check it out early in the morning to see if the wind has calmed down.

Hurricane Hunter Sept 10

2006-09-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I checked out the surf in the morning, and it definitely looked bigger but it was breaking right on the beach because the tide was peaking. I drove over to the local surf shop and found out that high tide was at 3 p.m. so I bided time at the pool until about 2. By then the tide was most of the way out and the waves were breaking on the second sand bar.
The sand bars here are pretty shallow. On Saturday, when the waves were pretty small, the depth between the first and second sandbar went to at least a foot overhead. But when you reached the next sandbar, you were standing in only 3 and ½ feet of water. Now, as I walked down the beach a little to where the waves were peeling off, I could see two other guys were already out.

I paddled out and discovered consistent shoulder high crunchers that let you drop in and ride along for an average of about 6 or 7 seconds before they closed out and deposited you onto that second sand bar I was talking about. So after the first bounce, I decided to kick out before they got me, unless, of course, it looked like I might get covered up (get inside the tube). But I never did get covered up without it being the end of the ride (wipeout).
Oh well, all in all, it was pretty good. The wind was offshore; the water and air was 80 degrees; the ocean was blue; and there was all kinds of wildlife around. Fish were jumping out of the water, and pelicans were air-surfing the swells, and coming within 10 feet of me. I even saw a big fin cruise out the water just outside the break. I paddled over to Matt (one of the other two surfers), and asked him if he could confirm it was a porpoise. He said he didn’t see it, and he started staring to where I had pointed it out to him. Anyway, he and his friend stayed only another 20 minutes, then surfed on in. After being out for an hour and a half, I, too, was tired, so I followed suit. Plus, it’s kind of a funny feeling surfing by yourself in unknown waters when there’s so much sea life around you.
In the evening, the surf was a little blown out with the strong offshore wind so I drove down the island with my board checking out all the piers but I wasn’t impressed enough to go back out. Besides, Monday is when it’s supposed to get big.

THE PIER LIFE
One thing I like about places like this are the piers and their little communities of fisher folk.
It’s great to walk out on the pier at night, and look at all the different people who take their fishing seriously and not so seriously (but more about Deborah and Linda later). Also, you can watch the translucent green swells roll in under the pier, all lit up from the huge pier lights. And you can look way down the beaches on both sides and see house lights and lighthouses.
Saturday night, I was at the end of the pier talking to a surfer/fisherman about the upcoming swell, and a guy nearby caught a 3 foot sand shark. Of course, I didn’t have my camera that night. Also, that night, someone caught a small stingray. On Sunday night, there were some kids surfing in the lights of the pier. We used to do that at Surfside, Texas, once upon a time.
So Sunday night, I took pictures of some of the people there.
Deborah was hard at work (not really), so I asked her why she was out there fishing. I don’t remember her answer, but she did say that she would eat the fish (if she ever caught one). Linda was more creative with her answer. She said something about playing with the fish for a while, then maybe knitting it a wool cap before she let it go. Both the ladies are from Asheville, NC, and they come down for a week and rent a house. I don’t blame them. I think I’ll do the same next time.
Linda caught a fish while I was there but the only thing Deborah caught was a crab, and I almost got a picture of it but the stupid thing let go at the last minute. Please, no comments about Deborah or Linda or the crab.
I told them about Otis and the trailer park, and Linda asked me not to say they live in the trailer park. They don’t. (They’re going to check out my blog and make sure I don’t say anything bad about them.) Deborah is a professional piano player. She plays jazz and easy listening in the Asheville area. I told her that becoming a piano player in a lounge is a goal of mine.

So I guess that’s it for now. I’m going to check out the surf Monday morning, and, if it’s not good, I’m going to head for Ocean Beach, Maryland, where there should be a good swell from that coward, Florence. I’m on her trail.

Hey Oprah, are you listening? Thanks for the comments, mom.

Hurricane Hunter Sept 9

2006-09-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

Well, Friday I headed south on the cape. At the Cape Hatteras lighthouse the barrier island turns 90 degrees so that the east facing beach becomes a south facing beach. It rained more off than on as I drove down to Buxton, where the bend in the island is.
The wind was blowing 15-20 knots out of the northeast and the surf was a mess. I got a nice hotel room on the beach, then drove west past the bend to the Frisco pier where the wind would be offshore (thereby giving the surf a better shape).

The wind was indeed offshore at Frisco, and the shape of the waves was better, but the surf was too small for my 8 footer. There were two guys on long boards getting some Waikiki-type rides at the Frisco pier.

The wave forecast chart shows the biggest swells will hit the coast Monday morning.
I was told, however, by some local surfers that Florence would stay too far out to sea to give us an offshore wind, and it would probably be big and messy.

It looks like Hurricane Florence is going to be a difficult hunt.I decided to go after her at home, but she wasn‘t there either.

Since it looked like I’d have to wait two days just for big and messy waves, I checked my map the next morning, and decided to drive to Atlantic Beach, NC, which is just across the causeway from Morehead City.

I drove north, back towards Kitty Hawk, then went west and south for about 4 hours. Along the way, I filled up with gas at $2.49 per gallon.
I did see one station selling it for $2.39. That’s the cheapest I’ve seen it so far.

The beach here in Atlantic Beach is quite nice. I like it better than the cape. The sand is whiter, and the beaches are wider. It reminds me of Destin and Ft. Walton in Florida. I’m staying in a nice motel across the road from the beach, and I walked over and surfed some small waist high waves yesterday. The water temperature is 80 degrees, and the air is 80 degrees; a nice combination.

Afterwards, I drove a few miles west looking for better waves but it all pretty much looked the same. Monday’s the day, but hopefully Sunday will bring something bigger.

I did find a nifty trailer park right on the water. There’s a bunch of them for sale. If any of you are interested, you can get one for as little as $12,000. After that, all you pay is $3,100 a year for the lease. Just think, beach front property for $12,000. You can’t go wrong.

I got all this info from Otis. Otis has been living there ever since he retired 8 years ago. He and his wife have some retirement income, but they supplement it by scouring the beach for jewelry and coins with their magnetometers (or whatever they‘re called). He found a ring while I was talking to him but he quickly put it in his pocket, and didn’t show it to me. Maybe it was worth a fortune, and he thought I was with the IRS. Anyway, he told me he and Maggie (that’s his wife) went to Hatteras last week after Hurricane Ernesto went through, and a friend of theirs found a silver shilling (or something like that) with a date of 1601. Well, who knew living in a trailer park could be so grand? I’ve got the telephone numbers and stats on the ones for sale. Just email me.

Hurricane Hunter Sept 7

2006-09-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

So I went to the Wright Brothers’ Memorial.
and it had just the right amount of information and exhibits for me. Just enough to keep me interested, and not enough to bore me. You know how tedious those museums can get; like the Louvre and the New York Metropolitan of Art, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So I took in a couple of hours of Orville and Wilbur and their antics at the turn of the century (turn of the last century) up until the first powered flight by man in 1903 at Kill Devil Hills.
Here’s a picture of one of earlier gliders they tested before they figured out how to power it.

These markers show the distances of the first four flights. The first three were around 100 feet. You can see the last marker way in the background. That flight was over 800 feet.

Here’s the replica of the original. It was built in 2003 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their flight, and it was supposed to fly where the original one flew, but the winds weren’t strong enough that day so it didn‘t fly. I don’t know if someone flew it at a later date but I can’t imagine they would take the trouble to build it, and then not fly it because one day was windy. The information was probably mentioned in the Centennial Building (a building dedicated to just the replica), but I was growing weary of Orville and Wilbur by this time.
Someone built a tall, thin monument, and put it up on the top of Kill Devil Hill (at least I think it’s Kill Devil Hill) to commemorate the first flight. It looks a lot like that monolith in the movie 2001. Or the Washington Monument. Someone needs to come up with a new style of monument, don’t you think?
Enough of that.
There’s a hang gliding school nearby, so I went to check out the instruction. I climbed a huge sand dune (and I mean huge), and when I got to the top, there were about 8 or so students with their helmets on, all waiting in turn to take their first flight at Kitty Hawk. It costs $89 for your first lesson (if anyone’s interested).
The flights are very short (like the Wright Brother’s first three flights), but if you pay $129, you can get towed up to 2,000 feet by an airplane and released. Of course, you’d have an instructor with you. I took some movie clips of the actual short flights but this blog won’t accept them. So, if you’re really interested, I can email one of them to anyone who’s interested.
Beware of sharks.

You don’t have to get out of your car to buy alcohol. You can just drive through.
Hey Kenny, there’s plenty of places for you to eat here!

Okay, the surf’s no good here yet. It‘s small and choppy but it’s supposed to build.
But some people are quite content hiding in wait and stalking their prey. But my direction is south, and I’m leaving in a few minutes in order to pursue my prey.

Hey wait, is that Adam Sandler?

Hurricane Hunter Sept 6

2006-09-07T06:45:00.001-07:00

I strapped my 8 ft Stewart surfboard on top of the Infiniti, and left the house at 8:45 am. Exactly four hours later, I crossed over the George Washington Bridge from New York City into New Jersey. At 6 pm I drove over, then under, the Chesapeake Bay. By 8:45 p.m. I was sitting in this room at a Days Inn on the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Exactly 12 hours drive time, and 700 miles (I think).

I’ll verify the exact distance when I get back in the car and head for the Wright Brothers museum (which is ½ mile from here). I only filled up with gas once. That was along the New Jersey Turnpike, and the price was $2.76 a gallon. Just north of here, I saw the price was $2.46 per gallon, but most of the gas stations had it at $2.49. Here on the island, I think it’s about $2.59 per gallon. (Important information these days, isn’t it?)
The surf is small and choppy, but my plan is to head south tomorrow to Buxton or Avon or wherever it is the good surf is supposed to be. I need to stop at a surf shop today and get the details on surf spots.

As I write this, I hear CNN mentioning tropical storm Florence, which is building in the Atlantic and should bring me waves by this weekend. That is one of the reasons I drove here. Another is that I’ve always wanted to check out the Wright Brothers first flight museum. I am a pilot, after all. Or I used to be one. No. I’m still a pilot. I have a license in my pocket that proves it. Oh, it’s not in my pocket. I left it at home. Anyway, who wouldn’t want to see the Wright Brothers museum and the sand dunes from where they first flew?

I don’t have any pictures of the drive because my camera batteries were dead. It‘s a shame because the smoke stacks, and factories along the northern part of the New Jersey Turnpike were such a beautiful sight. But actually, I would have like to have gotten some pictures of the sunset over Chesapeake Bay while I was weaving over and under it via the bridges and tunnels. But the batteries are charged now, and I hope to post some pictures this afternoon.

P.S. You don’t have to register to leave comments. Just do it under the anonymous option.

7 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty smooth ride. I had minimal traffic navigating through Cleveland (home of the rock and roll hall of fame). I finally got off highway 80 and got onto highway 90 for the rest of the trip. Highway 90 parallels Lake Erie through Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York until it gets to Buffalo. After Buffalo, the road heads pretty much due east passing Rochester and Syracuse to the north and the New York finger lakes (see picture) to the south. I turned south at Albany and drove alongside the Hudson River for about 20 miles before crossing the Hudson River and joining the Massachusetts Turnpike. The Hudson River flows past the Catskills and ends up pouring into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. At one point near Buffalo, I crossed some tributary to the Erie Canal, which I read was the first real navigation system in the United States. It was surveyed in 1816, and when it was finished, the canal ended up connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River which made it possible to travel (and haul goods) all the way from New York City to the Great Lakes.

Anyway, enough history. So I made it all the way home by 8:30 p.m. which was exactly 12 hours of driving yesterday, and a total of 742 miles. For statistics sake, I drove a total of 3,197 miles in 5 days, spent $290 on gasoline and got an average of 30.8 miles per gallon. The cheapest gas was in the Midwest, getting as low as $2.62 per gallon. The highest was in California at $3.40 a gallon.

Would I do it again? Hell, no. Not in a 33 year old, 1,800 pound VW bug. (A new Beetle is 3,200 pounds.) My hands are still aching from gripping the wheel while winds and 18-wheeler-produced air buffeted me from side to side for at least half of my drive time. But the scenery is great, and I will probably do it some time in the future in a new car or small RV. I also think I’m lucky nothing serious (or even minor) happened mechanically to the car. I think the car had been sitting for a while before I bought it, and, although I had it checked out and had front end work done and new tires installed, the smallest problem (such as a bad coil) could have left me stranded somewhere.

One advantage, however, was that driving this bug across the country forced me to slow down and go with the flow. I couldn’t be competitive with ANY other vehicle on the road, so I tried to accommodate their passing whenever I could; even moving over to the left lane at times so an 18-wheeler coming up from behind wouldn’t have to change lanes to pass me. Often, I would let the bug slow down going up hills, then harness gravity and speed up on the down slope. Because of this, when I got close to Boston where the traffic picked up, I was a fly in these commuters’ ointment. But I had no choice, really.

Everyone’s in a rush to go back and forth to work or whatever. And most of them will probably always be in a rush until they die. I think the ingrained American lifestyle of working until you’re 65, then finally relaxing and reflecting is all wrong. You should start the life reflection process a lot earlier and continue to do so for at least 30 years. It should be a phase of life. You’re going to say, “But I’ve got to pay the bills.” Well, maybe you don’t need a new Lexus every other year, or the latest Treo cell phone with unlimited internet access. Okay, one more thing and that will be the end of Paul Ogier's ‘Thought for the Day.’

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun,
but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. (Roger Waters)

So, I won’t drive across the country in an old Beetle again. No sir. But I am thinking of driving down to Mexico in a VW bus--after I take a break. And I’ve got my eye on a nice one. (see picture)

6 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-22T04:45:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday morning, and I’m in a little, podunk town called Sandusky between Toledo, Ohio and Cleveland. I drove 800 miles yesterday. I started at 0515 because I wanted to begin just once before the sun came out. The drive was not too exciting except for the winds rocking the car most of the way (see picture), and the first traffic jam I’ve encountered since I retired from American Airlines five months ago. The traffic occurred south of Chicago on highway 80 because of construction just before a toll booth. It’s the first time I’ve hit any traffic since leaving California. And right now I’m postponing my start so that when I shoot through Cleveland, the morning rush hour will be done.

Yesterday I left Nebraska, and drove through Omaha and Des Moines in Iowa, over the Mississippi River, through Illinois just south of Chicago, past South Bend in Indiana, and past Toledo, Ohio. Near Omaha, Nebraska, the landscape changed almost immediately from parched land to green, rolling hills. Now, and for the last two states, the scenery is farmscapes and lots of silos. Pleasant.

A couple places back in the parched lands, there were signs telling me it was against the law to pick up hitchhikers because there were prisons in those vicinities. It was a pity, because there was a hitchhiker I really felt sorry for (see picture), but there was another that I was a bit suspicious of (see picture).

The car is running fine, except for the fact that it’s still leaking oil at the gasket between the engine and the transmission. I guess I’ll fix it when I get back to New Hampshire. I might actually make it back today (Monday). I have 740 miles to go (see map).

Paul McCartney
Has anyone else realized the coincidence (or irony), that Paul McCartney has gotten his only divorce at the age of 64? So, does he finally have the answer to, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?" Check out the picture. You can tell he was already wanting out. I never liked her. During an interview with Paul and what's her name, Larry King asked her something about Paul. She replied, "I'm not here to talk about Paul. I'm here to talk about land mines!" Well, the hell with her. We don't want to hear anything from you. Get off the stage.

A note to John Nelson. Yes, McCartney wrote and sang , "When I'm 64." It was on the Sgt. Pepper album. You dare question my knowledge of Paul McCartney?

5 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

This morning, I slept in and didn’t leave Rawlins, Wyoming until 0830. It’s Saturday evening as I write this. I traveled 600 miles today. I’m just a little more than half way. Some of the best scenery I’ll probably see on this entire trip was to the east of the continental divide just west of Laramie until a little before Cheyenne. What I don’t understand is that there was a sign announcing the continental divide, then 10 or 20 miles later there was another sign announcing it again. I wondered in what direction the rivers of the U.S. flow when they are between those two signs. The highway (still U.S. 80) is on a plateau about 5,000 feet high and there are peaks to the south (such as Elk Mountain-picture enclosed) that are more than 11,000 feet. They jut out of the high plateau, and, when you look farther south, you can see snow-capped peaks in Colorado. I’d definitely like to go back to Wyoming and Colorado and spend some time there. So many places to visit; so little time. Well, I guess I have a lot of time.

My cell phone worked for about 30 minutes in the Cheyenne area. Before that, the only place it worked this entire trip was for about an hour while I was driving through Salt Lake City. Now that I’m in Lincoln, Nebraska, it’s working again. I use Sprint. Let this be an advertisement for them. Man, Nebraska is wide. It seems to go on and on. The land sloped down out of Wyoming, and the bug and I drove past fairly boring land with many short plateaus that look like they may have been big hills at one time, but then the tops all got sliced off.

I drove along the Platte River, and past Ogallala where Gus McCrae’s true love, Clara Allen, ended up living with a rancher, and raising kids in the novel, Lonesome Dove. Gus and Call kept heading north with their cattle, but it looks like a lot of ranchers stayed put because I saw and smelled huge herds today (bigger than I’d ever seen before), hanging out behind ranch fences along the river.

Also in abundance are those flower farms irrigated by mile long circular watering systems (picture enclosed). The second most common question I used to get from passengers while flying across the country in the Super 80 was, “What are those crop circles all over the land below us?” The second most common question was, “When are we going to get there?” But that was from the flight attendants.

Well, not too exciting today, except for the seemingly nonstop attempt at maintaining control of the bug while, one by one, the eighteen wheelers would blow past me on the left, and their solid cushion of air tried to nudge me onto the shoulder.

4 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

It’s a nice, blue and sunny morning in beautiful downtown Rawlins, Wyoming. It’s not much of a town, though; one short street of small business, and a couple other main drags with many motels and hotels spread along them. (Oh yeah, and there’s several big rocks a few hundred feet high jutting out of the ground.) But at least there’s a car wash so I cleaned the bugs off the bug, and washed away the oil from the bottom of the engine where the rear main seal is leaking. It’s not leaking enough to give me a concern though because every time I check the oil, it’s still almost full. Oh, and the engine quit again just like last time but this time I discovered the real cause. The connector ends of two wires associated with the distributor and coil were touching. When I bent them away from each other, the car still didn’t start. (I was once again on the side of Highway 80.) I looked around and found a wire with an enclosed fuse going to the coil. When I checked the fuse, it was blown. I replaced the fuse with a spare one, and, voila, the bug started up again, and I haven’t had any problems again. That was 600 miles ago.

I started early yesterday because I wanted the bug to run cool through the Great Salt Lake desert. The old VWs don’t have radiators; they’re air cooled, and the cooler the air, the better. I cruised over the salt flat desert west of Salt Lake City, through light traffic in the city, then up through a mountain pass leading east. I crossed the border into Wyoming, and I almost stopped for the night at a National Park called Flaming George, which I believe was named after one of the first gay pioneers in old west. But I decided to just keep going, so here I am in Rawlins, Wyoming.

I’ve driven a total of 1,050 miles, and I have another 2,100 to go. The bug is getting about 32 miles per gallon, which came in handy through California and Nevada because the price of gasoline was as high as $3.45 a gallon. Now the price has settled to about $2.62. .

3 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

Well, today, Thursday, started off quite well. I showed up at Donsco VW at 11 a.m. and Joe was just lowering the bug on the lift. He had just finished installing the steering box. Apparently the part arrived early as promised, and Joe was a man of his word, and had also arrived early to install it. Every one was happy, and I bought some extra tune up parts for the road. Joe even threw in a free can of oil. I was finally starting my journey a day late just before noon. Joe remarked that it probably wasn't my destiny to have left the previous day. Whatever. I cruised over the Bay Bridge, then past Sacramento, up through Donner Pass, where the infamous Donner Party became stranded in 1846 on their way to California (before the gold rush), and were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive. Read the book "Ordeal by Hunger" for more. I cruised past Reno, NV, then onward on Highway 80 through desert valleys surrounded by a few snow capped peaks, occasional rain and a two rainbows. The bug's comfortable speed, after a few hours of experimenting, is 70 miles an hour ( unless, of course, it's going up a hill), and I was pretty impressed with the bug's performance in the climbs up the Sierra Nevadas to Reno. I even passed a car or two. So, as I was saying, all was going fine cruising through the Nevada desert valleys. The engine was running cool in light rain, and I was listening to Claudine Longet on the Ipod when all of a sudden, the engine stopped. I had passed the city of Winnimucca about 20 miles earlier and there was nothing but desolation and about an hour of daylight left as I coasted to the side of the road. My cell phone's constant search for service was not reassuring. I thought the fact that the engine just plain stopped all of a sudden was a good thing. (Unless, of course, it just seized. Then that's a bad thing.) I turned the key after I stopped, and the engine at least turned over; but wouldn't start, of course. I got out, and opened the back (where the engine is, if you're not familiar with old bugs), as trucks blew wind and light rain onto me. It was actually refreshing since it had been hot most of the day. Basic troubleshooting says that the problem can only be fuel or electricity. I saw that the clear fuel filter still had fuel in it, so that was good. I then pulled the distributor cap and verified that the points were sparking. I looked at the inside of the distributor cap, and the contacts were pretty black and corroded, so I replaced it with the cap I had bought that morning, replaced the plug and coil wires, and voila, the engine started up and purred like a kitten. (Better than before, I must say.) I don't know if it was the cap for sure because I didn't make verify the coil and plug wires were snug before I pulled it off, but, in any event, I was soon on my way and listening to Claudine singing "Love is Blue." In the back of my mind, while I was troubleshooting the engine, I had a blurry vision of spending a night in the car, then trying to get help the next morning with no sleep. I thought about Joe telling me it wasn't my destiny to have left the previous day, and I wondered if maybe I would have been in too much of a rush to have bought that distributor cap. Oh, well. Whatever. But now , here I am, at a Motel 8, with wifi, the weather channel and David Letterman.

2 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-18T08:31:00.001-07:00

So I went in yesterday to Donsco VW because the steering needed an adjustment after the new steering box was installed last week. Joe, the owner, was going to reinstall it and have me out in the morning and I'd commence my trip. Worst case scenario would be that he would not have it fixed until too late for me to make any real headway on my trip, thus postponing the start until early today. Wrong. Worst case scenario was that the the steering box would break while Joe was trying to get it out, and that the closest available steering box would be in Orange County, southern California. I watched as the drive pulled out of the box instead of the steering box pulling away from the drive. I agree with Joe that it was probably the poor workmanship of the box that made this happen. But, anyway, I was left stranded without a car, since I returned my rental car the day before. Joe said the part would arrive this morning at 7:30 a.m., and that he would install it as soon as he could.

Donsco VW seems to be really a parts shop where VW fans come in and shoot the breeze. Joe is the owner and the only mechanic, and my perspective of the operation is that the maintenance part of the business is more of a hobby than a business. It does, however, seem to be a good parts shop, and both Joe and Fred, the part-time parts man and full-time chef, are both friendly, and the source of a lot of good information on VWs. I just hope the steering box arrives this morning.

1 A Beetle Crawls Across America

2006-05-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

May 16, 2006

One week working on the retaining wall with my Guatemalan workers, planting a few vines, installing a timer to water them, and generally fixing up the outside of the house again and I'm finally done. Now begins the drive from Redwood City to North Hampton, NH. The record breaking rainfall should be stopped by the time I get there around Tuesday. The distance is 3,200 miles, and it should take me 5 or 6 days if I drive 500 to 600 miles a day. I don't plan on rushing; I'll stop along the way and enjoy the scenery. I was going to start driving tomorrow at 6 a.m. but I discovered the turning radius on my '73 Super Beetle is not the same in both directions. I went back to to the guys at Donsco who installed a new steering box last week, and they said they could do it first thing in the morning. So maybe I'll leave after that. Now, if I could just figure out where the fuel smell is coming from....

I really haven't had much time off this past week, so I'm kind of tired. So, if I don't leave until Thursday morning, I'll get to do nothing (hopefully) tomorrow, which won't be so bad. I'll just rest, then jog on the trails at Edgewood Park near my house. My driving route will take me through San Francisco, over the Bay Bridge, past Sacramento then up through Donner and Reno. I was planning on getting at least as far as some place called Elko, NV tomorrow, but now we'll just see. Later on I'll go through Denver, Salt Lake City and just south of Chicago.