Date:         Sun, 19 Mar 2000 22:43:57 -0500
Reply-To:     "Karl F. Bloss" <bloss@ENTER.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Karl F. Bloss" <bloss@ENTER.NET>
Subject:      philosophy of top speed (was Re: Top speed of a vanagon)
In-Reply-To:  <20000319.100130.6695.3.kdlewis@juno.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

For those who dislike philosophical discussions, hit delete now.  This is the
kind of stuff that would propel EMZ through the ceiling.  :-)

This whole concept of how fast a Vanagon can go seems kinda silly to me.  I
remember the John Muir guide saying something like "I usually don't drive my
Beetle over 60MPH.  You can go to hell in your own way."

Sure, I can try to push my toaster down the highway at 75, but what's the
point?  I've taken to driving backroads at around 50MPH, which gives me peak
fuel economy at about 23 MPG.  I also get to see the country side and little
towns, find some great diners, and typically find the traffic much less taxing.
 Amusingly, twice on my recent road trip through New England, some hot dog
passed me on 2-lane highways at 70 MPH and got nailed by the cops right after
that.  :-)

To paraphrase Charles Kuralt, the interstate highway system has the dubious
distinction of allowing one to go from coast to coast without actually seeing
anything.  At a recent relaxed session at Barnes & Noble, I blew some of my
Christmas money on a book called Road Trip USA, by Jamie Jensen (ISBN
1566911494).  It has a bunch of great cross country trips on 2-lane highways
and pointers on stuff to see along the way.

So with the "Too Slow? Too Bad" and "Never get behind a VW bus" stickers on
Bev, you might see us ambling down some back roads.

-Karl

Karl and Kristina Bloss, Trexlertown, PA
'87 Westfalia Weekender  "Beverley" - 194K miles
http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/
PA/NJ Vanagon owner's mailing list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/pavanagon/