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Date:         Fri, 7 Jul 2006 23:24:49 -0400
Reply-To:     Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Subject:      Ramblings of a Vanagon type of guy
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Hardware: 1991 Syncro Westy with Sewfine Interior, 3 vent canvas, SA Big Brakes, Smallcar rear disc brakes, Subaru SVX engine, Duracool in the AC. Decoupler, Limited slip front diff. Vredestein 225/70R15 tires on Rhein alloys. Recaro seats

Back from a week long vacation. Circa 1000 miles (probably more). Had one problem on the trip (later in this missive). Also some observations. First, the route....

Washington DC (Tyson's Corner). My home base of operations. First day I drove north to the Allegheny National Forest (Northern Pennsylvania). Got stuck in traffic (leaving after work on a Friday before 4th of July....) Got up to the forest a bit later than I intended. That meant I was hunting around for a camping spot in the dark. Made a couple of wrong guesses, and finally found a open gate. Found a prime camping spot...already occupied. Continue on further and found a relatively level spot on an underused ATV trail. Only made one mistake. I had the door open when I lifted the poptop. Spent 30 minutes exterminating the misquitoes.

Day 2. Head to Buffalo, cross over on the Peace Bridge into Ontario. When I got to the other side, there were dozens of cars in every lane...but the Bus/RV lane was empty. What the heck. I played it safe and went in to that lane. Inspector came out and asked a few cursory questions ("Any firearms, or alcohol?" "No, okay, then you can go.") and I was on my way into Canada for the first time since I was too young to drive. I decided to avoid the big falling waters, and continued over to Toronto. Did I mention it was Canada Day? Most things were closed (even though it was a Saturday). Toronto was sort of neat, but I was in a camping mood, so I headed out of town, to the northeast. Petersborough. Drat's I must remember to visit the Canoe Museum there. Didn't this time. Continued north to Buckhorn. Nearest campground was full (I'll come back here later). Kept going north. Got to Algonquin Provincial Park. All campgrounds full. Rats. Okay, kept heading north. Got to Northbay and said, enough. I'm grabbing a motel room. Good thing, too. They were in the midst of a Shadfly (Mayfly) hatching. Things were EVERYwhere (I only got a half dozen in to the van, but I remembered to turn off all lights before opening any doors.)

Day 3. Head west to Sudbury. Camp on the south side of Sudbury (Richards Lake). Nice little spot. Decent campground. Stay here 2 days. ---- Southern Ontario (Toronto up to around Buckhorn) reminds me a lot of Maryland. Pleasant (neat) farm land with mixed trees. Buckhorn is the beginning of the lake country, and it is very nice, but just north of Buckhorn, the vegatation changes to mostly conifers (spruce, fir) and the granite rock becomes quite apparent. Also the terrain becomes very much different, with rocky outcrops separate by bog or lake. There was one road I took that I'd call the roller coaster road. Up and down, left and right. 30 feet or so up and down, 150 feet left and right. 40 kph was the speed limit and I really didn't feel completely safe at that speed (too many blind turns and hills). Another time (on Day 2) I was looking for a campground (which was on a cut off) decided it wasn't what I wanted, so rather than retrace my route, I decided to continue on the cut off. Well my GPS navigation maps showed the road went through! Fortunately I do have a Syncro. When I got to the bog I had a DEFINITE moment of indecision. But I plowed ahead and kept on thinking "Don't STOP!". The water did not get up to the bottom of the doors....but it was pretty darn close. I really wish there had been more folks at the exit side to see me come out of that trail (I suspect its a snowmobile route in winter.....)

Sudbury is quite different. The geology is more favorable to trees, so there are a lot of decidous ones there. Small (less than 40 feet) , but a goodly variety. It is also a bizarre city in that rocky outcrops are all over the place. A "block" might be a km long, because a massive block of bedrock in right there. I also got wild blueberries here. Yumm. ---- Day 5. South and then east to Buckhorn again. This time I located the canoe shop where I'm getting a canoe (cedar strip) built. Chatted with the owner (who is currently working on several restoration jobs). Then headed to that campground that was full on Canada day. This time I got a lovely little camp side practically on the lake (there was a very small playground between me and the lake). I know I haven't said anything about this before, but, the whole time I was in Canada it was windy, windy, windy. This campground was not particularly flat, but that also meant that sites weren't close to each other. Unfortunately, this was also a campground where you have to pay for your shower (metered shower). Yuck. Well, in some respects it is better than those idiotic ones where you have to keep pushing a button to get water..... I probably should have stayed at this site another day...

Day 6. I was convinced that I was not going to head back into the US via Buffalo/Niagara Falls. That meant....head east young man. So I did. Quebec and Montreal. Okay, First off, in Quebec, if it isn't bilingual, its in French. Got to wrestle with those old memories of high school french lessons. Ontarians are relatively polite drivers. My experience was that Quebecois were much more aggressive. Well, I also hit Montreal at rush hour. Crossing over the St. Lawrence was tedious. I was impressed with the number of "gaulic" profiles. Never gave it much thought before, but there are distinctive noses for french and their descendants. Montreal also was the first place that I began to see real topography again. Honest to god mountains. I continued east through southern Quebec and found a campground. Horrible little place (for all that I was in farmland, I think we were next to a drag strip.) I had to pay for my shower here too (though it was only 25 cent instead of $1 for 5 minutes of water. I only had a single quarter so that made for a very quick shower.

Day 7. Re-entry to US via Vermont. Curiously, the border folk here were more concerned about meat products and fruit. Fortunately I had no meat with me (ate it all) and the only fruit I had were some lemons, oranges, bananas and the blueberries. I also noted the vicious cops with the radar guns, right before the border station (if you were heading north). I guess they were hoping to give you one more lasting impression of the USA...

So I continued south for a while, and then headed east again, into the White Mountain National Forest. Awesome. Mount Washington was immeadiately recognizable to me. Could see the smoke from the cog railroad from a long distance away. I circled the mountain and finally found the (pay) road to the top. If I think about it, I will still get a few shivers. Fortunately my fear of heights is not paralyzing. I was prepared for the weather up top. Just had to switch clothes when I got there (great thing about Westys....) Temp was 44 F at the top (about 80 F at the base). The clouds were intermittant and their base was about 6200 feet (i.e. just below the top of the mountain), so we had clear views at different times, but no real long range views. There is lots and lots of camping around Mount Washington. I thought it was Friday though, so I reluctantly headed south and got a room in Worstershire. MA. Here I had a bit of problem. My engine would stall, and when I turned the key to restart, it would barely turn over. I grabbed a new battery and swapped it in, but it made no difference. More on this in observations.

Day 8. Time to return home (remember I thought it was Saturday?) I headed west on I-84, cut across New York and in to PA. It's curious that I-84 skirts the border of NJ, but doesn't actually enter that state. Makes me wonder what political nonsense was played out there. I-84 took me over to I-81, and then south to Harrisburg, where I switched to I-83 to Baltimore. Then a quick swing around Baltimore and I-95 down to DC and I-495 to home. Somewhere on this I was listening to NPR and discovered it was actually Friday, not Saturday. Woops! ---- Okay, some observations. Recaro seats are nice and comfortable for long drives, but they have 2 drawbacks. They are wider than the stock seats, so that the arms rub against the door. Additionally to replace EITHER battery you have to remove the seat (and it's not as convienent to remove the Recaro as it is to remove the stock seat. You need a 5mm allen wrench. PITA.)

3 vent canvas is great for cross ventilation up top. It does not help much with ventilation down below. But if you use the rear hatch screen and keep your rear hatch open, that gives you a nice cross breeze down below.

Reefer. I have a temp sensor attached to the top of the fridge. That's the "hottest" part of the fridge. It would sometimes read as high as 59F (uncalibrated), but my butter (next to the fins) was always solid, I always had frost on the fins, my milk, cheese, meat and yogurt was always cold.

I brought a Weber Q propane grill with me. As nice as the Westy's cook top is, there are something I prefer grilled. Hot dogs, steaks. You can also use the grill to toast bread. Worked pretty well (just don't leave the bread on the cooking surface too long, or it will get charred.) The Weber Q is a nice small grill, but very functional. Recommended.

In Canada I had plenty of cash with me. Be aware that some credit card companies will block their cards from working at Canadian gas stations. "For security". Phght. I never saw a "Novus/Discover" sign anywhere there. MC, Visa and Amex.

I have to get better at this. I still brought too much stuff. Most days I was too zonked out to even think about skywatching after dark. So bringing my telescope along was pointless. It's pretty compact, but its tripod is HEAVY, and I had to move it every day. So it probably won't accompany me again, unless it is an explicit sky watching trip.

Everybody in mid central Ontario has a boat or canoe. Most drive around with one attached to their vehicle. I felt naked. Unfortunately mine won't be completed until next spring.

Gas is more expensive in Canada. Most of the time the cheapest price was around $1.059 per liter (Canadian dollars). That's about $4.00 (Canadian) a gallon. Or about $3.60 US....for regular gas. I was buying premium (if available) due to my SVX engine. There are a lot of Full Service gas stations in Canada. Heck, they'll even do your windows (side as well as front and back.)

Curiously, Canada has a lot of phone booths. Even though cell phone coverage is excellent.

Is it always that windy?

I found using km/h instead of mph, extremely easy to get used to. Never saw any place with a limit higher than 100 km/h though...

Road construction in the Canadian shield most be extremely expensive. Blasting through the granite, bridging the lakes/bogs. Almost nothing level to build on.

My AC worked great the entire trip. On the climb up Mt. Washington, I turned it off. That was almost the only time my high speed radiator fan kicked in too. Then again, that road up Mt. Washington is quite steep. I mostly went up in 2nd (remember I have an SVX engine). 1st gear was overheating the engine (if I tried to stay up with traffic at 20mph) Or I would have been traveling at half the speed of most other folk. On the way down hill I used 1st gear and pulled over to let folks pass me. Almost never used brakes at all on the way down hill (except when I switched into 2nd for a little while).


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