Date:         Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:20:21 -0500
Reply-To:     Ronald Michaels <rbm1024@NETSCAPE.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Ronald Michaels <rbm1024@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject:      Death Valley and other places (long)

Hi to all -

My wife Beve and I went throught Death Valley in 1972 in a 66 Squareback.
This got me thinking of some other places we have been.

In the late 80's we lived in Zimbabwe.  Daughter Rosa was just out of
diapers when she got there.  During one school holiday we were camping in
the Caravan Park at Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side and I saw two young
men replacing a wheel bearing on their Mercedes with SouthWest Africa
Plates.  (breakdown content)  They said that the Caprivi Strip was open
because there was a lull in the war.  So we checked our visas and insurance
- good for Southwest Africa (now Namibia) -  and left the next morning in
our 1600 Brazilian bus (VW related content).  We drove across Chobe National
Park in Botswana and crossed over into Southwest.  After registering at the
South African military checkpoint, we set out on an all day drive across the
Caprivi.  The unpaved road was deserted and we saw no other vehicles.  We
reached the first hotel in SouthWest that evening.  We did not break down,
but we did make the return trip down through South Africa and back up to Harare.

On our last school holiday in Zimbabwe, we decided to go up to Malawi.  The
short route to Malawi at that time was up through Mozambique with the daily
military convoy.  This was 8 hours of driving broken up by having to cross a
damaged suspension bridge one vehicle at a time.  While reforming for the
afternoon leg, we had time to transfer fuel from our gas cans to the tank
and eat corned beef on bread for lunch.  On the afternoon leg, our bus
started getting warm - crankcase oil temp up well over 240F but we had to
keep up with the convoy.  We made it to Malawi before dark.

On another holiday we went to Mana Pools Park on the Zambezi River.  This is
a park where the camp ground is open and the elephants walk through on their
way to the water.  We saw the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross in the same
sky.  On the way out we broke down on the access road. A White Rhodesian (a
vernacular term for European settler) stopped to see  what was happening
(rules of the road).  I finally found that the wire inside the distributor
had broken.  I replaced the wire (carry tools and spares content) and we all
went on down the road.

My wife just reminded me that she has a breakdown story.  She and her sister
and the kids were down in Lesotho in our Brazilian bus.  About a hundred km
out of Maseru the clutch locked up and would not release, so she drove all
day without a clutch over some pretty rough roads.  There was a VW dealer in
Maseru.  The dealer put in a new clutch disk and that was that.

When I left Zimbabwe in 1990 I made a vow that I would never own another air
cooled engine, except for lawn mowers.  So that is why I am a Vanagon owner.
 Little did I know that VW could screw up a water cooled engine with rubber
head gaskets.

I am so flattered that daughter Rosa decided to emulate her parents and go
on the road for a while.  That is why she is out in Redding CA waiting for
Boston Bob (vendor plug) to ship out a engine to get her on the road again
in my wife's 85 Westy.  Go Bob!

Ron