Date: Tue, 19 Jul 94 13:07:11 MST
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: lytle@noao.edu
Subject: Re: vanagon.list group trip!
Martha Rubin wrote:
> What about a group trip, fellow van.list people? A caravan winding
> across the country both directions, or perhaps up to Alaska? Or....?
> Think of the GREAT (lyrics for) songs around the campfire! ;)
Will Self sez:
> One thing that might work would be a big circle. People could join
> the caravan and drop back out, and the caravan itself could proceed,
> with its own life... Tentative idea... Start in California in July 95.
Martha again:
> OK, everyone who's interested, e-mail me your list of preferences,
> like what time of year, how soon, for how long, etc., and like
> in a democracy (but isn't this chaos?), I'll try to sort it
> all out....
Personally, ever since I read "Blue Highways", I've been wanting to do
some sort of trip 'round the country. Martha's trip would combine two of my
favorite things, VWs and road trips, and I could add another of my favorite
things, photography. (hmmm, maybe if we were to document the trip fairly well
we could write a book!! No? Well, at least a killer WWW page!)
I would expect a trip (happening?) like this would be (mostly) a camping
trip to keep costs down. However, I suppose most towns have both some sort
of campground as well as motels/hotels. I have some experience with leading
large camping trips (~20 people, ~5 vehicles, tent camp and cook in camp).
As far as time of year, I prefer either early May or late September, that is,
just before or just after the tourist season. This may not be an option if
a lot of people want to bring their children. And probably next year (1995).
If this happens, I would be willing to help organize the southwest part of
the trip. I have quite a bit of travel experience in Arizona, New Mexico,
Colorado, Utah, and southern California. People might be interested in
visiting some of the national parks and monuments in the southwest and I have
been to and have documentation on most of them. I also know good camping
spots in the national forests (so we don't have to camp in crowded areas)
near some of the parks (Zion and the Grand Canyon, for instance).
The only experience I have had with a VW bus caravan was the Jerome Jamboree
last September put on by the Arizona Bus Club. We caravaned with about
70 busses from Phoenix to Jerome, AZ (about 100 miles) and camped overnight
in Jerome where we had a car show, chili cook-off, etc. That was a blast!
Cheers and keep the trip plans rolling in!
-Dyer
Dyer Lytle, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ, 602-323-4136
Internet: lytle@noao.edu WWW: http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf_staff/lytle.html
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