Date:         Fri, 24 Nov 1995 21:07:54 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         mwagner@deltanet.com (Michael Wagner)
Subject:      Thanksgiving trip

Talked my wife into letting me drive the Campmobile out to Thanksgiving
near Palm Springs. She was navigating and wanted me to get on the freeway
(this @ 7a Thursday morning), I wanted to drive down a road south of us
that looked like it turned into Highway 78. Meandered through neighborhoods
we'd at least driven through before for a while, then things got more
sparse, then we were out beyond houses and fast food places.

We crawled (40mph) up hills, fortunately there was no other traffic on the
roads, our 16 month old son was entertained by the ride so far. We stopped
in Julian, a pleasant, tiny mountain town, for breakfast and to let Flynn
(our son) run around. After leaving Julian we drove along winding mountain
roads which yielded several truly spectacular vistas of canyons, pines and
untouched valleys as we slowly traded pines for raw desert.

Drove along for a long ways through barren sections, only saw a few dozen
off road types stirring up dust along the roads. Finished the trip driving
through agricultural land near the Salton Sea and finally getting lost and
ending up on the freeway for the last bit of the trip, which was probably
less stressful than navigating through many red lights through Palm
Springs. Oil temperature and performance were excellent all the way out.
Except maybe the 40mph top speed up hills...

Went out for a spin on Thanksgiving night and got pulled over "for having a
taillight out." Inspection today revealed no taillight out, in fact, NO
lights malfunctioning at all, but I do have long hair and there is that
darned Grateful Dead sticker on the back window... the cop also used the
word "rattletrap" a couple of times while hypothesizing that the light bulb
was probably just loose -- oh well. I'd just finished Thanksgiving dinner
and let the bait bounce off my nose.

Returned home tonight, oil got a bit hot right away, worried me until my
wife Diane pointed out that we were moving up a slight but lengthy grade.
Sure enough, things cooled down once the Campmobile had a chance to catch
its breath.
Spectacular desert sunset out the bay window.

Climbed through more hills (took the route north around the mountains on
the way home) at 40mph, the Campmobile had performed so well all the way
out and back I didn't resist sprinting up the last hill at 70mph!

Nice trip overall, really enjoyed driving the Campmobile. We bought my wife
a Maxima, so talking her into taking the baby along for a long trip in the
Volkswagen (instead of her "real" car) is a big deal. It doesn't go very
fast, but I have a big smile on my face when I'm driving...

Michael
'76 Campmobile