Date:         Sun, 14 Apr 1996 22:56:14 -0500 (CDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David Schwarze <ddes@zeus.anet-dfw.com>
Subject:      Road Trip!!!

Vanagonites,
	What follows is a summary of my trip from San Diego, California to
Dallas, Texas.  It contains very little VW-specific content, so if
you're only subscribed to the list to reap technical knowledge, you can
hit "d" now.  :)

April 08, 1996
	I had planned to leave around noon on Monday, but last minute trip
preparations got a little out of hand, and I didn't get on the road
until 3:00, or thereabouts.  Mileage 05499 (installed the new 2-liter
engine at about 99700 back in December).  As I drove out of San Diego
with the sun setting behind me, I wondered if I had made a mistake
leaving this place.  The weather had been absolutely perfect for the
last three days - mid 70's, bright and sunny, with a light breeze.  Oh
well, too late now.  I put some good music on the radio and headed East.
	I crested the local mountains about an hour later, and from the
4,100 ft. summit coasted down into the low desert of Southeastern
California.  Down at 100 feet below sea level, the tempurature rose into
the nineties and stayed that way till well past 7 pm.  The bus ran well,
with the oil temperature steady around 195, except for climbing hills
when it maxxed out around 220.  Considering the heat and the fact that I
was carrying a couple hundred pounds of luggage and household junk, I
was quite pleased by that.
	After spending the night at a friend's house, I headed into Tucson.
I had arranged to meet with Dyer Lytle that evening but got into Tucson
around lunchtime.  I stopped at the University of Arizona to look for
somewhere to log in.  Found an open lab full of X Terminals (yahoo!) and
for the next hour or so I went wild reading vanagon list mail.  I got a
little worried about leaving the cat in the camper for very long, in the
hot weather, so I called it quits, grabbed a slice of pizza at the
student union and headed back to the camper.  I should mention that the
University of Arizona looks like a GREAT school!  Beautiful campus,
friendly people, lots of computer labs, plus a bowling alley, video
games, football stadium... tons of distractions for students.  :)  Put
San Diego State University to shame, I have to say.  Sure wish I could
have attended here.
	Back at the camper, the cat was fine (I had parked in the shade,
with the windows cracked, roof vent open, lots of water - she was
resting peacefully).  I killed the next couple of hours doing laundry
and then headed over to Dyer Lytle's place.  He and his wife treated me
to a delicious barbecued chicken dinner, and we gabbed about our busses
for awhile.  I was slightly intimidated, since I only had one bus and
Dyer has two (including a '72 bus with a Safare high-roof!).  :)  Around
9:30 I got back on the road, wanting to cover some of the hottest part
of the desert in the cool night hours.  
	I stopped somewhere short of the New Mexico border, and parked in a
vacant lot near the interstate.  Next to me were several run-down
houses, in the small piece of land between the interstate and the
railroad tracks that run parallel not 500 feet away.  I wondered what
would possess someone to live in such a place.
	The next morning, as I was pulling into a gas station, the bus died
and refused to restart.  I began checking things systematically,
thinking in the back of my head that it couldn't possibly be serious.
First I checked that the coil was getting juice.  Yup.  Next I pulled
the covers off of the carb throats and moved the throttle listening for
the sound of gas squirting down in to a hot intake manifold.  Yup,
getting gas too.  I wanted to turn the engine over with a spark plug
wire grounded, and remembered a previous post to the list about how to
do this from the diagnostic plug-in port in the engine compartment.
Unfortunately, in my bus the two spade recepticals you were supposed to
short across were just plastic slots, with no connectivity.  So I gave
up on that idea temporarily and popped the distributor cap.  Right away
I suspected I had found the problem, as there was a light coating of red
dust over everything inside.  Upon closer examination it became evident
that the points were not opening.  At all.  The small piece of
fiber-something that the cam pushes on had worn down until the cam was
barely touching it.  I reset the points by eye, reset the timing by ear
and continued on.  I carry spare points in the bus at all times (in
fact, I carry a whole spare distributor) but I didn't feel like
replacing them on the road, in the heat.
	Back on I-10, I made fairly good time by getting behind large semis
and letting them push all of the air out of my way.  Without this, I can
cruise comfortably at about 60, but going faster than that my mileage
goes down the toilet.  Behind a semi (not too close) I can usually keep
up 65-70 without stepping too hard on the loud pedal, and get decent
mileage.  In El Paso, I saw a splittie and a bay window westfalia along
with at least 6 other cars outside of a house on the frontage road, and
pulled off for a look.  When I got to the house I found it was more like
a shack, and there were no trespassing signs all over the place.  I
decided to move on.  In the same city I passed a Pick'N Pull junkyard
and walked through it.  Not a single VW van.  :(
	Western Texas was hot, dry, and barren.  Very little vegitation,
even less than the deserts in Arizona and California.  I was glad to get
out.  About 10pm I was only about 200 miles outside of Dallas, and
getting very tired.  I was driving behind a big truck, with two more of
them close behind me.  Despite the fact that we all had heard reports of
a state trooper at the 245 mile marker, we rolled through that area at
an even 65mph (the speed limit for trucks at night in Texas is 55, 65
for cars).  After going through an underpass, the truck in front of me
stands on his brakes, and I see a police mustang in the shadows behind
the underpass (sneaky devil).  The truckers are cursing on the CB, and
although I couldn't see that far back, I heard one of the trucks behind
me announce that the trooper was Eastbound, hammer down.  Uh oh.  I
wasn't particularly worried, thinking that he probably clocked the truck
in front of me on radar, and was after him, but the familiar Mustang
headlights that came zooming up behind me slowed down and ducked in
behind me for about 30 seconds, and then the pretty lights came on.  Damn.
	The trooper turned out to be pretty nice, and told me he had pulled
me over because my license plate light was out.  I plead ignorance,
although I *was* aware that the light was out.  He then asked me for
license, registration, and proof of insurance.  DOH.  I was unable to
produce the latter.  He informed me that in Texas, your car could be
impounded if you were unable to produce proof of insurance.  I smiled
and told him I thought Texas was supposed to be a *friendly* state.  He
laughed, and said it was, and let me off with a warning.  California
stopped requiring motorists to carry proof of insurance several years
ago, and I routinely forget to take the little slips out to the car when
I get them every six months.  I vowed to call my insurance company as
soon as I got to Dallas and have them send me some new slips, to avoid
any potential unpleasantness.  I figured the written warning would
suffice in the mean time.
	One interesting thing I saw along the highway in Texas (the only
thing?) was a billboard sign announcing the presence of a truck stop
just up the road, called, "Texas Interstate Truck Stop".  The first
letter of each word was abnormally large, and in yellow as opposed to
the red color of the rest of the letters.  Only in Texas...
	The rest of the trip was without incident - I stopped at a Motel
shortly after the state trooper incident, and treated myself and the cat
to a much-needed TV fix (and a much-needed shower for me!).  The next
morning (Thursday) I rolled into Dallas around noon, and promptly got
stuck in a huge traffic jam.  Someone tell me again why I moved here?  :)
So Bluto a.k.a. Da Boat a.k.a. the Safare hi-top camper from hell is now
officially a resident of Dallas, Texas.  Yee-haw!

Miles Traveled this trip:   1303
Gallons of gas consumed:    73.91
Average MPG:                17.63 (not bad considering it's jetted rich)

-David

============================================================================
David Schwarze                   '73 VW Safare Custom Camper       (Da Boat)
Dallas, Texas, USA               '73 Capri GT 2800                (Da Beast)
e-mail: ddes@anet-dfw.com        '87 Mustang Lx 5.0          (13.986@100.81)
http://www.teleport.com/~des     '93 Weber WG-50                  (Da Piano)
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