Date:         Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:11:09 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         sean         bartnik          <sbart7kb@mwcgw.mwc.edu>
Subject:      trip report

Hey all,
On Thursday, Christy (my girlfriend) and I embarked on a road trip to
attend her sister's wedding.  The wedding was at the Dartmouth Chapel
in Hanover ( I think) New Hampshire.  We were staying about 15 minutes
from there at the Juniper Hill Inn in Windsor, Vermont.  Very nice place,
BTW, but much too expensive :) .

We packed up the bus, I made sure it was tripworthy (it was, like
always) and headed out behind Christy's parents (they had a Toyota
pickup, no room for us).  I have a CB in my bus and Christy's dad has
one in his truck, so we were able to communicate, which was really
handy for rest stops and such.

On Thursday night we started from Fredericksburg, Virginia and drive up
95, getting onto 495/95 to Baltimore.  We crossed over the Woodrow
Wilson Bridge into Maryland, then through the Fort McHenry Tunnel near
Baltimore (I like tunnels :) ), and then into Delaware, and from there into
New Jersey.  We stayed at Christy's aunt's house in New Jersey and
the next morning we set out for New Hampshire, my '78 bus and a
Toyota Previa (jellybean van).  We were both equipped with CB, which is
a good thing, as they often got way ahead of me.  Anyway, we went
from New Jersey to New York to Connecticut to Massachusetts to
Vermont to New Hampshire.

Long drive.

Anyway, the bus made it without incident, I was very impressed. 
Vermont and New Hampshire were really nice, wouldn't mind living there
I guess.  I wasn't as impressed with New York and New Jersey :) .  Tolls
tolls tolls tolls.  Geez, we spent a lot on tolls. 

Well, Saturday was the wedding, it was great, they're all happily ever
after, and Sunday we came back, but we had to do it all in one day
because we are in college and have classes on Monday (we planned to
miss classes on Friday, but due to heavy rains from the hurricane,
classes were cancelled anyway).  

BTW, 20W-50 oil is hard to come by in Vermont, I guess because it gets
so cold up there no one really uses it.  Had to settle for Sunoco brand
20W-50, but it got me home.

The drive home was nice and cool, so oil temps stayed below 210 for
most of the drive.  Ran into very heavy rain on the New Jersey Turnpike
and some more in Maryland.  

Bus performed flawlessly, as usual.  I love that bus :) .

I saw an EV in Vermont and an EV camper in Virginia last night on the
way home.  I also saw a splittie somewhere and a couple bays.  Tried
waving but no one was looking at me.  Saw a few bugs as well.  Didn't
see many VWs at all in Vermont, I suppose 'cause of rust :( . 

The only complaint about my bus I have is that the seat cushions in the
two front seats are pretty much nonexistent.  You can feel the springs
right below the vinyl and my butt could definitely feel the springs after 13
hours in the car last night.  So I need to replace the front seat cushions.  I
notice that RMMW and WCM have them and they're pretty cheap, so tell
me, are they easy to replace?????  Can I remove the old seat covers
without destroying them so that I can reuse them?  How do those
hog-ring things work?  I'm seriously considering doing this soon, before I
have to ride on that seat again.

Thanks,
Sean