Date:         Fri, 27 Sep 96 15:07:49 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Unca Joel goes West: part  1

Part 1:  The trip to Dallas.

0220 117,085 - leave the house. it's 63 degrees outside. chilly. how
   little did i realize the portent of this omen.
0230 - stop for breakfast/whatever. Waffle House. four young cops,
   using three city police cars, are arguing about promotions.
   meanwhile, Crime Never Sleeps. or Eats Breakfast. ;) <the donut
   shop closes at midnight>
0300 - on the I-20, heading west; really quiet: nothing but trucks.
   no CB chatter. once you get about 10 miles outside the city, you
   can actually see the stars overhead. nice and cool: no bugs around
   to splatter against your windshield.
0406 117,163 - Mississippi state line. Welcome to the Magnolia State,
   y'all. :)
0425 Meridian. bUmPy RoAdS AlOnG HeRe. if you were constipated before
   you came into Mississippi, you will NOT be after driving from
   Meridian to Jackson. :(  the clouds are kinda down low tonight and
   the radio tower flashing beacons appear in the distance like
   fireflies. on the radio:
     "He's an old hippie, and he don't know what to do ...
      Should he hang on to the old, or grab for something new?
      He's an old hippie, and Life is just a bust -
      He ain't trying to change nobody,
        He's just trying real hard to adjust."

   i know the feeling.
0550 117,275 - Jackson. different radio station. Colonel Bogie march.
   rather odd for this town and this time of day, but it kinda lifts
   my spirits. :)
0615 - even bumpier roads. if that is possible. i'd really hate to
   be driving a big truck over this "interstate"!! the pale blue
   of the dawn appears in my rearview mirror: Wednesday is on its way.
0632 117,320 - Big Muddy (the Mississippi River). the dawn is now
   wearing its rosey peach-colored housecoat, spreading wider and
   higher, getting all the children up for school. into Louisiana.
   flat. FLAT. F-L-A-T. this part of the state is FLAT. like a billiard
   table. but at least, the road is smooth. lots of billboards: We
   want YOUR money, sucker!! Gamble here!! NOW!! also the speed limit
   is lower here: 65 mph, instead of the 70mph in Mississippi and
   Alabama. i guess they figure you'll gamble on that, too.
0652 117,341 - bad fog. visibility about 1/4 mile. maybe less.
0703 - fog gone. road still FLAT. Ol' Sol is awake, and smiling his
   little round face in all my mirrors. now i am grateful for spending
   that money to retrofit the power mirrors on my bus. :) a simple
   twist of the switch and i no longer am blinded.
0735 - mowers in the median. the smell of freshly cut grass is somehow
   refreshing.
0739 117,391 - stop for fuel. Monroe, LA.. 21.8 mpg for this tank.
   313.7 miles. 14.4 gallons. $18.71 R87 octane. topped of the steering
   fluid (i have a small leak up front. i'm hoping it is NOT the
   power steering rack. i hope) ... only an ounce or two is needed.
   coolant is ok. take a break and wait for the rush hour to subside.
   baloney sandwich for breakfast. no donuts. ;)
0818 - out of Monroe. Louisiana not so flat anymore.
0845 - sheesh, these roads are worse than the ones in Mississippi!!
1000 117,515 - Texas!! home of all things large and wonderful. where
   Dolly Parton is considered small for her age. ;) three more hours
   until  Dallas. :(  an Austin-Healey 3000 passes in the opposite
   direction, top down, two older gray-headed types, with a beer cooler
   strapped to the luggage rack on the boot. :)
1154 117,638 - mile marker 514: Toon Town Texotics. that's what it
   said. a bunch of corrals. and in one is this live large single-hump
   camel. yup. now, i ask you: what would a camel be doing over here??
1205 - rain.
1210 - big cow pissing on a flat rock!!! (that's southern talk for
   "it's raining like hell now"). and wind. lots of cars are pulling
   to the side and slowing down ... i push on regardless! i can see,
   i have wipers. i wonder about some of these drivers.
1220 - now the rain subsides into a steady drizzle.
1230 - Dallas. uh-oh. lunchtime in Dallas?? i messed up! well, maybe
   not ... traffic going my way doesn't really seem to be so bad. some
   sort of traffic jam at Plano on the other side ... looks like a bad
   wreck.
1310 117,707 - fuel stop. 315.7 miles. 13.7 gallons. 23mpg this tank.
1330 117,710 - Dave's place. "a little early". ;) nobody home. i drive
   around back. no bus. hmmmm. well, i know it won't fit inside that
   garage. and this house fits the description he gave me. so i pull
   into his "driveway" and sack out.  625 miles in roughly 10.5 hours.
   22.2 mpg for the trip. 28.1 gallons. zzzzzzzzzz.
1600 - or thereabouts. Dave drives up in the bus. it wasn't in the
   garage after all. ;) only the Mustang and the other car are in there.
   he wasn't expecting me until much later. he's running around fixing
   this and adding that to the bus.
2000 - we're loaded and ready to go. well, we think we are. off to the
   highway, with a side stop at Burger-Doodle for "supper". right off
   the bat, we miss the turn to get to the highway leading to Amarillo
   ... yes, it was ME reading the map. it was dark. i had a cramp. he
   pushed me. it wasn't my fault.
oh-dark-thirty. somewhere in the panhandle of Texas. Henry Hudson and
   his crew are bowling Nine-Pins waay down south ... you can see the
   lightning bouncing around the clouds. rather beautiful, actually ...
   as long as you are not directly under it. i lumber into the back
   for a nap.
much later. Dave is tired (surprise!). he pulls over to a rest stop
   behind some WinneBehemoth from North Carolina. it wakes me up. i
   start driving.

... now, this is where it gets kinda fuzzy in my brain. so i'll just
start relating things as i recall them. i had stopped writing notes
(it was dark, you know).

somewhere around dawn: New Mexico. big hills. cold.  it is now
Thursday.
it must be 0800 cause we are in Albuquerque and it Rush Hour. lots and
lots of folks here. lots of hills. stop at a Flying J truck stop for
food and gas. surprisingly, the food didn't give us gas. still cold.

onward to Gallup. this is where the huge truck stop is supposed to be.
we go past it: it ain't so big. i've seen bigger. what a let-down. :(

now in Arizona. struggling our way up the highway to Flagstaff. now,
why would anyone name a city after a flagpole??

now some looooooong downhills. finally. into Kingman. stop for fuel.
we head north to Las Vegas. over Hoover Dam via a twisty, turney, very
tight little road. back up the other side into Boulder City, Nevada.
Gamble Here!! NOW!! gee ... haven't i seen this before? ;)

into Las Vegas. lots and lots and lots of lights. the smell of wood
burning (they got forests up here??). lots of smog. we get off the
highway and go downtown to "The Strip". casinos everywhere. half the
people are old. very old. the other half are Asian. nobody looks happy.
several German couples chattering away. we gamble, but do not gambol.
this is NOT a happy place. too many people trying to "win" ... no fun
in that. retired folks, sitting in front of a machine, stuffing it
with quarters. dealers at blackjack tables, mechanically moving the
cards by habit, faces dull and lifeless. cheap food ... if you can
wait the 45 minutes to get into the restaurants! ATM cash machines
outside, inside, even in the restrooms. do the restaurant tables have
a slot machine??

back to the Boat. off we go. stop at a Burger King (big spenders, we)
for food. good fries. the counter man seems really amazed (and a little
pleased) when i tell him about the fries. i guess nobody says much about
fast food unless they don't like it.

up highway 95. dark. not much traffic. high gas prices. $1.589 per
gallon. this is the ONLY road from Las Vegas to Reno. i guess everything
in Nevada is a gamble.

past the Shady Lady Inn. ah, yes. legalized prostitution. later, we
turn at Lida Junction, home of the Cottontail Ranch, a semi-famous
house of ill-repute (if it's legal, is it still "ill" repute??). now
on highway 266, which on the lying scumsucking map (drawn by damned
incompetent Easterners who obviously never set foot farther west than
Pittsburgh!!!) is more or less straight.  well, it AIN'T. straight,
that is. it twists and turns up and down, and it's late. after
midnight. but you can see more stars up here than i've seen in 30
years. the Milky Way is especially visible.

we're headed down the other side of this "straight road". some idiot
in a big pickup truck passes us. musta been back at the Cottontail
Ranch, and now he has to hurry home before his wife finds out he's
gone. every curve we see now has long, large skid marks going into
it. we never see any going off the mountain, though, so we figure
he made it.

California. sheesh, we're still going down this mountain! finally,
we get to highway 395! oh, swell. only a "few" more miles til Mammoth
Lakes ... yeah, right. and every sign we see has added just a couple
more miles!! :(

up the hill into Mammoth Lakes, make the turn, off into the Inyo
National Forest; Mark and Kathy's directions are NOT best interpreted
at 0200 in the morning ... we "discuss" whether this or that is the
turn they mean. "scenic overlook" is somehow lost on us at this point.
we stumble down the curving narrow road into the Pumice Flats
campground. at the very end, there are already buses!! Martha and
Bradley and Sarah had beaten us by 45 minutes. if we'd not stopped to
gamble, we'd have gotten there ahead of them. :) somebody else is
over to one side, but i can't recall who it was. i think it was Jeff
in a honda station wagon, and somebody in a bus. i'm really tired.
it's really cold. i find the toilets. all but one is locked. great.
no hot water. what kind of place is this!!??? ;)

it is Friday. 0400. we've been on the road now for 32 hours. more or
less. it seems a lot like more. i cover myself with wool blankets
and fall asleep.