Norhwest

After a nice relaxing week back on the East Coast (not to mention some much needed time away from Robert), Dan and Erin decided to join us out in the Northwest for a while. Erin and I were on the same flight into Seattle and we met Alex, Danny's friend who had been watching the van for us the past week, for dinner.


All was going well until we drove the van to the airport to pick Danny up from his flight. The transmission started refusing to shift on the 20mi drive to the airport, and literally when I got to the arrivals terminal, it stopped shifting at all. Permanent neutral. In the arrivals driveway with traffic everywhere... Danny called to let us he was ready at the terminal. "Well, good news and bad news Danny: we're here... but we're not going anywhere for a while." We called a tow truck which took a good 2 hours and by this time (1AM) Robert had also arrived. Thankfully the transmission was STILL under warranty (best decision yet to buy that warranty) so it wouldn't cost us a dime. We were worried about time tho, since last time AAMCO took about 2 weeks to rebuild it. We split a hotel room (a lot more reasonable split 4 ways but still expensive) and decided to figure it out in the morning. The original plan was to drive up to Vancouver with Alex until the weekend, so we just took the bus instead which worked out fine.

Here's a related aside about customs. The Canadian customs agents going into Canada from Washington State are very mean. When we drove the van in the first time, a woman who looked like Angela from the Office and had a heart of ice searched our van for 45 minutes. This time was no better on the bus. Here's a bit of an exchange I had with the customs officer:

Officer: Why are you going to Vancouver?
Me: Well, I've never been there before and I wanted to check it out.
Officer: Where are you staying in Vancouver?
Me: Hmm, I haven't figured that out yet, I guess I'll find a motel or something when I get there.
Officer: But you have NO reservations!?
Me: Nope, just kind of flying by the seat of my pants...
Officer: How long will you be there?
Me: 2 or 3 days probably.
Officer: What do you do for a living?
Me: I just travel around, I don't have a job.
Officer: Then how do you get money!?
Me: I don't. I had some saved up.
Officer: How much cash do you have?
Me: I have about $80 US and $5 Australian on me...
Officer: THAT'S IT!?!?
Me: Well I have debit cards and credit cards too, I just didn't feel like walking around with thousands of dollars in my pocket...
Officer: How much do you have access to?
Me: I'm not exactly sure what that means but at least about $10,000.
Officer: Well, what do you plan to do in case of an emergency?
Me: I don't understand how a job would help me in an emergency...
Officer: Well if you need money what will you do?
Me: I have money; if there's an emergency that somehow requires me to have more than $10,000 I guess I'm screwed.
Officer: When will you return to Virginia then?
Me: I don't really know, maybe when I run out of money, or maybe next year, or maybe not at all.
Officer: I see you don't have a return ticket on the bus. How do I know you'll come back to the US? Am I supposed to just take your WORD? (more than a hint of sarcasm here...)
Me: Uh... I guess so (and besides that Canada has nothing to offer me)

Then he confiscated my apple and let me in. I guess I answered all his questions wrong: I'm young, have no concrete plans, I'm dirty, wearing a big backpack, and have no job, so I'm instantly a national security threat. Customs agents make you feel like you've committed a terrible crime just for wanting to cross the border. Like I have to have some very explainable reason for going wherever I'm going. Since I never do, it's kind of a sticky situation. Interestingly enough, the US border agents were actually very friendy, interested in our trip, and said things like "welcome home!" I'd have thought they'd be more suspicious and ask more questions, but they didn't.

Vancouver was lots of fun, our guest drifters were out all night every night since this was their one week there. The bums there are very persistant too, "are you SURE that's all the change you have? Turn out your pockets I don't believe you." all while following you down the street. They accepted American change. Near Vancouver they have this mountain called Grouse Mountain and a 2.8km trail that climbs 2800ft up to the top called the Grouse Grind. I wish I'd timed myself running up it, but the world record is about 25 minutes for less than 2mi... it's steep. Erin took part in a lumberjack competition at the top and then we headed back down and out of Vancouver the next day.


Since the van was left outside in AAMCO's parking lot, we pulled some camping stuff out of it like a tent and a stove and rented a car for the weekend to go over to the Olympic Peninsula. We saw mountains and a rainforest and built a bonfire on the beach with some a Canadian dental student and his dad, among other things, and then came back to Seattle Monday. We had met some of Dan's UMD friends who were in Seattle and hung out with them for a day or two.

Seattle was great, I'm pretty sure I'd have been happy with it if I had moved there right after school for the other job offer. We went to a jazz/funk night and a MLS soccer game and almost forgot about the van until it was fully outfitted with a factory rebuilt transmission, ready to drive to Burning Man. We're in Reno now, after stocking up on costumes and booze and food and water and paint for the van's soon-to-be new paint job... An expensive shopping trip for sure (Robert lost his wallet in WA somewhere so I've been having to pay for everything), but I hope to be able to re-use a lot of leftover supplies. About as ready for Burning Man as I can be, and still not at all sure what to expect besides a bizarre good time.



Day 121
17,765mi
Transmission #3

Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Nevada City, and Yosemite

Well it's been a while, but we've had lots of adventures in the past 2 weeks. We'e been "off grid", mostly in National Parks and getting too drunk with friends to focus on writing a blog. I haven't read what Robert said about LA yet, but I probably agree with a lot of it; it sucked. Lots of materialistic rich people showing off their shiny new cars and bullshit, so much traffic it was impossible to get anywhere. Just the overwhelming size of the city makes it impossible to really wrap your mind around it and leaves you pissed off and frustrated. Add to that the fact that everyone there is such a jerk that even the surfers are assholes, and we were ready to get the hell out of there and up into the mountains in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks.

We spent a day hiking around Sequoia and I got a good run in thru a grove of these enormous trees on a cross-country ski trail. The next day we went up to King's Canyon to go backpacking; got our bear-proof barrel and wilderness permit and headed off down Bubb's Creek (more of a raging river or a nearly continuous series of waterfalls really). King's Canyon doesn't get much attention but it's really a great park. It was a real contrast to our last backpacking trip where we were only able to hike about 5 miles one way in the snow. Here we got to actually cover ground and the scenery changed quite a bit down the trail. We only had 4 bagels and some peanut butter but we figured we'd be back in civilization the next day and ready to get a meal. We were wrong.

Seems like a theme, coming back from backpacking to find some problem with the van, but at least it keeps things interesting. We'd been driving about 30 miles down this extremely twisty canyon road and 4 of the 5 rear right wheel studs, the lugnuts apparently being too loose, had broken off, leaving us with only one stud holding the back right wheel on wobbling all over the place and about to break itself off. Normally this would be an easy fix, bike to AutoZone, or get a tow worst case even. But we happened to be about 80 miles from the nearest town and 30 miles up the windiest canyon road I've ever seen with a sheer cliff on one side.

We decided to find a phone and call for a tow because if that last stud broke off on this road, we were about as royally fucked as we could get. So we rode our bikes downhill 5 miles to see if the ranger station had a phone. They didn't, of course the one 10 miles up the road did, so we turned around. I was good and starving by this point having only eaten 2 bagels in the past day and a half and having hiked up and down for 18 miles with a heavy backpack hadn't helped either. But on the bike ride back up, I thought up a good MacGyver fix for the wheel. Robert's bed had some 3/8" bolts we used to hold it onto the countertop at night. Maybe I could use some of those as makeshift wheelstuds to hold the back wheel on. 3 hours and a lot of close calls (Mom, skip this sentence) where the van fell off the jackstands and lurched towards the canyon cliff or almost onto me (keep in mind this work was being done on the side of the very narrow/steep road) later, we had the wheel kind of on wobbling but somewhat stable and started down the road at 15mph praying to make it to a nice flat straight road with an auto parts store before the wheel fell off.

About 5 hours later we made it to Fresno at about 10PM, too late for an auto parts store to be open, but not too late to eat the most gigantic meal of the trip. One more thing, this was the day we were supposed to pick Michelle and Thomas up from the airport for a nice weekend in Nevada City on the lake at Thomas' parents' house. So I had to call and tell Thomas the ride wasn't happening, but we'd get there eventually. Robert was tired and I'd just had 3 cups of coffee at the restaurant so I kept driving and kept pushing the speed from 15mph up to 30mph, then 40mph, and eventually we were wobbling off towards Sacramento at 60mph on the highway and made it there around 3 AM. After a few hours of sleep we drove to Pep Boys, I put some new studs in and we were good to go!


Thomas and Michelle met us at Pep Boys and we were off for a good weekend, un-ruined by van problems. A few short hours later I was drinking and riding on a kickass boat with an inboard motor bigger than the van's. The weekend was a nice slice of home to see Thomas and Michelle again, and I think I re-gained a much needed few pounds after eating like a king at that house. It made me miss Charlotte and also it made me miss having more than one friend to hang out with, and it was over pretty quick. After one last good shower and meal and Thomas' dad giving us a better lugwrench to prevent future disasters, we were off on Route 80 headed east this time, with Yosemite in mind.

After a night full of wine in Truckee, and losing $35 in Reno (and still not really learning how to play poker) we made it by Mono Lake, thru Tioga Pass and down into Yosemite Valley. Wednesday we did a nice steep climb up the trail to the top of Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Point with some great views of the Valley. I'd gotten it in my head I wanted to go up Half Dome but Robert hadn't so Thursday we split up to do our own thing. I got up at 6 and biked over to the already packed trailhead by 7. I thought it would be good to get up there fast plus my walking muscles were sore from Yosemite Falls, so I decided to use my running ones. Some parts were impossible to run up but still I made it up to the cables with only a few breaks in good time, enough to get ahead of the crowds somewhat.

These cables are ridiculous. I can't overstate the sketchiness of the whole operation. It's upwards of a 45 degree slick granite rock face most of the way with cables to hold on to and you're sliding around on your feet no matter how good your shoes are. The rock face gradually slopes off to vertical and then there's just a few trees to hit along the 4800 foot fall to the Valley below. It's enough to make anyone afraid of heights. I did make it to the top though where it was nice and flat and I could rest and take in the 360 degree view for a bit. Then after making it down the cables I did literally run down the mountain for 4 miles or so which was a lot of fun, like mountain biking, dodging rocks and drop-offs and trying not to fall. I took the long way back on the John Muir Trail and stored it in my head as a future great trail to thru-hike sometime.

After getting back and eating, I went on a quick run to loosen my legs up a bit and then they were pretty much done for the day. At least. Friday we went up to some nice lakes at 10,000ft for a swim. It wasn't a long swim, but it was a good hike and thru a lot of snow too, even in late June.

When we were headed back down into the valley in the van we saw some hitch-hikers, finally! You wouldn't think it would take almost 2 months into the trip to find some hitch-hikers, but anyway after giving them the visual pat-down and clearing them (so to speak; it wasn't too hard, it was a middle-aged couple with their son about our age) we told them jump in the van! Kevin and his wife had just recently sold their house in Vermont, bought a 5th-wheel-trailer for their truck and hit the road to become eternal vagabonds. We had a lot in common. They had been trying to hike the John Muir Trail the past 3 days, but because of the snow, had to stop (Lauren, tell Pierce he's not alone!). They gave us way too much gas money for the 1 hour drive to the Valley but jumped out of the van and wouldn't let us refuse it. In my opinion, hitch-hiking should be a non-pay sport, the hitch-hiker getting his ride and the driver building up some good karma and meeting some interesting travelers on the way to wherever he was already going. No need to involve money. But anyway, thanks for buying us dinner Kevin and family, wherever you are out there.

We took some free showers at Yosemite at one of the campgrounds because I smelled myself and recognized the smell from the zoo. Right now, as I'm writing we're headed back down to pick up the Pacific Coast Highway where we left off in Santa Barbara before our little inland detour.

Day 48, 6408mi, 2 oil changes, 3 hitch-hikers picked up, 4 new wheel studs installed