Date:         Fri, 15 Sep 1995 13:15:51 -0700 (PDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Tobin T. Copley" <tobin@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca>
Subject:      Big Trip Report [part 9, long]


                   Part IX: The North East
      (or, "Uh oh... this gas heater better not break!")


This week: Tobin and Christa bundle up and head into the frozen 
North in a 19 year old air-cooled VW camper.  Now where DID they 
store their winter clothes?  

Hey kids!  See a collection of fine photographs of Tobin and   
           Christa on their Big Trip at 
     -->   http://www.teleport.com/~des/vw
           And why not join us and other list members on a road 
           trip to the Beaufort Sea (on the Arctic Ocean) next 
           August?  Check it out at
     -->   http://www.chaco.com/~coyote/trek 


March 1, 1995   Free Camping in George Washington NF, Virginia
  
We awoke to the sound of distant rushing water combined with 
absolute silence.  The sun was already up, filtered through heavy 
clouds, and Christa and I looked at each other, debated about 
whether we should get up, and rolled over and cuddled some more.

Eventually we realized we couldn't avoid it forever, and crawled 
out of bed groggily.  Do the people in Grape Nuts ads ever have 
mornings like this, or do they always bound out of bed, flinging 
their arms outstretched in a nearly orgasmic stretch then jog 
through the woods for 40 minutes before enthusiastically ripping 
into a bowl of tasteless dried-out cold cereal while sitting on a 
rock overlooking a thundering waterfall?  I've wondered about 
this, and it bothers me.  

There was no way I was going to bound out of bed, pull on my 
rugged wool man's man sweater to lie on wet, near-frozen ground 
while making valve adjustments before sauntering back to my 
gorgeous wife and eat cold cereal as she looks over my greasy body 
with that look is her eye.  No way.  I was shoved out of our nice 
warm bed kicking and screaming, complaining bitterly as I pulled 
on a grungy sweatshirt, then lay on wet, possibly frozen ground 
while skinning my knuckles and checking the occasional valve 
before I staggered back to my gorgeous wife and ate toasted bagels 
with cream cheese as she looked over my greasy body with that look 
is her eye. 

I knew what she had in mind, and I was only too eager to indulge 
her.  So I tenderly reached around behind her and ran my hands 
through her hair to make sure that she could rinse, lather, and 
rinse again as she washed her hair in our westy sink.  Then she 
did the same for me.  What did you think I was going to tell you 
about?  As if!

We fired up the camper and worked our way slowly through the back 
roads towards interstate 66, which would take us straight into 
Washington, D.C. later that morning.  It was still cloudy, and it 
was decidedly cool.  It was great to be driving through hills and 
valleys again, and the road along the Shenandoah River was 
particularly picturesque.  

All too soon, we were back on the interstate, having a steady 
stream of traffic blow by us in the left lane.  We held it at a 
steady 57 mph, turning the gas heater on and off as needed.  The 
road widened and the traffic volume steadily increased.  All went 
well until we hit some road construction where the road narrowed 
to two lanes in our direction.  An ambulance sat in the left lane 
for 10 or 15 miles, going s-l-i-g-h-t-l-y slower than traffic in 
the right lane.  Traffic backed WAY up, and of course the other 
drivers lapsed into that suicidal mode of following about 3 inches 
behind the ambulance or cutting right in front of it once they'd 
managed to get around it in the right lane.  Ugly.  I hung back, 
especially since the road construction had barricaded off the 
parking lanes with those huge concrete blocks, leaving me no 
escape route if someone had actually managed to pile into the 
ambulance in front of me.  Eventually the ambulance pulled off, 
but not before I copied down its vehicle number and the "Howz my 
driving?" 1-800 number.  I called the number later in the day and 
suggested that their company perhaps shouldn't try to drum up 
business that way.

Sooner that we'd expected, we were driving over the Potomac and 
into D.C.  We pulled over and parked in a little parking lot near 
the Washington Phallus^H^H^H^H^H Monument.  We got out and looked 
around.  Hey, this was pretty neat.  We threaded our way through 
the joggers and headed down for a look at the reflecting pool.  
Yep, reflected pretty well, except for the spots around the edge 
where ice had formed.  Then we sauntered over to the Vietnam War 
Memorial, side-stepping frequently to avoid being run down by 
joggers.  I hadn't expected much with the Vietnam memorial, but I 
have to say it was oddly beautiful and deeply moving.  We saw the 
Lincoln Memorial and read some noble words that most of today's 
politicians would do well to read and consider.  

We worked our way through the joggers and walked around the White 
House.  We wanted to drop in and say "Hi!," tell Bill Clinton that 
we'd driven all through his country the last couple of months and 
that we'd really had a great time, but some rent-a-cop guy said 
"The President" was busy, and that, no, we couldn't make an 
appointment for later in the day.  What a goof!  I know Bill would 
have loved to meet us, even if just for a few minutes (and we had 
some great photos to show him, too!), but this little minion was 
totally power tripping.  He was getting pretty agitated, and when 
he started moving his hand close to his gun (Oooh, BIG boy!), we 
decided to just mail Bill some photos and an invite to have dinner 
at our place next time he gets up our way.  We blew off Mr. "I 
have a gun and I'm so cool I wear shades in March" and checked out 
the peace campers for a bit before heading back to the camper.

We heated up some pea soup in the camper as joggers wheezed past 
outside.  We flipped on the gas heater, put our feet up, slowly 
enjoyed our soup, and stared out at them across the parking lot.

We rolled out of D.C. at the very beginning of rush hour and 
jumped from freeway to freeway, working our way on to I-595 
towards Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  Just before the 
bridge, we saw a sign warning that no "Unusual Vehicles" were 
allowed.  We almost pulled over.  We wanted to go into the office 
by the bridge and explain, "Well, it might not be _unusual_, but 
it certainly is _unique!_"  But, hell, it was getting late, and we 
really didn't have time for those kind of shenanigans.  I would 
have loved to have them provide me with a DMV definition of 
"unusual."  Great bridge, by the way, and the cross-winds were a 
hoot.

We came off the bridge and headed north up highway 301 towards 
Wilmington.  After driving a few miles, I realized why I felt 
different: we were in the Northeast!  Wow!  Something had happened 
in just the last hour or so, and it was like we'd crossed an 
invisible line.  Now the landscape just "felt" Northeastern.  What 
an uncanny feeling.  I'd never felt such an abrupt cultural shift, 
with the possible exception of crossing into Quebec from Ontario 
on the train.

It was starting to get dark, and I was beginning to get nervous 
since we still had to find our free campsite, and all we had was 
the free campsite guidebook David Schwarze had lent us in San 
Diego.  We pulled off highway 301 and putted over county roads 
trying to follow the useless directions given in the guide.  As 
darkness fell, I stopped for gas and asked directions.  
Fortunately, the guy at the gas station knew where the place was, 
and gave me a set of instructions that bore no resemblance 
whatsoever to those in the guide.  After stopping at a supermarket 
and stocking up on food and drink, we headed off in search of the 
campsite.  It was starting to get a little bit nippy.

Somewhere along this stretch of road we crossed into Delaware.  
(Now THERE'S a place that's always in the news!).  After many 
miles, and following the gas station guy's instructions exactly, 
we passed a sign informing us that we'd entered the state forest 
we were looking for.  A couple of miles later, we passed another 
sign telling us we were leaving the state forest.  Hmmmm... big 
forest!  We turned around and drove through again more slowly, 
looking for the campsite.  After several passes back and forth, 
and several exploratory forays onto dirt roads leading off into 
the woods, we concluded that there _were_ no organized sites--at 
least not in March.  

We decided to just find a level section of ground off one of the 
dirt roads, away from the highway.  Which is what we did, after 
bumping along through half-frozen mud and over large oak tree 
roots for a few minutes.  The only down side was this was posted 
as a hunting (!) area, so we'd have to be careful not to growl too 
loudly.  

We kept the gas heater cranking while Christa made dinner.  The 
propane stove made the windows fog up really quickly, so we had to 
crank open the side windows quite a bit for ventilation.  Once the 
water for pasta got boiling, we even rolled down the driver's 
window.  When Christa drained the pasta, the steam billowed up and 
instantly condensed on the cold roof.  We had water dripping off 
everything inside the camper, and I spent a few minutes trying to 
soak up the excess water on the roof with a cloth, but not with 
much success.  

We left the heater on and the windows open while we ate in hopes 
of drying the place out a bit.  If was drafty and damp, but warm, 
and the food and wine were great so I wasn't complaining.  We'd 
set up camp too late for any on the Radio Canada International 
shortwave broadcasts, so we ate while listening to some opera on 
the local NPR station.  All in all, very pleasant.

By the time I'd finished cleaning up from dinner, we'd pretty much 
dried out, although the roof was still damp to the touch.  It was 
getting darn cold outside, so we closed the pop-top to insulate us 
a bit better.  We set the alarm on the shortwave radio to wake us 
early the next morning, and shrieked as we piled into our very 
cold bed.  

During the night, Christa and I had several altercations as she 
was convinced she had the colder side of the bed.  We were clamped 
around each other for warmth, and I was plenty toasty.  I traded 
sides with her.  I threw all our winter jackets and all the rest 
of our clothes on top of our sleeping bags and quilts.  We slept 
through until the morning after that.

The radio started chattering, and we listened to the morning news.  
Christa kicked and shoved me out of bed so I would start the gas 
heater.  There was no WAY she was getting out of bed until it got 
up to a civil temperature inside our camper.  I jumped through the 
air back into bed until in warmed up.  Soon it was roasting 
inside, and we threw the covers off, panting.  I got up and turned 
the heater off for a while.  I tried to open the pop-top, but it 
was stuck.  After a few hard pulls and shoves, it finally broke 
free, treating me to a little shower of broken slabs of ice all 
over my naked body.  GOOD MORNING!!  After the adrenaline wore 
down a bit, I was able to open the pop-top all the way.  I looked 
outside, and everything was frozen solid.  Oh, and my watch had 
died in the night: froze to death.

We dressed, and Christa toasted bagels while I took down the 
curtains and wiped the worst of the ice and water off the windows.  
We took a few minuted to enjoy our tea and bagels, then planned 
the day's route.  We wanted to avoid toll roads wherever possible, 
but still wanted to get to Rhode Island that evening.  Christa was 
going to be my navigator as we jumped from freeway to freeway, so 
she took a few minutes and made notes about routes and tricky 
interchanges.  After putting our breakfast stuff away we were 
ready to pull out.

I stepped outside to check our oil, then climbed in and cranked 
over the ignition.  Our trusty camper fired right up, although the 
first revolution of the engine was little slower than normal.  The 
thickness of the transmission fluid on this cold morning made 
first gear a little hard to find, but I knew our happy camper 
would come through for us, which, of course, it did.  As I engaged 
the clutch, the engine laboured, but we didn't move.  I tried it 
again, rocking the van back and forth.  After about six rolls, we 
broke free: we'd parked in mud and had frozen into the ground!  We 
bumped over ice and lumpy mud and pulled back on to the county 
road.  

We found our way back to main highways, and watched as Wilmington 
and Philadelphia swept by.  We dropped into New Jersey and bumped 
along US 1, stopping for a traffic light every mile.  We found a 
Walmart and bought duct tape and velcro so we could really seal up 
the curtain separating the front seats from the rear of the 
camper.  We gassed up across the street, then headed for New York 
City.  Exciting!

We jumped on to the free section of the Garden State Parkway, then 
cut through Newark on US 1 to I-280, then a short toll section on 
the New Jersey Turnpike.  We hammered along, taking lanes when we 
needed them, and swinging through one interchange after another.  
Finally, we approached the toll booths for the George Washington 
Bridge.  Christa's navigation had been flawless.  At many points 
along this section we could look across the junkyards and 
abandoned warehouses, over the Hudson River, and see the Manhattan 
skyline in the distance.  Very impressive.

When I pulled up to pay our toll ($4.00!!) I said "Good morning," 
and "Thank you."  She looked shocked and confused.  I hope it 
wasn't anything I said.  At $4.00 there was no way I was paying 
for the car behind me as well.

We blew through Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, and sailed into 
Connecticut.  We would have loved to stop in New York, even if 
only for a day, but we couldn't have afforded to stay at a hotel 
with secure parking, and we just didn't feel we could risk parking 
our camper, with almost everything we own inside it, on a city 
street.  We didn't even know where the "good" and "bad" 
neighbourhoods were.  So sadly, we drove right through.  Someday, 
we'll be back to explore.

At New Haven, we pulled off and hit a Home Depot store for 12 feet 
of the kind of venting hose used on clothes dryers.  We hooked up 
one end of the hose to the vent for the gas heater, and ran the 
hose along the floor, through our curtain behind the front seats, 
and up beside us up front.  The hose had the beauty of being so 
flexible Christa could direct all the heat right into her lap (or 
onto her feet) if she wanted, a feature which she used frequently 
on the remainder of the trip.  With this set-up, even though it 
was well below freezing, we couldn't run the heater for more than 
a few minutes at a time before the cab would get uncomfortably 
hot.  I didn't complain.

At New London, we pulled off I-95 and turned on to US 1, following 
the coastline as we worked east.  We passed through Mystic, and 
Christa was pleased to see that there actually is a Mystic Pizza 
in Mystic.  We got to my cousin's place in Narragansett after 
dark.  We had a great time catching up on things, and we met his 
new wife, who was just lovely.  We chatted until late, and they 
stumbled off to bed, and we curled up on their futon.

We left the next morning for the short run into Boston were we 
spent the next few days with a good friend of ours.  It was on 
this drive to Boston that we passed the 10,000 mile mark on our 
trip.  Yipee!  We were following a day behind a major storm, and 
we were treated to a beautiful sight: a heavy ice storm had left 
everything everywhere coated in ice, so the bare branches of all 
the trees along the highway glittered and refracted the crisp 
sunlight like myriad prisms.  We drove in silence and awe for 
miles and miles, watching how the scene was changing as the sun 
climbed through the crystal-clear blue sky.  All too soon, we were 
entering the urbanized area around Boston, and our attention 
shifted to the route through the city.  We blasted right through 
downtown, then pulled off and drove through city traffic to our 
friend's place in Malden.  We parked on a big patch of lumpy ice, 
up against a snow bank, where we left our camper for several days 
while we slept in our friend's living room.  Warmer, ya know.

We spent a wonderful few days visiting old friends, but we were 
itching to move on to the next stage in our adventure.  So we 
loaded up the camper, took a few going-away pictures, and headed 
north.  Christa and I had had a great time in Boston, but we were 
both happy to be on the road again.  We cruised up into New 
Hampshire and quickly crossed into Maine.

We pulled over in Kittery, the first town in Maine, for gas.  As 
soon as we hit the town's streets, we realized that the town was 
comprised of nothing but factory outlet stores.  Wow!  We turned 
into the Eddie Bauer Factory Outlet parking lot so we could look 
at clothes that make me look like a doctor kickin' back at the 
marina.  Christa found three pairs of jeans for five bucks a 
piece.  Cool.  We figured the time was right for some serious 
consumerism, so we headed down the road to the Naturalizer outlet 
and got Christa a pair of nice pumps for work for 30 bucks.  Not 
bad.  I bought a shirt at Eddie Bauer so I could look like a 
doctor that wasn't wearing pants.

Because buying stuff always generates a big appetite (which is why 
people on diets should steal at every opportunity), we asked 
several people for advice on where to go for good local food, 
cheap.  We ended up at Bob's Clam Hut, where we shared a HUGE 
dinner of sea scallops and clam strips.  Of course, it came with 
the biggest pile of french fries we'd ever seen.  We really tried, 
but we just couldn't eat it all.  We didn't have to eat again 
until late that evening.

We avoided the interstate and putted along US 1 until near 
Portland, when we jumped on I-295 then I-95 for a little over half 
an hour until we exited and headed toward the coast on US 1 again.  
We cruised along the Maine coast, playing tag with the shoreline, 
for the remainder of the afternoon.  I had to slow down in 
sections as the ice that had melted during the day was beginning 
to freeze as night fell.  It was an hour or so after dark when we 
found the campsite listed in our AAA guide.  

We had to pay to stay there, but they were open, had showers and 
heated bathrooms, and most importantly, had electrical hook-ups.  
The friendly owner of the site was surprised to see us pull in, 
even more surprised to see we were driving an air-cooled VW camper 
in this weather, and couldn't believe the gust of warm air that 
spilled out when we opened our doors.  He walked ahead of us to 
lead us to our site, and we drove through the snow behind him.  
When we got to our site, I drove back and forth a half-dozen times 
to compact a strip of snow under our tires so our warm tires 
wouldn't melt a depression through the snow overnight and get us 
stuck in the morning.  We hooked up the A/C power, popped the top, 
and cranked up our little electric heater.  At 15 or 20 below with 
the pop-top up and our heater at nearly full blast, we were 
toasty, and maybe even a little too warm.  No complaints.

Dinner, music on the radio, a nice bottle of wine, and a little 
planning for where to go in Atlantic Canada.  We'd call for 
reservations at hotels in Canada in the morning.  We turned down 
the heater and piled into bed.  We hadn't slept in the camper for 
a while, and it sure was nice to curl up in our own bed for a 
change.  We slept like logs.

In the morning we had a hot shower and Christa called to check 
about the ferry across to Prince Edward Island.  We said good bye 
to our camp host with the goofy Maine accent, and headed back 
north on US 1.  It had warmed up a bit, and the melting ice and 
snow was making the road wet and dirty in places.  The windshield 
quickly got dirty, and the windshield wipers just smeared the 
grime back and forth in opaque streaks unless the windshield got 
really wet.

The windshield washer mechanism on our camper has never worked, 
you see.  Still doesn't.  I had to pull off to the side of the 
road a couple of times to wipe the windshield with snow to clean 
it.  A bit of an inconvenience, but it worked pretty well. 

We turned up towards Bangor on US 1A, then east towards the 
Canadian border on highway 9.  The grime situation on highway 9 
was much worse, and I had to pull over every 10 miles or so on 
some sections.  We plodded along in this manner through the middle 
of the day, and got to Calais, the American border town, in the 
mid-afternoon.  I stopped and filled up our jerry can and main 
fuel tank with not-so-terribly-cheap Maine gas, using every last 
American dollar we had with us.  

We crossed into Canada over the St. Croix River, and couldn't wait 
to clear customs.  We pulled up to the customs agent, beaming from 
ear to ear.  He was very impressed when we told him where we were 
from, where we had been, and where we were going.  We had a few 
things to declare so we could get our duty-free exemption, so he 
wrote us a chit and sent us inside to clear the paperwork.  One of 
the agents inside wanted to search our van, so we came out with 
her, showed off our camper, and she did a very cursory search.  
She was impressed that we'd lived over two months in it.  We told 
her VW campers were the greatest, and said she should buy one.  
She looked like she just might.

We headed away towards St. John and Moncton, smiling at each other 
like idiots.  Here we were, in a nearly 20 year old camper, almost 
5,000 miles from home, happy and warm and back in our own country.  
We reflected on what we'd seen, how just a month before lush 
highland tropical rainforest had been passing outside our 
windshield.  All the great VW people we'd met and stayed with, how 
our camper had become our home.

And we knew our adventure was still far from over.  The final leg 
of our journey had just begun.  


[Next week: Tobin tries to get into the camper after it's coated 
with almost an inch of solid ice!  Christa finally gets to see the 
"Anne of Green Gables" house!  Tobin tries to start the camper at 
35 degrees Celsius below zero and kicks himself for not changing 
out the 20/50 oil!  And our camper experiences the first 
mechanical failure of the trip.]

Tobin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tobin T. Copley                  Currently              =============  
(604) 689-2660                    Occupationally       /_| |__||__| :| putta
tobin@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca      Challenged!        O|             | putta
                                                       '-()-------()-' 
Circum-continental USA, Mexico, Canada 15,000 miles... '76 VW Camper! (Mango)