Wordless Wesdnesday
Category Archives: Road Trip
Road Trip XVI-4
My first stop on Thursday was in Burlington, just an hour south of North Puffin. It was marvelous because I turned in all my !@#$%^Comcast gear.
The folks in the store (two “greeters” and two reps) were nice, helpful, and had me out the door in minutes. The people in the Florida Keys store are just as nice. I wonder how we can teach corporate to work that well?
I left Saturday morning for California.
In our prior episode
The freezer and “house battery” works a treat, so far, but there is a problem with the charging system. I was wandering along through Addison County when I saw that the truck voltage had dropped to 11.5. “Self,” I said to myself, “this is not good.”
I invoked OnStar and a very nice fellow told me there is nothing wrong with the truck. He found me Faulkner GMC, a dealer in Harrisburg.
The Faulkner service department was open and “wall-to-wall” busy but they fit me in anyway. The tech did a full multi-point checkup and said, “There’s nothing wrong with your truck.”
He printed out a Technical Service Bulletin. It seems I’m not the first person to complain about this issue.
TSB #07-06-03-009D Information on Voltmeter Gauge Fluctuation
“Some customers may comment that the voltmeter is fluctuating between 12 and 14 volts on their full size pickup. Starting with the 2005 model year, … trucks are equipped with a Regulated Voltage Control (RVC) system” that turns the charging system off in “fuel economy mode” to save gas.
It’s worse when hauling a camper/trailer because the house battery tells the RVC that it doesn’t need any juice.
The nice folks at Faulkner washed my truck and gave it back in under an hour.
No charge.
The fix is simple. Use Tow/Haul mode which bypasses the RVC system or turn on the headlights which puts enough extra demand on the system to increase the generator output. I turned on the headlights.
I continued on over the “blue route” toward New Stanton, PA.
I haven’t driven the Lincoln Highway through western Pennsylvania in decades. US 30 was a lovely, lovely ride over some of the nicest, smoothest road I could pick. West of Harrisburg it is twisty and hilly and the trees are colorful right now and there were only a few traffic lights.
SWMBO will be happy to learn that I did not buy the Lincoln Outlet although it was for sale and I did stop to look.
There was a Free Colonial Trial at the Franklin County Jail. Downtown Chambersburg was in the middle of an Apple Fest free family street fair art, food, crafts, music and kids’ activities, and carnival rides.
I could “Check Your Batteries” at the Franklin Fire Department but mine were working fine and I think they meant smoke detectors, anyway.
Latrobe is home of my fourth favorite brewery (Rolling Rock); I discovered it is a much larger city than I remembered. I saw a sign for an Art Center just three miles thataway, but I drove three miles thataway and never found it, darn it.
I checked in to a motel in New Stanton and headed on to find Mingo’s bridge, a cute little Henry bridge. This isn’t the Burt Henry Covered Bridge over the Walloomsac River near Bennington, Vermont, nor the span in Washington County, Ohio. The historic Henry Covered Bridge in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, spans Mingo Creek. It is designated as a historic bridge by the Washington County History & Landmarks Foundation.
After that, I drove 57 miles to Indiana, Pennsylvania, for 16 ounces of 6.6% North Country Local 66 (“brewed exclusively for Pig Iron”) red IPA and about a pound of pastrami on a classic Burgh sammie.
Sunday, I continued on to California by all the back roads. Holy Coffinlids, there are a lot of dead there. I passed three cemetaries and Howe and a private mausoleum on the way in.
Political commentary:
I drove the length of Pennsylvania Ave in California and found not one Hillary Clinton sign.
In fact, I drove the length of Pennsylvania and saw nothing but Trump/Pence. I saw two anti-Clinton billboards, one with Pinocchio’s nose, and heard one anti-Clinton radio ad. That was it in a state the media thinks will go Democrat.
This is a small, scientifically unvalid, sample but it is interesting nonetheless.
Every house coming into California is anchored on the side of a mountain. I would not want to plow their driveways. The city itself was very depressed with houses in deferred maintenance and small streets.
In two days, I drove through Indiana, California, Washington, Ohio, Indiana, and the Yukon where there are “Live Girls” and “Free Beer.”
I’m relaxing in West Lafayette, Indiana (the state), today. I have met three horses and a deaf German Shepherd, talked about teaching, told a lot of lies, and I have been to Menard’s where I bought a barn sash.
Road Trip XVI-3
Thursday was de day as opposed to D-Day which is much more important. The Puffintruck has left on an adventure.
UPS tracking finally found the replacement freezer after its hurricane delay. It should have arrived some time late afternoon Tuesday, only one day after the original plan, since our regular UPS driver’s route has us just about the last delivery of the day.
I saw the UPS truck at the Post Office (did you know that UPS delivers to the Post Office? They have for years) on my way back from Swanton before noon.
Uh oh.
I stopped, blocking traffic and rolled down the window.
“Have you been to me yet?” I asked.
An unfamiliar face leaned out. “Who are you?”
I told him the address.
“Oh, yeah. I just dropped it off and picked up the return. It’s in the truck.” He pointed at the cavern behind him.
“Wow. Thank you!”
In a fit of pre-planning, I had pre-positioned the tractor with the return freezer box in its bucket right in the driveway where it was unmissable and it worked! The driver dropped the new one in the tractor bucket right where the first one head been.
I eventually muscled the freezer into my truck and taped its insulating box around it. Plugged it in and turned it on and it works. It came down to zero in reasonable time and held the temp without running as much as the first one seemed to.
The replacement freezer seems to work much better so I loaded it up Wednesday for the real test. It passed with flying colors. I loaded my suitcase and fuschia footlocker. Filled up the truck with all the stuff going back to South Puffin and pumped the tires up to 44 psi.
I finally left about noon on Thursday, on schedule but an hour later than I wanted to be. In the rain.
Vermont needs the rain. We have more beach than we’ve ever had because the lake is soooooooo low. I spoke to a lady at a gas stop who had just been up the Connecticut river and didn’t need a paddle; she could walk on the rocks. It didn’t rain enough. This little band of showers was done and gone in a few hours. It ate my shorts in gas mileage while I drove through it, though.
The foliage colors are coming along nicely. The higher elevations are near peak but even down along the Champlain Valley is vibrant, even with lowering skies. A beautiful ride.
I spotted this lowrider sport truck at, of course, a truck stop along a Vermont Highway.
The rain had pretty much stopped by then, a good thing for me.
The freezer and “house battery” works a treat, so far, but there is a problem with the charging system. I was wandering along through Addison County when I saw that the truck voltage had dropped to 11.5. “Self,” I said to myself, “this is not good.”
I pulled over, turned off the truck, popped the hood and the tailgate, and opened the battery box looking for smoke. No smoke. The freezer was humming along happily. No smoke under the hood, either, so it appears I didn’t blow anything up. I repeated that twice more before simply flipping the switch and finishing the day with the freezer running on the house battery.
OnStar says there is nothing wrong with the truck. Liz Arden says “See, I told you you should have installed that big, honking solar panel!” I says, “I see a stop at a GMC dealer in my near future.”
Not much else of note happened on this first leg. Lila has lost her Australian accent — (Lila is my GPS). The new one dumped the nice Aussie in favor of a bland American voice and has a slightly different idea about routing. She wanted me to go to Bethlehem via Maine which I thought was stretching the idea of road trip a bit.
We did alright, Lila and I, once I convinced her who was right and then as long as I actually turned where she said to instead of turning the other way. I did that a couple of times and it extended my trip a bit. I still averaged 22 mpg on the “dry” leg.
I had a nice meal, good visiting, and have the truck plugged in to the house.
Life is good.
Next stop. California and Indiana and I won’t even leave Pennsylvania to do it.
Road Trip, XVI-2
My folks never needed to wait for Labor Day to take a road trip. I was not born in the back seat of a 1940 Buick but I might have been if my dad hadn’t gotten a job the week before. [From Road Trip 2013]
Rufus sent me an advertisement flogging the five most awesome American roads to drive. I wrote about it then and it’s time to revisit it now.
See, I have a new truck, a tankful of gas, and a desire to leave North Puffin before it gets really cold and not get to South Puffin until it cools off. And until Colonial gets the pipeline fixed. The North Carolina price gouging law has taken effect. It doesn’t help.
“We’ve seen fuel disruptions like this before and want to reassure people that there’s no need for alarm at this time,” said NC Public Safety Secretary Frank Perry.
OK. I’m definitely following Horace Greeley‘s advice.
I’m plotting a road trip for October. I have a yearning for the blue routes: diagonally down toward the Southwest on the outbound leg and then along the southern border to home.
You may recall my obsession with the Not So PTT. “I can fit SWMBO and everything I have to carry and even an RV-size washer-dryer into a cargo trailer. There’s room for the three-esses, room to cook, room to sleep, room to poke a ‘puter,” I wrote. “There is not room to change your mind.”
Good sense prevailed. I was well aware that this $5-10,000 solution would cost me twice as much in twice as much gas as just driving, all so I can save $30-40/night on motel rooms and sleep in a Walmart parking lot for free! That and the couple year build time meant I couldn’t have it ready to leave in a couple of weeks.
Since I decided against the cargo-trailer-cum-camper, I’ll couch surf with friends if I can find any and otherwise hit the Motel 4-1/2s along the way. It’s sort of the 5,000 mile long way around from North to South Puffin.
Hint to old friends and friends I don’t know yet: if you recognize any of the places on my route, I’m open to suggestions for anything from a quick beer to a free night on your couch. I am (mostly) housebroken.
I’ll leave North Puffin the first week of October.
I’d like to see the USS Cod submarine and the Statue of the Flying Housewife and maybe take an Airstream Factory Tour and, of course, see the happy Blue Whale of Route 66. As usual, I’ll try not to go too many places I’ve been before.
Having said I won’t go anywhere I have been, I’ll make my first stop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania because my Aunt Dot who turns 96 this year lives there. She and my folks met when they all lived in an apartment house in Philly before I was born; I spent time every summer with her boys in Annapolis and they with me.
I’ve discovered that a number of US cities that have state names. I’ll have to miss Wyoming, Minnesota, or Minnesota, California and Google has never heard of California, Georgia, but I put California, Pennsylvania on the list first and I might make it through Kansas, Vermont, and Georgia, Kansas, outside Wichita, as well as Vermont, Indiana, just before I get to Kokomo which I want to visit because I like the name. I’ll probably miss Indiana, Pennsylvania, but I might make it through Pennsylvania, Alabama on my way back. Sadly, I can’t get to Alabama, New York but I’ve been in Florida, New York, and I’ll try to find New York, Florida, but Florida, Ohio, is also probably too far north of my route. On the other hand Ohio, Texas, is a possibility but Texas, Maryland, will have to wait until I come back north. Maryland, Louisiana, is sort of on the way from Shreveport but I could see going through Louisiana, Missouri.
Martin’s Ferry and maybe Moundsville, West Virginia sound interesting.
I may have to leave the Police Museum and the USS Cod for another trip because Cleveland may be too far north. Jackson Center for the Airstream Factory Tours is a bit north of my route, too, if I want to see the Statue of the Flying Housewife in Columbus. Dayton, where my Aunt Betty lived, has the Carousel of Inventions.
It’s a couple of hours out of my way but I’ll probably head up to West Lafayette, Indiana, to see where my cousin and his family hang their hats. I won’t stop in Huntington, though, because I don’t know anyone at Shuttleworth Conveyors there anymore. It would be good to stop in Brazil because there are no mosquitoes and get fired up over St. Elmo, Illinois, because how could I not?
Can you drive a truck through the St Louis arch?
I’ll more or less follow the Mother Road from there.
The Mark Twain National Forest has 1.5 million acres of beautiful public land with sections of the Ozark Trail and the historic Greer Roller Mill. Maybe I’ll get the lead out in Joplin, Missouri and I have to stop in the railroad town of Chandler, Oklahoma, simply because my grandmother was a Chandler.
Amarillo calls me because it was the “Helium Capital of the World” and that is lighter than air. That city has one of the largest meat packing plants in the United States, right next to the only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility in the country. (Really, it’s the Cadillac Ranch that I want to see.)
Unfortunately, I’ll be too late for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta with over 500 kaleidoscopic hot air balloons rising up at dawn over the New Mexico landscape but I’ll likely stop at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History and the Anderson-Abruzzo International Balloon Museum. I’ll stop at the Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum in Grants, New Mexico.
I definitely want to see the new Eagle Aviary in Window Rock and float around that part of New Mexico and Arizona (Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii, or valley of the rocks) that includes the area surrounding Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, the Navajo Nation equivalent to a national park where my mom painted.
The westward leg will end in Paradise Valley.
I’ll rest out there before heading east along the southern border; that’s a story for our next installment.
It will be good to get away from the idlers and imbeciles running toward November 8.
Road Trip
My folks never needed to wait for Labor Day to take a road trip. I was not born in the back seat of a 1940 Buick but I might have been if my dad hadn’t gotten a job the week before.
It all started when he came back from the ETO, married my mom, and swept her off on a grand tour. Over the years, they circumnavigated the United States by car a dozen times, packed the car and drove somewhere for weekends or weeks at a time, cruised hither and yon in the boat, and one year even moved to Gallup, New Mexico, so my mom could paint there for three months.
Rufus sent me an AOL advert flogging the five most awesome American roads to drive in a ragtop. By a strange coinkydink, it’s Labor Day and I have a topless car.
The Overseas Highway, U.S. 1 for 127 miles through the Keys to Key West
Getting to Key Weird is easily as much fun as the destination. There are few mile markers along the way without an art gallery, a state park, live music, fishing, and, of course, the beautiful blue horizon beckoning from every bridge and byway.
I live there and I can’t get enough of it.
Route 2, M-22 117 miles across Michigan
We dipped the kids’ toes in the National Lakeshore but curvy M-22, is a whole lot more fun to drive than the towering sand dunes.
Route 3, the 266 mile Aloha Loop on the Big Island
“This one may require some advanced planning” the tour director wrote. From snorkeling at Hookena Beach Park to climbing Hawaii Volcanoes National Park there are “majestic views from just about anywhere.”
Route 4, 208 miles across Monument Valley, Arizona
The northeast corner of Arizona (Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii, or valley of the rocks) mostly includes the area surrounding Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, the Navajo Nation equivalent to a national park. This was also part of the area where my mom painted.
The 310 mile Route 5 of Death Valley
Pack plenty of water and gasoline to traverse the arid desert of Death Valley National Park where there are dunes, lava flows, desert overlooks, and mountains way in the distance but close enough to touch. The Badwater Basin is the lowest elevation in the United States.
I’ve been on (almost) 4 of the 5 trips. We skirted Monument Valley and I don’t do off-road, so I haven’t done the 17-mile route inside the park. And I’ve never been to Hawaii.
“I have done Hawaii,” Rufus said. He spent two days circumnavigating the Big Island and spent the night in Hilo. “I MAY also have done the Michigan run accidently, driving from Manistee to Traverse City. But if so it was probably at night.”
Heh.
More Roads
“How on Earth did they miss the Pacific Coast Highway?” he asked. “I have done that from Sherman Oaks to just south of Monterey but never did get to Monterey.” That highway runs alongside some of the most beautiful coastlines in the country; it is designated an All-American Road.
He also hasn’t “done Skyline Drive but the impressions I’ve had suggest it should have made the list, too.”
I have and it should. In fact, I try to route myself along there when I drive from Rufus’ house to my friend Bill’s house just south of Charlotte. That 105-mile road runs along the ridge for the entire north-south length of the Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
A road trip through the mansions and gardens of Chester County and the Brandywine Valley in Pennsylvania is pure nostalgia for me since I grew up there seeing those sights and sites every day.
SWMBO and I spent an August weekend on the beach in Cape Cod hopping from clam shack to dune to vintage home. Take a sweater. We forgot. It gets cold on the beach when the sun goes down.
Then there is the Forgotten part of Florida, the “real” Sunshine State where crackers raised cattle and life was simpler. Christmas has one of the nicest and most unexpected Town Parks in the state. It is really, really dark around Chiefland at night. Daytona may be better known but race cars roar across Sebring almost every weekend. Route 27 around Okeechobee introduces locks to let boats navigate the elevation changes across the state. Florida has hills? Who knew?
Maryland’s Eastern Shore offers up-close encounters with skipjacks, crabs right off the dock up the Choptank in Cambridge, and wild Chincoteague ponies. Our first stop with the boat was in the Northeast River but we wandered down the Bay year by year to Chestertown. Joe Strong has passed and his Kibler’s Marina has gone upmarket as the Chestertown Marina now.
Cellular coverage is lousy along the small towns and hills and dales of U.S. 95 in western Nevada but Liz Arden says I could spend a month gunkholing along that highway.
And let’s not forget the Vermont Maple and Cheese Trail! No matter what Arizona Highways thinks, the Green Mountain State offers great food and the best fall scenery in the world.
Bottom line is this: there are few roads in this country that don’t have something interesting to see or do and gas is only 15 times more expensive than when I was a kid. Go see something today. Take your camera.