Sorry for a big delay, we've had no internet access at all until now! The above are some pics of New Orleans and a mighty Flying J! We decided to buy a cheap camera from Wal-Mart in the end.
Well, we had had a few problems with Roger when I last wrote a blog to say the least! After forking out for the muffler to be replaced we tentatively set off for the Grand Canyon - listening for every knock and scrape in case we had further problems!
Luckily, we have not had any major problems thus far. I put major in italics because we have had a few niggling issues that we've attempted to deal with. They are as follows:
- Console heat - The center console in Roger (where we put our things like camera, map etc...) gets VERY hot on the passenger side - so hot that I accidentally touched it with my foot and burnt it (a proper burn, with blister and all). If we put anything near it, it melts or catches fire. We've had a bag melt to it as well as a towel catching fire. Yes - you might be thinking "why doesn't the case around the engine melt then?" - I'm not 100% sure, but I'd imagine it's a thermosetting polymer which won't melt. We opened it up and noticed that the pipe that comes from the carburetor to the engine manifold has a split (right where the manifold is) which pumps out extremely hot air as well as toxic fumes. We purchased some "Tiger Tape" that is supposed to patch it up, but it's not worked at all. I got underneath Rog to have a look from the bottom and noticed a slightly bigger hole too. Again, the patch up job there hasn't worked either.
- Tire alignment - The front tires are out of alignment, which is making the "new" tiers on the front wear down faster. We haven't got the money to fix this unfortunately!
- Transmission - We started developing problems where we would put Roger into "Drive" and he wouldn't do anything. I guessed correctly that this was the transmission, but I didn't realise that Roger would need the transmission fluid. He did, he was empty. We bought some and found the place in the main engine area where we had to put it.
- Rear view mirror - Still broken from about 45 days ago, we've stuck it back up. Let's hope the heat here doesn't make it fall off again!
- Starting motor - Which broke along route 66. I think it was on it's way out for a long time. We stopped for some "gas" and when we went to leave the engine just went 'mmmmmmmmmmm' as opposed to 'chugachugachugachuga bruuuuuuuuum'. Pleased that I diagnosed the problem, I checked through the parts we bought before we left Buffalo and found what I thought was a new starting motor. I changed the part and Roger started just fine! Similar to our breakdown ages ago in Pennsylvania, we stopped the engine, put it all back together and prepared to set out on our way only to find that he didn't start! Luckily a helpful guy named Tom Chavez just appeared and politely informed me that what I had changed was the solenoid, not the starting motor. He took us to a car-part store down the road and we got a new starting motor. I fitted it and voila, Roger started no problem!
- Overheating - Not overly surprising that a car of Roger's age has been overheating really. This has happened on two major occasions ...once going through the desert in Nevada and once on the way up the mountains to Yosemite. Both times when we've stopped, water has been spewing out the top of the radiator which - luckily - has some kind of outlet for immense steam (in the form of an open-ended pipe that comes out the top of the radiator and down the side). Both times we've been lucky in the sense that we had plenty of water to help cool him down and re-fill him!
That aside, what have we been upto? Well we made it to the Grand Canyon which was actually pretty amazing. Most people say that visitors just spend about 45 minutes there, but we spent two days camping there! During that time we didn't go far from the van, just to and fro from the rim of the Canyon (on the South side). We stayed at a $12-a-night campground which is one of those "self-registration" ones. On the first night, Sarah and I were playing Monopoly in the van when a car pulled up behind. I stepped out of the van and a guy approached asking if he, his wife and his son could camp on our plot with us as everywhere was rammed. I said that's fine, so they set up their tent.
A little while later he came back up and we decided to build a camp fire and have a chat. He told us loads of cool placed to see, whilst his son made us campfire-baked marshmallows. He also told us about a cool "pie-iron" device which you could buy for making loads of different things in campfires. After a few beers, we decided to go to bed. The next morning we woke to find that they had already packed up and left. I stepped outside and on a rock nearby was a state park map with their details on should we need anything, about 6 tins of various foods, $12 for letting them stay and ... wait for it ... a PIE IRON! We didn't expect anything at all, but at most maybe just $6 for half of the campsite rent! We've yet to send them an email saying thank you, but we will do after we've written this!
The next night we had a similar scenario, with a young guy needing to park his truck next to our van while he, his two friends he'd just met that day and two hitch-hikers camped within the campground (don't ask, it's complicated!). Again, I said sure no problem and that night they joined us around our campfire for a chat and a few beers.
After leaving the Grand Canyon, we headed for Las Vegas which I was very excited about! It's not as remote as I thought it'd be - but when I say that, it was still at least 70 miles from the nearest small town. As we got close, we could see the skyline which was cool. We found a very cheap hotel / casino called the Sahara (which is one of the oldest casinos there, and where the Beatles played their first Las Vegas gig!). At only $30-ish a night it was a steal I thought!
However, despite what some people we've met along the way have said, we don't think Vegas is cheap. At all. We limited ourselves to $50 each in any casino or for anything we wanted in town, and within about 20 minutes of being in the casino, we had lost $60 (but we did get a free drink from the cocktail waitress!). It doesn't take a genius to work out that the huge buildings were funded by 99.9% of people that visit Vegas. I think that the only way to make money in the casinos is to play the poker tables, but to do that you need a bigger budget than ours! My overall impression of Vegas is that it is extremely fun, but in order to have a good time there, you need to have a lot of money that you're willing to burn. I hear that you can get "comp'd" if you spend enough there!
We were excited to go up the Stratosphere and on one of the three rides at the top - our USA book gave us very favorable prices for doing so, but when we got there it would have cost nearly $20 each just to go up to the top, then another $18 each for a go on a ride :(.
From Vegas to Death Valley - the hottest place on earth (on average temperatures) and officially the second hottest place in the world, only losing out to the Sahara Desert by 2 degrees Fahrenheit sometime in the early 20th century! While I'm skeptical about the above claims, both the USA book and information leaflets there state this. After learning the above (and the following) facts, we just had to stay there - in Roger with no air conditioning. Some facts about "Furnace Creek" campground that we stayed at:
- It's 214ft below sea level
- In summer, temperatures often surpass 125 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius)
- It's called "Death Valley" not because people die there all the time (as I had sort-of en-visioned) but because there were once a group of travelers that took a shortcut through the valley where one of the members died. As they got to the other side, one of the travelers stopped, looked back and said "Goodbye, Death Valley". And that's that.
We get to the town and get a couple of bags of ice, and proceed to put lots in our mini-cooler, which usually just holds water, and the rest went into our main cooler. We get back to the campground and the VERY LAST corner we have to go around (we almost missed the turning) we turned way too hard and the mini cooler fell off the sink and broke on the floor, losing almost an entire bag of ice! Nevertheless we "sucked eggs" and just carried on without getting anymore ice.
During the night, another car did turn up, and they set up camp but by morning they had gone (maybe it was too hot?). We were up by 5:30/6am as the heat when the sun comes up is just too crazy to sleep through. We didn't bother staying another night funnily enough, but proud that we did one night (and half expecting a park ranger to come along and give us a "We survived Death Valley" sticker for Roger) we headed out for Route 1 (the Californian Highway drive between Los Angeles and San Fransisco).
We planned to join route 1 just above Los Angeles because we didn't have enough money to actually do anything there, and it's a bit crummy according to all sources. On the wat to Santa Barbara (just above Los Angeles) we overheated (as explained in the beginning of this blog post). When we stopped, we met an English woman (with her Spanish husband) that had also overheated.
They had been there an hour already, so they didn't stay too long - but more importantly - after they had left an MG pulled up with and English numberplate! Amazed, I went and started talking to this guy. He told us that he's on a would tour road trip, raising money for UNICEF. He's been to loads of places already, including Iran, Pakistan, Australia, Mexico and now USA (many places in between)! See http://bridgetthemidget.co.uk/ for more information! It also turned out that he stayed at the Sahara hotel / casino in Las Vegas when we were there AND he checked in right next to us (he remembers seeing us and I remember seeing his briefcase [and that he had an English accent]).
Aside from him overheating, he was also having problems with his clutch - so we helped him add more fluid to his clutch control. I got to sit inside his car and pump the clutch, whilst Sarah put the pump onto the tire and he (Roy) did the messy bit of attaching it to the cylinder in the engine. He didn't have the correct top for the cylinder, so I provided the awesome idea of using one of our many bottle lids - seeing as we have quite a collection of empty water bottles these days! Amazingly, my idea worked and he got on his way.
We also set off, and it wasn't long before we pulled into the same petrol station as Roy, where we let him use our map to figure out his next route. We were going in roughly the same direction, but it just so happened that about 10 miles after we left the gas station we had Roy following us. When we were on the Interstate, if I went in the middle lane - so did Roy! I think he was using us as a guide which was nice! About 80 miles later, on a small quiet road, I pulled over to switch driving with Sarah, where Roy stopped to make sure we were ok and didn't have any engine problems! After saying that we were fine, he set off and that was the last we saw of him.
We stopped at a campsite about halfway through California to route 1 where we were greeted by the most miserable camp host in the world. The site, however, was amazing. It was just off the road and sort-of in a mini bay, about the size of Elberry Cove. We left early the next day to head for route 1. By the time we got there, we started looking for places to stay (by the way there's no Flying J's along these smaller roads - they're only on Interstates). Getting hungry, we started our drive along route 1 around 3pm.
After driving along most of it, and finding nowhere to stay we were now starving and therefore not really taking in much of the sights - although it did look amazing (if a little foggy!). Eventually we stopped at a town called Seaside where we ate a McDonalds - and let me tell you, it was the best MaccyD's we've ever had! We just got a drive thru as it's cheaper than eating inside (they add a tax for eating in) when I noticed some guy walking around the parking lot asking for money. He approached my window and said "Get a bruvva a burger man?" to which I said "nope, sorry" when he instantly replied "Gotta split?" whilst making the V signal with his hand near his face, still walking kinda past the van probably because he's used to people saying no to him. I said no again and he disappeared. After we finished eating, we popped to the petrol station before heading off in search of somewhere to stay. That beggar guy must have done well because he just pulled up in his car and put a full tank of petrol in!
We set off, by which time it was now dark and we were near San Fransisco where they don't have many campsites, and everything is more expensive. In fact, the whole of California is expensive - petrol, food and accommodation (we picked up a room saver guide incase we decided to stay in a motel, but they're around $50+ for the cheapest of rooms!). Eventually, we found a KOA campsite, which are generally more expensive than a basic campground - but they do have showers and other bonus facilities. As we pulled in, the attendant told us that we couldn't stay because we needed to be "self-contained" with proper facilities inside the van. It's Californian law apparently. She did point us in the direction of another campground in Santa Cruz where we eventually arrived and stayed the night.
We headed to Yosemite the next day, stopping to pick up some supplies such as oil, transmission fluid and Tiger Tape to patch up the engine manifold holes, which was a really nice drive. We overheated on the way up the mountain to the park entrance, but that didn't matter too much as we were able to get some pictures of the surrounding area. After looking for a cheap campground in there (you have to use the campgrounds there, unless you get a backcountry pass due to the bears and lions that live there), we eventually found a $10-a-night one. We headed to it, to be greeted with a 2 mile steep downhill road with holes everywhere. The sign at the top did say that the campground wasn't suitable for trucks, trailers or RVs and it wasn't joking.
We arrived at the basic campground where they have a hole in the ground for a toilet and you have to get your water from the creek and purify it yourselves, but you were allowed to collect wood and burn it (which was a bonus as most campgrounds don't let you - but that's never stopped us). They also have lockers on each campsite where you MUST put all your food in, to stop bears from taking it. We weren't even allowed to keep any food in the van, not even canned goods as bears can smell it. Apparently, bears can smell a dead deer three miles away!
We stayed two nights, which gave us an entire day to go for a hike nearby. We set off with a backpack full of food and some water, and after walking a mile we stopped to take a photo. Batteries dead. We were gutted! Still, we continued over plateaus, through forests and along creeks for about 5 miles where we stopped for some food. Seeing as our water was nearly empty, and we had been walking for about three hours, we decided to head back. As we walked back, we realised we didn't recognise any of the areas we were going through. After a while I began to get snappy because I didn't fancy spending the night lost in the middle of this huge national park with free-roaming lions and bears and no torch! We found a trail through some woods and I saw that there were footprints - so that was a relief. I decided to check out the footprints, looking for my own foot print and low and behold I found one! We had walked through this path, even though we didn't recognise it! About a mile and a half of following the footprints and we were back. Phew!
When we got back, we used the supplies we bought to repair Roger's known problems. We applied the Tiger Tape to the holes in the engine manifold and put the rear-view mirror back up. That night we were both awoken to the sound of what we think were hyenas. It sounded like a weird laugh, followed by a bark or two. Weird. In the morning we set off up that horrible, narrow, winding, busted-up road. Glad to arrive at the top, we headed back to San Fransisco so we could go over the Golden Gate bridge! We didn't stop in San Fransisco mainly because it's like driving through London, but with no where to park at all. We were lucky going over the bridge as there was no toll that day, and we managed to get some photos of Alcatraz too!
We're going to head almost directly to Yellowstone from here (just north of San Fransisco) which will take a couple of days. We'll probably stay there for a day or two, then head almost straight back to Buffalo where we'll sell Roger and head home! Limited internet access over this side of the country, with a lack of Flying J's has meant that we cannot get online as much as we'd like - but don't panic! We're fine, and well!
Speak soon!
Love to everyone as usual! Missing everyone lots!
Ed & Sarah xxx
