Subject: Trip Report: On to sunny CA!!
Hey now,
We're back in the Golden State!!!
We hit CA Friday AM-stayed in a motel the night before in
Flagstaff,
AZ with no phone, hence the lack of trip reports.
So we left AZ, crossing over the CA border about 12 noon Friday. A
great rousing cheer was heard as we crossed the Colorado and entered
into our home state. Of course, those of you who know CA know that we
spent the rest of the day driving in 110 deg. weather. Yuck. Sam says
that the heat is worse there than in Austin, I would tend to agree.
Spent Friday in a motel in Victorville with friends there-they went on to the off road race in Barstow, while we headed for San Diego. So we hit SD on Sat. Am and proceeded to my mom's house, where I was to work on her CV joints-she owns a '78 Westy. This was to become the CV job from hell. A two or so hour CV cleaning and boot replacement ended up taking 8 (!!!!!) hours. Her CV's were installed by a Bavarian named Hans-big on muscles, low on brains. Took me forever to break the dammed things loose. The original plan was to do a tune up on our bus after finishing Mom's, but that was not to be. As I write we are in Solana Beach, on I5 heading for LA, where I will finally get the tune up done. We've gotten around 23-25 mpg since Austin, using the new CDI ignition, and my last full tune up was a long time ago-I'm very curious to see what happens to my mileage once I'm properly tuned.
We spent the morning at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma in San Diego-absolutely beautiful location. To the west lies the Pacific Ocean, to our East the San Diego Harbor, and the city itself. Cabrillo was the first European to discover the California coast, and we will follow some of his journey-albeit on land-over the next few weeks. Sam says that our next trip will have to be on a sailboat, up the coast from Guatemala to N. Cal just like Cabrillo. Anyone got any ideas how to hook a sail up to a '70 bus? ;-) We are both enjoying the cool coastal CA weather, and I really enjoyed seeing San Diego again-I grew up there. From Cabrillo we headed up through Mission and Pacific beaches, before cutting in to I5 for the LA trek. We both feel like we're finally really on vacation-but I must still to replace the tranny, put in an alternator, mount the spare tire up front, put in westy side windows and maybe interior, put in oil temp gauge, maybe a new exhaust, and who knows what else I'll think of. Only then will I truly feel we are road worthy for Inuvik. At least parts are cheap in CA. So this will likely be done Mon. and Tue., with the help of my good friend Darryl at Meredith Automotive in Victorville. I should probably put him down as a sponsor for Inuvik, what with all his help and parts discounts... So for now, we smell the salt laden air, enjoy the temperate climate, and start to work our way North. Northward HO!!!! Peace,
Eddie
PS: as we ride through Camp Pendelton, watching the Pacific Ocean slide by, the radio plays the Beach Boys "wouldn't it be nice". It sure is...
PPS: Sam's driving, she says "Busted!" I say "Huh?" She explains that a blue van up ahead had about 4 guys in it, but when they passed the border patrol station suddenly there was 1. So the BP somehow figured it out, and we watched them get pulled over. As the lights flashed and they headed for the side, 3 guys popped up. Oops. Better luck next time guys... The things one sees on road trips...
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