CampAbout Part Two (upd pics)
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:34 am
(9/2- upd with JR's pictures - don't tell my little EZ Share)
viewtopic.php?f=78&t=13904&p=233705#p233705
My heart jumped a little when I saw these two itinerants come out of the Smiths supermarket in Grants crabbing like biddies, "close the cooler, you have to keep the cooler closed to keep the cooler cool ....." my pals from Taos now here in the parking lot. Apparently a decision has been made. We are not going back to where they camped last night. Fine:
Not lost on us is the impact of TWO orange Westies upon the public. It is a startling sight:
I was here to follow, to learn, to eat the dust of two inveterate travelers who know how to escape the bounds of civilization for real:
Let's be honest, this one tore my heart out through my throat. You know why? Because after seeing so many well-produced photographs of Kit draped on a VW, it began to look like "schtick." But here I was, following JR and Kit up a dirt road, and this graceful apparition came flitting out of the passenger window, there was motion, there was dust, there was joy, and I was in that moment smoted, smited, smit, smote, smitten:
After eating a lot of dust, especially that of oncoming hurrying pick-ups, we decided to cut left onto a small dirt road, which we traveled up for a while. Apparently, Kit in her Westy was as perturbed as I was in my Westy by the encroaching trees trees trees and we couldn't get half a view of the horizon or sky. A meeting, thus took place:
At the meeting, we decided to press onwards because Up Is Good. At a curve and a hill and a rutted passage, NaranjaWesty dropped dead dead dead. I launched into diagnosis mode as they continued on unaware. I ran the fuel pump, it sounded normal. Tried to start it. half-hearted firing, then dead. Ran the fuel pump. Sounded normal. None of the whining that it used to do when battling 2016's Fuel Tank Saga. Finally decided to check the filter anyway. I had just bought one for no good reason in Moriarity NM because I thought I did not have a spare. Checked the writing on the old filter; 88,000-10/16/18, yeah what the hell, let's change it. Stuck in the new one, 108,735-8/25/19. Kit and JR showed up at the first start. Started fine. You should have seen that big chunk of varnish that came out of the old filter inlet, sweet memories of Sacramento freeway shoulders. This Quarry Crusher Battle-Axe pump is so cynical these days, it had not changed its note in the slightest when starved, "oh, this again? whatever ... "
Upwards once more, quite beautiful, some sky, even:
Did I tell you that Kit was riding with me after the fuel filter delay? She took this one:
And I took this one:
We had decided that this was pretty much it. This was to be our camping site. It had "enough" floor space for two campers. I even experimented with a parking spot, but it was low and tree-y, too low and tree-y for my spirit:
I looked up the hilly path that JR had walked up to report a nice view.
"I am taking it, I don't care. If I shred a tire, can I have your spare?"
Advanced the timing on the spot 5* and attacked the hill with about ten clutch dips to keep the revs up as I negotiated rocks and branches. JR enjoyed his torque converter and just puttered up, . . . kids these days.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is life. Plenty of dust eating, bitching, and pushing on pushing on and when you have finally had enough, advance your damn timing and push on some more that last wheelspinning doubting wth am I doing here .... this:
I was ecstatic. We shoved on that last few hundred feet and changed our experience:
Ever the cruel Itinerator, I parked NaranjaWesty's loyal right rear tire on a jagged stump because I liked the way it leveled the car (OKOK I stuck a rock under there and saved myself having to jack):
Discovered JR's humor ... :
He discovered the fun of watching me freeze in a grimace, just like Gipsie is wont to do:
What a glory of breezes through the firs ...
Stunning views that closed down at dusk to show us way-below I-40 with stupid electric lights! A fire! I'm sauced! A beautiful and dramatic evening ensued. I shall only lightly touch on the highlights, a lovely spicy lamb home-cooked Sunshine dinner and a massive beer can ... stars ... a slide down the hill. That's enough.
The next day, I decided that Best Decompression was to do a witless project. That is my joy. Took all day to remove the sink pump. Proud of it.
JR made a new brush for the horn ring under the steering wheel:
... and they discovered that Sunshine's sliding door can actually latch after a little bending of the lower roller bracket, and the famous Itinerant Air-Cooled Bic Pen Spring Modification™:
My first selfie with another human, so it is not really a "selfie" but hey, my path back to humanity has its joyful moments:
We had a second-day fire up at the viewpoint spot, and I don't think we ever got to the Perfect Silence Staring At Stars because we have active and slightly "off" minds that play like puppies, but we still managed to calm down around 2:00AM and take in the huge firmament above our roost above the I-40 civilization slice, and it was divinely restorative.
Day Three, the kids are mine! mine! mine! Sunshine is disabled! This ain't no Idle Theorizing, kids! It is about survival! How treacherous and devious my machinations! Yeah, so we decided to take apart the rear brakes up in the middle of nowhere, a great idea on any camping trip, to free up some frozen adjusters. JR was fresh and rarin' to go as we quickly got bogged down in a stubborn drum that refused to leave until PB Blaster AND milking the loosened ebrake cable to help get the grooved drum over the shoes. Fine! We did it:
But on the right side, I spied a split CV boot (after 30 miles of dirt road? Oh no NO) and said, "I refuse to leave until we get this resolved." I had felt startling resistance in the right wheel after we had backed off the shoes with a punch and a hammer (good workout, let me tell ya, with your arms and elbows all locked up under shock bolts and diagonal arms):
I thought that we needed to remove the drive axle up in the middle of nowhere just to see if the right wheel turned more easily. So we did. Kit here reminds me of five year-old Iris of just seven weeks ago, bolting up the brake lines for whc03grady:
Couple of stripped bolt heads, big deal, but JR looks fabulous modeling a floral print mechanic's hat:
I stressed and I do stress that hygiene is very important when dealing with CVs:
We take such things very seriously:
We had to taptaptap each and every little star wheel round and round and round to free the drums of the shoe grooves:
Kit annotates a book (for mememee):
Then I leave ... for Arkansas of course.
This is the road we took in, but I am no longer eating their dust, so the pictures are clearer:
Back to civilization, yes, but something let go in me up that hill:
viewtopic.php?f=78&t=13904&p=233705#p233705
My heart jumped a little when I saw these two itinerants come out of the Smiths supermarket in Grants crabbing like biddies, "close the cooler, you have to keep the cooler closed to keep the cooler cool ....." my pals from Taos now here in the parking lot. Apparently a decision has been made. We are not going back to where they camped last night. Fine:
Not lost on us is the impact of TWO orange Westies upon the public. It is a startling sight:
I was here to follow, to learn, to eat the dust of two inveterate travelers who know how to escape the bounds of civilization for real:
Let's be honest, this one tore my heart out through my throat. You know why? Because after seeing so many well-produced photographs of Kit draped on a VW, it began to look like "schtick." But here I was, following JR and Kit up a dirt road, and this graceful apparition came flitting out of the passenger window, there was motion, there was dust, there was joy, and I was in that moment smoted, smited, smit, smote, smitten:
After eating a lot of dust, especially that of oncoming hurrying pick-ups, we decided to cut left onto a small dirt road, which we traveled up for a while. Apparently, Kit in her Westy was as perturbed as I was in my Westy by the encroaching trees trees trees and we couldn't get half a view of the horizon or sky. A meeting, thus took place:
At the meeting, we decided to press onwards because Up Is Good. At a curve and a hill and a rutted passage, NaranjaWesty dropped dead dead dead. I launched into diagnosis mode as they continued on unaware. I ran the fuel pump, it sounded normal. Tried to start it. half-hearted firing, then dead. Ran the fuel pump. Sounded normal. None of the whining that it used to do when battling 2016's Fuel Tank Saga. Finally decided to check the filter anyway. I had just bought one for no good reason in Moriarity NM because I thought I did not have a spare. Checked the writing on the old filter; 88,000-10/16/18, yeah what the hell, let's change it. Stuck in the new one, 108,735-8/25/19. Kit and JR showed up at the first start. Started fine. You should have seen that big chunk of varnish that came out of the old filter inlet, sweet memories of Sacramento freeway shoulders. This Quarry Crusher Battle-Axe pump is so cynical these days, it had not changed its note in the slightest when starved, "oh, this again? whatever ... "
Upwards once more, quite beautiful, some sky, even:
Did I tell you that Kit was riding with me after the fuel filter delay? She took this one:
And I took this one:
We had decided that this was pretty much it. This was to be our camping site. It had "enough" floor space for two campers. I even experimented with a parking spot, but it was low and tree-y, too low and tree-y for my spirit:
I looked up the hilly path that JR had walked up to report a nice view.
"I am taking it, I don't care. If I shred a tire, can I have your spare?"
Advanced the timing on the spot 5* and attacked the hill with about ten clutch dips to keep the revs up as I negotiated rocks and branches. JR enjoyed his torque converter and just puttered up, . . . kids these days.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is life. Plenty of dust eating, bitching, and pushing on pushing on and when you have finally had enough, advance your damn timing and push on some more that last wheelspinning doubting wth am I doing here .... this:
I was ecstatic. We shoved on that last few hundred feet and changed our experience:
Ever the cruel Itinerator, I parked NaranjaWesty's loyal right rear tire on a jagged stump because I liked the way it leveled the car (OKOK I stuck a rock under there and saved myself having to jack):
Discovered JR's humor ... :
He discovered the fun of watching me freeze in a grimace, just like Gipsie is wont to do:
What a glory of breezes through the firs ...
Stunning views that closed down at dusk to show us way-below I-40 with stupid electric lights! A fire! I'm sauced! A beautiful and dramatic evening ensued. I shall only lightly touch on the highlights, a lovely spicy lamb home-cooked Sunshine dinner and a massive beer can ... stars ... a slide down the hill. That's enough.
The next day, I decided that Best Decompression was to do a witless project. That is my joy. Took all day to remove the sink pump. Proud of it.
JR made a new brush for the horn ring under the steering wheel:
... and they discovered that Sunshine's sliding door can actually latch after a little bending of the lower roller bracket, and the famous Itinerant Air-Cooled Bic Pen Spring Modification™:
My first selfie with another human, so it is not really a "selfie" but hey, my path back to humanity has its joyful moments:
We had a second-day fire up at the viewpoint spot, and I don't think we ever got to the Perfect Silence Staring At Stars because we have active and slightly "off" minds that play like puppies, but we still managed to calm down around 2:00AM and take in the huge firmament above our roost above the I-40 civilization slice, and it was divinely restorative.
Day Three, the kids are mine! mine! mine! Sunshine is disabled! This ain't no Idle Theorizing, kids! It is about survival! How treacherous and devious my machinations! Yeah, so we decided to take apart the rear brakes up in the middle of nowhere, a great idea on any camping trip, to free up some frozen adjusters. JR was fresh and rarin' to go as we quickly got bogged down in a stubborn drum that refused to leave until PB Blaster AND milking the loosened ebrake cable to help get the grooved drum over the shoes. Fine! We did it:
But on the right side, I spied a split CV boot (after 30 miles of dirt road? Oh no NO) and said, "I refuse to leave until we get this resolved." I had felt startling resistance in the right wheel after we had backed off the shoes with a punch and a hammer (good workout, let me tell ya, with your arms and elbows all locked up under shock bolts and diagonal arms):
I thought that we needed to remove the drive axle up in the middle of nowhere just to see if the right wheel turned more easily. So we did. Kit here reminds me of five year-old Iris of just seven weeks ago, bolting up the brake lines for whc03grady:
Couple of stripped bolt heads, big deal, but JR looks fabulous modeling a floral print mechanic's hat:
I stressed and I do stress that hygiene is very important when dealing with CVs:
We take such things very seriously:
We had to taptaptap each and every little star wheel round and round and round to free the drums of the shoe grooves:
Kit annotates a book (for mememee):
Then I leave ... for Arkansas of course.
This is the road we took in, but I am no longer eating their dust, so the pictures are clearer:
Back to civilization, yes, but something let go in me up that hill: