Across the bottom of BC
- glasseye
- IAC Addict!
- Location: Kootenays, BC
- Status: Offline
Across the bottom of BC
*WARNING* Asstro content ahead!
Three days before departure to "The Pender Bender" (more on this later), I notice an amber fluid dripping from the front of the Asstro.
Coolant.
$814 later, I have a nice, new radiator. I know, I know. "We don't have those" The Asstro does, though, and it won't travel far without it. Know why it was leaking? Because it was made of... (pause, pause, drum roll....)
PLASTIC!
The #^%$@* radiator was a three-part, stamped-togther, irrepairable, un-recyclable combination of aluminum heat exchanger and plastic. The end caps had obviously been staked on to the core with a very large machine. Cheap and easy for them, impossible for me, the customer. Unfortunately, plastic, not at its best under heat, ruptures after a few thousand heat/cool cycles. The end casing had split. &&$^#@$ No wonder Detroit is in the toilet.
Onward.
First night out, following a ride on the world's longest free ferry,
Under a full moon, I camp beside a rushing mountain stream and awake to this:
However, "Detroit, we have a problem". The Asstro has suddenly begun using fuel at a prodigious rate. Normally, I get 20 mpusg. Yesterday's fuel burn was nearly twice that rate. WTF?
The smell of gasoline that greeted me that morning clued me in. I was leaking fuel. The filler neck is joined to the tank by a flexible hose coupling and fuel ($) was pissing out the junction. In Vernon, BC, I searched out a wrecker and an employee and I removed a suitable replacement from the half-dozen or so hulks baking in the 35C sun. A measure of GM's attention to detail was shown by the screws on the hose clamps. Both of them had their slotted sides oriented upwards - against the floorboards. Oh so convenient for the installers who were looking down on the as-yet uninstalled tank, yet impossible to access from underneath by the customer.
We actually had to drop the tank to access the hose clamps. An hour and $35 later, I was on my way. Still leaking fuel, but armed with a solution.
A few hours later, I was here, alongside the Fraser River. North America's last un-dammed river of any size. It drains half of southern BC, so it is definitely "of any size"
I used up the last of my colour film, so I had to revert to black and white for this one.
The transition from the interior drylands to the coastal rainforest is nowhere more dramatic than along The Duffey Lake Road, BC 99 running north from Vancouver to Lillooet.
Duffey Lake:
The Coast Range:
My penultimate destination was this: The Big House. A friend's residence on the BC coast at Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast.
Here, a half-dozen or so retired and not-so-retired film people, another half-dozen or so American Sign Language interpreters, several guitar players, at least one banjo attemptor, two deaf couples, fishers, swimmers, an Italian Marquesa and at least a dozen persons of ambivalent sexual preference meet every year for The Pender Bender. It's a three day session of food, intoxicants and bullshitting that defies explanation.
The journey continued uneventfully to Victoria BC, where my sister and I changed shifts looking after my aging dad.
Three days before departure to "The Pender Bender" (more on this later), I notice an amber fluid dripping from the front of the Asstro.
Coolant.
$814 later, I have a nice, new radiator. I know, I know. "We don't have those" The Asstro does, though, and it won't travel far without it. Know why it was leaking? Because it was made of... (pause, pause, drum roll....)
PLASTIC!
The #^%$@* radiator was a three-part, stamped-togther, irrepairable, un-recyclable combination of aluminum heat exchanger and plastic. The end caps had obviously been staked on to the core with a very large machine. Cheap and easy for them, impossible for me, the customer. Unfortunately, plastic, not at its best under heat, ruptures after a few thousand heat/cool cycles. The end casing had split. &&$^#@$ No wonder Detroit is in the toilet.
Onward.
First night out, following a ride on the world's longest free ferry,
Under a full moon, I camp beside a rushing mountain stream and awake to this:
However, "Detroit, we have a problem". The Asstro has suddenly begun using fuel at a prodigious rate. Normally, I get 20 mpusg. Yesterday's fuel burn was nearly twice that rate. WTF?
The smell of gasoline that greeted me that morning clued me in. I was leaking fuel. The filler neck is joined to the tank by a flexible hose coupling and fuel ($) was pissing out the junction. In Vernon, BC, I searched out a wrecker and an employee and I removed a suitable replacement from the half-dozen or so hulks baking in the 35C sun. A measure of GM's attention to detail was shown by the screws on the hose clamps. Both of them had their slotted sides oriented upwards - against the floorboards. Oh so convenient for the installers who were looking down on the as-yet uninstalled tank, yet impossible to access from underneath by the customer.
We actually had to drop the tank to access the hose clamps. An hour and $35 later, I was on my way. Still leaking fuel, but armed with a solution.
A few hours later, I was here, alongside the Fraser River. North America's last un-dammed river of any size. It drains half of southern BC, so it is definitely "of any size"
I used up the last of my colour film, so I had to revert to black and white for this one.
The transition from the interior drylands to the coastal rainforest is nowhere more dramatic than along The Duffey Lake Road, BC 99 running north from Vancouver to Lillooet.
Duffey Lake:
The Coast Range:
My penultimate destination was this: The Big House. A friend's residence on the BC coast at Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast.
Here, a half-dozen or so retired and not-so-retired film people, another half-dozen or so American Sign Language interpreters, several guitar players, at least one banjo attemptor, two deaf couples, fishers, swimmers, an Italian Marquesa and at least a dozen persons of ambivalent sexual preference meet every year for The Pender Bender. It's a three day session of food, intoxicants and bullshitting that defies explanation.
The journey continued uneventfully to Victoria BC, where my sister and I changed shifts looking after my aging dad.
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.
- hambone
- Post-Industrial Non-Secular Mennonite
- Location: Portland, Ore.
- Status: Offline
Cool! Do you use any photo manipulation software, or are those images straight from the cow? They look surreal...
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat
- glasseye
- IAC Addict!
- Location: Kootenays, BC
- Status: Offline
Every trick in the book, hambone. The abstract, blurry one of the lake was a several-second exposure while zooming handheld. Some of the rest are HDR, high dynamic range imaging. This hardware/software trick allows the photographer to record a much greater range of contrasts. The waterfront deck is a two-image horizontal stitch.
Thanks, Barb. You guys are my best fans. I only missed Sunny D's charms from afar. SD certainly photographs better than The Asstro, but she's not as good a travel companion. Ten hours a day at the wheel in 28C heat is much more tolerable with AC and decent seats. Also, I listened to TWIT podcasts for most of journey. Sunny D is much too noisy to accommodate that desire.
Thanks, Barb. You guys are my best fans. I only missed Sunny D's charms from afar. SD certainly photographs better than The Asstro, but she's not as good a travel companion. Ten hours a day at the wheel in 28C heat is much more tolerable with AC and decent seats. Also, I listened to TWIT podcasts for most of journey. Sunny D is much too noisy to accommodate that desire.
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.
- zblair
- The Zster
- Location: ATX
- Status: Offline
BEAUTIFUL!
When I first saw that 2nd shot, I had a flash where there was a type of overlay with dolphins below, angels in the sky, sort of like an Escher type lithograph...I could see a surreal version also where the outlines of the mammals and angels blended with a little light refraction behind them making them look illuminated.
When I first saw that 2nd shot, I had a flash where there was a type of overlay with dolphins below, angels in the sky, sort of like an Escher type lithograph...I could see a surreal version also where the outlines of the mammals and angels blended with a little light refraction behind them making them look illuminated.
1974 T1 Super Beetle "Fweem"
2017 Honda HRV "Domina"
"Love something? Serve it."
~Roshni Mitra
2017 Honda HRV "Domina"
"Love something? Serve it."
~Roshni Mitra
- satchmo
- Old School!
- Location: Crosby, MN
- Status: Offline