Itinerant Not Air-Cooled Enough In Death Valley I (re-linked
Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 3:43 pm
Breaking camp outside of Tonapah with a four-day stubbly beard, I asked my VW if there was anything it needed to tell me, because it was going to be a hot one, and I sure didn't want to break down in the middle of it. The valves all said "we're OK", the fuel pump demurred, the oil level was still a half a quart high, my little heat control valve exhaust ducts were still hanging on even if the duct tape had long ago burned off, the tires are looking OK, and the 6,500 foot elevation had already elicited strong protests from the carbs "we're drowning!" "Shut up," I replied, "you are going to be begging for fuel at below sea level soon enough."
Here I had been climbing a pretty good grade, thinking about that below-sea level thing and wondering where was it, and should I lean out the carbs now and remember to richen them later?
About halfway down. I also have some video clips. The one I shot just after this picture, you can hear the moment I understand that it is going to be hot, "whoa, it is getting hotter by the second!" as I continued down the hill:
The instant I laid eyes on this view, I was transfixed. How do you even describe it? I am just laying down all the approach photographs in a row here:
There is no describing it, but I am glad I got to enjoy it from the vantage point of an old air-cooled VW where the waves of stunning heat are not just something to see from the glass-enclosed A/C aquariums that passed me, noooooo . . . this heat is talking directly to me and it is talking to my poor engine and it is definitely harrassing my fuel pump, and that Makes The Day, the sheer unbelievability of this deadly heat concentrates you beautifully, the shared passage where you are praying to your exhaust valves to carry you through, the understanding that this big old planet in the Universe rotates around a furnace and you can feel it like you never have, Today:
. . . and you admire the life that has eked out an existence in this valley, but you see, too, that life sometimes over reaches like maybe you did:
Here I had been climbing a pretty good grade, thinking about that below-sea level thing and wondering where was it, and should I lean out the carbs now and remember to richen them later?
About halfway down. I also have some video clips. The one I shot just after this picture, you can hear the moment I understand that it is going to be hot, "whoa, it is getting hotter by the second!" as I continued down the hill:
The instant I laid eyes on this view, I was transfixed. How do you even describe it? I am just laying down all the approach photographs in a row here:
There is no describing it, but I am glad I got to enjoy it from the vantage point of an old air-cooled VW where the waves of stunning heat are not just something to see from the glass-enclosed A/C aquariums that passed me, noooooo . . . this heat is talking directly to me and it is talking to my poor engine and it is definitely harrassing my fuel pump, and that Makes The Day, the sheer unbelievability of this deadly heat concentrates you beautifully, the shared passage where you are praying to your exhaust valves to carry you through, the understanding that this big old planet in the Universe rotates around a furnace and you can feel it like you never have, Today:
. . . and you admire the life that has eked out an existence in this valley, but you see, too, that life sometimes over reaches like maybe you did: