Back on Track

8/12/11

Lucy’s back and doing great.  The valves were tight and did need adjusted, and my hunch was right- cylinder # 2 wasn’t firing.  All that happened was the wire to the spark plug came loose a little and while it looked like it was connected, it wasn’t transferring a spark.  So the shop fixed those two things and she’s running great again.  We had about a 4 hour ride today to the Grand Canyon, about a third of which was along Route 66.  It was some beautiful desert and mesa scenery the whole way, with some cute towns too.  

 As we headed up toward the canyon, the sage and brush started to be replaced by pine and other trees, the air cooled a little, a bit of that dry sauna feel coming out of it. 

It’s nice being back in a vehicle that encourages people to wave at you.  I owned a Jeep for 5 years and all other Jeep owners would wave as you passed.  On the Triumph Bonneville, most other motorcycles you passed would wave also.  Being in a Bus brings this to a whole new level.  Yes, all bus and Vanagon drivers wave, but lot’s of other people do too, whether in another car or walking on the street.  Many of those who don’t wave smile and point.  This is especially true when Mojo has his head hanging out the front window, which is pretty often.  Peace signs from folks in their 60’s, the hang loose sign from a group of European tourists, and lots of smiles.  It’s a nice way to travel.  It helps to diffuse some of the stress that can come with long days on the road.

We rolled into the only campground at the South Rim at about 4:30pm on a Friday in the peak of summer without a reservation, and wouldn’t you know signs were up everywhere saying campground full.  Not the end of the world, we can drive back a few miles and just head into National Forest land a ways and remote camp for a couple days, but Tun was hoping to stay in the same park village she called home a few summers ago, and toilets, water, and being walking distance from the rim are all nice, so it was a little bit of a bummer.  But not to worry, Lucy has connections!  The ranger in the booth says, “Yeah, not a good idea to show up in the summer without reservations… but that sure is a nice Westy.  We may just have one site left for someone driving a nice bus like that.”  Kid you not, that’s what he said and here we are sitting in our site as I type this.  We saw 2 groups before us and 3 groups after us be turned away.  He had owned a ’68 and ’74 camper Bus and an ’84 camper Vanagon.  I assume it was a recent cancelation that enabled us to get our site and a nice family isn’t sleeping in their Camry somewhere tonight, but I prefer to not think about it too much.