On the Road with Bob

Today I am in FABULOUS Las Vegas. I took a circuitous, but quick trip from Hillsborough, NH, where I visit my daughter in the summer. After travelling 1500 miles to Kissimmee, FL to pick up new registrations and insurance papers, I set out for the west. There was some impetuosity in the decision, since I am used to spending the winter in Florida, but I love the west and felt that I should be there for a while. At my age I have to weigh what things are important enough to experience before I cannot do them again. The 3000 mile voyage with the car and RV are in that category. I’ve never figured out how to live in the west, and still remain close to my family. They couldn’t be transplanted out of New England with a pitchfork. Oh, well……I love to be on the road.

It turned out that a friend, who resides in Laughlin, NV was in a bind!  He had booked a flight from Las Vegas and needed to get his conversion van from Mesquite, NV, where he was “comped” in the Casablanca Casino (He is a gambler), to Hurricane, UT to a storage facility. He was going EAST as I was going WEST. His destination was Cherry Hill, NJ to visit family for the holidays. Problems arose. His van broke down and required a new steering column. We had figured that if I didn’t dally, which IS my custom, I could meet him in Utah and drive him back to Nevada.But his mechanic let him down (Wow, that NEVER happens!), and instead of meeting him as planned, I drove to Mesquite and met him there. I stayed there that night.

Second problem: ( colliding coincidences ) We were  booked into hotels in Las Vegas before his van was going to be fixed, with no way to change the reservations. So we drove there and he checked in to Harrah’s and I checked into the Imperial Palace on the Strip.  Two days later we got word that the steering was restored. We drove back to Mesquite, NV, and I followed him to Hurricane, UT where he left the van, pulled down  the door, and we headed BACK to Las Vegas for the rest of our stay. Three hundred miles round-trip. I took him to the airport at 5:30 AM last Wednesday, and finally got to relax. I spent the next four nights at the wonderful  campground at Las Vegas Bay on Lake Mead. Private sites among palms and other plantings, with views of the lake and desert scenery . More about this trip in my next post.

U S Airways took me to Charleston last week; I went to pick up my car that was in storage in Port Royal (Beaufort). First of all, Manchester airport is so laid back and easy to take, compared to Logan in Boston. I had to change planes in Philadelphia, and having left New Hampshire at 7:10 AM, I was in South Carolina before noon.
The problem is in getting to Beaufort from Charleston. The Greyhound travels to Savannah, GA, and gets within 16 miles of Beaufort…..Southbound.  Northbound, it MAKES THE STOP IN BEAUFORT!  But I was going South, so my bus ride by-passed my destinatiion, and stopped in Savannah, where after about two hours I boarded the Northbound ‘dog’ for the 40 mile back-track to S. Carolina…..over 5 hours in transit.
Five hours to go 1,000 miles, then five hours to go 110 plus 45 reverse miles.
I don’t understand the bus route at all, but it was comfortable enough with the new seats they have installed.

I decided to eshew my favorite route North, on the beautiful Coastal Highway (US 17).
I wanted to leave the heat and humidity of the low country and make some distance, so I went West ansd picked up I 95. I set the cruise-control on the Saturn for 62 MPH, and stopped at Gold Rock (Battleboro) North Carolina for the night. There are reasonable choices of accomodations with low rates there. After breakfast at Hardee’s, I crossed the Virginia line and headed for Washington. My reason for travelling this route, which I NEVER travel in the RV, was that I wanted to scope-out  I 81.  I used to by-pass the metropolitan New York, New Jersey,Pennsylvania and Delaware areas by crossing the Hudson on I 84, continuing to Scranton, picking up I 81 through Wilkes-Barre to Harrisburg, and then any number of routes, depending on my destination in the South.

Friday afternoon, approaching DC at about 2 PM…….not good!  I  holed-up at a MacDonald’s near Quantico, and read my book for four hours!! When I left the highway I could see nothing but red taillights for miles up the road. When I ventured back onto 95, the traffic was completely stopped in the other direction, but was not bad heading toward the Beltway. I didn’t encounter any problems all the way to Hagerstown, MD. I had forgotten about the humungous hill approaching the city. My RV will not do that!
In the morning I hit I 81, and headed North again. It is a good route, as I remembered it, but up and down the mountain roads… I think my mileage would really suffer badly. What nixed me on using this route to avoid Megalopolis was the tremendous hill approaching Port Jervis, NJ, at Matamoros. I went up up up up up up, and at the top was an elevation sign indicating 1,250 feet above the Hudson! My RV doesn’t want to move semi-VERTICALLY for a quarter-mile, just to avoid some city traffic and a higher bridge toll.

I’ll have to bite the bullet and use the urban roads. But I discovered how much easier that can be if you do it AFTER MIDNIGHT! Postscript for this post: I get  12 miles per gallon in the Dodge RV.  My Saturn averages 43 MPG, and on the hilliest part of this journey, I got  FIFTY-ONE POINT SIX…..a personal best. It is 15 years old.  Hybrids, eat my dust!

For the past few years, when making the transition between New England and the sultry south, I’ve avoided the usual route that took me from the Garden State Parkway to Delaware. It was off onto US Route One at Edison, New Jersey, and onto Route 130, to Interstate 295, and over the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
We who drive pay gas taxes to keep the roads in good condition. That this revenue ends up in the general fund, and the roads are left wanting is not of our doing. But we all suffer the broken promises, as well as the broken suspensions and worn-out tires as a result. Crossing bridges is kind of necessary when one approaches the Delaware, the Susquahannah, the Hudson and myriad other rivers that obstruct our smooth journeys

.
I  HATE TOLLS!  Why, I ask you, should we pay tribute to the state for crossing these structures? Tax monies have been collected for their upkeep, and the Federal Highway Fund kicks in for them as well.
Okay, so I try to avoid crossing a bridge in the direction in which the toll booth is raking it in. Heading south, I now take the Garden State (tolls here have increased dramatically in these poor economic times) to US 1, but now I stay on US 1 through Princeton, and pick up Interstate 95, around Philadelphia, past the airport to Interstate 495, and into Delaware. This route is the ONLY one where a toll is not collected for crossing the Delaware. And I  didn’t have to do it standing up in the front of a boat, ala General Washington. In a car it may seem insignificant, but the tolls required of an RV can really sting.
I recently travelled in my Saturn S1 to New England from D.C. ….Baltimore Tunnel: $2.00; crossing the Susquahannah: $5.00; the Delaware toll road: $5.00; the Garden State Parkway: $2.50 (The Jersey Turnpike would have been $7.50 for this stretch), the the Tappan Zee Bridge: $5.00. That’s $19.50 to travel with crazed drivers and tractor-trailer rigs with more crazed drivers, a total of 250 miles or less.

By skirting  D.C. on the beltway, through Annapolis on US 50 to US 301, and north on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge;  zoom along through lovely Maryland farmland, to meet Route US 40 in Delaware. Then joining US 13,  proceed through New Castle to Interstate 495. This joins Interstate 95, which traverses Philly to Trenton, and on to Princeton, NJ. Then grab US 1, and follow it to Edison, and the Garden State Parkway. YOU JUST SAVED MONEY!  It was no longer; it was more enjoyable, there was less trucking and (unexplainably) fewer crazed drivers. There was the north-bound toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, but the savings are still dramatic and the scenery is worth it!

This week, just to see what might be different, I went north in the RV, into New Jersey by going up and over the Delaware Memorial Bridge (no toll northbound), and proceeded on Interstate 295 toward Camden and Trenton on the east side of the river.
The roadway is GREATLY IMPROVED. Until you get past Route 38 (Morrisville exit). Then, the road ceases to be navigable. It is a series of unconnected pot holes and broken pavement. Really dangerous stuff!  I got off at US 130, the Brunswick exit. Route 130 is HORRIBLE!  New Jerseyites cruise blithely over this sea of destruction, never realizing that there are actually places in the USA where you don’t sacrifice your wheels (literally) to commute to the next stop in Hell. I’m swearing off NJ totally!

My next jaunt south will be via Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on the Interstates. More mileage will be repaid in better gas mileage, and less concern for the chassis beneath me!

I have always owned older vehicles. The last new car I bought was in 1968. I have never been one to change cars, or RVs simply because they have some age on them. It doesn’t make any sense, unless you are trading up, or have changing needs. Check out those ’50s cars still running in Havana!

It has been easier for me, since I do all my own repairs and maintenance. I had early training in automotive repair, and learned as a teenager that the treatment you give the vehicle directly corresponds to the time it will spend in the repair shop.

Jack-rabbit starts and stops, excessive speed, and strain on the engine in adverse conditions spell an early demise! Frequent oil and filter changes, with Slick 50 or Greased Lightning additive do help.

I have converted a number of buses to motorhomes, and in the last 20 years I have converted vans to Class C motorhomes. I had a ‘76 Dodge B250  1/2 ton Ram van that I converted to my plan, and ran it for over ten years with only routine maintenance, and not many serious problems. There were a few, but that will be another posting. This is about analyzing the problem that I experienced on that old ‘76, and on a newer (old to most of you,I know) 1986 Dodge 3/4 ton that I converted in 1992- through the present day.

Here’s the situation:  You are driving on back roads with plenty of hills; typical New England territory. As you start up a medium gradient rise, the engine begins to stumble. If you keep giving it the gas it will die before reaching the top, so you let up a little so that you just make it up and over the top, where the engine recovers its power, and you head for the next uprise.

On one of the cross-country trips in the current Dodge, I had the same problem on Interstate 10 in west Texas, nearing El Paso, then again in southern New Mexico. It happened whenever I went up a long upgrade as I headed into Tucson. Again, as I drove north from Phoenix, through Casa Grande, toward Needles, California.  It seemed like classic fuel starvation. I changed the fuel filter and fuel pump two times. I did complete tune-ups; checked the timing and anything else that could have created these occurences. I even tore down the carburetors for cleaning. Whatever I could think of…..but when I got to that next hill, same problem. Ambient temperature seemed to play a part, too. In cold weather I had next to no trouble! But when the engine was hot, it could be predicted.

On one road trip to the south I became so addled that I stopped twice at repair shops where knowing mechanics looked at the log I kept of the situations and conditions, but no one had a fresh idea. It had happened less frequently with my older Dodge that had the 360 cc engine, but was becoming serious with the newer Dodge that has the 318 cc (5.2 liter) lean-burn engine.

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THE PROBLEM COULD HAVE BEEN??

I was at wit’s end, broken-down on the road, 200 miles from my intended destination, having installed a new ELECTRIC fuel pump and a new OEM FUEL FILTER  with no improvement, when the solution came to me after all my ruminations over the years.  EUREKA!

(answer in the next posting under Repairs)

For the past three years I have travelled to New Hampshire to visit with my daughter in Hillsboro. Before that, I visited her in the upper valley of the Connecticut River. It is always a joy to arrive in New Hampshire because the highways are so good! Yesterday I was on Route 9/202 heading toward Concord to attend the Obama acceptance-speech party. There has been construction on that stretch of road for weeks, but as they carry out the paving process, you can see what a superior job this state does to insure a smooth driving surface.

In Massachusetts for instance, the “bed” of the road  (that which underlies all the asphalt above) is only HALF the thickness of the Granite State’s. And as is evident today, as you travel the side of the road awaiting the new covering, the pavement is more than a skim-coat that other states try to convince their motorists will suffice. The obvious result is a level or well-banked roadway that lasts through many winters without the typical frost-heaves encountered elsewhere. This road is THICK!

Okay, there are plenty of smaller country roads here that are not in such pristine condition. There is some uneven pavement and stretches of not-well-repaired road. But compare the whole to the BEST of New Jersey and New York…..Yipes!  I swear an oath every time i travel across their thoroughfares-masquerading-as- highways, that I will forever avoid subjecting my suspension system to them in the future. But look at a map! It’s not easy getting out of New England going south, without bumping into this barrier of potential break-downs. And cheap gas lives in New Jersey!

With fuel in the stratosphere, I really don’t want to go too far afield of a straight line. Then there are the *&%Z#!  tolls! I currently travel in a 21 foot Class C motorhome. There are station wagons longer, and Hummers taller and heavier than some RVs. But when I pull up to the tollbooth at the east end of the Tappan Zee Bridge, the collector proclaims”TWELVE TWENTY-FIVE!” I then look around to select the portion of this bumpy ride I just bought.

The cities of southern New Hampshire cannot claim the distinction I have coveyed upon the state’s roads in general. Salem, that northern suburb of Metheun, MA has the worst stretch of road in the northeast….they’re calling it Route 28. I’m calling it the Oregon Trail without the wagons or the scenery. Go slow, friends; your springs, shocks and tires will thank you!