The trek across Nevada and Utah
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Our
beautiful 1970 Westy (the one they left behind) feeling abandoned but not
forgotten.
This was a new adventure for us. Sam
originally planned to take the 1970 VW Westfalia camper above across the
country, but Jan wanted a quiet ride and air conditioning. So in March we looked
for an air-conditioned Vanagon, and found a nice ’87 that made Jan very happy.
It had 125,000 miles on it and was in great shape. Sam had Peninsula Automotive
of Campbell check it our and decided to buy it. We had the CV joints on the
drive shafts replaced and a complete tune up and it has had not real problems,
more later.
We planned to leave Cupertino after work Wednesday
night (September 24th), but by the time we got our gear assembled, we
left around noon on Thursday. The Vanagon was loaded with lots of food and
stuff, as this was our first camping trip in it. We had decided to take Highway
80 on the trip going east since neither of us had ever made that particular
drive before. Our drive to Reno, Nevada up Interstate 80 went pretty well. The
automatic Vanagon went up the hills in 2nd gear at 50 mph with no
problem. The water temp gauge did climb into the upper range but everything
went extremely well.
Although we had been In Reno before at this
time of year, we had forgotten the annual motorcycle event called Street
Vibrations. The place was full of Harleys revving their engines. We played
poker at the Cal-Neva where Sam delighted in the role of ‘tourist from Hell’ beating
the disgruntled locals out of over $400! We did not take pictures on the way to
Reno but after that we have been pretty faithful.
On the way from Reno to Salt Lake City on US
80 we stopped at a station to fill up with gas. Sam thought it was odd that he got
no receipt. It didn’t seem as if the gas gauge was moving up much and about 40
miles later we ran out of gas in the high desert. We could see a gas station
about a mile away but decided to call AAA anyway. A Nevada highway patrol stopped
while Jan was on the phone to AAA and said the gas station was close and it should
be less than 30 minutes wait for AAA to bring gas so not to worry. After a full
hour elapsed, Sam decided to walk to the gas station. Someone stopped to give
him a lift and someone also gave him a ride back taking all of 20 minutes. Just
as Sam got back, AAA arrived with 3 gallons of gas. We figured that Sam put the
nozzle in the tank but somehow hit the wrong button to fill. He has vowed in
future to wait to hear then gas going in and see the splash of gas come out, as
the tank is full.
We continued to eastern Nevada to the small
town of Wells and found a really nice RV/campground just off the freeway. We
parked next to an identical Westy camper and at around three in the morning our
sleepy neighbor obviously didn’t realize that the bus he was trying to climb
into was not his own! It gave us a start and he was as surprised as we were!
Next morning we drove on through Salt Lake
City and the Utah scenery is truly picture like a postcard as were the views of
the Bonneville Salt Flats. Jan did not see the sign about scorpions and snakes
at the rest stop or she probably would not have gotten out of the vehicle! Here
are our first pictures…
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