What A Long Strange Trip
or How I Got My Land Rover From Boulder, CO to Palo Alto, CA
The Deal
After settling on a price for my Land Rover via email, and paying for a
new set of tires as the deposit, the previous owner and I agreed that he
would meet me at the Denver airport on Sunday when my flight arrived.
The trip was 1500 miles, so my plan was to get off the plane in Denver,
drive Ted (the PO) to Boulder, and then head west--hopefully going 750
miles in 15 hours, then another 750 miles in another 15 hours on the second
day, arriving home in time to get some sleep and then go back to work on
Tuesday.
Foobarred From the Beginning
Dissaster struck the minute I got to the airport. I didn't allow
for the extremely long lines at the San Francisco airport and missed my
flight, so I had to catch one to LA and thence to Denver. This had
me arriving at the Denver airport about two hours behind schedule.
We picked up my bags and went down to see the Rover. It was just
as the pictures had shown. Mostly it needed cosmetic work, but there
were a few weak spots such as the 30-year-old free-wheeling hubs.
I gave Ted the cashiers check and we took off for Boulder.
Since I was already behind schedule, I decided to buy a boom box (the car
was positive ground then, so I couldn't install a real car stereo) and
pick up groceeries for the trip before leaving Boulder. Ted accompanied
me on the former. I then dropped him off at his office, and set about
the latter.
Once supplied and 'tuned' up, I set out towards California. I took
a state highway up and West out of Boulder to where it met interstate highway
70. Once on 70, things looked pretty good--until I hit a traffic
jam at the Eisenhower Tunnel. This was my first introduction to the
low gearing of a Land Rover. The gas guage was getting low, and Ted
had told me that it read in quarters, so I took out my gerry can (provided
by Ted) and poured it in the tank. I then got back on the road and
noticed that I could just ride the brake with the car in 1st just like
the Rover had an automatic transmission. Pretty neat!
I Can't Believe This Is Happening
A little after the sun set (probably around 9:00), I noticed the Rover
seemed to be loosing power and pulling to the right. I pulled over,
and sure enough, the back right tire was flat. Mind you, this was
my biggest fear, and the main reason why I arranged for new tires for the
Rover in lieu of cash as a deposit. Truly a case of the best laid
plans, etc. I started pulling out all the spares in the back to get
to the jack and lug wrench Ted had so graciously furnished me. Once
I got them out, I jacked up the rear of the rover and set the lug wrench
to the lug nut. Well, now, I guess Ted had never had a flat in this
Rover (which is highly likely, as he'd only owned it for three months),
as this lug wrench didn't fit the lug--not even close. So, I called
AAA, only to find that I was outside the range of a cell. So I sat
down and thought for a minute. On the remote chance that maybe there
was such a thing as a 911-only cell, I dialed 911, and sure enough, I got
an answer. I explained the situation, and they said a Colorado Highway
Patrol car would be along shortly.
About fourty-five minutes later, the CHP showed up, and guess what?
His crossbar didn't have a socket on it big enough, either. So, he
radioed AAA for me and sent instructions to send a tow truck and a BIG
lug wrench. The tow truck showed up about an hour later (I'd then
been on the side of the road for almost three hours), and guess what?
He didn't believe he'd need anything special to get my lug nuts off, so
he just brought his standard set of stuff. Needless to say, that
didn't suffice, so we hooked the Rover up to the truck and he towed me
to Grand Junction. He took the Rover to a Texaco and me to a motel.
I checked in, took a bath and went immediately to sleep. The next
morning I called the Texaco and asked after my tire. They said that
since they didn't have the keys, they couldn't move the car. I asked
why and the stated that the steering column would be locked and they'd
need the key to unlock it. That's when I started laughing.
I explained that there was no such sofisticated mechanism on my Rover and
asked them to fix the tire pronto. I arrived at the Texaco by taxi and
was informed that the cause of the flat was that the rim had not been thoroughly
cleaned before the tube had been installed (I wanted tubes on the chance
that the rims wouldn't hold air--anymore another well laid plan laid to
waste by fate). I paid for the fix and set off again towards California
on I70.
The First Whole Day
This was the first whole day I was to spend on the road in the Rover.
I found that the noise and bumpy ride made it so the fact that I had to
stop every two hours for gas didn't annoy me, as I needed the rest and
usually had to pee--probably from bouncing so much.
I had orignially wanted to take US highway 50 through western Utah and
Nevada, as I like driving through the desert alone, and alone is what you
are on 50 in that area. It's often 100 miles between towns--and I
use that term quite loosely, I assure you. The problem was that the
filling stations on 50 aren't necessarily open all night, and I was going
to be driving on it very late, so I decided to take a Utah state highway
from I70 up to the Salt Lake area, where I'd jump on I80.
What's that? Oh, False Alarm
While driving through Salt Lake, I started to hear a very odd noize.
It sounded like tire tread rubbing against the body or something.
After dashing across two lanes of traffic and an accelleration lane to
get to the shoulder, I discovered that I'd hit the band selector on the
boom box and moved it from CD to AM. I guess something in the Rover's
electrics interferes horribly with AM reception and caused the boom box
to make this noise. I was soon off again.
I gassed up just outside of Salt Lake and set out across a long stretch
of I80 that seems to be built on piles of tarmac dumped into the salt lake.
This stretch ends up beeing the Bonneville Salt Flats. Just past,
there is the Nevada border, where I stopped for gas and dinner.
Around two o'clock AM, I pulled over at a rest stop, laid across the seats
in front with my feet out the driver's-side window and fell asleep.
I awoke at about 5:30, and headed out. This was the best part of
the drive for me, as the desert took some time to warm up, and I80 is almost
as lonely as US 50, so I didn't have a lot of cars to deal with.
By 10:00 AM, I was gassing up in Reno, NV, where I found a nice drive up
esspresso place, and had my first coffe in two days (if you've read my
home page, then you know that was a sacrifice).
I then started up into the Sierra Nevada--well on my way home. Once
I got to Truckee, I sniffed out a Starbucks (just look for the yuppee shopping
centers--there's always good coffee to be had in them), and bought a thermos,
a stainless-steel coffee mug and a bunch o' latte. Off I was again,
with my $60 cup of coffee.
On the way down from Donner Summit, I started to smell something burning,
and looked at the oil pressure guauge and it read below 20 PSI. I
immediately pulled over and checked the oil. Almost dry. Now
this was odd, as I'd checked the oil at my last gassing up in Reno, and
it was fine. I've since found that many Landys spew oil when you
use engine braking while going down a hill. After replacing the seals
this problem may have gone away--time will tell. I put oil
in it and headed home.
Land-Rover-Induced Dementia
By the time I got to Cordelia, at the intersection of I80 and I680 almost
in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was struck by one of the phenomena of
driving a Land Rover for extended periods of time on the highway--IQ reduction.
I figure you lose about 8 IQ points an hour while driving a Landy a highway
speeds, this is reduced by four if you have an overdrive and by another
four to zero if you have good springs. Anyway, the manifestation
of this phenomenon, was that in Cordelia, I realized I'd left my gas cap
at the last fill-up in Auburn. Oh, well, a quick call to British
Pacific, and that was on its way to my office.
Welcome Home!
I fnally arrived home at about 3:00 and all was well. Until, that
is, the next morning, when I went out to proudly drive my 'new' Landy to
work and found a flat tire. This time the problem was the shop I
directed Ted to use for the purchase and installaton of the tires had not
removed the hard plastic label from the tube, and it had worn a hole in
it.
On the whole, quite an adventure. I'll have to do several things
to the Rover (new springs, overdrive, etc.) before going on a trip that
long again, though.
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