We have just settled in for the night next to a cranberry bog on the central Oregon Coast. We met the owner of the property we are parked on and he graciously allowed us to park in this nice high, open spot. The stars are brilliant, the Milky Way thick and the Big Dipper sits low on the northern horizon. It already seems far away, and we sense the loss we will feel when it is no longer visible in the sky as we move south. The roar of the surf can be heard in the distance. Our little van is now beginning to feel more like a home and the stresses of work and preparation are fading.

A leap backwards in time... to record the previous days before they too fade away.

We left the house on Saturday, October 17 at about 8:00 in the morning. It was a beautiful, crisp, clear fall morning heavy with frost. Our stomachs churned with a mixture of feelings, mostly negative and full of fear. What were we leaving behind? What lay ahead? The rush and stresses of the final days were heavy on us and the excitement we had felt on departing on other trips was not there. On the way to Prince George when I first put on the windshield washer, the drivers side just made one pass and then flung itself off the window to hang flapping in the wind. We had not yet developed much trust in our ten year old van (with 130,000 km on it) and this just emphasized why. Out with the toolbox, figure out the German engineering, and soon we were back on the road. On arriving in Prince George we spent a few hours rushing around securing last minute items. Diane took a turn driving and shortly, while entering a main intersection, the van stalled and would not start! Minor panic and harsh words and then we realized that in our hurry I had neglected to fill up with gas (after being prompted several times by Diane) Well, at least we knew the problem. I felt pretty stupid, especially with two empty spare gas containers sitting in the box on the roof. As I was still unable to walk far, Diane elected to go to the nearest gas station. A good Samaritan offered her a lift and gave her a wild ride to the station while I dug out our emergency triangles to direct the flow of traffic around the dead van. It was an easy lesson to learn...always be aware of your fuel situation and when the van won't run you are stuck wherever you are. We had a good laugh at ourselves and carried on. It was just before Quesnel, with Diane driving again, that the van decided to act up. It began to lose power and miss and when she pulled over it just died. We sat there for a minute and then it started up again as if nothing had happened, but our faith was shattered. It was getting dark, on a Saturday night, so we decided to carry on. The incident repeated itself several times in the next hour and we figured it to be either some water in the fuel or some debris blocking the fuel tank outlet or the filter inlet. Both of these as a result of running out of gas. I must complement Diane for not tearing my head off. We finally got to Lac La Hache where we found a nice spot by the lake to bed down. Setting up the van to sleep we realized how disorganized we were. Basically we had just put all of our stuff in but had not tried to live with it. We began to see that trying to do any task inside would require preplanning and some sort of system. Tired and frustrated, with a sense of unreality we settled into our sleeping bags for the first night of our trip.

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We awoke to another beautiful fall morning with mist sweeping across the calm lake. We were up at 6:30 but we did not get on the road till 10:00. The routine of heating water for washing and coffee, morning meditation, washing (times two), breakfast, converting the van from sleeping mode to travel mode, washing dishes, cleaning the windows of condensation, etcetera was all new to us. we amazed how long it took as only one task could be done at once. As we finally started down the road, the van bucked and hesitated for the first hour and then finally smoothed out and began to run normally. Thank goodness, as it would have been hard to find an able mechanic on a Sunday. We had an uneventful trip to Aldergrove to visit my family and the next morning headed off into the big city to do some specialized shopping. While caught up in the frantic traffic and searching for parking spaces I remarked how Vancouver was not unlike some of the Central American cities I had been too. Parking with a van that could not enter any of those parking garages, and still being close enough to walk, was extremely frustrating, usually entailing several trips around the area. The nice part of that day was going out to an East Indian restaurant and savouring the exotic tastes and taking in Everest and Special Effects movies at the Omnimax theatre.

Tuesday morning found us waiting for the bank to open in Aldergrove so that we could obtain some Travellers Cheques and American cash. This done we headed south and crossed the border into Washington. Our excitement began to build as we were now outfitted and on our way. We breezed past Seattle and then made our way towards the coast to enjoy the ocean, something neither of us had seen for a while. We were enthralled by the herons, mud flats, oyster shell mountains, variety of bridges, ocean views and the smell of the sea. As we tired and looked for a place to call home for the night we became aware of the fact that Washington was very different from B.C. Most roads had gates and pullouts or parking areas were all loudly signed - "No overnight camping". We finally found a small pullout on a narrow sideroad heading out to a spit and began converting the van from travel to sleep mode. The spot was scenic and quiet except for the locals who beeped their horns at us as they went by, obviously expressing their displeasure at our use of their roadside. We expect they wanted us to stay at one of the many RV Parks along the road but we were not prepared to spend $20 Canadian to park six feet away from another camper. This had never been our style and we were not going to start now!

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Took a break from writing for a while (about two weeks!) so am now trying to play catch up using our trip notes that we jot down during the day.

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We carried on down the Oregon Coast enjoying the little unique tourist towns, great weather and great ocean views. Finding a place to stay was becoming more difficult as they obviously had many tourists going through the area so all pull-outs and side roads were either signed with no overnight parking signs or had locked gates across them. We began to appreciate the freedom of Canada where you can pull over anywhere. We finally found a road that was closed for construction and parked at the end at the turnaround. It was a peaceful night with no horns honking.

The next day made our way into California, giving a young girl a ride. She asked us for a lift at the entrance to the Redwood Forests and she entertained us for a few hours till we got to where we were looking for a place to pull off for the night. She was so innocent and trusting.....we wondered how she would fare on her journey home to Chicago for Thanksgiving. We took a detour through the park, admiring the giant trees and going for a walk to see the "Big Tree". The forest was very majestic and inspiring. We applauded the foresight of the people who set aside such a large area to be enjoyed. Finding a quiet spot for the evening was again a challenge, Californians had also experienced many people squatting and camping about but again we just pulled off on a sideroad and parked just off the road on a steep winding gravel road. What we had thought to be an unused backroad turned out to have quite a lot of traffic, especially late at night. We speculated that perhaps there was a party house up the hill. Heavy rain fell all night and it soothed our souls to hear it pounding on the roof. It is always comforting to be warm and cozy inside when the weather is bad. The van passed the test with flying colours. No leaks! The rain abated in the morning and we awoke to see that where we had parked there were several no trespassing signs. We figure this may have been a factor in various vehicles beeping at us through the night. Oh well, such is life.

The morning drive took us through the lush farmlands of California. We passed groves of arbutus and maple trees, drank in the fall colours of the grape bushes appearing out of the morning mist and gawked at the orchards along the way (mostly pears). It was nearing Halloween and field of orange pumpkins in the fields called to be carved. Vendors were very creative with their signs, hay castles and decorations to attract customers. We drove through miles and miles of brussels sprout farms, the green tops waving at us. Suddenly we were at San Francisco and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge with its beautiful view of Alcatraz. We turned off on a side street to go up and down the steep streets lined with brick brownstone buildings that the movies had made famous.

Leaving the outskirts of the city we passed surfing beaches packed with young people and our ears were filled with mellow rap music from the local radio station. A tour of the ritzy tourist town of Carmel was well worth it. A narrow road wound its way along the jagged waterfront where unique residences lined the waterfront. A little further on we found a wonderful beach to walk on, and were greeted with vistas of rock archways in offshore islands, pelicans, and sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks. This fantastic day was topped off by finding a pullout that was protected from the traffic and had no signs. It was high up on a cliff road at the beginning of the Big Sur area. We were treated to a spectacular sunset and following that a great show of stars. We drifted off to sleep with the sound of the surf crashing below.

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The next day saw us crossing countless bridges (most under repair), stopping at cliff side restaurants, creeping around steep and narrow curves and seeing many coastal vistas of surf and rocks. This was only slightly marred by the van acting up in the morning and the price of gas ($2.29 US/gallon). As the road came back down to the sea and the beaches were more accessible we stopped at a beach which was literally covered with sea lions. We spent several enjoyable hours watching them frolic in the surf. Just past this we were surprised to see a castle perched on a hillside. We saw a sign that showed it to be the Hearst Castle. Quite impressive!

Traffic was gradually increasing, like little creeks going into the river as it gathered momentum as it approached Los Angeles. We had decided that the most direct route to Palm Springs from the coast was right through the city, and besides, we both wanted to see the famous city up front. Orienteering was surprisingly easy as the freeways were well marked however it took a lot of energy to keep up with all the cars and lane changes. The city basically stretched for over one hundred miles with the road never having less than ten lanes. As we got to the eastern edge, the weather turned nasty with torrential rains, thunder and lightning. The river of cars never slowed or thinned. We were tired and stressed (having been on the road for ten hours already), so departed the freeway at a ramp that advertised a MacDonald's. We suffered severe cultural shock when we went in the familiar style building. Rap music blared out of the loudspeakers, lineups of young Latinos and blacks dressed in hip clothing and speaking a great variety of dialects and languages surrounded us. We felt very old and white. By now we were within striking of Palm Springs and tired or not we were determined to get to the condo that night. The next few hours were trying, heavy rain and truck traffic, getting lost and turned around in Palm Springs but we eventually arrived at the condo. One of the reasons we had made such a push to get there was to go to the Rancho Mirage Street Fair that was held every weekend. We were quite distressed to find out (after phoning home) that it was Sunday night, not Saturday as we thought. We had lost a day already! Regardless, it was nice to have a home base again to give us time to reorganize and recover from that much driving. My knee and hip were not doing well and we needed some healing time.

I'm getting tired now, time to put the computer away and get to bed. We are in the central area of the Baja in a small pullover beside a restaurant in a dirty little town. Stars are wonderful out here in the desert but parking beside the road has its drawbacks, noisy cars and trucks.

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Palm Springs (actually the Coachella Valley which comprises the communities of Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, Indio, and Cathedral City) was a wonderful spot to rest up. Once we got the condo cleaned up (it had not been used for six months and spider webs and dead bugs, some the size of large cockroaches, were evident) and the van unpacked we settled in to a life of luxury. Walks around the golf course, sunning and swimming at the pools, breakfast and suppers out on the patio, shopping tours, cruising in the golf cart, Internet cruising at the library, AA meetings every morning at 7:00 AM, street fairs, were all things that filled our days. It was definitely the play area of the rich. We had never seen so many expensive cars. Mercedes were the norm, with Lexus and Rolls Royces very common. We felt like youngsters as most of the people were seniors. It was a laid back atmosphere with no one in a hurry, everything spotless with excellent service. After a few days in became quite surreal as we realized how pampered we were. This however did not stop us from enjoying it all. We repacked, agonizing on what to leave behind to lighten the load, but finally ended up leaving two large boxes for Jack to take back to Canada for us. The items left behind were the tent, one thermarest with chair kit, our equatorial sleeping bags, a lot of clothes and some miscellaneous items. The van got its oil changed, air conditioning recharged, and a good wash. The rest gave my body time to heal and for us to mentally and spiritually prepare for the next phase of the trip. It was a time of gathering and letting go. Up until this point we had been so busy preparing for the trip or adjusting to our van lifestyle on the trip down that we really had not had time to think of the actual trip. We stayed longer than anticipated but it was so much like a real vacation or honeymoon that we wanted to relish every minute of it before we felt the urge to move on. The last two weeks were good for our relationship, we were getting to know each other again and it was a joy to share so much time together.

But finally we both agreed it was time to move on so we packed up the van, locked up the condo, and headed out towards the border. We got a late start but managed to get to El Centro, close to border where we purchased our Mexican auto insurance at Sanborn's a reputable firm. They were very kind and gave us some info on Mexico and some "Trip Logs" which would turn out to be very useful. We were surprised to learn that we could get collision as well as liability insurance so we went for the whole lot at a cost of $275 US for 30 days. Camped out by a drainage canal between two giant hay stacks and first thing in the morning headed off to the border crossing.

Part 2

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last modified January 29, 2000