It got cold overnight. My thermometer said 47º outside and 51º inside when I woke up. I don’t have a heater installed yet. I was warm inside my blankets, but was chilly when I got up. I immediately made coffee to warm up both the inside of the van and the inside of me. I still wasn’t comfortable, though. I seem to have lost what little tolerance for cold I had left during my time away from the northeast. But I do have one working heater — the one that blows hot air out of the dashboard. The best way to warm up was to start my drive early, so that’s what I did.
I hadn’t used the van’s heater before. I got it in Florida where it was already hot. It works great, though, as it should because the van is practically new. It didn’t take long to get comfortable inside. Lister was unhappy that I didn’t give him his usual morning outside time, but that would’ve meant leaving the door open and making it even colder inside the van. To make it up to him, I stopped at a rest area along Interstate 88.
Believe it or not, this is the rest area in Worcester, New York. It’s beautiful, and surrounded by beautiful rolling hills and forests — one of the most scenic interstate drives I’ve taken since Colorado. It was well worth the stop just to take it all in. The temperature had warmed up quite a bit by then, and Lister was much happier after getting to play outside a bit. I think laughing at this sign helped, too.
I spent an enjoyable two hours on the almost empty I-88, all the way to tri-city area of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy. I don’t know how Google figured that driving directly across Troy on city streets was the fastest way to my destination, but we made it through. As the morning went on, people woke up, and traffic picked up as well. That meant more idiots on the road, because New York. I didn’t miss this kind of driving during my absence from the northeast.
Soon we escaped the “city” (I use that term loosely — it’s more like a big town) and headed for the Berkshire Mountains. The van did a great job pulling the trailer up and down them, and had no problem maintaining speed. My only complaint is that tow/haul mode is way too aggressive with engine braking, downshifting to such low gears that the engine is turning more than 4,000 RPM when it doesn’t have to. A few times I switched the transmission to manual mode just to shift up a gear or two to ease the load on the engine. Brake pads are much cheaper and easier to replace than the engine and transmission, so I’d much rather use more brakes to slow down.
I pulled over at a trailhead parking lot I saw in time to stop for, had a quick lunch, and we kept on going, crossing into Vermont. After Bennington we hopped on Route 9, which took us over Hogback Mountain to Brattleboro. Now we were back in territory I know quite well, as I liked to take motorcycle rides out here in The Before Times. Maybe I will again during my stay in the area. Most of the distance was “under construction,” which translated to absolutely no construction whatsoever, but barrels blocked off every climbing lane on every steep hill. This made a lot of people very angry, as I had the audacity to only be driving the speed limit instead of 20 over like everyone else. It’s a camper van, not a sports car. Trust me — I’ve had a few of both.
We continued from Brattleboro to Keene, New Hampshire, hooked a right down Route 124 to Jaffrey, and around 1:30 pm I pulled into Ally’s driveway. They weren’t home but had left me a message that my mail was on the dining room table, and I was welcome to come in and use the shower. I unloaded my motorcycle from the trailer, backed into what has become my usual parking spot, and did exactly that.
Part of my mail was the latest issue of Adventure Rider magazine. I don’t subscribe to physical publications because of the difficulty of receiving them on the road, but this was an exception, because I’m in it with an article about my KLR track day. It’s been a long time since my writing has been in print rather than on the internet. I’m disappointed that the guy who took some awesome pictures of me on my KLR at the track never came through with them for the article, even though Adventure Rider was willing to pay him for them. But the article is still good. I should know — I wrote it.
Leg 2 of The Big Loop (TM) is complete, which means it’s officially halfway over. I’ve come a long way from Arizona, and changed vans along the way. My next fixed point in time and space is the Rocky Mtn Roll in Montana, August 4-7. At a rough guess, I figure I’ll spend June in New England, then July traveling to Montana.
While the Transit has already proven to be an excellent road trip machine, putting miles behind me faster and more comfortably than the old van ever did, it’s good to be “stopped” for a while. I use quotes because I’ve still got some driving to do around New England, people to see and things to do — specifically clearing out my storage unit, which is the task that brings me back to New Hampshire. Now that I’m here, it’s time to shift gears and work on dealing with that. I need to get the key to the new lock. Then I need to look inside and remind myself what’s there. Then I need to come up with a game plan. With the bike already out of the trailer, it’s available for me to dump everything from storage into it, make the unit go away, then deal with the stuff on my own time.
It won’t be all storage unit drudgery, though. Dealing with the storage unit is my priority, but there are a lot of people who want to see me while I’m back in my former home territory, and I want to see at least some of them, too. I’m literally making a list of people, and whether to go see them with the van and trailer, only the van (I can leave my trailer at Ally’s), or just take the bike. Making a list like this may sound crazy, but it’s helping me keep all the logistics straight, and schedule dates for visits so nobody gets surprised.
At least a couple of van projects are on my agenda as well. I want to build an enclosure for my electrical stuff, which will double as a place to mount the refrigerator. Where everything is now on a table works well, but a custom built enclosure can be narrower and take up less space inside the van. The other major project, especially after this morning, is to install a heater.
Although I may leave it from time to time, Ally’s place will be my home base for the next month. That’s why I call it Starbase 1. It was the first such temporary home base I had immediately after the van build. They tell me I’m welcome to stay as long as I need to, and we enjoy each other’s company. It goes without saying that I’ll be spending time hanging out with the crew here, too. I’m sure Lister will enjoy the extra attention, as well as more outside time.
Smokey Da Van 