Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:16 pm

I think this must be one of the great beautiful roads in the country.
Thirty photographs from Reno to Bishop, starting here.

This day actually started last night when I looked into the southeast and saw a whopper of a cloudbank coming at me outside of Reno, Nevada. It had a huge pile of glowing brown along the lower level. Sandstorm! I hauled onto I-80 westbound from whence I came, got barely ticked by rain and blowing gravel from the construction zone and tore back up the hill to Verde, Nevada to shoot this:
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Did a u-turn on I-80 up at the foot of Donner Pass and came back down to an illicit turnout on the eastbound side that put me right on the river, far enough away from the traffic that I got to sleep with the sound of rushing water . . . and the sound of a four-locomotive mile-long train flooring it to get up the hill. Fifty two years on this planet, and I have never never heard a locomotive under full throttle. What a different sound when the exhaust is rushing out with the velocity of a jet engine and the engines are belting out some serious power. I am in awe of trains, those little steel wheels pulling a MILE of loaded cars up the Donner Pass????

Next day, I hit 395 southbound for Death Valley. But what is this? Not more clouds!
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Had to take one last shot of the blue sky behind me:
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I had to head into this? Not in the plans for my "bye week" :
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Getting chillier too:
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Then the rain began to pelt the car like hail. Wail hail, it wuz too:
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It rained so hard, that we journeyers on 395 had to traverse over three major mud/rock washes covering the roadway. Now I have a very good idea of when rock slides happen. They happen when the rain is pelting down. And here is why the car was acting doggy:
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I had been up here in 2008 with the Road Warrior. Drove up a little side road at the summit and stripped down to enjoy a cold swim. Not today!
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Here is the Mono Lake overlook in 2008 in the Road Warrior:
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and today in the BobD:
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I peeled off to Hawthorne Nevada in 2008 at the bottom of this hill. Today I decided to keep heading south on 395 . . . and discovered the iconic side of Mono Lake:
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... oh no! a choice! Ask Cindy about that ...
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You haven't breathed the magnificence of air itself until you catch a post-rainfall highland whiff of pine-ishness with still-wet sand and grasses with meadow flowers. So I took a picture of the car ... :silent: :
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This view filled me with a longing, there is something about the crest of a hill with blue sky and clouds beyond, like the launch point to heaven. Bzoof! "I'm here! What's for lunch?" "Cloud soup." "Oh.":
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But onwards I had to go, back into the weather as it turns out. This whole drive along the eastern flank of the Sierras was at a higher elevation than I knew, and this photograph here turns out to have been at 7,300 feet. The vastness of the sweeping view was rather compressed by the camera:
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Come hurtle down the 3,500 ft descent with me. Look closely here and you will see the road curve from which the subsequent photographs were taken:
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Little spot of light from the heavens landing on the valley was exquisite, the photograph was but a speeding attempt to catch it ... at 73mph:
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"Paradise"
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And the last shot, rain just bucketing out of a cloud:
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I am hanging out in Bishop today. Death Valley is under clouds today and shall only hit 113*. Forecast tomorrow promises to be sunny and warmer the better which to test a stock FI Type 4 engine CHTs in 118* heat + asphalt sun warming.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From US395

Post by Lanval » Sat Jul 30, 2011 11:49 pm

I like the sense of this as the contemporary equivalent of the arm-chair traveling of yore. You are a modern-day Stevenson who carries us away for adventure, suspense of foreign climes.

Beautiful.

Mike

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From US395

Post by bajaman72 » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:39 am

Odd weather here today. Hot hot hot at 101 degrees... and then oh yes, rain HARD. Thunder and lightning knocked my power out from 6pm till round 2:30 this morning. Of course the power grid is in the desert behind my house. Nice bright light and oh my goodness the noise.
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From US395

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:44 am

bajaman72 wrote:Odd weather here today.
Not so odd when you think that I, Bringer Of Rain, have drawn near . . . I reckon Texas will welcome me at the end of the month.

Change of plans. Death Valley tomorrow instead of today. You see, today is only 113* and overcast.
Tomorrow is a more bearable 118* with sun in the forecast. I need the sun beating down on the asphalt to heat up the engine to make a real test. So far, I have not been able to test my CHT guesses under Real World Hellish Conditions.
Colin :sunny:
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by glasseye » Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:00 pm

Amskeptic wrote:I think this must be one of the great beautiful roads in the country.
Agreed. And the finest road surface, too. Recently paved, 395 is truly a world class highway.

Good luck in DV in July. :scratch: You should have the place to yourself. :flower:
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:03 pm

glasseye wrote: Good luck in DV in July. :scratch: You should have the place to yourself. :flower:
I had 150 picnic tables to myself, but the roads were littered with tinted glass travellers.
Except here, the road was too rough for them.
:flower: Colin

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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by IFBwax » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:58 pm

Love it Colin!!! Thanks so much for including us on your journey (s).
The best navigators aren't sure where they're going until they get there. And then they're still not sure.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by glasseye » Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:10 pm

Panamint Dunes in the background, right? Right beside a new-fangled tourist viewpoint that wasn't there when I camped in that 'zact spot many years ago in my 74 F*rd E-150. Three on the tree and a inline six in the doghouse.
My first visit to DV. Coincidentally, it was summer like your current visit. The park ranger guy asked me what the heck I was doing there.

Seeing your pictures makes me hunger to re-do Frito's spring adventures next year. We love deserts, eh? And Death Valley is the Desert Rat's Desert.
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:16 am

glasseye wrote: I camped in that 'zact spot many years ago in my 74 F*rd E-150, it was summer like your current visit. The park ranger guy asked me what the heck I was doing there.
How rude.
I would have asked, "what the hell you doing here in THAT?"
:flower:

Panamint dunes is just visible to the left, Panamint Springs was the little parched burg along the road.
(see, this thing ... just calls out ... mountain goat)
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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by Hippie » Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:49 pm

Amskeptic wrote: I had 150 picnic tables to myself, but the roads were littered with tinted glass travellers.
Except here, the road was too rough for them.
:flower: Colin
I love the bus. It can go about anywhere with good tires. Get the best camp sites away from anyone.
God bless ground clearance and weight over the drive wheels.
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by covelo » Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:42 pm

You were almost at one of my favorite spots in the world: the hot springs outside Mammoth:

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Aug 12, 2011 9:55 pm

covelo wrote:You were almost at one of my favorite spots in the world: the hot springs outside Mammoth:

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Yaah phooey, how can you soak up the magnificence past the modern gross colored plastic crapola that comes with any camping conveyance other than a Volkswagen bus, HAHH?

Once upon a time I said, I said, what did I say? oh yeah, "the discomfort is what makes the experience memorable." And the more tenuous tension of a hard-working air-cooled engine versus some monstrous water-cooled engine, adds the need to pay attention and to participate with your car instead of just directing it to take you there.
Ah well ..... I shall miss your fine intelligence.
Colin

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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings US395 upd

Post by covelo » Sat Aug 13, 2011 2:36 pm

Amskeptic wrote: Yaah phooey, how can you soak up the magnificence past the modern gross colored plastic crapola that comes with any camping conveyance other than a Volkswagen bus, HAHH?
Well, this wasn't a bad alternative last weekend. You could see the shooting stars through the roof.

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