Things do not always go as planned; we have known this all the while in our adulthood of course, but we recently have lived it in real-time.
The heater for Vanda’s living space began to act up while we were in Yellowstone, four weeks ago. This heater, made by Webasto, cleverly runs off fuel from the gas tank providing extremely effective and cost efficient warming. There is a process to adjust the heater for higher altitudes to prevent the fuel from burning too richly as it powers the heater. We made this adjustment properly last year when we were at 10,000+ feet of elevation in Colorado; supposedly once an altitude adjustment is made the system will run on the lean side with no further adjustments being needed. We noticed in Yellowstone however, while at an elevation between 7,500 and 9,000 feet, that the system began to run rich—we could tell by the unusual fumes—and after two mornings of awakening to temperatures in the high 30s which warranted the heater being turned on, the Webasto heater turned itself off. Our troubleshooting yielded no change. After two more very chilly mornings, we drove through a town large enough to have a hardware store, from which we bought a small electric heater.
The plug-in heater provided an immediate albeit temporary fix to our situation but we began to consider the necessity to divert travel plans so we could drive to Oakland, California to have the heater repaired by the Glampervan guys. I reached out to the wonderful crew–the fellows who built out our van–who suggested an additional troubleshooting process, to no avail, so we made the decision to schedule a day of service for a few weeks later. Our upcoming plans for British Columbia were inflexible and pre-paid, so John wanted to wait to ponder the logistics until after the Klahoose Wilderness experience when we would be back in the states, in a wifi zone.
John is so very good at plotting a route then finding campgrounds, hikes or bike rides, and other points of interest along the way–this glitch in our schedule provided him a true opportunity to shine as we hoped to cancel as few campground reservations as possible while wanting to stay on our campground reservation schedule as much as we were able so we could be in Colorado for fall color, on September 26th. As it turned out, he cancelled Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday campsites, added new campground reservations for both Monday and Tuesday, with an unexpected but fabulous-beyond-belief surprise for Wednesday night, and a “we-can-wing-it” idea for Thursday night. Monday night was fine in a small private campground near McCloud, California and Tuesday ended up being surprisingly wonderful!
Our reservation for Tuesday was at the Dumbarton Quarry Campground on the Bay. As we drove on I-80 West, the same highway on which we had driven a zillion times to San Francisco when we had lived in the Sierra Foothills, we were thrilled when San Fran came into sight. The TransAmerica building! The Salesforce skyscraper! Coit Tower! The Golden Gate Bridge! All familiar sights, yet it had been so long since we’d seen them. The Bay lay glistening in the foreground, twinkling with reflections of the sun. I actually felt emotional seeing it all again…
Well, the exit to Dumbarton was right off of I-80, and the new-ish campground had paved sites, each of which had one or two small trees which have not yet grown enough to provide either shade or privacy. My heart sunk a bit, as this urban campground looked utilitarian and without charm. Not to mention it was a very hot and windy 91 degrees out, atypical for the Bay Area.
The campground map indicated some biking trails on the periphery, which is where we headed. THAT was where the magic happened – it turns out that there are miles and miles of bike trails—dirt, gravel, and paved—that took us through eucalyptus forests, big meadows, and best of all through massive wetlands filled with birds! John was in photography heaven as we observed huge flocks of black-necked stilts, white pelicans, dowitchers, ducks, hawks, and numerous songbirds. We even had a lifer sighting of a white tailed kite! There was a lot of uphill riding for some good exercise, and we got to ride for ~ 90 minutes. This unplanned adventure made the long driving day worthwhile!
Hot showers, dinner, reading, followed by a good night’s sleep set us up for the Wednesday morning drive to Oakland, the home of Glampervan. We left Vanda with them in the morning, then took an uber to the UC Berkeley campus where we knew we could amuse ourselves for hours, walking around, people watching, window shopping, and enjoying fabulous food…
We had SO much fun! It was an absolute blast to be amongst so many gorgeous young people — the elite students who are accepted to UCB come from a glorious mix of countries and backgrounds with a common thread of being the cream of the crop as high schoolers. We observed them studying outside (it was a warm and lovely day on the bay!), socializing, hurrying to class or wherever they were off to. And, there was a spontaneous dance session… ah, youth…
After taking a very expensive uber back to the Glampervan shop, we had the intolerable experience of insane, truly insane, stop-and-go traffic out of Oakland towards the Sierras. It was 5 PM, so really, what did we expect?! Yikes, it was rough spending precious time in unrelenting traffic, yet there was no way around it. We stopped for gas and a pee break outside of Sacramento, and were gifted this stunning red rainbow at sunset.
Here is where the fabulous-beyond-belief surprise comes in. By way of an explanation, my dearest friend Melissa moved to Switzerland in 2023, after marrying her true love. We share nearly weekly video calls over WhatsApp, so even though we miss each other so very much, we can “see” each other often, during these calls. She and her husband are back in the states, specifically in NorCal for 4 months, until January, to clear up some visa issues. We have been going back and forth on how we could meet up — do I fly to NorCal or does Melissa come to Evansville — but we knew we HAD to see each other, somehow. Well, this diversion of our travel plans to Oakland, from where we would drive east to get us back on schedule, would bring us close to where she is staying in Alpine Meadows near Lake Tahoe. So, in all of that horrendous traffic, all I could think about was that I was going to have a slice of time with the sister of my heart and could we please hurry up to get there?! It was literally just a 12-hour visit, as we arrived near 10 PM and left the next morning at 10 AM. We crammed in so much conversation, so many hugs, and felt so much love in that short time, it is hard to put into words how joyous and wonderful our time together was. We stayed up until 1:30 AM, which is something neither of us do anymore, and went right back to talking and hugging at 6 AM. It was such a sweet connection and one that will have to last another long period of time…
[On the way to Alpine Meadows, we drove past the turnoff for our old hometown without stopping. My heart strings were tugged, knowing how many dear and old friends we have there, still. But there was just no stopping, which I am hoping my Grass Valley/Nevada City friends who may be reading this blog post will understand.]
We left after a scrumptious breakfast to drive ~ 10 hours to Wendover, UT. Our Rule of 3 for vanlife was broken — no more than 300 miles or 3 hours of driving at a time, arrive in camp at 3 PM. We got to Wendover on the Nevada / Utah border at dusk then set about to find a place to boondock. Without going into too much detail, this was not as easy as it may sound. We ended up driving on a gravel road out to the Great Salt Lake to pull over where there were a few other vehicles boondocking. Neither of us slept well, as we felt out of our element, but we managed to stay in bed until 4 AM. We drove to a nearby rest stop, made our first pot of coffee, freshened up, then drove another 9 hours to get back on our reservation schedule at our camp in Grand Junction, CO. We drove 900 miles in 2 days, unheard of for us! After an afternoon bike ride, a shower, and now after having cleaned up after dinner, I feel like we are back in our groove. It is good to know that we can be flexible, and it is also good to be back on schedule.
Here is the first inkling of fall color as we drove over Soldier Pass in Utah on our way to Colorado:
