Countdown to Launch

Notes from Margo:

We're calling it our "Victory Lap."

The nest is newly empty, with Kenny, our baby girl, off to college. We're celebrating -- or is it mourning? -- with a road trip, a big one, a huge circle around the country. We're thinking of the track stars who grab a flag, and wave it over their heads as they lope around the track one more time, reveling in a job well done, maybe having set a record. We haven’t set any records, just the normal 18 years. We're just noting that we gave it our best shot and produced a family we're proud of. Now we have time to relax a bit.

The plan is to start at our home on San Francisco's Bernal Hill, go north to the Canadian border, then turn east until we hit the Atlantic, then south till we hit water again, and then west and north till we complete the circle. A victory lap, to mark the end of this chapter of our lives and the beginning of the next. Lynn retired six years ago, and I'm shutting down my business for the duration. We figure we have about three months before winter sets in and Kenny comes back home for winter break.

Notes from Lynn:

Our to-do list began with 84 items, each decorated with a little box that we x'd when done. On top was the Wizard Lapstop Stand ($108), which promptly broke. On bottom (pause for snickers) was a Porta Potti 345 with a pump flush ($174). One list led to another. Phone calls. Purchases. Boards and nails. Maps. Tour guides. The lists began to breed and produce offspring. Two tiny chairs from Ikea. The 30-year-old pot-of-pots for camping. Sunblock. Coffee filters. AAA maps…

x Tablecloth
x Passports for Canada
o Candles
o Find the jack
x Flash drive
x Seat covers

With three days to go, dozens of items were marked off (x), but the still-growing final list had 37 to go.

The most frustrating unfinished job is our itinerary, a wish list combined with a greedy desire to see everything and everybody between Bernal Hill and the rest of the nation. To wit: Niagara Falls, Carlsbad Caverns, Olympic National Park, Craters of the Moon, Dinosaur National Monument, for starters. In Salt Lake, (Lynn’s) brother, sister-in-law, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. In Boston, (Margo’s) aunt and cousins. In Oroville, (Margo’s) father, stepmother and, in Chico, her sister. In New Jersey and New Orleans, (Margo’s) sisters. More cousins: Austin, Trail (Minnesota), Astoria (Oregon). Old friends, former colleagues, ex-roommates, former students (Lynn), former classmates (Margo) in Pleasant Valley (New York), Bend (Oregon), Rogers (Arkansas), Atlanta, Syracuse, Georgetown, Brookyn, Manhattan, Jersey City. Big cities: Montreal, Boston, Portland, New York, Washington D.C., possibly Los Angeles and San Diego. Smaller cities: Victoria (B.C.), Missoula, Ishpeming (Michigan), Saugatuck (Michigan), Dover (Delaware), Sun City (Arizona), Boone (Iowa). Small towns: Brownville (Nebraska), Corvallis (Montana). Bird sanctuaries everywhere, including the Platte River birding road enshrined in columns by the late, great Norris Alfred in his weekly newspaper, the Polk Progress (he didn’t believe in progress). The list goes on. And on. And on.

Subject to change is every stop on the list except the centerpiece, a late October visit to Oberlin College where Kenny is a happy first-year student (“I love it”), Margo is a happy alumna (“I loved it"), and Lynn is a happy first-timer (“I love Margo and Kenny”).

Notes from Margo:

We bought a used minivan. Lynn did the heavy lifting on researching, test driving, and picking out the van.

Notes from Lynn:

With the friendly owner in the passenger seat, I drove his Dodge B250 Ram Van up Bernal Heights, down into the Bayview District and back home on Cesar Chavez Street. (A similar Dodge is pictured at right.) The camper, a conversion van almost 23 years old, handled well. Plenty of pep. Smooth ride. No surprise. The odometer was set at what the craigslist ad called “47,000 original miles (documented),” an astonishing 2,000 miles per year. The price was right: $3,500. I said, “I’ll buy it.” The owner smiled as I continued: “I’ll take it down to the garage on Folsom Street to have a checkup. I’ll pay for it, of course.”

Instead of a handshake, the retired educator sat back and said, “I will need a $500 deposit.” I was surprised, but I assumed he wanted to be protected in case the mechanic broke something or lightning struck the garage. I said, “OK. ” He continued: “It would be non-refundable.”

Let’s see. I would give him $500 so I could have a mechanic look for problems that might kill the deal.

I was tired. We wanted to spend three months in a camper. To rent a well-equipped minivan from Lost Campers would cost us about $4,000 or more. We decided to buy. No Winnebagos, tent trailers, camper shells. Not too big. Nothing we couldn’t walk away from. In over a month, I had considered “by owner” ads on craigslist for 14 conversion vans, 15 minivans and 14 VW Westfalias, Adventurewagons, Eurovans and Vanagon buses. We drove to San Mateo for a Westfalia, a great bargain at $3,000, and raised the pop top to find the fabric shredded and rotten. (At left, another VW pop-top camper.) We had decided to buy a Westfalia from a fellow inhabitant of Bernal Heights. The price was a steep $8,000, but the camper was in tip-top condition. It was so loaded that it had a rollup awning, allowing the seller to play his mandolin in jams at the California Bluegrass Festival in Grass Valley. He conscientiously advised us to read the mechanic’s report, and we did. We called the mechanic to ask about the 100 compression reading on Cylinder 1. Bad news, he said. The next day another buyer took the VW, compression reading or no. But by then we had been told that these aging VWs struggle up the Grapevine or Highway 50 at 40 or 45 miles per hour. Oh.

Next?

We looked at conversion vans with craigslist pitches worth quoting: “I am original owner, well maintained”… "I have 4 vehicles, which is 1 too many”… “I want to buy a truck, so my loss is your gain”… “Only 130,000 miles on this monster” … “Semi-full sofa bed.” We found further evidence that the Tweeter generation, and its forebears, don’t use the dictionary: “New tires and bakes” … “It runs excellant”… “Captin chairs” … “Break pad changed” … “Light switch panal.” We considered the claims for five Chevys, one Ford, one GMC, two Astros and five Dodge vans. “Excellent and strong,” said the ad for the 47,000-mile Dodge Ram with a Safari Package and a V-8 engine with overdrive. It continued:

Runs Perfect Interior Excellent-Captains Chairs and Bed (Converts to Bench Seating)-Ladder and Luggage Rack-Center Table-Stereo and Built-in Television-Small Refrig/Sink-Air Conditioning and Heating (Runs Excellent).

Never mentioned was the non-refundable deposit.

We turned instead to Margo’s do-it-yourself confidence that a minivan could be transformed from a little bus into a camper. We considered ads for three Odysseys, two Siennas, two Astros, and one each for Ford, Chrysler and Mercury. But we settled on one of the two Previas, a $3,900 purchase for a 1996 model that had been overhauled by an Oakland garage.

The sellers didn’t ask for a non-refundable deposit.

Notes from Margo:

We bought the Previa about about three weeks ago, and since then, things have moved along pretty quickly. We bought the van on a Monday. Tuesday I pulled the seats out of it. Wednesday and Thursday I designed and built the platform bed, and then ordered the mattress. Then I got started on the sewing... the curtains, the sheets, the quilt, the duvet cover. While I was sewing, Lynn put together the kitchen kit. That's his specialty when we go camping. I do the shelter and he sets up the kitchen. So he knows his camp kitchens.

That Westfalia had left Lynn with this image of himself under an awning by our little van, in his camp chair, playing his mandolin as the day wanes. So we went to talk to a guy about an awning. It turned out that our van isn't built right for a pull-out awning, so we're talking about improvising one. We sketched out one that I might be able to build.

We went to a camper store in Oakland and bought a little portable toilet. I sewed up a little cover for it so it doesn’t look like we have a portable toilet by our bed. It just looks like a cute little ottoman. Lynn went to another camp store in San Francisco and bought a water container I spent some time making little loops and brackets and snap-on rigs so everything is battened down while we drive.

I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on dealing with our bills for the time we're gone. I'm trying to get automatic pay for most of them, and just pay the rest in advance. Some of the autopays are very intuitive and easy to set up, as you'd think they'd be. The basic idea is I'm telling a company: Here's my bank account (or credit card). Take my money each and every month. You'd think they'd make it easy. Well some are, some aren't.

We found a renter for our house, a woman who doesn't mind sharing the place with my brother Benny, who lives with us. In the way of unexpected bonuses, she's a cat-lover, and Domino, our sometimes mean and psychotic cat, seems to like her.

Anyway, we went to pick up the mattress Friday, and it fit perfectly, which was a relief. (That's the handyhuman, at left.)

Not that I didn't expect it to be fine... It's just that my heritage, my Eastern European Jewish ancestors, taught me to expect that something will always go wrong… the Cossacks will come raving over the hill or the whole tribe will be exiled, or just the car will break down. So, I'm still waiting for the big problem here.

The mattress fit perfectly.

We stood and admired it with the guy from the foam mattress store, Alan, after he helped us put it into the van. He was asking about our trip, and then he said, "May I sing for you?" Well, of course!! He explained that this was called "Vagabond" from "Songs of Travel," a collection of poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson put to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Then he broke into song:

Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above,
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river -
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.

And there we were on the sidewalk at 10th and Howard streets, with the trucks and taxis speeding by, and Alan sweetly singing about the rambling life. It was amazing. Turns out Alan trained as a classical singer before he started working as a clerk in a custom foam mattress store. We were so charmed and happy. It felt like a spontaneous blessing for our trip. And, of course, again I’m reminded why I love San Francisco so much – it’s not that unusual to find people with hidden talents in your everyday life.

Footnote from Lynn:

We need a name for our minivan. It isn’t easy. “Minnie” is associated with a Disney mouse, now 81 years old. “Previa” sounds too much like “previous,” as in question.

How about calling her “Palindrome”?

“To honor the former governor of Alaska”?

Not at all. It’s a backward name for A Toyota.

Margo, the classics major at Oberlin, came up with the Roman poet who wrote “The Aeneid.”

“Let’s call it Virgil!”

Because Aeneas wandered for seven years?

“No, because Dante chose the poet’s shade as his guide.”

Where to?

“Through hell.”

That’s not on our itinerary. We hope. How about “Louis”?

“Why?”

His middle name was preferred by the vagabond, Robert Louis Stevenson.

“Hmm.”

Not enough candidates. We need Samoa.

Suggestions welcome.

Miles today: 0

Miles so far: 0

Price of gas: $3.21/gallon

Notable: Bon Voyage dinner tonight.