If I had forgotten why I make these trips (I had not), what I am experiencing right now would drive home with me a vivid reminder. After a long and stressful day on the road, iIt is now 9:30, I am sitting in my tent, Leben and Erde, no longer the pups they were on our last road trip in 2002, deep in sleep just feet away, the nighttime sounds of nature surrounding us, the lake on which we are camped calm, the albums Jayne Olderman gave me yplaying quietly on my iPad, a glass of California 2010 white zinfandel nearby to me to humor me, and all the worries of home -especially the stock market- erased from my consciousness hours ago. And this is only one of reasons why I make these trips. Scenes like this outrank any place I have stayed in around the world, except those similarly located outdoors.
As seems to be the rule for the start of these trips, I got a late start this morning. I had hoped to be on the road, but didn't get off until 12:30, not bad, though, considering that every waking hour except perhaps six since I returned home on August 8th was spent getting ready to set off again. And I completed everything on my to do list. And as I have written here several times already, the trip interruption turned out to be a blessing. The list of benefits is too long to recount here, but if I had to tell one, it would be making my Defender more comfortable for my dogs. I essentially got rid of the front passenger seat and firmed up the dog bed in its place to make it more suitable for 110-pound Leben. I built an insulated raised platform for the rear on which I placed the dogs' beds, to prevent the heat exchange from the exhaust and transmission from cooking the dog in the back. I improved the setup I developed two weeks ago for sharing the AC between the dog in the front and back by way of two pool houses conveying half the AC to the rear. And I arranged the gear in the back more efficiently to give the dog in the rear more space. One way I did this was to eliminate my library, now that I loaded some e-books and my Oxford Russian dictionary onto my iPad.
Despite the feeling of euphoria I am experiencing now, which always sets in at the end of every day on the road after the evenings chores are done, the real high today was my stopping off in York, Pennsylvania, my visit my longtime friends, Lesley and Bill Wiles (Bill was the longtime secretary of the Federal Reserve Board, where I worked). I just discovered yesterday that it was their 50th adding anniversary today, and so I have to add still another benefit of the recent trip interruption.
Turning to the Defender, I was hoping to be able to say that everything was just fine, but it wasn't. Unfortunately, 50 miles into the trip, while climbing a long hill on 83, the temperature gauge moved from its usual position at 47 percent to 65 , and it stayed there for another 90 miles until I pulled off the road and let the engine idle for a few minutes. (Oops, Leben just knocked over my table with my wine on it, but I caught the glass --- pewter, actually --- in midair and lost only a few drops). The temperature gauge then climbed to 80 percent of the way to the red. I shut the engine off, waited a few seconds, and then restarted it. The gauge climbed only to 47 percent (normal) and stayed there until I climbed another hill a few hours later, when it shot up to 65 percent again. At the next rest stop, 50 miles up the road, I sopped, turned off the engine, restarted it immediately, and the gauge settled at 47 percent, where it stayed for the rest of the trip here. Fortunately, it did not go into the red zone, despite my taking the same route I did two weeks ago. When I arrived here, I decided I would go on with the trip because I am confident this is a gauge issue and not a real overheating situation, I now know how to manage this, and I know what the solution is to the problem. The service place where I took my vehicle couldn't locate a suitable temperature gauge sensor in time so they essentially rebuilt mine. My guess is that they solved most of the problem, but the conditions the vehicle was under when this happened again crossed over into problem zone. Again, I think I know how to manage this, but if the gauge goes into the red again, I will have to make another decision. If the temperature outside has any affect on this, my problem will be solved shortly as we try to escape the states as rapidly as we can.
It's 11:00 p.m. and time for taps (I loaded 52 bugle pieces on my iPad) and turn in. The plan for tomorrow is to make it to Wells State Park in Massachusetts by no later than 4:00 p.m. En route, I will stop off to pay a visit to my parents' grave in Cornwall, NY, my hometown, just 5 miles south of the route I'll be taking and in the middle of the mountains I hiked and camped in so often when I lived there.
That's it for now.
Ed
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