Week 2: the reckoning

Not to be outdone by our last hectic week, Bethany and I are doing everything in our power to make sure this week is just as bananas. [yes, this is a shoutout to old school Riri- you still got it girl!]

When we'd last left off, we were in beautiful Frederick, MD [gratz on passing med school Maryland] with our friends Heather, Phil, and future Nobel laureate Maddy, having fixed up the vehicle and now ready to take on the nor'east.

We got up a bit late on Monday [totally underestimated the amount of time needed to make a successful blog post] and packed up the vehicle. With everything packed up neatly [and quicker than before] and set off for historic Gettysburg, PA. The drive was 50 minutes. As someone who grew up in the midwest, the distance between historical places on the east coast still blows my mind. How is it only an hour? How are DC and Richmond so close to each other and the Civil War still last 4 years! [as a history major, it pains me to say these things, but C'MON! I've played enough Real-Time Strategy games to be upset that no one back-doored the other capital during the war. ]

I never really thought about, but it makes perfect sense in retrospect, that Gettysburg is really America's monument to the Civil War. The museum there is top-notch [Cath, you'd appreciate the kid-friendly approach throughout it] and does a very good job of having sections speaking to those that often don't have voices: the confederates [makes sense], women, the average soldier [via letters], the town of Gettysburg itself, and the [freed] slaves. [I was also stunned by a History channel video we watched that spoke about the 'reconcilitation' 50 years after the battle that was only a reconciliation for whites. Honest reporting, on my History channel? It's less likely than you think]

The grounds around Gettysburg are well maintained and have a bajillion [rough estimate] monuments. Bethany and I toured them for a couple of hours after we finished the museum itself [and the amazing video that has voiceover work of Morgan Freeman [how you know a place is pulling out all the stops for it's documentary] and Sam Waterson [as Lincoln! I thought Lincoln had a high, reedy voice. Whatever, I'll give up historical accuracy to hear this man speak as Lincoln] narrating].

Seeing thousands come up towards you? How about no.

 using bayonets to defend this scrap of land?  Again with the no.

 The view this man had and his quick thinking saved the union forces

Another tangent: Almost every state who had men serve and die at the battle of Gettysburg has a monument on the grounds commemorating their soldiers. They're spread out along the 'auto-tour' you can take, along the lines of where the different sides were at the actual battle. So you pass many of the Union monuments in one section, and the Confederate ones in another. I got no end of joy from seeing the Confederate state monuments. On the one hand, the states want to honor the fact that men heeded the call and gave their lives in battle; on the other hand, you died trying to defend slavery. [And none of that bullshit about 'state's rights' in the comments here please. The museum did a great job of pointing out that the term wasn't even used during the Civil War and only after serving a couple of years in federal prison did Jefferson Davis start bandying it about as a excuse for being a man who believed that some people deserved to live in bondage because of the color of their skin]

Some of the monuments were done about as tastefully as could be:

other's tried to rewrite the history:

while others veered off into utter insanity:

We then continued our drive to New York, via shockingly beautiful Pennsylvania [minus Bethany's rando detour through the slums of Harrisburg]; I can't believe just how many trees there are!

Since we'd spent some more time at Gettysburg than we'd initially expected, we were running behind on getting to the campsite. Not wanting to repeat our issues from West Virginia, we realized we should stop before we run out of daylight again. We found one of the closer state parks, called Watkins Glen, and ended up stumbling into a lucky find.

After setting up our site [in record time!] we found some spare firewood the previous campers left, and got a warm fire going.

The following morning, we rode our bikes down to the hiking trail via one of the closed campgrounds, and walked down to the supposed 'falls'. Here's what we found:

Lord of the Rings; filmed in Upstate New York. 

 it was really hard to stay straight faced while this water is just splattering ALL AROUND YOU

That afternoon, we hopped into the vehicle and made our way up to Syracuse to meet up with my old customer team for dinner. We grilled, had a great time, tried not to talk shop. :)

On the drive home, Bethany and I realized that our temperature gauge was rising rapidly. Stopping quickly, we stopped, got the radiator open [without burning ourselves] and added some water. We got to a gas station, bought some coolant, added it with the water, and saw the gauge was stable. Made it back home, and everything looked great.

That next morning, after we'd packed up and hopped in the car, Bethany mentioned how much exhaust seemed to be coming out. Not really paying attention, we took off. A few hours later, we saw the gauge

climbing again, and nursed it to a town. This pretty much put a head gasket issue at the top of our list of likely culprits.  We received some help from a local man and his grandson who ran a repair shop, got us back on the road, and we cautiously made our way through the mountains of Vermont [without cell service], realizing that we needed to schedule time for the vehicle to get fixed.  We started phoning repairs shops, learning that many of them won't even touch a head gasket repair because it's so intensive.  Our plan was to get it looked at up in Brunswick while we're out at Jesse's island.  We only just made it to a campsite outside of Portland, ME, meaning we ended up doing a full 8 hour drive day, something we wanted to avoid.   We topped off the water again, and planned to just chill out in Portland Thusday, sleep in the airport, and deal with our issue the following week. 
 We struck camp this morning and made our way into Portland.  We putzed around, enjoying the city and soaking up some fun shops, including some stellar wine and spirits.  We returned to our vehicle to move it and spend our afternoon wrapping up this blog post, but everything changed when we tried to start the car.  It sounded rough.  That meant likely water in the cylinder, and our luck had run out.  We canceled our appointment up in Brunswick and called the local Toyota dealership.  They had us call a tow agency, and the wait began.  45 minutes they said, but then poof! 15 minutes later we see a truck with their logo come up....and continue on.  30 minutes later, he's back, but with a truck that couldn't tow us.  He was shaking his head at the miscommunication [I was adamant that, hey, FYI, we have a hitch platform, are facing backwards in our parking spot along a major route in Portland, and the car will not start]  The guy apologizes, goes back to get the other tow truck [the one he started with!] and we waited another 45 minutes.  Doing research, we're realizing at this point [and with 260k miles on the engine], we may just need to scrap this one and get a new one.  WOOOOF.  So tonight we cracked the nice bottle of wine we'd been saving in the hotel room, and said, "Hey, at least it can't get worse!"

BONUS PIC: Bethany rocking a TMNT band-aid!

Reunion Tour

Note:  Everything in black in this post was written by Bethany; everything in red by Ike
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, our adventure is off to a great start! We have been on the road for 7 days, with stops in Chicago, Ft. Wayne, Monongahela National Forest (in WV) and the DC area.

Monday was a whirlwind of a day. After a hectic morning of final vehicle prep and packing, we headed to Chicago. We met up with some friends for drinks at Hubbard Inn and had some tasty dinner at the Slurping Turtle. We had a blast catching up with friends, and resolved to start following our budget the next day. :) (this is going to become a theme; this trip is going to end in 3 months at our current pace;  also, this is what happens when I try to use edit features on my phone)

"Unemployment suits us" - Elizabeth

Tuesday we made a pitstop at Hot Doug's before leaving town. We had been wanting to check out the famous encased meats shop for awhile and just recently they announced they will be closing this fall, so we thought now or never! We showed up at 10:25am, 5 minutes before they opened. Already there was a half hour line, but it was well worth it! Ike ordered a duck sausage dog with foie gras.

can anyone tell me why I look like a serial killer in this picture?

 I ordered a smoked wild boar dog, with carmelized onions, garlic, and other noms. It was delicious and we are so glad we got to try it out before they close their doors.

(gratuitous foodie pics; #nocare #encasedlove

We left the city and headed towards Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where we would be meeting up with some of Ike's ex co-workers.[I like the connotation 'ex' coworkers.  It was a rough break-up; it was me, not them] After an uneventful drive, we quickly set up camp in the Johnny Appleseed campground, changed into some fresh clothes, and headed off to J.K. O'Donnells in downtown "Ft. Fun" (as Ike calls it).  [Things I hadn't planned on doing: driving by Gary, IN.  I just spent 15 minutes trying to find a picture of some of the industrial park waterfront buildings but to no avail.  I was stunned by the scale of some of these places, particularly one large building, which had to be over a thousand feet long, 10 stories high, and looked like it was built in 1925;  a gigantic sprawl of an industrial complex that seemed to shout the former glory of this manufacturing hub.  The scale was underscored as we drove as the trees and brush we drove by kept whipping by in the foreground of our vision while this monolith of a building appeared to stand still.]   We played the infamous "claw" game at the bar, naturally had a blast, and spent the evening chatting it up with friends. We headed back to the campground and the rain started. Ike found out that his rain jacket actually isn't water proof, but put the shower house hand dryers to work and dried off.

Here's the vehicle all decked out, and our campsite.  Our RV was a bit smaller than the other ones. :)

The Claw is the Law

One thing Bethany forgot to mention: the drive on Tuesday was fairly warm, and we quickly realized our AC wasn't very helpful.  So through the magic of google we realized this is an easy fix you can do yourself if your AC just needs additional freon.  We swung by an auto-parts store and picked up compressed refrigerant and the pressure gauge and voila: 10 minutes later we have fully functioning AC! 

Wednesday morning we woke up and went for a nice bike ride along the river that runs through Ft. Wayne. We took advantage of the hot showers at the campground, packed up camp, and got on the road for a long day to West Virginia. Google said it was an 8 hour drive, but we decided to take the backroads part of the way, figuring it would add on an hour or so to our drive. Welp, down in southeast Ohio (about 3:30pm) we figured we would check in with Google again and still had 4 hours to go. Shizzle. We gave up on the 2-lane highway plan and hopped on the interstate, high-tailing it as much as possible. [pros: we saw Warren Harding's birthplace! cons: we saw Warren Harding's birthplace.]

Also, somewhere in southeast Ohio our check engine light came on.  Worried, I quickly pulled off to a parking lot at an auto parts store.  I gave a quick call to our mechanic who informed me that they have diagnostic tools at the parts store.  So a geriatric man swings out to lend me a hand, plugs it in, and is looking at the tool as it loads.  It loads and he just stands there holding it.  I can't read it, because i'm not a creeper and I'm not going to stand over his shoulder.  He still isn't saying anything.  We do the awkward shuffle for about another ten seconds, I finally lean on in and read what it says:  Error 0135; O2 sensor, Bank 2, Sensor 1.  I ask the gentleman if I can purchase one at the store, he says sure, and promptly charges me 90$.  My wallet weeps.  I call our mechanic Dan back up, and he tries to give me a rundown on how to change it.  I'm listening, trying to grasp it, as I watch very dark clouds roll over the mountains behind us and towards us right now.  Sure, google says it's an easy 30 minute fix, but I don't want to get stuck in a storm.  It was one of those squalls that is fairly localized but man, you know it's bringing pain.

I tell Dan thanks for the help and that I'll take a look later. 

We arrived at the small town at the base of the mountain around sunset, scrambled to find a grocery store, and started to climb the mountain. While not ideal, we've set up camp in the dark before. So... we didn't figure in the fog, which was super thick due to rain that was coming into the area. It was a 15 mile drive up the mountain to our campground, and of course the fog thickened as we climbed. We realized we couldn't see more than a foot past our vehicle with the headlights on, so were trying to go as fast as we felt comfortable while the last bit of sunlight continued to fade. [one of the dumber things I've done.  I'm whipping up this road, as fast as I can, turning my headlights off to see the road better, but then turning them back on in some vain hope it won't be so bad and so anyone who might not be an idiot and is coming down the mountain can see us.  Did we mention there wasn't guardrails on this road?] About halfway up the mountain we had to throw in the towel. It was just too dark and we couldn't go any further. [we could have done it, but it would have taken over an hour; on top of the 11 hours on the road we'd already had. Woof, no thanks] I was pretty nervous about camping along the narrow mountain road in the fog, figuring if someone was driving up the mountain (unlikely), they would certainly run into us. Miraculously just at that point we discovered a small gravel road off to the side and pulled in for the night. We pulled our vehicle off to the side as much as possible, threw all our stuff on the bed platform up into the front seats, and set up our bed in the car for the night. I was convinced that we would be startled awake in the wee morning hours by 1) a bear or 2) a gun-wielding mountain man telling us to get off his property. [thinking this because this was an area we drove up into and was off the road.  Also, there was randomly an outhouse in this area, but nothing else indicating life / ownership.  Stumbling up to an outhouse in super-thick fog in the dark on a mountain in west virginia, tell me how that isn't the scene where the blond gets murdered.] Neither happened, so mark that one up for the home team.

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise, threw all our stuff into the back and drove the rest of the way up the mountain.

The outhouse!  Thankfully our skin remains intact

This greeted us at the top of the mountain.  Why were we camping here again?

On a scale of 1-batshit, how crazy do you have to be to look at the mountains, and think to yourself, "I will lead my cattle up there."  Except you scream it at yourself, because you're thinking in German. 

 Stay classy WV

 Oh good, so if the rain doesn't drown us, the bugs don't eat our souls, we'll be able to step on an old land-mine.

Thankfully there were plenty of campsites available so we picked one that struck our fancy and did our best to quietly set up camp (it was 6:45 am). We then hopped on our bikes and biked down the road until we found a trail head, then headed back into the forest for a morning hike. I'm so glad we did this because around noon (just after we finished lunch) it started raining. We grabbed our books and hunkered down in the tent for what we hoped was a mid-afternoon shower. But it kept raining... and raining... and raining. We spent all afternoon in the tent, made dinner during a brief reprieve from the rain, and then spent all evening in the tent reading and napping. There are worse things in life. We were a bit nervous about water coming in our tent because by sunset water was starting to pool around the campsite.

The rain finally stopped around 6am on Friday. I was thankful to wake up and not be in a pool of water (yay for our REI tent!). We packed up camp, had a quick breakfast, and set out for a brief morning hike (we are going to enjoy this national forest, damn it!). Eventually we made our way back down the mountain, enjoying the beautiful views that we missed on the way up due to the fog.

Although it did present us with this view!

I motioned to rename these 'liberals', since they're........bleeding hearts

The sound of running water was nice, but the hiking wasn't so easy. 

The next destination was Frederick, MD to stay with a good friend from college. We arrived earlier than anticipated (for a change) and spent the afternoon doing some light car maintenance and cleaning. Really we were just enjoying the sunshine and lack of rain.
So remember that O2 sensor I was talking about earlier?  Phil and I get started on changing that.  Phil has a bluetooth diagnostic tool that can sync to your phone using an app.  I'm trying to get my phone to sync to it, but am not having any luck to verify the code so we can track down which O2 sensor needs to be changed.  Well, I'm tired of waiting and like I said earlier, it was Bank 2 sensor 1.  Phil and I hop underneath the car and find the sensor, verifying via google image searches that we have the right one called out.  We try getting to it, but while the nuts are kinda rusty, they do seem to be fine once you get them moving.  But we can't figure out why the sizing seems to be off.  Online it says it's 12mm, but I can barely get the 10mm to fit.  Well, we finally get it off an see why:  below is the old sensor and nut and the new one.  So corroded that it had lost several mm's in size.


We successfully change it though, and triumphantly hop up into the car and drive it around the block to get the light to reset and turn off.  O2 sensors need to heat up, so were expecting it to take a couple of minutes to sync.  But it's not turning off.  Phil connects his phone and pulls up the diagnostic error, still the O2 sensor error.  We go inside and look up the page online explaining the error,
Phil:  What was that bank/sensor again?
Ike:  Bank 2, Sensor 1
P:  You sure?
I: absolutely
P: come take a look at this.

I: @%&$!

Good news though:  the error actually was related to wiring, not the sensor being broken, and given how bad the front one was, we're thinking it makes more sense to change the front one as it's before the catalytic converter and affects gas mileage and performance.  Life cycle is around 100k miles, and we're doing about half that. We'll play it safe.  We reset the code via Phil's phone, and things are fine. 

Bethany didn't like that we screwed it up, [to heather:] "*sigh*.....MEN", but to be fair, this was her while we worked on it:

Phil and I [mostly Phil] helped with fixing the wiring mess that was the solar panel: we shortened them all up to remove all the excess cording. 

Before:

After:

[X]

 We also swapped out the voltmeter for the golf-cart battery gauge, which shows us how much charge is left in the solar battery:

Saturday morning we drove into DC to visit a friend from high school. We spent the afternoon exploring the Air and Space Museum out near Dulles Airport. There were a lot of interesting aircraft, notably the SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, and the Discovery Shuttle. That evening we met up with a group of friends in Adams Morgan for dinner and drinks at Smoke & Barrel. We enjoyed catching up with everyone while savoring the nomtastic BBQ. We rounded out the night with a couple games of Guillotine and the longest game ever of Monster Fluxx.  Also, Bethany saying inappropriate things that she didn't think would be taken out of context. 

Sunday morning we met up with one of Ike's ex co-workers for church at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, near Capitol Hill, followed by brunch at Berlin Cafe (two words: bottomless mimosas). We then visited their beautiful apartment and saw an old friend, Tiny Cat. Things that are cool: parking in the senate parking lot; drinking limer-itas on the open roof of a 14-story building in beautiful weather; friendships; tiny cat stretching with her belly up; not going to work tomorrow.

The Journey Begins!

What a whirlwind couple of days it has been! Here's a recap:

• Ike works 12 hour shifts as a reminder why he's happy to resign from his job
• Bethany spends an entire week alternating between watching season one of game of thrones and packing the apartment
• Ike's last day was Friday - bidding adieu to 3.3 years at Epic

• Bethany and Ike spend Friday night saying goodbye to friends in Madison; finish packing up the trailer Saturday morning, and attempt to drive home.
• Sidenote on the trailer:  the 4Runner has the old 'flat4' connector on the back for hooking up the trailer lights, but the trailer has the newer 'round6'.  We bought a converter to hook up the trailer, but had some bad news:  the tail lights worked, but the turn-signal and brake lights don't work.  Worried about figuring out how we could avoid getting ticketed or rear-ended, Ike's dad has a perfect moment of redneck ingenuity:  "You're driving during the day, right?"  -Yes...?  "Well, every time you brake, turn on your lights so the tail lights turn on, and it'll look like you're braking."   -Perfect.
• After spending an entire week packing, we were pleasantly surprised to see that unpacking only took an hour and a half [always nice to have family roped into helping!]
• Saturday night we celebrating with friends and family at JP's 207

• Sunday, being mother's day, was naturally spent not prepping the vehicle too much, which invariably led to us having a whirlwind prep session Monday morning:

Bethany's dad working on getting the bull/brush guard prepped:

 Bethany's Mom and Grandpa working on prepping our water jug:

 Completing the wiring of the tail-lights for the hitch-platform, zip-tying the lights to the frame

The [over]packed vehicle;  an embarrassment to true overlanders, but good news: lots of the stuff on the platform are going to end up on the hitch platform [but stayed inside because night one was Chicago], and a fair amount of the stuff is 'disposable':  magazines that we'll get rid of as we read, assortment of alcohol from the apartment, some random gifts for friends we're seeing along the way.  Three weeks from now things should be a lot more evened out. 

And here is mile zero for our trip!  Here's to seeing 300k!

Look how packed this vehicle is!  Here's to keeping big smiles over the next year and change! :)

My travel mantra

Words of wisdom from Oscar at the Backpacker Chronicles:

"Each country has negative and positive things, something beautiful and something unattractive, none is perfect."

Here's to enjoying the uniqueness of every place we visit, instead of comparing it to home!