This is Part 2. Part 1 is here.

Wake to the sound of a starting semi-truck. That’s how it is when you sleep in a rest area.

I had been roused a few times earlier by unfamiliar noises combined with general paranoia. Traveling alone.

The snow had blanketed the van. Completely covered it with a layer of powder. I couldn’t see out, except in a few spots where the window wasn’t covered.

The owls weren’t in evidence anymore, which was to be expected. The RV was still there, and the tiny Honda, and the truck with the horse trailer. I had to wonder if there were horses in it which were by now freezing in the weather.

I was the first person that morning to walk to the bathroom. I know this because I was the first to walk on the virgin snow. There’s something about being the first set of footprints; a certain wonder. The junipers were frosted, and the occassional shaft of sunlight made its way through the clouds. Halos on snow.

But mostly it was cloudy and got more cloudy, and then stayed cloudy. I began to wonder if it had been wise to stay put last night. Would the roads be closed due to snow? Would I end up driving behind a snowplow?

I drank a Coke from the machine. Not coffee, but caffeine and sugar nonetheless. I ate a Cliff bar and some fruit. The semi-trucks were zooming down the highway, so the roads hadn’t been closed.

Breathing in some Utah desert snow air. Cold and fresh and wide-open. Van starts on the first try. Good tires make the snow and ice disappear.

We’re moving.

Table Of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad.

(See also: Condiment Packet Museum)

Looking around for stuff about Chaco Canyon and associated ancient astronomical obsevatories, I found Traditions of the Sun, a web site put together by NASA (mainly). It’s Flash-heavy, but still useable over a dial-up connection. It covers the astronomical aspects of Mayan cultures in the Yucatan area, and Chaco.

Also: Finding America, the travel journal of an archaeoastronomy nerd, making his way from Portland, OR, to Panama.

I’ve also been slow to post the blow-by-blow of the Seattle to Houston trip. It’s coming; be patient…

1) Enron’s Jeff Skilling is on trial right now in Houston, Texas. And what did Enron do?

2) Among other things, Enron caused rolling brownouts throughout California in municipalities whose energy systems were deregulated or privatized. And guess what…

3) Yesterday, there were rolling brownouts through Texas, whose energy systems are about as deregulated as can be.

It is with great pleasure that I now report the following: The van has a working gas gauge, and also has a fully-refurbished ventilation/equalization system.

The pictures are on the other computer, and this post may be updated in the near future with visuals.

The process: Remove the tank, rebuild the vent system, put in the new gas level sender, put the tank back in, hook it all up.

The gas tank itself was completely covered in dried caked mud on top. Which is kind of amazing, actually, because there’s really no place for it to get in. I had to excavate the top of the thing before I could start messing with the vent hoses.

The vent hoses were in shreds. The ones I could see were pretty bad, but the ones out of view were bad as well. None of the grommets had deteriorated, however, and the ‘balance tube’ that connects the two lobes of the tank was in good shape. I could have just replaced the hoses, without removing the tank, and been OK. But I could only know that after removing the tank. Oh well.

There was another patch on top of the tank, as well, in addition to mine which is on the bottom. That tank will get replaced when I get back to Seattle. I tried to find the part here in Houston, but no one, not even the super-duper expert Volkswagen guy here, could tell me where to find one. Even the junk yards don’t do gas tanks, which makes sense, I suppose, but still…

Mine is the only Vanagon I’ve seen in this town. None on the road, at least; there’s only one other that I’ve seen, and it’s a Westfalia parked in somebody’s garage down the street from my parents’ house. It’s a loud blue color, and probably air-cooled. I wonder if anyone ever takes it anywhere… It seems like one of those things someone might have used a lot in the past, but can’t bear to get rid of it even though they never use it any more. Maybe I’ll work up the courage to knock on their door and ask about it.

The weekly photo challenge this week is ‘Birds.’ And I can participate in this one without even really trying, so one wonders if it’s really a challenge.

Anyway….

Click it for a bigger version.

This is a green kingfisher, taken at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas gulf coast. ANWR is known as the southern migratory stop for the ultra-endangered whooping crane, but there’s plenty else to see. Such as this 4-inch-tall kingfisher.

Some other bird pics I’ve taken.

Wake in the rest area on I-90 east of the Cascade mountains.

It’s early enough that the free coffee people haven’t yet arrived. Drat. In Washington (and a few other states, like Kansas), charitable organizations are allowed to set up ‘free’ coffee stands in rest areas. The coffee (and sometimes cookies and so forth) are free, but there’s a donation jar.

The early bird gets no coffee, however. So I drive a little farther to Ellensburg, and get a big ol’ 32 oz. truck stop coffee for $1.29. It turns out to actually be good.

Getting out of Washington state is mostly uneventful, except at the very last opportunity to get gas. See, in Oregon there’s a law that there can be no such thing as self-service gas stations. Someone has to pump your gas for you. Which is a nice law if you’re a bureaucrat trying to keep your employment figures higher, but not such a great law if you’re a guy in a van who’d rather just be left alone. So I try to avoid filling up in Oregon by getting gas in Kennewick, WA, just north of the Columbia river.

Pulling into this gas station, I decide it’s time to put the temporary fix on the van’s headlight.

Shortly after I bought the van, I discovered that the aiming bolt on the driver’s side headlight was broken. Or rather, the plastic espansion nuts were broken, even though the bolt was fine. When I’d speed up, the beam would veer to the right, and then to the left when I slowed down. It’s one of those problems that doesn’t seem that big, especially in comparison to other problems that actually *are* big, so it never gets fixed, but is just kind of annoying, even if it’s comical. Ya know?

So I fixed it with a dead ball-point pen, some bits of plastic gleaned from the trash, the old bolt, and some duct tape. The aim’s pretty good, too… The headlight beam points where it’s supposed to point.

And here begins our first experience with… [cue dramatic music]… The Leak In The Fuel Expansion System. Vanagons don’t just have a fuel tank like other cars. Oh, no, that would be too easy. In fact, the fuel tank for the Vanagon was designed to fit around equipment that doesn’t exist. Volkswagen took the fuel tank design from another vehicle that needed an inverted-saddle shape, and put it into the Vanagon, for reasons which cannot be fathomed. So, since it’s flat on the bottom and has two lobes on either side, there’s a need to allow pressure to vent from one side to the other. And in addition to that, there are two expansion tanks, one in each front wheel well, and each of these does… something. I honestly can’t figure it out.

Anyway. If any of these hoses or tanks or seals leak, then the tank overflows when you put gas in, and it’s time to refurbish the system with new hoses and seals.

And that’s what happened in Kennewick: The tank overflowed on a fill-up. So add that to the list.

Here I am trying to figure out if I should just go back. Will I make it all the way across the continent with a leaky expansion tank thing-a-magig that I’m not even sure I understand? Will I be forced to turn back and take a plane to see my dad walk across the stage and be given the highest honor his peers can give him?

Nay! Onward I went. I figured it wouldn’t be that big a deal. Of course I was wrong, but that’s getting ahead of myself.

Rain and wind and cold in Oregon, with a thick fog in the Blue Mountains, which was disappointing. I love the Blues.

I ended up topping up the gas while I was in Oregon, because I’m paranoid about the fuel level. The woman at the pump says, “Fill up?” I answer: “Yah, but I warn you, it’ll probably overflow.” “Well, it’s not like I’ve never had gas on my shoes before…”

Crank through Idaho, pretty much without stopping except for gas. The weather is still kinda rainy and cold. A few moments of mere overcast respite.

Just south of the Utah border on I-84, there’s a rest area in the midst of a huge, wide, flat ancient lakebed. It’s all scrub except for a small forest of juniper trees, about 7 feet tall or so. A mini-forest. In the midst of this forest is a highway rest area.I decided to stop there for the night.

Walking to the bathroom, I hear a hoot owl. It seems to be coming from an RV that has also stopped for the night, so I figure someone’s messing with me.

I go in, do my thing, come back out. More hooting, and another hoot from the darkness, farther away. It’s a real owl, not some prankster. I walk around a little bit to triangulate… It’s still coming from the RV. Or, maybe, above the RV. I look up, and there on top of the light pole, an owl barely visible in the night.

Later, it starts snowing as I fall asleep.

Made it to Texas yesterday, despite Homeric journey setbacks.

Came in at 4am, slept a few hours, put on my suit, and went to see my dad get the AAPG Sidney Powers Memorial Lifetime Achievement award. Dinner afterwards with a million relatives and friends of the family.

The trip itself will be mined for about a dozen ‘blog entries.

Get clothes out of dryer.

Put clothes in with other clothes in luggage.

Put luggage in cargo box.

Lock cargo box.

Drive away.

There are actually a few more steps in there, but there always are, aren’t there?

I’m going to take a moment and describe how to change the coolant in a VW Vanagon. Ready?

First, you drain the oil. And you do this so you can remove the oil filter. And you do that so you can get to the bolt that holds the skid plate to the exhaust manifold. And you do that so you can take the skid plate off, which, by the way, has another bolt on the other end of the cylinder head that’s almost as hard to get to as the oil filter end one. And once you’ve done that, you’re staring at the lifter rods, and the bottom of the cylinder head. And then it’s a simple matter of finding an allen key to fit the drain plug there on the bottom of the cylinder head (T40 Torx works just as well). So you remove the plug and collect the coolant in a pan, and then dump it into the 5-gallon bucket. You’ll do this three times, for two and a half gallons of coolant. And in the mean time, you’ll jack down the back of the van (it’s a rear-engine van, didja know?), and jack up the front so gravity will be your friend instead of your enemy. And you’ll open the bleeder valve on the radiator so hydraulics will be your friend, too.

And then, and only then, will you realize you got the wrong kind of coolant to put back in.

So you’ll rush to a Volksagen dealer to buy an obscenely priced gallon of coolant before they close.

Oh, and there’s that other side-narrative about how you were taking the filter off, only you used the wrong kind of filter wrench and crushed it like an aluminum can which meant taking the bus to the auto parts store.

Then putting everything back together is much easier.

And somehow this is all fun. It’s really inexplicable.

Someone call me and kick my ass. I’m dawdling! I’m wasting time!