Crossing into California

Late on the evening of February 14^th, after a long day of driving through extreme terrains such as deserts and snowy mountain passes, we finally reached the halfway point in our journey: San Diego, CA. It was a happy and fitting end to St. Valentine’s Day. According to our “plan,” we should have arrived here over a week ago but at this point in our journey, we know that not many things go as planned. In fact, we are sort of getting used to living that way. We ended up having to remain in the Phoenix area longer than expected because of costly and time consuming mechanical problems. Everything seems to work out, though, because we got to have a lot more fun with our Arizona friends. Our host couple here in California seems to be just as awesome and we are looking forward to countless good times here as well.

Our mechanical problems began over a week ago on the day that we were first going to leave for California. Daniel noticed that the bus was lurching whenever it switched gears as he was speeding up. It was also making a weird “clank” noise when it switched from drive to overdrive. We knew we were going to have to cross some extreme terrain and that the bus, even in prime condition, would have a difficult time crossing the mountain ranges. We decided that we would bring her in to get checked out, even though it meant putting us back a week in our schedule. Big Easy spent two nerve-wracking days in the shop before we even heard what was wrong and then, when we got the news, we almost wished they hadn’t told us. She either needed a completely rebuilt transmission that would run us close to $3000 or to be scrapped. Daniel and I talked it over before we made our decision. It was definitely a lot of money to spend but if we didn’t, it would mean our journey with Big Easy would be over. We would have to rent a moving truck for several days to get our stuff back to Virginia and then spend a great deal of money in gas to drive back across the country. Worst of all, Big Easy would be gone and all of the love and work we put into her would be lost as well. Obviously, we decided to swallow the cost and continue on our trip. We know that we made the right decision because we get to continue with our awesome journey and now we feel even more confident that Big Easy will stick around for years to come and be our companion on many more (slightly smaller) expeditions.

We finally got the bus back this past Thursday and decided that we would spend our last night doing something fun. So, on Friday afternoon, Daniel, our new friend Trenton and I packed up our camping gear, piled into the bus and headed towards the Superstition Mountains. We planned to hike down the Peralta trail and camp overnight in Geronimo’s cave. Frustratingly, we drove about 20 miles down the road and realized that the bus was overheating. It sounded to us like it wasn’t switching gears as we sped up, but we didn’t know for sure. It hadn’t been doing that before we brought it in for the transmission repair, so we hoped that it was something the mechanics had accidentally done and could be fixed quickly and for free. We were already running out of daylight though so we decided to just take it slow, get to the trailhead and worry about the bus on Saturday. We eventually made it to the trail and had a beautiful three-mile hike. We spent two hours climbing up through a mountain range and I definitely had a few of those “go on without me” moments (and I wasn’t even carrying the heavy packs!) but it was worth every heart-pounding step. We ended up in the saddle of the mountains (the part where they come together and form a ‘U’ shape) overlooking an amazing rock formation called Weaver’s Needle. We never ended up finding Geronimo’s cave before we ran out of sunlight so we camped in front of a smaller but perfectly comfortable cave. We even ran into some other hikers and shared s’mores and stories. It was a completely different experience than camping in Virginia where you’re covered in trees. In Arizona’s desert, camping without a tent is gorgeous. The moon was incredibly bright and all of the rock formations looked even more amazing outlined by the stars. It was an incredible experience and I’m so glad we got to share it with Trenton and the other hikers we came across.

Angie standing in front of the Weaver's Needle rock formation.

Daniel and Trenton on Peralta Trail.

Making s'mores in front of our cave with new friends.

The next day when we returned from the hike it was back to more bus troubles. Big Easy had not magically fixed herself overnight so we had to call the mechanic shop. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get us in until Monday, which meant that we would be delaying our departure again. We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and hoping for the best.

Monday morning found us bright and early at the mechanic shop. We waited for about four hours while they searched for the problem that could be causing the bus to overheat. It turned out that we aren’t getting full use out of our throttle cable. In fact, we are only getting about 60% of the power that Big Easy’s engine has the potential to produce. This normally isn’t really a problem and can actually give you better gas mileage if you don’t use full power, but the mechanic didn’t know that in advance. He had set the throttle sensor on the new transmission to work at 100% power and since our throttle cable didn’t go that far, the engine was basically shutting down and over-heating so there wouldn’t be any more damage done. Big Easy is a pretty smart bus after all! In the end, it was an easy fix for the mechanic once he figured out what was wrong and, best of all, it was free of charge! We think that Big Easy might have an easier time pulling the trailer up mountains if we were to get a new throttle cable that could go up to 100% power, but since it isn’t really that big of deal, we think we will just wait on that one.

With Big Easy fixed and ready to go, it was time for us to say goodbye to our Arizona friends and make the long trip to Califorina. We started out early Tuesday morning and drove all day through the ever-changing terrain. We drove through miles of desert and I half expected to see a camel walking over the dunes! Then, we drove straight from the desert up into a long mountain range that was quite cold and windy. There was even snow on the ground towards the top. It was really interesting to drive through a desert and snow all in one day! We also drove through three border patrols on our way to San Diego. The first two just waved us through but the last one wanted to take a look inside our bus and even brought the drug-sniffing dogs into it. Perhaps having Captain Planet on the side of our bus makes us suspicious? They seemed a bit disappointed that they didn’t find anything and waved us away without even a goodbye. It must have been a boring day for them. Finally, after what seemed like an endless mountain range, we made it to our home for the next month located in Lakeside, CA! It’s a beautiful place and our host couple, Ron and Stephanie, are incredibly nice and hospitable. We think that we are going to have a lot of fun here and we can’t wait to get some exploring done in San Diego, especially the beach!

California desert sand dunes with Angie in the distance.

Daniel standing in the California desert.