the sequoia trip 

ch. 3

    When Lee spoke of the coming of the Sequoia trip and his ideas for how he planned on going were just beginning to come out as we had a discussion one night a few months before they finally had left for their trip. Ann was historically quiet and had very little negative to say as Lee laid out the master plan for the trip. first he was going to buy an old V.W. van , Do whatever conversion he had to do , and then go over every little thing that could go wrong with and prepare a backup plan .He was interested in V.W.vans as you can buy this manual Lee once had, that told you how to repair a V.W. engine on the road, including a backup engine you could bring along with a  box of tools and essentially rebuild the engine or tranny sitting alongside the road. if you need an air compressor , pop a plug out and insert an airline fitting in the sparkplug  hole and start your engine up. it would inflate your tires if you need to, it was definitely a get you there and get you back van  as well as fuel efficient. I used to have one that gave me 25 miles to the gallon. But that wasn't the camper special. 

         The camper special I used to have had a refrigerator ice box that worked off propane. a pop up top camper , and a nice little table for two. Impromptu roadside picnics were commonplace with my camper. I knew personally about the air compressor thing as i had a spark plug blow out of the head as i was driving down the road. it made a god awful racket running on 3 cylinders but still made it to the parts store to pick up a heli coil kit. And now that i mentioned heli coil i will have to let you the reader be responsible for figuring that out or i will never ever get done with this story. But since you were wondering it is a thread insert kit for a cylinder head. it allowed a person to  thread the spark plug back in, a necessary evil at the least, and very much like hiring a lawyer. 

          Maybe it was me attesting to the V.W. campers reliability as a proven vehicle that intrigued Ann about the whole thing. To drive a couple of thousands of miles not worrying about anything, including how much gasoline cost. These old vans seemed to go on forever when they were running great. Ann then  did finally put in her  two cents worth  , getting Lee to agree to let her pay her share, and since they were saving money on the van then  staying at a motel nightly should not be such a big deal. That way she wouldn't have to share a bathroom. 

       She would rather take her chances in a seedy motel with beg bugs biting you and a cold shower and dirty toilet, than wake up in the middle of a forest with a grizzly rocking the camper and acting real pissed about something and nearly scaring the shit out of her, worse yet , to have  nowhere to go. At least the bath room was hers for the night. 

      So now lee was on a mission to find that V.W. van, and since they were not making them anymore , it may prove to be a harder fix than he thought.

          a picture of my dad laying on a boat dock was similar to   the one  lee and ann were just using. it sure seemed strange to happen across those photos when someone else was just doing the same thing. lee worked at storing his climbing gear and ann hurried to gather things up for their trip home. in about an hour or two they would both be getting ready for their next work week and i will be here alone . 

         i have some carvings started,  and one day this week while they are gone i will take the boat and make the 7 mile trip t town to pick up supplies. i could just drive but would miss the spray as the boat cuts through the water and it races up the hull. water droplets smash against deck and breaks up smaller and this cools you off along with a  breeze over the bow. life doesn't get much better than that. i thought back to my  last girlfriend and wondered how she was getting along now as this was a favorite thing we liked to do. but our dream vacation was the one that lee and ann were going on and that should have been us getting ready for that trip. lee and ann deserved it also and have become pretty good at hugging trees here lately. our greenhouse operation was responsible for the reforestation of approximately 5 square miles of strip mine land. . not total saturation but a large enough footprint of land to start with. it felt good being able to give back to the environment. it was lee and anns help that made it happen . 

        it was a shame i never got a chance to take that trip with my girlfriend. she had those same,  save the environment skills. to bad we couldn't just get along. and when lee suggested going out there with ann i saw it  as resurrection of what i felt for my loved one years ago. maybe through them i will get my chance to see the dream fulfilled. maybe in my mind we will be there with them. 

7.