<VV> Fwd: WC: Convention Roadtrip Recap - Part 1

Mon Jul 7 09:38:34 EDT 2008

____________________________________
 From: westerncanadacorsa at shaw.ca
Reply-to: corvairs at cybrus.net
To:  virtualvairs at corvair.org, corvairs at cybrus.net
Sent: 7/5/2008 9:23:15 P.M.  Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: WC: Convention Roadtrip Recap - Part  1

I'm a few days  late with this, but I needed time to recharge my batteries 
and for the crew to  get all their photos up to be used for this.

As those at the  convention know, the Canadian crew from Western Canada CORSA 
came down as a  group, covering 3000+ miles for the round trip.  Both Laura 
and I had a  great time, and are even a little sad our adventure had to come to 
an  end.

The  Cast:
James Hogarth /  1965 Coupe
Julianne McCaffery  & her dog Maggie / 1966 'vert
Steve Paine &  neice Lucita / Ford F350 towing a 1965 Coupe
Brent Palmer /  1961 Lakewood
Joel & Laura  Rushworth / 1961 Rampside
Shawn & Marja  Sirna / Chevy Truck towing a 1962 Rampside
Mike & Cara  Weirmier / 1964 Westbrier

We all gathered at  Shawn's place before heading out to the ferry for the 
ride over to the  mainland.  Most of us frantically trying to finish the work 
day, plus the  work on our 'vairs, plus packing before getting on the road.  We 
managed  to catch the 7:00pm ferry and get over to the mainland before the 
first  problem reared it's head.  It wasn't until Shawn got up to real highway  
speed over on the mainland that it became apparent the weight distribution on  
the trailer wasn't quite right and with less than a 1/4" of clearance between  
the Rampside's wheels and the fenders on the trailer, getting his vehicle off, 
 turned around, re-distributed and strapped back down, all while on the side 
of  a major highway, was quite the little  project.

_http://tinyurl.com/67p5da_ (http://tinyurl.com/67p5da) 

>From there is was  through the border and down to Steve Paine's for our first 
night, with arrival  coming sometime after midnight.  The next morning we 
were all up bright  and early taking care of last minute details and helping 
Steve out with  getting his camper into the borrowed tow vehicle, a modern F-350 
diesel.   We measured the height to the rails and the height over the cab, and  
everything looked hunky-dorey and proceeded to get the camper jacked up so it 
 could be slid into the pickup.  It wasn't until it was all the way up  that 
it occurred to us to measure the width of the camper.  Did  you know older 
pickup beds are almost four inches wider at the rails than new  ones?  Who knew?  
So the camper had to stay behind, and Steve  and Lucita would be slumming it 
in tents with the rest of us bums.  Well,  almost.  Steve being Steve, his 
tent was actually an "easy up" shelter  that had full sides, and a full height 
air mattress inside to  boot!  So we head off down the I-5 to Valley of the 
Rogue State Park in  southern Oregon.  It was a beautiful campsite, but boy there 
sure was a  lot of lightening flashing across the sky that night.

Day 3 had us  continuing on down I-5 towards San Francisco.  We're zoomin' 
along I-5  and it's time for a break, so we pull into a rest stop to let 
everybody  stretch their legs.  It's time to saddle up again, and Shawn's tow  
vehicle will turn over, but it's obvious it isn't going to run.  Air,  Fuel and 
Spark are what's needed, and he's not getting the gas.  The fuel  pump had packed 
it in.  At just that  moment a modern sedan rolls into the rest stop, and out 
pops  "Smilin'" Mike Grew and his side kick, Richard LeVert, both from  
Victoria!  They hadn't seen the 'vairs, it was just a total fluke they  pulled off 
to the same rest stop as us.  And it wasn't too embarrassing  having them show 
up to see us beating the gas tank with a hammer trying to get  it to fire just 
one last time, Mike being a Shop Teacher and all.  One  good whack and the 
truck fired back to life, but there was going to be no  turning it off between 
that moment and the night's campsite.  The next  major town was Williams, but 
it was getting dangerously close to closing time  on a Saturday by the time we 
arrived there.

Once we got there,  Mike, Shawn and I hopped into the Westbrier and headed 
off for the local  Napa.  As we rolled past the lights were off and it looked 
like we were  going to be S.O.L., but as we pulled a Uewie I noticed that the 
back shop  gates were open and the bay doors were up.  I jumped out and went 
tearing  inside with my best sob story at the ready.  Fortuneatly, the owner  was 
still there and willing to fire up the till for one more  sale.

Just north of San  Fran we turned west on I-80, which turned out to be one of 
the worst kidney  rattling roads I've ever had the displeasure to drive on.  
It's no wonder  everyone drives new cars in Cali, they get shaken to pieces 
before they have a  chance to become old!  I-80 took us into the lower Napa 
Valley, which had  the prettiest clouds coming across the horizon.

_http://tinyurl.com/5sv85l_ (http://tinyurl.com/5sv85l) 

It quickly became  apparent they weren't clouds, but smoke from wildfires 
sparked by the  aforementioned lightning on the previous night; the radio said 
there had been  over 400 strikes.  With one eye on the sky, and the other 
dodging gaps in  the pavement, we continued on to our campsite at Sugarloaf Ridge 
State  Park.

Morning at  Sugarloaf was another early affair with James attempting to 
diagnose a noisy  lifter that wouldn't go away no matter how many times he adjusted 
it, Shawn  getting a hand pulling the tank out of his truck to get at the 
electric fuel  pump.  

_http://tinyurl.com/5u8zen_ (http://tinyurl.com/5u8zen) 

I took the  opportunity to put the track on the bottom of my driver's window 
so I could  once again know the pleasure of driving with my arm resting on the 
sash and  the wind blowing in my hair.  James determined his problem was a 
bad  rocker and ball, of which we had brought one spare (plus the other 12 on 
the  spare motor... doesn't everybody travel with a spare motor?) so his issue 
was  solved.  We empited the gas out of the jerry can into Shawn's truck and  
with the new pump it fired right up. I was ready to enjoy a cool, or  
not-so-cool breeze for the road ahead.  All this rolling around in the  dirt left all 
of us a little worse for wear, so Mike rigged up an instant  shower out of a 
broom, garden hose, a sprayer and judicious use of Maggie's  tether rope.  Much 
to the amusement of the onlooking  wives....

_http://tinyurl.com/6rlzec_ (http://tinyurl.com/6rlzec) 

>From here the plan  was to go over the Golden Gate and south through San Fran 
onto our first  really scenic drive along to coast all the way down to 
Ventura.    Being complete tourists we were really excited to drive over the Golden 
Gate  and shutters were snapping away like crazy all the way  across.

_http://tinyurl.com/5hh6vm_ (http://tinyurl.com/5hh6vm) 
_http://tinyurl.com/5atcbv_ (http://tinyurl.com/5atcbv) 

Surprisingly, not  one of us got a picture of the now empty Jerry can flying 
out of the back of  Shawn's Rampside at about the midway point on the Golden  
Gate.

Through San Fran  and down the coast road, our first views promised to live 
up to  expectations.

_http://tinyurl.com/69tv4j_ (http://tinyurl.com/69tv4j) 

But just over the  horizon there was more smoke to be seen.

_http://tinyurl.com/6zwxll_ (http://tinyurl.com/6zwxll) 

We made it as far as Big Sur, before we had  to back track 30 miles to take 
the 101 south for our next campsite at Morro  Bay, but this meant going east, 
then south and then west to get us back to the  coast and our next campsite.  
Both Greg Bilideau and James Hogarth (who  had headed out earlier than us that 
day) had to make the same turn around at  different times during the day.  
James being the only one lucky enough to  see a Corvair headed north (Greg) 
causing him to turn around before getting  all the way to Big Sur.  Either way, 
what we had seen of the coast road  was gorgeous, and I was disappointed that we 
were only going to see an  abreviated piece of it.

One more  late night arrival, this time Morro Bay, our first leisurely 
wake-up and a  short 125miles put us in Ventura for the  Convention!

Part 2 and 3 to  follow soon.

Regards,
Joel

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