The Trek to CWRU

Ready to go, not tired at all :-)

I left Georgia around noon which was a good eight hours later than I had planned to leave. For some reason, 4:00am always seemed like a good time to leave for me and it had become a tradition of sorts. I had stayed out late the night before with my girlfriend at the time -- thus, little packing was accomplished that day. I wound up staying up most of the night once I arrived back home but did get about four hours of sleep. It took a few hours to load up the bus, and it was simply amazing how nicely everything fit in there. It really is a big box on wheels! I also did some last minute repairs, fixing a headlight and the left rear tail-light. The engine had been out a number of times in the past couple weeks for work so it was hopefully in good shape. I left my dad and teary-eyed mother around 12:30 and started headed north, boombox sitting on the front seat with a portable CD player wired into it -- my excuse for a car stereo.

As soon as I put the bus into gear I knew it was going to be a slow trip. I had anticipated a slow-down due to all of the stuff that I was carting around, but the bus seemed to be really sluggish compared to when it was empty. I hit the first hill right outside of my neighborhood and was barely up to 40mph at the crest! It's maybe a quarter mile to the top of that hill. Ouch.

Just into Tennessee

Some explaining is in order here. Previously when I had driven to Cleveland in my old '74 Beetle I kept to the interstates the entire way. It's the fastest way to get to school, true, and in all fairness the scenery isn't that bleak. But I don't like it. You drive twelve straight hours, and afterwards the day is a gray streak in your mind -- you can't remember anything in particular. So before I left home for the next semester of school, I pulled out my road atlas and a pencil and I plotted a route on the back roads. It's probably a miracle I made it all the way up here since I didn't really ask around about road conditions (and I did make some interesting choices...). I felt like seeing some more of the countryside and going a little bit slower, and I did do that! Call it an experiment in travelling if you want.

Somewhere...

So anyway, back into the driver's seat. When I arrived at I-85, I was pleased since the onramp was downhill! I still had to watch the speedometer needle creep slowly up to 60mph though. And after all of that work, I enjoyed people passing me going 30 and 40mph faster. Let 'em! I don't guess I was really in a hurry. I drove northward through Atlanta and looked anxiously for my opportunity to get off the six laned highway onto something a bit more reasonable. So came my first wrong turn. Yeah!

I saw a sign that said "GA 5 N next exit". Hmm, well it seemed to be a bit early -- I got off anyway. I traveled on the road for a while, pleased as hell with myself, and suddenly came upon a sign that said "End GA 5 spur". Spur?! I drove onward, humbled and confused, until I was able to get back on the interstate again. On the way I passed one of the two air-cooled VWs that I would pass on the entire trip, a blue late-model beetle whose driver waved excitedly. I honked and flashed a peace sign. I did eventually find GA 5 N!

US 421 in daylight

A whole lot of driving ensued. I snapped some pictures and just enjoyed the scenery sailing by my windows. It didn't get truly exciting until I came to US 421 in Kentucky. Talk about your steep hills and sharp turns! I'd like to advise bus owners to be wary of this road -- it's tough on the brakes and the driver, even if you use a lower gear down hills. In retrospect, my front end was pretty much shot so I'm sure that had a lot to do with it -- but beware anyway :-) The best part about this little road was that I was driving it in the dark of the night. Also, due to a detour (straight down a damned mountain!) I completely missed the town where I was to turn off 421 to get to Bera. I drive on, very much lost, until I hit Richmond. I filled up the bus at the outskirts, checked my map to verify I was still on the face of the Earth (yep!), and found a Waffle House to eat since it was so late. I told the vaguely interested waitress all about my trip thus far, ate a cheese-steak sandwich, and moseyed on over to the Days Inn across the street. I was too exhausted to think about sleeping in the bus.

Mountains loom ahead on GA 5

On that first day of the trip the bus burned a half quart of oil, not bad considering the awesome grades I was climbing with her, fully loaded with all my college type gear. The hills were so steep in places that I had to drop down into second gear to crawl up them! I collapsed into bed around 1am. 448 miles in twelve hours.

I rose at 9am the next day and left Richmond. I was well rested and looking forward to the drive. Some early morning entertainment was found cleaning bugs off of the nose :-) The bus was still running beautifully, the paper clip that I had jury-rigged the broken accelerator cable with was holding up just fine -- I had two spare cables with me just in case. Non-VW people would laugh to see all of the parts and tools that I was lugging around with me. But thanks to Murphy's law -- if you bring it, you won't need it -- I didn't have any problems!

The lost church

I drove through some really beautiful countryside that day. My favorite was an old church overgrown with ivy that I encountered while on the wrong road :-) I took two of that to be sure that I got it. People that think that rolling fields, pasture, and farmland are boring definitely need to drive on the road that I was on, US 68. Beautiful. It was simply beautiful. Lots of white rail fences, stone walls 150 years old running alone the highway, trees overshadowing the pavement, the occasional grazing horse. Clean white farmhouses along the side of the road. It was definitely the best part of my trip. Passing farm tractors loaded down with trailers full of freshly harvested corn was novel :-)

Typical view of US 69

Once I arrived in Ohio I encounted a clone of US 421 directly across the border. My palms began to sweat just from looking at this road -- straight up the side of a large hill. The bus made it though, she was good to me. You know, it's amazing what passes for a "road" in Ohio -- I caught air on many of the bumps (just me, not the bus thankfully!). Of course there were also loads of those great sharp-as-hell curves where you have to slam on the brakes 'cuz someone neglected to put a sign more than 25 feet away from the damn thing.

But I made it to Bedford heights. SR 83 N was a pain, as was that first one(!) that I had encountered at the border, but I did it. I pulled into my friend's driveway at 9:30pm. They had been expecting me around 5:00.

Watch for Ahmish!

The moral of the story is don't take the scenic route if you're on a schedule unless you've driven it before and know what to expect. I personally got a lot more twisty, steep roads than I had planned for. I did enjoy it, but if I was to do it again I'd plan to stop three times instead of two. At the end of twelve hours of driving, my rear would be sore, as well as my legs and my head. I got lost/missed turns about five or six times, but I luckily never went too far off the track -- the most was about four miles in Ohio.

Stats:

About 850 miles. 25 hours of driving. Burned/leaked 1.5 quarts of oil over the whole trip. NO breakdowns!! No air conditioning. It rained for about fifteen minutes in Ohio and that's it. I didn't keep records of how often I gassed up or of mileage but I figured once I got about 22 miles per gallon. My speedometer turns out to be fairly accurate (checked it with mile markers).

I guess that's all, folks. It was my first time taking the back roads and I loved it. It would have been a LOT better with a second person to help navigate and talk to, but I was ok on my own. In the future I will try to take someone else, keep far better records, and take more and better pictures. It's hard to take pictures when you're driving!

Incidentally, the second VW that I saw on the trip was a late model bus. We were quite excited to see each other. A hippy type was driving it (big smiley face on the front!). Peace signs all around, along with honking and headlights. This was, surprisingly, in Wooster, Ohio.

Ohio at last!

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