Part the Last: Going Home

Just as it got dark we arrived at the paved road that led to camp. At the intersection, Melissa was trying to pull away from the stop sign when she told me something didn't feel right, like she couldn't get Ludwig into first gear. I checked it out myself and indeed, he was stuck in second--all the flailing about of the shifter we could muster did nothing. We had neutral by depressing the clutch, but that was it. I decided we should limp back to the campground and sleep on it. In the morning I crawled underneath to see what I could see.

After calls to a couple mechanics, I realized there was nothing I could do about it where we were. Luckily, there was general agreement that while the camper was stuck in second, that driving him was not harmful, nor was it likely to change, for better or worse. That is, he was likely to stay stuck in second. The worst part was we would have to start driving home immediately and cut our stay at Death Valley short by two days. After all, Ludwig's top speed in second gear is about 35mph, and his average speed is closer to 30mph. The best part was that while Mitch has several dramatic Volkswagen stories, I had none. I was finally becoming initiated into the small circle of die hard VW fanatics. 

At Stovepipe Wells (elevation 0: see sign in background) we put a sign in the rear window and set out.

The road we'd sailed down when we'd entered the valley now lay in front of us as a 4956ft climb. At least, I thought, we'd probably only have been able to get over the pass in second gear even if nothing was wrong with the bus. But there would certainly be no stopping. Stopping in the middle of a long ascent such as this with only second gear would mean we'd have to coast back to the base to try again. Luckily, we made it up the mountain and out of the valley with no problems.

We dove down the other side into the Panamint Valley and used the 3400-foot drop as an opportunity to go as fast as we'd be able. I hit the clutch and we entered the valley at about 65mph. The Valley is occupied by another dry lake, the Panamint. It's the sandy expanse in the photo above. The roads across and through the valley are built right on top of it.

We stopped for a break in Panamint Valley, at the intersection of highways 190 and 178. In the background is Telescope Peak, a 11,049ft snow-topped pinnacle in the park. It was pretty impressive from where we were at 1600ft, but I imagine it is all the more imposing as seen from the other side (the Death Valley side) as it rises, uninterrupted, from -282ft at Badwater Basin. Maybe next time.

There is a town in California named Trona. This charming hamlet of 1900 sits on the "shore" of Searles Lake (dry, of course) and, astonishingly, ninety-eight of the 104 natural elements can be mined around the town. Nowadays they mostly mine borax. "Twenty-Mule Team" borax comes from Trona. If you can imagine what a town that is continually bathed in a chemical stew and baked in the desert sun is like, that's Trona. Melissa was quite enamored with the place; ask her about it sometime. For some reason, we didn't take any pictures of the town. The picture above is of the Trona Pinnacles, which you might recognize from the newer Planet of the Apes movie, or from Lost in Space. The things you see when you can only go 25mph and have to stay off bigger highways. Charles Kuralt was probably right.

Late in the afternoon I called a friend of mine who had just been stationed at Edwards AFB to see if we could camp in his driveway overnight. He insisted we stay in the house and take showers. We couldn't resist. Jon and his family were very accomodating, giving us food, beer and hot water. California City, where they live, must be the largest city in California (pop: 8385) without a grocery store. The next morning Jon and I rode dirtbikes in the lot across the street.

This was the order of the day for the next two hundred miles: Melissa behind the wheel, me looking at the map trying to figure out where to go to stay off freeways. I was mostly successful, but on an unavoidable stretch of the 126, we had to drive in traffic. The appropriate word would be "harrowing". (Other appropriate words would be, "Melissa had to pull off the road onto the shoulder a couple of times because she saw idiot drivers about to ram us at 75+mph and she was sure we were going to die. Then she spent a few mintues yelling and shaking her fist before she returned to the road.") You'd think other drivers would notice a bright orange VW bus driving halfway on the shoulder with its hazards flashing. This was Southern California, so you'd be wrong. We went over our final mountain range, the San Rafael Mountains on a winding road just as it began to rain. The road was washed out the next week. At about 9:30pm we pulled into the driveway and shut Ludwig off. Final tally: ~375 miles of road took 18 hours of driving over two days.

The next week I told our story to another married philosophy graduate student and his first question was, "So when did you guys start fighting?" I hadn't thought about it at the time, but we didn't once get into a fight. In fact, we didn't even listen to any music on the stereo either. I guess it must've been a lot of fun.
FINIS