Thursday, April 10, 2003
We are in Salamanca, Spain. Taking a day off to do laundry, then head to town to see the sights… and hopefully, find an email place. Have had no luck logging the laptop on to the Internet. This is supposed to be a university town, maybe we’ll have better luck. Jack at Tahoe recommended a very cool website tool, perhaps we can get the long promised web pages up and running. Lots of pictures to post so far…. I’m hoping that Seville will be the answer to a lot of our lingering “must haves”. I expect in such a tourist oriented city, we will find the connections and equipment we still need.
Laurie said to me on the phone one time, I think after driving to Texas from Colorado, “Well, if you don’t count the accident, everything’s fine.” We’ve put about 1400 miles on this old buggy so far… and… if you don’t count the accident… everything has gone pretty well. Yes, driving on the left hand side of the road, steering on the right, shifting (stick on the floor) with the left hand, was not an easy transition. Actually it was the narrow twisting roads with the disappearing lanes that really did me in. Within about ten minutes of our first drive in London I broke the left side mirror against a big parked truck. I blame that one on the guy on the dirtbike coming at me in my lane… oh yeah, Rhona’s screams were also a distraction… But that was just a warm up…. On the way out of London… Well, first let me explain… On the map they have things things that look like highways, but they are actually just a collection of narrow city streets, zigzagging every which way… At each intersection we are looking for the “hiway” number we are trying to follow… then the lanes divide and rejoin pretty much at random… okay, enough trivial excuses… The above mentioned shattered side mirror, that was the problem… yeah, that’s why I didn’t see the guy over there on my left as (even though it didn’t seem like two lanes) I merged into his fender… Can’t find a mark on the truck, but the right front wheel well area of his car was bashed up pretty good. He came out pretty angry, but after exchanging insurance information, he gave me a pat on the back and said it wasn’t really all that bad….
Jake, if you get to see this… what we’ve got is a 1977 Vauxall Bedford Dormobile… a definite classic – among us camping types. It’s based on the Bedford ¾ ton truck, 2.3 liter four cylinder engine. We first thought that it has the ZF transmission, but it’s just the standard Bedford… the ZF is famous for being indestructible… I was pretty happy about that until I realized that reverse is in the wrong place… But what I’m dealing with is a good old carburetor, distributor, points…. Basically an inline, hard to get to, sort of VW engine. I put in a bottle of STP, threw away the dirty aircleaner, it’s a Fram so I can probably find a replacement somewhere down the road, before we get to anyplace dusty anyway. I cleaned the points, and it’s really running pretty well. The transmission does worry me a bit, it’s pretty noisy… Once we get to Seville I’ll see if I can’t get some STP into it also… Think I’ll check wrecking yards and see if I can’t find a spare tranny… too much to hope that a ZF will appear, but you never know… they built a lot of the Bedford trucks and used them all over Europe. New parts will be a problem, points, plugs, and oil filters can be shipped from England if I don’t find any. There is a Dormobile owner’s club, I’m hoping they’ll have information on substitutions… especially the oil filter. I tried a big parts place in London and they didn’t have anything in stock but said they could order for me…
Hopefully we’ll get some pictures of the old girl posted soon… the cool thing is the top… it opens from the side, like a big accordion… about eight feet of headroom inside. You can actually sleep 5 people (I’m thinking mom, dad, and three kids) inside the thing. Good two burner stove, and a small refrigerator (like those Coleman ones). Supposedly it runs on gas and off the battery, but all I’ve been able to do is get it to run on the battery while we are driving… . Once we get settled in Seville, I’m going to see what I can do. Campgrounds do have electricity, maybe I’ll be able to get a converter and switches and step the current down to 12 volts…. I’m sure those guys in their big Mercedes vans with their satellite TV are quite happy, but you know me, I’m much rather have something to tinker with.
The ferry ride across the channel was reasonable, $150 for the two of us and the car. Pretty smooth trip… good food at a reasonable price, can’t complain. French hiways are much better than the English excuse. Lots of expensive Toll roads that we’ve mostly been avoiding. Gas, of course is a major expense. $1.10 on the average, a liter in France… 3.something liters per gallon…. Costs at least $50 to fill the tank, which we did about once a day. Made up for it by spending a few nights in their very elaborate rest stops. Our books say, it’s not only permissible to spend the night, it’s expected. The first night, we went into the gas station/store/restaurant/locker room and asked the clerk if we would have any trouble sleeping in our car… he said, if you have any trouble, come to me, and I’ll call the police… . Needless to say, no problems…. The gas in Spain is cheaper, 82.9 a liter… that’s like 75 cents a gallon less!
I guess we’ve been staying in Campgrounds about half the time, parking for the night the rest of the time. Two nights ago we stayed in an incredible place … a low hedge between us and maybe 300 feet of grassy hillside to the ocean. Sites are very small, but since we are traveling in the off season, the campgrounds are practically empty. That will change, we know.
This place is like an orchard… widely spaced small trees. Must be room for at least 200 campers, and a dozen small cottages for rent… big swimming pool and playing field… all behind a big modern hotel. We had dinner last night, $6 a piece, including bread and half bottle of wine each, the camper special. We are paying $11.30 a night, so life is pretty good here. There are probably 20 or so other campers, mostly seem to be German or Dutch.
One more long day of driving tomorrow to Seville… We want to get established in our campsite before too many people show up. I don’t think the Easter week is a big tourist thing, but the Feria the week after is. I’ll be happy just to settle down in one place for two or three weeks. Then on to Portugal to find that magic beach.
Rhona is doing great. Getting much better at the navigator job. I walked her pretty hard in London and Paris. She’s really adapting to the new life amazingly well…
London was mostly about getting the van and buying stuff… bedding, folding chairs… supplies for the truck. We did a one day walking tour of Paris… the Louve to Champs Elysees to the Arc to the Eiffel Tower… I’m thinking we’ll have to make it back later … Rhona says she’d really be happier noising around the shops with Kara… hum, that could happen….
It does seem like we’ve been rushing from one thing to another for the past six months… or did it all start back there before the wedding? Kickback time is coming…. We are due. Well it’s time to see what Salamanca has to offer….
Love to all,
Larry + Rhona
6:02:39 PM 
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