I believe in the expression “adventures are catastrophes viewed in retrospect”. Therefor, I refuse to make detailed plans for my scatterbrained projects in advance. It would somehow detract from the quality of the trip.
I left Norway on February 1st early in the morning, and arrived in San Francisco the same day, but 1 1/2 hours later than scheduled. Getting from the airport to downtown on the Bay Area Transit System, a sort of metro-train, was an unadulterated joy. The system is simple, fast and cheap.
The BART station downtown, at the Embarcadero, is 4/10 of a mile from the Greyhound bus station. I had packed most of my luggage in a bicycle bag, which is rather shapeless and refuses to sit on top of my wheeled hand-luggage for more that about a half block. I didn’t think the packed local busses would be very enthusiastic about myself and my luggage, so I decided to drag it to the Greyhound Station. The station was quite nice, with a guarded waiting area, and they printed me a ticket to Reno on the next bus, 9 hours later.
A blizzard was expected going over the Sierra Nevada mountains, which I figured would be rather exciting. I didn’t sleep, because I was afraid of missing something. I also got the whole front seat to myself, which I love.
Not far before the top of the Donner Pass (where some pioneers ate some of their companions), the snow started coming down so thick we could hardly see the road. Shortly thereafter, we came over a long line of trucks pulled over on the shoulder of the road, mounting snow chains.
We had a lady driver, who recruited one of the other passengers to help her get the chains on. She got them on, but after about 20 feet, one fell off, bending the attachment hooks. After an hour, the chains were securely attached, and we continued on to Reno. It was all rather exciting. We got to Reno at 7am, and I called my sister to pick me up.
Over the weekend, we bought a 2003 Pontiac Montana. It had a crack in the top of the windshield, but since I am kind of short, the crack was up in the sky somewhere, so it won’t be a problem for my field of view. Anyhow, I read on Google that cooking oil had the same index of refraction as glass, so I have an ongoing experiment in the driveway to see if any of the oil will run into the crack.
When we started the engine, it rocked alarmingly, so we had to change two of the rubber mounting brackets to stabilize it. My sister has a very good mechanic who found the problem and did the work. The lights, windshield wipers, and cabin heat work fine and the motor sounds very smooth.
The next project was building the bike, which took a few hours in the basement where I have taken up residence. I am violently allergic to cats, and my sister has one, so I am sleeping down with my bike on a “futon”, or frame mattress. Really nice and quiet, and the tools and workbench are close at hand! (There is also a bathroom down there).
We got the car insured and registered today, so I am planning to leave on Thursday. I have to. There should be quite a lot of snow in the mountains starting Thursday evening, and I don¨t want to buy chains. I want to get somewhere warmer as quickly as possible-that’s the reason I fled from Norway in early February.
The trip won’t really begin until I leave Reno, but I figured I ought to learn how to post a blog before I start.