I did a trip from Las Vegas end into the mountains to Reno into Oregon
Loved every mile no I-5 :-)

On Dec 11, 2008, at 4:29 PM, "dhanson@gorge.net" <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
wrote:

>  That could be a short trip...but from the north border of Oregon to
> the south border of California
> is what I just drove, just under 1200 miles.  The 84 topless west-
> fakia with it's inline four
> 1.8liter VW motor and 5sp. worked perfectly.  We had a pretty heavy
> load of carpentry tools and
> bicycle gear but for the most part, I kept the speed at around
> 65mph, looking for good gas mileage
> there.
>  I took the back road south, down hwy 395 along the east slope of
> the mountains.  Simply
> beautiful!  Over the higher passes, I was slowed back to my 4th
> gear.  I can maintain about 65 in
> that gear, but it feels a bit wound out, so I normally shift down at
> around 55mph and hold that
> unless there is a stupid headwind combined with a very steep pitch
> on the pass.
>  Haven't done the math on the gas consumption yet, but my normal ~23
> fully loaded mpg seems like it
> is still what I got during this trip.
>  I stealth-camped in a mini mall parking lot in Gardnerville, Nv for
> about 6 hrs of sleep and
> stopped near Bishop, Ca. to ride a bicycle climb I'd been wanting to
> ride up to the South Lake..
>  It seems that the highway traffic is somewhat diminished (the
> economy?) and Reno looked virtually
> deserted as I drove through..Acres and acres of empty parking lots
> around those huge hotel/casinos.
>  I noticed the change in sound after mounting my snow tires
> (Hakepitas).  I felt good that I'd gone
> into my CV joints pre-trip, too.  My new H-4 Euro headlights were a
> real joy out in the mountains
> and I used my roof mounted spotlight to find my S.O.'s campsite upon
> my arrival in the desert.  My
> new "cheaper" inverter seems to be happy charging my laptop and cell
> phones and my little solar
> panel seems happy charging my extra battery to run that inverter..
>  all is good in the desert southwest in the turd-brown vanagon..
>  Don Hanson
>
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