Once upon a time there was a 1996 Suzuki Sidekick
who was feeling old and tired. He had lived all his life in Edmonton where
winters were cold and roads were icy and summers were too short. Every
year, its family promised it that “soon” it would retire to a nice resort in
Mexico where it could sit in the sunshine and enjoy its remaining years with
only the occasional drive. But “soon” was slow to come and the poor little
Suzuki was rusting away and losing hope. Then one day it happened! The
family said “Let’s Go!” and after a little cosmetic surgery and a few
mechanical fixes, they were on they way!
This is the story of the Suzuki's retirement trip.
Getting Ready
The trip was going to be over 5500 km (plus however much we added in side
trips and sightseeing) including over 1700 km on the transpeninsular highway in
Mexico where services would be limited so we needed to be sure the car was up to
the trip. In the end, the trip took us 4800 km to the Mexican Border and
another 2450 km to San José.
Allen spent most of the summer working on the car: scraping out the
rust, filling the holes with fiberglass and painting the repaired areas.
Robin tuned the engine, put in a new clutch cable (the clutch had just been
redone in the winter), changed all the fluids and belts, and got the air conditioning recharged. The
battery was almost new and the brakes were okay.
Our plan was to camp when we could and stay in motels when it suited us.
We bought our equipment over the prior year as we anticipated the trip:
a new cooler that plugged into either the car or wall sockets
a double sleeping bag - one side up for cooler weather and the other
side up for warmer nights.
a thick air mattress and pump
a new camp stove with a single burner and a grill
a comprehensive tool kit
large duffle bags as we needed to take clothes suitable for the fall
trip through mountains and the warmer weather we would find in Mexico
a coffee pot (perc style instead of the drip one we had)
a picnic backpack which made up the entire dish set we took (it was a
gift)
tiny golf bags which could be tucked in behind the seats
On Thursday, October 6 we started off. In spite of leaving home late (noonish)
we were able to get to Great Falls, Montana the first night. It was too late to
even consider camping so we found a motel for the night. In the morning, we
golfed at the local municipal golf course, then drove for a few hours to Dillon,
Montana. Again, we stayed in a motel as the evening was colder than we had
expected. It turned out that the altitude was the problem. We were over 5000
ft up and, at that altitude, the nights get downright cold, even though the days
are warm. We didn’t camp until we reached Petaloma in California.
On Saturday, we had an easy drive to Salt Lake
City, arriving there in late afternoon.Click for Montana Pictures
At the tourist information office
we learned that on Sunday mornings, they record the weekly TV broadcast by the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir live and the public
is welcome to attend the recording. It is traditionally performed in
the Tabernacle but that facility was close for major renovations.
Instead, they were using the new Convention Centre, a 21,000 seat theatre
built in 2000 for their semi-annual General Assemblies. The 7000 pipe organ
was subdued for the
broadcast so we toured the Temple square and went back to the theatre at
2:00
for an organ recital where we were able to hear the full power of the organ.
In Temple Square, we had the
guided tour of the public buildings by two young girls from Germany.
They were in Salt Lake City for two years, doing their compulsory missionary
service. We also visited the house that was the official residence of
Brigham Young when he was head of the church and first Governor of Utah.
It was also the home of his third wife who ran the household and served as
hostess for official receptions, etc. Apparently, wives one and two declined
the honour/stress of being the official hostess. It was quite a
spectacular house, with 12 foot ceilings and decorated in the European style
of the day. No comment on where he got his money. The other
wives lived in houses nearby.
After the organ recital,
we drove for a few hours into
Nevada before stopping for the night at the town of Elko. On our way, we
stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the Newfoundland Evaporation Basin.
Click here
for Salt Flat and Nevada pictures.
In the morning, it was too nippy for golfing so we drove a couple of
hours to the town of Winnemucca. By then it had warmed up and we
stopped for lunch and a quick round of golf then we continued to Reno.
We arrived in Reno in
late afternoon. The Fitzgerald Hotel is right in the centre of town,
under the Reno sign. The AMA book showed a price range of $30 to $130
a night so we thought we would take our chances. We got a rate of $32 per
night - including taxes! We went to their all you can eat $10 dinner
buffet and then toured the downtown, not a long tour. Unfortunately,
Reno doesn't have much in the way of shows and the ones they had were dark
on Mondays. We aren't much for gambling so, once we had checked out
the casinos, we had a quiet evening.
The next day, we spent some time shopping and then went to a comedy
show in the evening.
Wednesday morning we headed out to go to Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe,
which straddles the Nevada/California border, is at an elevation of 6,229 ft
and has an average depth of 989 feet. Because of its depth, it never
freezes. It is spectacularly clear and beautiful.
Our friends, Charles and Joan Buckley, were staying in South Lake
Tahoe and invited us to stay with them for the night. We spent the
afternoon driving around Lake Tahoe, admiring the views and enjoying the
fabulous weather, finishing up at a local casino for dinner.
On Thursday we went to
Sacramento with Charlie and Joan (via a Costco
and a factory outlet mall) where we toured the old town and had dinner. Sacramento
was near the site of the first gold find in 1848, state capital, and the
terminal for both the Pony Express and the transcontinental railroad so has
dozens of museums but we didn't arrive until later in the afternoon and only
had time for one. We picked wisely as the
highlight of our old town visit was the California State Railway
Museum. After dinner, we went to the Betty Crocker (no, not That Betty
Crocker) Art Museum. Built in 1870 next to the original Crocker home,
the Art Gallery has one of the finest 19th century art collections in
California. Most other wealthy collectors of the time moved to San
Francisco in its heyday and their collections were lost in the 1906
earthquake.
Then
Charlie and Joan headed back to Lake Tahoe. We didn't envy them their
drive back from sea level to over 6,000 ft. We continued on to Petaluma in
the wine district north of San Francisco. For the first time on the trip, we
were able to camp as the nights have been too cold till here.
We set up camp in the KOA Campground in Petaluma, next
to a market garden with pumpkins for Halloween and a corn maze which was a
favorite of the neighbourhood children.
Petaluma is in the wine country
north of San Francisco. We had planned to go wine tasting in Napa
but when we got to Sonoma, their Chamber of Commerce slogan got us: “Sonoma
is for Wine, Napa is for auto parts”. So we spent two days around there
sipping and sightseeing. We found lots of wonderful wines but,
unfortunately, they were all from small vineyards so we will never find them to buy again. Sonoma also is the site of
the Sonoma Mission, the furthest north of the California missions.
We
visited the Sebastiani Winery where they were crushing Merlot grapes and we
were able to see the whole process. It was
fascinating. The Merlot grapes are tiny – about the size of saskatoons.
Apparently it is an excellent year for them.
We
also used Petaluma as our base for touring San Francisco. We spent two
days seeing the sights there: in the Golden Gate State Park, on Fisherman’s
Wharf, at the Palace of the Arts, up Telegraph Hill, over to Alcatraz and
dinner in Chinatown. We were up and down so many hills that the
clutch started complaining so we stopped on the way out of town for a fluids
check. Everything was fine so Allen just tightened the clutch cable
and we were on the road again.
We got to Salinas that
night where we stayed in a motel for one night and golfed there the next day
(but not at Pebble Beach which was just next door), then continued on to
Buellton, just north of Santa Barbara where we camped for two nights. The
campground had the best and cleanest washrooms I have ever seen and, as you
know, I’ve seen a few. The campground is about 50% long term people – one
man we spoke to had been there three YEARS. Another one had been there
about 1 ½ years and hoped to be in his new house (he was building one) in
March/06. He was a real estate agent and said that starter homes in the
area were about $600,000 to $700,000! No wonder they live in RV parks.
We were very close to
Vandenberg Air Force Base and saw the launch of the last Titan Missile – at
least we heard the boom and then saw it and its exhaust trail in the sky.
Unfortunately we didn’t know what we were seeing so didn’t get a picture.
That was supposed to be
our beaching day and the weather was beautiful but we got sidetracked and
ended up visiting Lompoc, a town in the centre of the cut-flower farm area
where there are murals on all the public buildings. They grow a massive
variety of flowers during the summer but since this was mid-October, the
only flowers still blooming were stocks.
La Purisima Mission,
just outside Lompoc, is another of 23 build in California from about 1760 to
1830. Built in 1787, it is the best restored/reconstructed of them and was
quite interesting.
One of Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal initiatives was the formation of the Civilian Conservation
Corps which "brought together two wasted
resources, the young men and the land, in an effort to save both."
It undertook Environmental and Historical restoration projects nationwide.
Preservation and reconstruction of the
Mission complex began in 1934 through efforts of the County of Santa
Barbara, the State of California, the National Park Service and the Civilian
Conservation Corps. Under direction and labor from the latter two
organizations, buildings and grounds were restored and furnished to appear
as they had in 1820.
A full driving day got us to San
Diego where we are camping in a campground on Mission Bay that we have used
several times in the past. Very nice and conveniently located.
Every trip needs its
crisis and we had ours on Friday, the day after we arrived in San Diego. We
decided to buy our Mexican car insurance at the AAA here rather than waiting
till we were in Mexico so we went to their office to get it. Ruth pulled
out the pink slip and the registration and discovered that we had the
registration for… ready?... the Windstar. Anyone want to see a nice case of
controlled hysteria??? I mean Ruth didn’t start screaming or anything.
Just an e-mail and a couple of panic phone calls to kids. We e-mailed a
copy of the Windstar registration to Robin and he e-mailed a copy of the
Suzuki one to us. The original came to us on Monday by FedEx and the
Windstar one went home the same way. Thank God we had decided to get the
insurance here rather than arriving at the border to discover that we had no
papers for the car!!!!
Once we calmed down, we
went back to touring and visited the “Old Town” of San Diego, a district
from its village days in the early 1800’s. It was the first European
settlement on the west coast and was an interesting mix of European and
Mexican culture.
In the evening, we went
to a Musical in the Old Town Theatre on career and lifestyle changes caused
by ageism. It was a riot but the young couple sitting beside us couldn’t
relate at all.Saturday we went to our old favourite, Sea World. It was as
good as ever and better without the crowds. Sunday, we went to the Zoo.
It’s been eons since we were last there and we really enjoyed it too. The
weather had been cloudy and misty since we arrived here - not enough to
dampen our sightseeing but enough to keep the crowds at bay.
We also did the last
shopping for the trip – getting a cover and ropes for when we’re storing the
car in Mexico, getting the brakes checked (they were good), stocking up on
propane and drinking water for the drive, etc. Last thing to do was repack
the car as we had been getting a bit sloppy.
