rfoubi
Observer
So my wife, Kim, and I have been to Baja 5-6 times since we met 10 years ago. Many times without our vehicle, and in 2009 we drove our trusty VW van down the mainland and back up the peninsula. Since then the van has gotten older (it’s an 87) and put on many miles (up to 460,000km), but has been infused with a newer Subaru engine and tons of mods, and is still going strong.
Of course we have changed since then too, and welcomed a new member into the family. Orson was born in February and starting going on weekend van camping trips with us ever since he was 2 months old. Although our summer weekend trips were frequent and great, we were really dreaming of getting on the road again for a longer trip, specifically back to the desert SW and Baja.
Originally the trip was slated for November, which is a cold, dark and generally undesirable month in the ski town we live in (Rossland BC). Too cold and wet/dark to mountain bike, not enough snow to really ski, etc. However a 3 month work contract came up that I couldn’t refuse, and thus the dates we had available were mid December to mid January. As you know, North America is pretty cold and dark for the most part at that time of year, so we were going to have to stay south and low elevation if we hoped to get the nice weather we were looking for.
Since the whole northern 2/3 of the US and all of Canada was frozen solid, and driving 2500km each way with a baby seemed like a terrible idea, we decided that Kim and Orson would fly to Phoenix and I would drive the van and all our junk down, and then we would focus our trip on southern AZ/CA and northern Baja.
It was a crazy week leading up to departure date, but we managed to get the van loaded up with bikes, our canoe, camping gear, baby stuff, and everything we would need. Of course we had a work Christmas party to go to on the Friday night, and then I had foolishly booked the flight to show up in PHX on Monday morning. So it was going to be a marathon drive for me, in full winter conditions in a 30 year old vehicle, with 2600km to cover in 54 hours. Anway, lets begin!
Part One: Canada to Phoenix
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
3:45am, temperature -19C (-2F). No block heater, van parked outside. But the suby motor purred to life first try and the van and I were off! 10 minutes later I crossed the US border with no issues, and it was game on. The next 3-4 hours were quite dark and cold… The heat works decently in the van, but it only comes out in the front, and there is a lot of cold airspace sucking the heat back as fast as it can come out the front. I had to drive with the heat on full the whole time, and even then my feet would get cold, and I was rocking a down vest and toque.
A few weird quirks with transmission being stiff to shift, door locks freezing shut etc kept me on the edge of my seat, but eventually the worry dissipated, and gave way to the excitement of being on the road again. The familiar noises of the van set me at ease, and a hot coffee in my hand made watching the sunrise come to the frozen countryside of rural Washington quite the pleasure as I cruised south.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
I hit I-90 and blasted over to tri-ctites, and drove all over town trying to track down a few items I hadn’t had time to gather for the trip. A new house battery, spare coolant, fuel filters, headlight bulbs, and anything else that might be hard to track down in rural mexico. I stocked up on groceries and supplies as well, and then continued down I84 into Oregon, and across the mountain passes near Baker City and La Grande. I stopped to snap a photo and soak in the glorious snow covered PNW before I started into the desert.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
The van in all its glory, looking silly with canoe and bikes in a snowy forest. A quick sidenote about the van and its history: My parents bought in new in 87, at which point I was 2 years old. I basically grew up with this van throughout my childhood, and then when I was 16, the transmission went on the van and my parents were contemplating selling it. I made a deal to pay for the transmission repair (which thankfully didn’t cost the $4k it would these days) and the van was mine. Since then it was my daily driver for years. Before we went to Mexico the first time, I stripped the old rusty paintjob down to bare metal and repainted it my garage with rollers and 200 bucks of marine paint. Since then we’ve slowly turned it into a very capable expedition rig. It is only 2WD, but with rear engine and rear wheel drive, loads of clearance, a LSD, and big tires, it will go an amazing amount of places. The engine was replaced 5 years ago with a 2008 subaru 2.5L engine putting out 165 HP that now enables us to do the speed limit, even up hills! Other kit includes second battery, 12V truckfridge, propex propane heater, 2x 30W solar panels on the ski box, etc etc.
Anyway sorry, I digress! Back to eastern Oregon:
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Nice sunny, cold weather, with bare roads made for quite pleasant driving as the sun set and I passed through Mountain home, ID, before heading south on the 51 through Owyhee and Mountain City, NV.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Very cold, however. -22C intake temps. As I crossed the mountains into northern Nevada, it dropped as low as -26 outside (-15F). This is after I have driven 1300km straight south. ******. Anyway around midnight I pulled into a dirt road south of Carlin, and settled in for some much needed rest. 1360km/850 miles for the day. Great success!
It was a bit of a cold night (-15C). usually I would have my -40 sleeping bag, but we were heading for mexico and I figured on lows around freezing at worst. So I huddled under the wool blankets and it was actually decently comfortable. Although we have a propex propane heater with a thermostat that I could run all night to keep the van warm, for some reason I just like to tough it out and only crank the heater in the morning to take the chill off. I sure enjoyed warming my toes by the heater in the morning though!
I woke up before dawn, eager to keep pushing on to make it to PHX by the next morn. I watched the sun rise in the expansive desert of northern Nevada as I continued south.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
While planning the routes I would drive, I had mainly been interested in trying to find a fairly quick direct route, but also one that travelled a few roads I hadn’t been on. So I took 278 towards Eureka, and then west towards Austin. My trip planning had also involved finding some hot springs that were close to pavement so I could sneak in a tub or two en route. I decided to check out Spencer Hot Springs southeast of Austin, NV.
It felt great to turn off the pavement and get onto the gravel. Hot springs is ahead in the distance.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Oh and the views weren’t bad either
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
The pools were a bit too cool since the ambient temps had been so low for so long, but it was still warm enough to soak. There were 2 other people when I showed up, so we chatted for a while, and then they left, and I had the tub to myself, with the amazing snowy mountain backdrop. It was hard to leave! But I still had a very long way to go, so, alas I hit the pavement again and blasted south.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
I had planned to go through Tonopah and check out the Crescent Dunes, and the giant solar power plant there. My dad (who also loves the desert and epic drives) had shown me some photos of this area, and I had been intrigued ever since. Secretly I was also just looking for excuses to take some dirt backroads on the way down south. I followed 376 south past Round Mountain, and then turned west onto the high speed gravel desert tracks that cut west towards route 89.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Soon, I could see the solar tower, rising out of the shimmering desert like the eye of Sauron.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
It beckoned me like a beacon in the desert, and after 20-30km of gravel I arrived.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
It’s a huge array, and consists of >10,000 heliostats (big mirrors) that concentrate the suns rays on a giant central tower full of molten salt, which stores the thermal energy. Pretty cool to see in person, the scale is staggering. Unfortunately it was down for maintenance, so all of the mirrors were tilted flat.
Its also located right next to some amazing sand dunes, so its great to see nature and technology both in all their glory. I took a quick jog up the dunes to get some exercise and snap some photos. Oh and I was pretty excited that the temperature outside had finally broken above freezing. That only took 1000 miles of driving!
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
This was a last minute project before the trip, getting some solar power of my own to help keep the batteries topped up while camping. The only available real estate on the roof of the van is the roof of our ski box, since we always have mountain bikes and either surfboards or a canoe. I mounted two 30W Renogy solar panels up there and wired them up with MC4 connectors so the roof box could still be taken off (eg to work on my van in the garage at home). There is space for another 30w panel up there, so at some point I will probably add to the capacity of the system. I’d love to add a movable 80-100W setup to really harness the suns power, but this system is working amazingly so far. Its nice to watch the battery voltage displays and see the effect of the sun charging the batteries anytime the sun is out. Whether we are at camp with the roof box lid propped up and pointed at the sun, or simply pulling into a grocery store and the rig sits for half an hour soaking up the sun. Previous to installing solar, our house battery would run the fridge, interior lights etc for between 36 and 48 hours before the voltage dropped too low. Now, even after running the propex heater (12v fan) for 1hr a day, the fridge 24-7, interior lights, stereo, and exterior LED camp lighting, and commonly 2-3 hours of charging a macbook, camera and ipad, we never killed the battery after >48hrs (which was the longest we ever stayed in one place).
Anyway enough rambling about that, let’s get back to the trip. Another last minute item I had purchased for the desert/beach were some MAXSA sand ladders. These are basically one of the better reviewed of the knock-off Maxtrax type ladders. I didn’t want to spend too much on them but wanted something to keep our heavy 2wd rig from getting really buried in the sand. So I decided to do some testing in a small patch of sand with a hard bottom gravel road under, in a place with cell service not far from the highway in case I got really stuck haha. I figured better to test it solo first and figure out the capabilities, rather than on a beach with the tide coming in a screaming baby, and an unimpressed wife!
So I parked on the soft stuff, hit the brakes, gunned the throttle and buried the back wheels. Nice and stuck. Next dig the sand out, plop the ladders in, and then carefully feather the clutch and throttle to roll onto the ladders, pick up some speed, and hopefully float across the sand. It worked amazingly well! I had to repeat this process several times, but overall I was super impressed with how well it works. After having been stuck in sand/snow many times in both 4WD and 2WD vehicles, I sure can appreciate having these around. So while I always kind of thought that these were poser expo bling, I now totally see how well they actually work, and won’t travel without them again.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
I shook the sand off the ladders, packed them up (lashed to the inside of the canoe) and hit the road. Since my route took me directly through Las Vegas, I decided to hit up my favourite taco joint (Tacos El Gordo), which is located on the strip. I still don’t get how this little strip mall of Korean restaurants, the taco restaurant, and some liquor stores and convenience stores hasn’t been bulldozed for a glitzy casino, but by some miracle it hasn’t, and I waited in the 20 minute lineup, which was totally worth it, and walked away with 5 tacos al pastor, refueled, and hit the road.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Token vegas shot.
I headed southwest, past the pitch black hoover dam, across the new (ish) bridge and into Arizona. Unfortunately there had just been a big accident involving a moving truck with trailer rolling on the freeway. I sat in gridlock for 2 hours, but it wasn’t too bad since I had plenty of organizing and fiddly little last minute interior projects that hadn’t been completed in the hurry to hit the road. So I tinkered inside the van until traffic got moving again, and then made it as far as Wickenburg, Az, where I pulled onto a dirt road and found a place to crash. Another 1100km covered today. Waking up a scant few hours later was rough, but the sunrise and the Saguaros made it worthwhile.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
An uneventful but slow, rush hour drive into Phoenix ensued, and I did in fact make it to the airport in time to meet the flight that Kim and Orson were on.
I’ll end this part with a shot of me pulling into the airport and a map of the route so far.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUIlJ9E3EtnyvpoLmdybui6yVMk&usp=sharing
Stay tuned for part two. (Southern Arizona)
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Of course we have changed since then too, and welcomed a new member into the family. Orson was born in February and starting going on weekend van camping trips with us ever since he was 2 months old. Although our summer weekend trips were frequent and great, we were really dreaming of getting on the road again for a longer trip, specifically back to the desert SW and Baja.
Originally the trip was slated for November, which is a cold, dark and generally undesirable month in the ski town we live in (Rossland BC). Too cold and wet/dark to mountain bike, not enough snow to really ski, etc. However a 3 month work contract came up that I couldn’t refuse, and thus the dates we had available were mid December to mid January. As you know, North America is pretty cold and dark for the most part at that time of year, so we were going to have to stay south and low elevation if we hoped to get the nice weather we were looking for.
Since the whole northern 2/3 of the US and all of Canada was frozen solid, and driving 2500km each way with a baby seemed like a terrible idea, we decided that Kim and Orson would fly to Phoenix and I would drive the van and all our junk down, and then we would focus our trip on southern AZ/CA and northern Baja.
It was a crazy week leading up to departure date, but we managed to get the van loaded up with bikes, our canoe, camping gear, baby stuff, and everything we would need. Of course we had a work Christmas party to go to on the Friday night, and then I had foolishly booked the flight to show up in PHX on Monday morning. So it was going to be a marathon drive for me, in full winter conditions in a 30 year old vehicle, with 2600km to cover in 54 hours. Anway, lets begin!
Part One: Canada to Phoenix
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr3:45am, temperature -19C (-2F). No block heater, van parked outside. But the suby motor purred to life first try and the van and I were off! 10 minutes later I crossed the US border with no issues, and it was game on. The next 3-4 hours were quite dark and cold… The heat works decently in the van, but it only comes out in the front, and there is a lot of cold airspace sucking the heat back as fast as it can come out the front. I had to drive with the heat on full the whole time, and even then my feet would get cold, and I was rocking a down vest and toque.
A few weird quirks with transmission being stiff to shift, door locks freezing shut etc kept me on the edge of my seat, but eventually the worry dissipated, and gave way to the excitement of being on the road again. The familiar noises of the van set me at ease, and a hot coffee in my hand made watching the sunrise come to the frozen countryside of rural Washington quite the pleasure as I cruised south.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrI hit I-90 and blasted over to tri-ctites, and drove all over town trying to track down a few items I hadn’t had time to gather for the trip. A new house battery, spare coolant, fuel filters, headlight bulbs, and anything else that might be hard to track down in rural mexico. I stocked up on groceries and supplies as well, and then continued down I84 into Oregon, and across the mountain passes near Baker City and La Grande. I stopped to snap a photo and soak in the glorious snow covered PNW before I started into the desert.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrThe van in all its glory, looking silly with canoe and bikes in a snowy forest. A quick sidenote about the van and its history: My parents bought in new in 87, at which point I was 2 years old. I basically grew up with this van throughout my childhood, and then when I was 16, the transmission went on the van and my parents were contemplating selling it. I made a deal to pay for the transmission repair (which thankfully didn’t cost the $4k it would these days) and the van was mine. Since then it was my daily driver for years. Before we went to Mexico the first time, I stripped the old rusty paintjob down to bare metal and repainted it my garage with rollers and 200 bucks of marine paint. Since then we’ve slowly turned it into a very capable expedition rig. It is only 2WD, but with rear engine and rear wheel drive, loads of clearance, a LSD, and big tires, it will go an amazing amount of places. The engine was replaced 5 years ago with a 2008 subaru 2.5L engine putting out 165 HP that now enables us to do the speed limit, even up hills! Other kit includes second battery, 12V truckfridge, propex propane heater, 2x 30W solar panels on the ski box, etc etc.
Anyway sorry, I digress! Back to eastern Oregon:
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrNice sunny, cold weather, with bare roads made for quite pleasant driving as the sun set and I passed through Mountain home, ID, before heading south on the 51 through Owyhee and Mountain City, NV.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrVery cold, however. -22C intake temps. As I crossed the mountains into northern Nevada, it dropped as low as -26 outside (-15F). This is after I have driven 1300km straight south. ******. Anyway around midnight I pulled into a dirt road south of Carlin, and settled in for some much needed rest. 1360km/850 miles for the day. Great success!
It was a bit of a cold night (-15C). usually I would have my -40 sleeping bag, but we were heading for mexico and I figured on lows around freezing at worst. So I huddled under the wool blankets and it was actually decently comfortable. Although we have a propex propane heater with a thermostat that I could run all night to keep the van warm, for some reason I just like to tough it out and only crank the heater in the morning to take the chill off. I sure enjoyed warming my toes by the heater in the morning though!
I woke up before dawn, eager to keep pushing on to make it to PHX by the next morn. I watched the sun rise in the expansive desert of northern Nevada as I continued south.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrWhile planning the routes I would drive, I had mainly been interested in trying to find a fairly quick direct route, but also one that travelled a few roads I hadn’t been on. So I took 278 towards Eureka, and then west towards Austin. My trip planning had also involved finding some hot springs that were close to pavement so I could sneak in a tub or two en route. I decided to check out Spencer Hot Springs southeast of Austin, NV.
It felt great to turn off the pavement and get onto the gravel. Hot springs is ahead in the distance.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrOh and the views weren’t bad either
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrThe pools were a bit too cool since the ambient temps had been so low for so long, but it was still warm enough to soak. There were 2 other people when I showed up, so we chatted for a while, and then they left, and I had the tub to myself, with the amazing snowy mountain backdrop. It was hard to leave! But I still had a very long way to go, so, alas I hit the pavement again and blasted south.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrI had planned to go through Tonopah and check out the Crescent Dunes, and the giant solar power plant there. My dad (who also loves the desert and epic drives) had shown me some photos of this area, and I had been intrigued ever since. Secretly I was also just looking for excuses to take some dirt backroads on the way down south. I followed 376 south past Round Mountain, and then turned west onto the high speed gravel desert tracks that cut west towards route 89.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrSoon, I could see the solar tower, rising out of the shimmering desert like the eye of Sauron.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrIt beckoned me like a beacon in the desert, and after 20-30km of gravel I arrived.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrIt’s a huge array, and consists of >10,000 heliostats (big mirrors) that concentrate the suns rays on a giant central tower full of molten salt, which stores the thermal energy. Pretty cool to see in person, the scale is staggering. Unfortunately it was down for maintenance, so all of the mirrors were tilted flat.
Its also located right next to some amazing sand dunes, so its great to see nature and technology both in all their glory. I took a quick jog up the dunes to get some exercise and snap some photos. Oh and I was pretty excited that the temperature outside had finally broken above freezing. That only took 1000 miles of driving!
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrThis was a last minute project before the trip, getting some solar power of my own to help keep the batteries topped up while camping. The only available real estate on the roof of the van is the roof of our ski box, since we always have mountain bikes and either surfboards or a canoe. I mounted two 30W Renogy solar panels up there and wired them up with MC4 connectors so the roof box could still be taken off (eg to work on my van in the garage at home). There is space for another 30w panel up there, so at some point I will probably add to the capacity of the system. I’d love to add a movable 80-100W setup to really harness the suns power, but this system is working amazingly so far. Its nice to watch the battery voltage displays and see the effect of the sun charging the batteries anytime the sun is out. Whether we are at camp with the roof box lid propped up and pointed at the sun, or simply pulling into a grocery store and the rig sits for half an hour soaking up the sun. Previous to installing solar, our house battery would run the fridge, interior lights etc for between 36 and 48 hours before the voltage dropped too low. Now, even after running the propex heater (12v fan) for 1hr a day, the fridge 24-7, interior lights, stereo, and exterior LED camp lighting, and commonly 2-3 hours of charging a macbook, camera and ipad, we never killed the battery after >48hrs (which was the longest we ever stayed in one place).
Anyway enough rambling about that, let’s get back to the trip. Another last minute item I had purchased for the desert/beach were some MAXSA sand ladders. These are basically one of the better reviewed of the knock-off Maxtrax type ladders. I didn’t want to spend too much on them but wanted something to keep our heavy 2wd rig from getting really buried in the sand. So I decided to do some testing in a small patch of sand with a hard bottom gravel road under, in a place with cell service not far from the highway in case I got really stuck haha. I figured better to test it solo first and figure out the capabilities, rather than on a beach with the tide coming in a screaming baby, and an unimpressed wife!
So I parked on the soft stuff, hit the brakes, gunned the throttle and buried the back wheels. Nice and stuck. Next dig the sand out, plop the ladders in, and then carefully feather the clutch and throttle to roll onto the ladders, pick up some speed, and hopefully float across the sand. It worked amazingly well! I had to repeat this process several times, but overall I was super impressed with how well it works. After having been stuck in sand/snow many times in both 4WD and 2WD vehicles, I sure can appreciate having these around. So while I always kind of thought that these were poser expo bling, I now totally see how well they actually work, and won’t travel without them again.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrI shook the sand off the ladders, packed them up (lashed to the inside of the canoe) and hit the road. Since my route took me directly through Las Vegas, I decided to hit up my favourite taco joint (Tacos El Gordo), which is located on the strip. I still don’t get how this little strip mall of Korean restaurants, the taco restaurant, and some liquor stores and convenience stores hasn’t been bulldozed for a glitzy casino, but by some miracle it hasn’t, and I waited in the 20 minute lineup, which was totally worth it, and walked away with 5 tacos al pastor, refueled, and hit the road.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrToken vegas shot.
I headed southwest, past the pitch black hoover dam, across the new (ish) bridge and into Arizona. Unfortunately there had just been a big accident involving a moving truck with trailer rolling on the freeway. I sat in gridlock for 2 hours, but it wasn’t too bad since I had plenty of organizing and fiddly little last minute interior projects that hadn’t been completed in the hurry to hit the road. So I tinkered inside the van until traffic got moving again, and then made it as far as Wickenburg, Az, where I pulled onto a dirt road and found a place to crash. Another 1100km covered today. Waking up a scant few hours later was rough, but the sunrise and the Saguaros made it worthwhile.
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on FlickrAn uneventful but slow, rush hour drive into Phoenix ensued, and I did in fact make it to the airport in time to meet the flight that Kim and Orson were on.
I’ll end this part with a shot of me pulling into the airport and a map of the route so far.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUIlJ9E3EtnyvpoLmdybui6yVMk&usp=sharing
Stay tuned for part two. (Southern Arizona)
Untitled by Robin Foubister, on Flickr
