MA to AZ and beyond

[rob cote]

Sunday morning, we said our final goodbyes to all our new and old friends and then we hit the road. Our plan was to explore Wisconsin, Michigan's upper peninsula, and then the lower peninsula. Kind of like a clockwise route. So - for once - the plan was what we did! We've dipped our toes into these states before, but we've never truly spent any significant amount of time in either. We'd heard great things from so many people, and we finally had a great opportunity to do it.

But first, we had to stop for some barbecue. We made our way northeast out of Kansas through Kansas City so this was an obvious stop. On a recommendation from some friends who used to live in KC, we went to Arthur Bryant's on the Missouri side to get some lunch. Que delicioso! Mandy got a sandwich, which ultimately provided two meals for her. I got some ribs and a weight of brisket. The ribs were lunch and the brisket paired perfectly with morning eggs the next couple days. The line was out onto the sidewalk because it was father's day, but it was worth the wait. The BBQ here is fantastic. If you find yourself hungry nearby, go.

From lunch, we continued on to Lathrop, MO. Middle of nowhere, honestly. We saw a fairgrounds on our map that allows overnight parking, so we went there. Unfortunately, as we arrived, we realized we had just missed an event. I'm not sure what it was, exactly, but there were a plethora of old-timey tractors. We could clearly tell that in the preceding hours, there were likely many more on site. As we pulled in, most were being loaded up onto trailers and hauled off site. We had done a bunch of driving, though, so we hopped out to walk around anyways. We checked out those that were still around while we tried to find someone in charge to tell us what we needed to do to park there. After circling a large swath of the area and coming up empty, we asked a couple who were sitting outside their camper if they knew who was in charge or what we were supposed to do. They dialed up some authority straight away and relayed that we only needed somewhere to park for the night and we'd be on our way in the morning. We didn't need to hook up any facilities. We were told in that case all we needed to do was find a spot we liked and park on it. No charge, no paperwork, no nothing. So easy!



We set up our chairs and relaxed in the setting sun. Loki sprawled on the grass, which was quite nice. It's easy to overlook good grass, but when you find it, it's great. Take your shoes off and really enjoy it. Some other neighbors were loading up a tractor and a camper, and there were some odd noises coming from that area, so we walked over to see if they needed any help. They had been replacing a flat tire on their trailer but by the time we got there, they were finishing up. They were still super appreciative of the offer to help, and we ended up chatting with them for a while. Either we were holding them up from leaving, or they were dragging their feet on it. I dunno. Eventually, they hit the road though. Super nice couple. What a treat.



After that, the sun was getting pretty low and then all the bugs began feasting, so we headed inside for the night.

 

[rob cote]

Monday morning, just as we said, we packed up and headed out in the morning. We drove up to Shueyville, Iowa, which I'm sure you've all heard of before, and then turned southeast to Solon. There's a really nice, small campground on Coralville Lake there, which we stayed at for a night. Nothing particularly noteworthy, other than that the lake water was really brown. The campground was really quiet - probably because it was a Monday - and super clean. I don't even think we spoke to anyone there, other than the host when we checked in. Neither good nor bad, just really different than most of our stays outside the USA. It's interesting.

Anyway, we only stayed the one night before moving on again to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When we were in Oaxaca - if you guys can remember back that far (it feels like years ago!) - we met some people at the RV park there. Jordan, Abi, and their 4 kids were living there in their bus. The bus is an old Wanderlodge, but they also have a small house in Milwaukee, just a few blocks from the coast of Lake Michigan. Before we'd left Oaxaca, we were spit-balling plans for what we may do when we got to the states. Everything had to remain tentative, pending Mandy's licensure process, but by this point we'd nailed down that it was totally within our schedule to drop in and see them for a few days. An offer they'd extended before any of us left Mexico.

So, that's what we did. Their driveway was empty, and they had us park there. Ultimately, we stayed three nights. We didn't really have a plan when we pulled in, but they are totally down to just wing it, which we love. We just kind of took each day bit by bit and did what we wanted. Mostly, it was chilling. They showed us some of their favorite places around the city. We walked to the beach and went swimming, which was so awesome. The beaches there are so nice! Soft sands and clear waters. We checked out some breweries, ate some cheese curds. Just generally did Milwaukee stuff.

While we were there, though, and even prior to arriving there, I was watching auto auctions. At some point, I tossed out a bid on an old Mercedes wagon figuring it'd sell for more than my bid of $750 but I just wanted to kind of get a feel for the process beyond the point of entering a bid. Literally, to see what happens. Well, after the auction ended, it just said "Sold - Pending approval". I'd seen that before on other auctions that I hadn't bid on, but I never really knew what it meant exactly. And in this case, I still didn't. So, we were all hanging out in the living room and all I could provide was, "I might? own a car". Eventually, an e-mail came through confirming the approval. I'd won the auction for $375, making me the [adjective] owner of a 1994 Mercedes E320 wagon. Not sure if that's good or bad, because here's the thing about auctions - they don't really tell you much. I suspect if the car doesn't start and drive first time they turn the key, that's the extent of the effort they put into it. So, the status on the listing was just "Unknown - not specified". So helpful. There were a handful of grainy pictures of the car, so I could at least discern that at the time of taking the pictures, the top end of the engine was present. It could be anything from a dead battery to the engine block has a gaping hole in it and the transmission is a transMISSING. Nobody knows.



(I just want to note that it was upon posting these pictures that I truly realized how bad the light green/dark green two-tone paint scheme is.)

So, I won the auction, and then it was a scramble to come up with a plan because the car was located in Sacramento, CA. My goal is to build it in Florida for two reasons. Most importantly, I have a competent mechanic friend who has already expressed interest in helping. Wrenching is always better with help, and by "help" I mean someone who will stand around and tell you you're an idiot the whole time. Maybe occasionally pass a tool. The second reason is that Florida has no motor vehicle inspection requirements, so I can actually build this thing. To enter a drag and drive event, the car must be road-legal. That's a lot easier to achieve when the car doesn't have to pass an inspection. The whole EV conversion is going to be difficult on its own, so this is an attempt to minimize my own effort.



Anyway, how to get the car from CA to FL? The simplest and obvious choice is to ship it. It's also the most expensive. But it's also required. You can't pick up a car from an auction site unless you're a licensed freight carrier. But it was really hard to swallow that pill. I was nowhere near inclined to pay $1600 to ship a $375 car. Even though, all in, it would still be a pretty cheap car, it's just a matter of principles. Shipping should never be 4x the value of the product being moved. I reached out to a friend who has people all around the world, and I asked if he knew anyone who would hold a car for me for a month. Ryan hooked me up with his uncle who is in Santa Rosa, just two hours away. Since paying for shipping was a hard requirement, I wanted to ship it the shortest distance possible, to minimize that cost.



It was an absolutely chaotic few days processing the payment and organizing all the logistics. But, we ultimately came up with a solid plan. I think. Hope? I have great friends and an excellent wife who is, not coincidentally, also a friend. One of the best friends, actually. I basically led with, "This is probably a terrible idea, but I want to do it." She was just like no problem. She even handled booking the flights. The car moved to David's house with only minor hiccups on the shipping company's part. Nothing to do with the car itself. He's happy to hold onto it until the beginning of August in his yard. My friend Shaun and I will fly from Orlando to San Francisco at the beginning of August. I guess that's the end of the "plan" and the beginning of the "hope" part. We hope to arrive at the car, put some fresh gas in it, then road trip it all the way to Florida. It could be seamless, or it could be a disaster, but either way it will be a story. And probably a hilarious one.

So, as you can see, I was a bit busy with that for a while. But also trying to socialize with our friends and be present, as well as plan ahead for logistics of making all this work. Writing to you guys went on the back burner, but I didn't die. Yet. While we were chilling with Jordan and Abi, we put together something of a plan for the following days after leaving their house. I'll write that part next.

 

[rob cote]

So, we left Milwaukee and headed north. Even though they lived in the area, they were horrible tourists, and Jordan and Abi had almost nothing to contribute for recommendations north of their city. We hassled them about it, but we didn't actually mind. One thing that the recommended was Door County. We made our way to Sturgeon Bay. I tried to make jokes to Mandy about how there must be a lot of sturgeries at the hospitals around the bay. Obviously, I failed. We just stopped in for we didn't really know what. Ever do that? We do it all the time, it feels like. After walking around a while, we found Starboard Brewing Company and popped in to grab a beer. Actually, we popped out, because we had Loki with us. So, we stayed on the sidewalk and tried to figure out what we wanted to do over a beer. Lunch sounded good to both of us, so we made our way a bit further down the street to Brick Lot. It was okay.



After that, we left the county and headed inland to Van Riper State Park. We reserved a campsite there for Saturday night. When we went to check in, a massive thunderstorm had knocked out power to the ranger station, so the ranger on duty couldn't help me at all. She was super friendly, and honest. I tried to help her laugh about the situation. I mean, it probably made her shift really boring, but I just had to reserve the site on my phone instead of her doing it through the PC. Big deal. I picked a site and we moved the van onto it. It continued to rain pretty much all night, so we stayed inside. A quick walk through with Loki showed a lot of the campsites were flooded with several inches of standing water. We were happy not to have one of those sites.



Monday morning, we decided to go into Marquette. I haven't mentioned it, but during this time, Mandy was furiously studying Florida pharmacy laws to prepare herself for her exam. She ordered a study guide while we were in Kansas, so since then she was hitting the books as much as possible. She was also doing a bunch of leg work to get to the point of taking the exam. You can't just show up and say, "Hi, I'm ready, give me the test". It's a whole process. She had to pay and apply to the national board of pharmacy to transfer her current license into the state of Florida. Then she had to request her transcripts, and have her previous employer send documentation of her hours worked and submit her recent continuing education credits and all previous licenses all to be sent to the Florida board of pharmacy. Then she had to pay to apply for a Florida pharmacy license. Then they had to approve her request to transfer the license. Then she had to pay to request to take the exam. Then she had to pay for the exam. Then she had to schedule to take the exam for a Florida license. Then await test results. Or something like that. I think I got close to the actual process. It's convoluted as heck. So anyways, her days were just full of studying punctuated by the next step of the license transfer process. But we were in Marquette. It was mostly rainy, so we just got groceries, Mandy ran into a store to find some fitting jeans. And we drove around Presque Isle Park. The park was pretty neat, on a small peninsula into Lake Superior. Unfortunately, dogs aren't allowed except in "fully enclosed vehicles" or something to that effect, so we literally only did a drive-by.



Unsure what else to do, and hoping for better weather to come, we decided to just return to Van Riper State Park for another night. It was a Sunday night, so a lot of the campers left over the afternoon and it was much emptier than the previous night. We caught a break in the rain, so we took Loki for a long stroll around the campground to the sounds of quickly approaching thunder. We got back inside just in time to not get wet by yet more rains. We built a small fire anyways after we put on our raincoats, because another camper left a still-burning log in their firepit. We figured we'd watch over it until the rains got heavy enough to drive us inside. Then, we went to bed.



Tuesday morning, we left Van Riper and headed to Munising. We did a hike up to a waterfall at Munising Falls which was short and sweet. Then, we drove over to Miner's Castle Overlook. I'm sure on a clear day, the views here would be awesome. Both those sites are part of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We got lunch in town because so many people had told us "You have to try a pasty". Well, okay. So, we did. They were fine? It was like the most average sandwich, I feel. I mean, the "bread", which is actually more like pie crust, was really good. And the filling was pretty bland. So, it balanced out? It was another rainy, chilly day, and it was good weather for that type of sandwich. But it was definitely over-hyped. We got a beer each at By George Brewing which were really good and not at all over-hyped.



From Munising, we drove south across the peninsula to Indian Lake Campground in Manistique. This campground is really nice, too. We were beginning to notice a trend regarding Michigan's state parks. However, the weather was not compliant. Another trend. It was super windy, incessantly blowing across the lake. It was also very hazy from wildfire smoke. It wasn't raining, though (mostly), so we made the best of it and walked around a bunch with Loki. We made dinner and then chilled inside for the night. We again didn't meet anyone in the campground. I think the wind drove all of us inside.

 

[rob cote]

Wednesday, we left from Indian Lake State Park and made our way around the lake to the west side. There, at Kitch-iti-Kipi, there is a spring which feeds the lake. The spring is super clear turquoise water. You're probably wondering how is it clear and turquoise? Well, so am I. They've built a boat there. I guess it's a boat? It's more of a floating dock attached to a cable. On the boat, there's a hand wheel you can spin to move the boat along the cable to the middle of the pool and back. We boarded with a couple dozen other people and rode across the pond. It was really neat to have such a clear view of the perfectly flat water. We could clearly see the water pouring into the spring at around 10,000 gallons per minute. Loki rode the boat with no complaints, too, which was awesome. A bunch of people pet him during the ride and he was just chilling the whole time.





When we left Kitch-iti-Kipi, we made our way east towards St. Ignace. We kept ironically calling it "San Ig-nay-shee-oh" because that's how so many gringos pronounce the Mexican town of San Ignacio. Anyway, on arrival, we located an ice cream shoppe to continue our tradition of Loki's birthday ice cream. He turned ten! Happy birthday Loki. I don't think he understands the concept, but he was stoked to get ice cream. He guzzled it immediately, per usual. No changes there. Just across the street, we dipped our toes into Lake Huron. Loki wasn't super interested in swimming, probably because it wasn't very hot. Who knows.



We left the beach after a bit and made our way to Kewadin Casino to park for the night. Mandy asked inside if we needed to check in or pay or anything, and they seemed confused, or perhaps just disorganized? She spoke with two separate staff, and they didn't require payment or anything, so we found a parking spot that was flat and pitched our chairs to hang outside for a while until we felt like going in to lay down.

The next day, we moved on to the Lower Peninsula. We went to Traverse City on a recommendation from Abe and Mel. We paid for parking for a few hours and walked around with Loki. There's a really nice walking path and some docks along the water which we followed for a while before meandering a little inland and loosely circling back towards the van. Along our way back, we decided to quench our hunger and get a bite to eat. We got a slice of pizza each at Two Sons Pizza and a beer from the Coin Slot. The beer selection there is crazy; they have so many different ones to choose from!



Afterwards, we weren't really sure what to do, but we were increasingly eager to get away from the smoky haze and head east. So we decided to head that way and drove to Bay City, which is kind of at the bottom of the bay between the thumb and forefinger if lower Michigan is a mitten. We stayed at a Cracker Barrel there for the night. Nothing very interesting.

 

[rob cote]

Thursday, we left the Barrel and drove to Paper Moon Winery in Vermillion, Ohio. It wasn't a super long drive, so we arrived early afternoon. We got a glass of wine and hung out in their yard for a while. Loki liked the grass there. Mandy's throat was continuing to get more sore and beginning to become a nuisance for her. It was still very smoky here. We asked if we could park overnight in their parking lot, which was no issue. So, we eventually made some dinner and hung out outside as much as possible because it was pretty hot. Not a super eventful day, mostly just relaxing, which was nice. Mandy studied a bunch.

Friday, we left the winery in the morning. We continued making our way east and got as far as the Finger Lakes region. Along the way, we stopped at the weirdest grocery store. I'm not sure if it's relevant, but it was Amish-owned. That's not really what was weird about it. The assortment of goods that they had for sale was the strangest mix of things. For example, the entire meat department consisted only of frozen pre-marinated pork loins, plus one 5lbs. bag of already-cooked, frozen beef stew. So, it kind of gave the impression there wasn't much selection. But then there were also tapioca balls (for bubble tea) in a multitude of flavor options. I've never even seen one flavor option in a grocery before. There was Dawn dish soap right next to repackaged, store labeled "Dish soap" with a "Compare to Dawn" label printed on it. There were a lot of overly large items, but only one of each. Like this gallon of mayonnaise:



After I left the store, barely crossing anything off our grocery list, I made Mandy go inside, just to see. It's impossible to truly describe the feel of the place. She was able to find a couple more things we needed, somehow. So, from there, we continued our ride to Cayuga Lake State Park. Along the way, she booked us a campsite, so once we arrived, we could just check in. We parked and took a walk with Loki down to the lake. It was so humid it was like we were swimming before we even got to the water. We meandered along the shoreline for a while and found a place Loki was allowed to enter the water. He just wanted to get his belly wet, then he was done. We made our way back to the campsite and hung out outside until the mozzys came to dine on us. Then, we went inside to sleep.



Saturday, we checked out after a walk around the campground. We were impressed at the size and layout of this campground. A lot of campgrounds have all similar-ish sites. For example, they might be all similarly wooded, or all open. Sometimes they're all small, closely spaced sites, or sometimes they're all spread out. Cayuga Lake seemed to have a lot of everything. There are small sites that are open to each other, there are secluded spots in dense woods, there are large, open group sites, and everything in between. It seemed a pretty clean campground, too. We liked it there.



We drove to Singlecut's taproom in Clifton Park, NY. I was excited when we realized they had a spot along our route. It was only a minor detour. I'm not even sure how we happened to come to that realization. We've had their beers before, though, and they're always really good, so we figured it would be a good stop. Plus, they say right on their website dogs are allowed inside. We stopped in for a beer each and took a few to go. Loki liked the cool cement floor, so he just laid down the whole time we were inside.



From Singlecut, we drove to another favorite of ours in central Vermont. Singleton's General Store still makes the best bacon we've ever had, even after all this travel. We just had to stop in and get some. Per usual, we got some sandwiches, too. Their sandwiches use their own house-smoked bacon, so of course they're the best. We took some bacon to go, and then discussed our plan for the night over lunch on their picnic table. We realized it was Saturday of the weekend before July 4th as we were trying to find a campsite available. It soon became apparent that we were not going to find anything open. It was a little bit further than we'd normally like to drive in a day, but we ultimately decided to make a push to Nashua, NH, to stay with family. It was that or stay at a park and ride or something, and we were just like why do that if we could instead hang out with people we know? So, we had a long driving day, but we ended up at my sister's house. Loki ran around the yard with their dog all night and we hung out under the pergola catching up and relaxing.

 

[rob cote]

Once we were "back home" (as everyone else calls it), we mostly just spent a lot of quality time with friends and family. We visited all the parents and siblings and even a few aunts, uncles, and cousins. We drove to Maine to see Mandy's side of the family, and we stayed in northern Maine for almost a week. We got some work done on her parents' house, but mostly just relaxed.



While we were up there, I talked with David a bit on the phone. If you recall, he is holding my car for me in Santa Rosa, CA. We learned some things about the car, which is great. I was still at a point where I could cancel the plane tickets and have the car shipped to FL if we discovered that the engine had exploded or something else catastrophic. It was kind of a rollercoaster ride for me, especially because he's in and out for work all the time, so I'd get an update and then he'd be gone for a few days. First, he sent some new photos of the car, which was great, because the ones from the auction site were not. Then he said he couldn't find the key, but admitted he hadn't looked very hard for it. But I noticed a marking on the windshield that said "Key doesn't turn", which wasn't present in the auction photos. After that, I looked into it further, and learned that they don't guarantee the keys to be delivered with the car. So, I ordered a replacement ignition cylinder and key set, and read that replacing it is miserable if you can't turn - or don't even have - the original key. I began to mentally prepare myself for that work to be done when we got there.

A few days later, I got an update that they key did in fact turn, but "no response from the engine room". The obvious first step would be to try jump starting it in this situation. I asked if that was a possibility, and David pulled through on that with video proof! It fired up without issue once connected to a proper power supply. I suggested not to let it run long, because the fuel is a mystery. But, in any case, that was a huge confidence boost and made Shaun and I much more comfortable making the trip. There's obviously still a ton that could go wrong, but if it idles, that's a massive help. Everyone knows early-90s German-engineered cars are famous for their reliability, so I'm sure everything will be fine. HA!



Mandy and her mom ganged up to make her a bunch of new clothes. That was fun to watch. Plus, free clothes! She had a dress made while she was in Tanzania by a local seamstress, but it ended up not quite what she wanted. They made adjustments to the dress, so it was cut more how she had envisioned it, plus removed a bunch of material to resize it to fit. It fit when it was made, but she lost a lot of weight recently, so it was loose everywhere. In the end, it fit way better and looked much more flattering. So, she was pumped.



When we started driving southwards again, we stopped in between Portland and Bangor to see Mandy's aunt. She's got a house on a lake and she's always the most welcoming. She truly seems to love having guests so we reached out on the way, on a whim, and she was like yes, please, absolutely stop in. When we arrived, we learned that she had gotten a boat. She offered to take us out, as her neighbors were loading up their boat to go out as well. They ultimately decided we should all just pile onto Cheryl's boat and go tubing and skiing and whatever else. Somehow, and I've never seen this before, the lake was smooth as glass at around 4:00pm. It was like 6am-flat. It was odd, but none of us were going to doubt it. We all took turns tubing and skiing and even Loki went with us! He didn't LOVE the boat, but he did really well the whole time. It was the ideal conditions for getting him accustomed to it, because there were so few waves.



Anyway, after circling back to southern NH from our circuit of Maine, we had plans to head up to northern NH to check out my dad's new, additional house. Along our way, Mandy took her Florida pharmacy license exam. At the time of this writing, we're still waiting to learn if she passed. We spent a weekend on the Baker River hanging out with family there and just relaxing. It was our final days of being around everyone for a while, because after we left, it was time to move.

 

[rob cote]

So, we left Warren on Sunday morning to head south to Nashua. We left just in the nick of time, too. After we got through Tilton, the highway was completely closed for a bad traffic incident. My dad didn't end up getting to Nashua until around 8:00pm.

When we moved into the van, we retained a few things that wouldn't fit inside the van, but we didn't want to part with. Things that we knew we'd want to use again someday, and that were worth keeping. Like dishes and flatware, some more formal clothing, and of course, tools. The overwhelming majority of what was left behind was tools. I brought some with me, and honestly, enough for what I was doing on the road. But, since we've been travelling, I've been missing a bit more adventurous mechanic-ing and definitely fabricating. Maintenance is fun when I'm bored because it's something to do, but what I really like is creating stuff that's new and different. And performance enhancements. That's really the main driver behind the EV conversion project I'm working towards. It will be a challenge, and I'll have to learn a lot of new stuff, and that's what I've been missing. I'm excited for it.

Anyway, we spent a day putting together everything left that we own in my mom's garage. I put chalk lines on the floor to mark out the various U-Haul enclosed trailer sizes, so we could figure out which one we'd need. There are 4'x8', 5'x8', and 6'x12' sizes. Each has a different ceiling height, too, which we had to account for. Ultimately, we figured out a 4x8 would be just a tad too small, so we reserved a 5x8' trailer for Monday July 24. Monday morning, I dropped off some miscellaneous hardware to a friend who might have a use for it, then picked up the trailer on my way back. Mandy and I loaded up the toolboxes and everything else into the trailer in about 2 hours. It was the almost more strategy involved than packing an entire house into a van. Everything had to fit juuust right.



We set out around 3:00pm to try and get as far as possible. We didn't do very well, but my back was in shambles from lifting the toolboxes and whatnot, then sitting for a while. We got just south of Hartford, in Waterbury, CT. Ideally situated for Tuesday's morning rush.



We set out Tuesday and absolutely killed it. Our first three hours through NYC, we were averaging like 25mph I think. It was awful. After about 7 hours of driving, I was beat. Mandy found us a campsite in Greenbelt Park just northwest of D.C. This was nice, as we could hang outside and walk around the campground, rather than some parking lot. We tried to build a fire to cook over, but everything was so wet, it didn't really take off. We reheated leftovers in the oven outside on the picnic table, to keep the heat out of the van. That was a big brain maneuver from Mandy.

Wednesday, we were again perfectly poised to hit the morning rush around D.C., so that was fun. We debated waiting, or trying to route creatively to avoid traffic, but my stance was that I don't really know what direction traffic is moving and at what times. We wouldn't arrive any earlier by waiting, so I figured it best to just get on with it. This morning traffic wasn't quite so bad, but still suboptimal. We got through the capitol and then continued on all the way to Manning, SC. We stopped at a Walmart for the night, and I pretty much crashed straight away. It had been a long day.



Thursday, we got up and drove, really stopping only for fuel and pee breaks. We really wanted to get to our friends' house in Tavares, FL, as they were leaving after work, but offered help unloading our trailer. We arrived with plenty of time and got extra hands unloading everything and finding good homes for things. Plus, it was great to see them before they left for the weekend.

We were in charge of their dogs while they went camping for their anniversary. After they left, I returned the U-Haul trailer, and we began the process of settling into the house. We'll be here until they get back with their trailer, then we'll be in that. It has an air conditioner and plugs into shore power in their yard. Plus, it's level in their yard which our van isn't. Mandy waits with bated breath to receive her test score. The dogs mostly hang inside where it's cool. We walk in the mornings and evenings. We try to figure out a longer-term plan for our lives.