Feb 23 2011

When yellow labs attack …

There’s always something to be learned from even the most unfortunate circumstances. Last night, cruising in the car near sunset, my black Mercedes 300D was whacked by a dog. No, I didn’t hit him — he hit me.

The dog, a yellow labrador, was off leash and ran out onto Broadway, which is a busy five-lane thoroughfare in Tucson. He crossed the centerline and actually rammed my car on the driver’s side front fender. I saw only a brief glimpse of him and then — WHAM! — and my first thought was, “Oh no, I’ve just killed a dog.”

But he wasn’t killed. He bounced off the car, and ran back across the roadway. I stopped, but again I only got a glimpse of the dog as he high-tailed it back to the side of the road. I grabbed a piece of door trim that had been ripped off the car and then made the first possible U-turn back to the scene.

There I found a lady who was holding the dog by the collar and petting him reassuringly, while talking on her cell phone to the owner (the dog had good tags). He appeared not only completely uninjured, but quite happy about his circumstances, doing all the usual yellow lab things like grinning foolishly and panting and inviting me to pet him too. There was some concern that the dog might have a concussion, especially after we got a good look at the large dent his head put in the steel fender of my tank-like Mercedes, so when the owner arrived we encouraged him to take the dog to a vet for a good check.

But really, he’s a yellow lab. Does he even have a brain to bruise? (I’m going to get grief from my friend Al B for that remark. He trains yellow lab puppies for Canine Companions for Independence. But those dogs are carefully bred and selected for ability.)

Well, I hope he’s OK. He seemed like a nice dog, even if not too savvy about traffic. And I suspect his owner has learned a lesson too.

But wouldn’t you know, the damage estimate came in at $785, which will not be covered by insurance since I carry only liability on that car. So now I have a good reason to have a chat with the dog’s owner. At the time of the incident I got only a phone number, because (stupidly enough) I didn’t have a working pen in the car. We were in a hurry to see the dog off to a vet, so I didn’t press further.

Thanks to the scary miracle of the Internet, that was sufficient. With a few minutes of careful Internet searches, I was able to turn up not only the owner’s name and address, but also:

personal and office email addresses
religious associations
mailing address
colleges and degrees, including GPA from undergrad and his current program of study
photographs
names of some friends
where he had lunch last week

Yes, it doesn’t take much to leave a big footprint on the Internet. (I’m sure mine is far larger than I want it to be.) But with Facebook, Twitter, mySpace, etc., some folks are especially discoverable. The relevant info will go to my insurance company and they’ll see about getting some compensation for the damage.

In the meantime, I have decided to take the 300D to Palm Springs tomorrow as planned. I was able to reattach the door trim with new clips from the local dealer, and with that in place the rest of the damage isn’t terribly embarrassing. The paint is mostly OK, and this is the desert anyway, so rust won’t be a big issue. I’ll get it fixed in a couple of weeks. If you are coming to Modernism Week to see the Vintage Trailer Show, please avert your eyes from the driver’s side front fender and help me pretend that my car didn’t just get rammed by a hard-headed labrador.

Feb 11 2011

Road-tripping, vintage Mercedes style

I’ve got a roadtrip coming, and I’m psyched about it. You’d think that after years of traveling by Airstream I might be a little jaded by the thought of yet another cross-country drive, but not so. The fact that I’m always looking forward to the next trip tells me something good: I like what I’m doing. That’s kind of my ideal for life, to have a sense that most days I am doing what I want to do.

This trip is particularly exciting because I’m taking the vintage Mercedes 300D for its first big highway excursion. We’ll be going to Palm Springs, California for the Modernism Week Vintage Trailer Show.

No, I’m not going to be towing a trailer this time. I would have brought the 1968 Airstream Caravel, but through a series of events we ended up with 20 trailers in the show instead of the 18 we had space for, and I had to give up my own space so that we could fit them all. So I’m staying in the Riviera Resort & Spa (the venue for the event) and won’t be bringing the Caravel this year.

But the loss of my trailer space was a blessing in disguise, because the old Merc should fit in better with all the old trailers. I’ve wanted to get that car out for a good stretch of the legs anyway. My recent trip to Phoenix showed that these W123-chassis sedans deserve their reputation as fine highway cruisers. A 350-mile run across the desert seems like a great roadtrip to me, and this is the ideal time of year to do it. Once the heat arrives in May, the old car’s air conditioning will be severely challenged. Late February and March in the low desert is the season to roll the windows down and let the wind blow into the cabin.

I have to admit that this time I’ve had more trepidation about the possibility of a breakdown than I’ve ever had towing an Airstream. On the day of the trip I have to drive 100 miles up to Phoenix, pick up Brett at Sky Harbor International Airport, then continue to Palm Springs and arrive by dinnertime. There’s not much room for sitting beside the road waiting for roadside assistance. A 27 year old car with 167,000 miles on it is perhaps not the best choice when you absolutely positively have to be in Palm Springs to coordinate 20 trailers.

But the old Mercedes diesels have a fantastic reputation for running even when they should by all rights be having parts stripped off them at a junkyard. And with good maintenance, there’s absolutely no reason this car won’t go across the USA and back with 100% reliability. It’s really a matter of taking care of your vehicle and proactively maintaining things rather than waiting for them to break.

So I’ve had the car looked over twice, by two different mechanics, and asked for specific opinions about potentially problematic parts. Since my last blog about “The Bug List”, I have narrowed down the remaining issues to only cosmetic and inconsequential items. I even sprang for a new set of Michelins (thanks for the push, Tom!)

But still, it’s good to be prepared. And as I’ve noted before, prepping for a roadtrip can be a huge part of the fun. This time I’ve been researching common problems and the tools needed to overcome them, and gradually collecting the tools I might need along the way. The old Mercedes are very well designed for servicing, to the point that it seems 90% of the repairs you might need to do along the road can be accomplished with a socket wrench and an extension, three or four sockets, and a couple of fuel filters.

I’ve added a few Mercedes-specific items, like a lug bolt guide tool to help with tire changing, some of the odd “festoon” light bulbs used in interior lamps, and the unusual ceramic fuses, plus a quart of oil. With the addition of my well-stocked Airstream kit bag, I can pretty much disassemble and reassemble half the car, and that should be much more than I’ll ever use on this trip. In fact, I will be surprised if any of the tools come out of the trunk at all. I’m just being overly cautious.

One of the fun bits is that I will be running the car on biodiesel for at least the first half of the trip. Biodiesel is amazing stuff. It’s made from vegetable oil, so it’s almost carbon-neutral. Running B20 (20% biodiesel, 80% dino diesel) cuts most pollutants in the exhaust considerably, which is nice since this is a 1984-era car that isn’t nearly as clean as my 2009 version diesel with the built-in chemical processing plant.

Biodiesel is biodegradable and completely non-toxic, so spills or human contact are not much of a problem. It makes the car run a little quieter, cleans out the fuel system (because it is a solvent), and — best of all — it makes the exhaust smell like vegetable oil (reminds me of making popcorn). The only problems I’ve found is that 100% biodiesel is a bit expensive, currently $3.94 per gallon in Tucson, and it will require me to replace the rubber fuel lines soon with a different type that isn’t degraded by contact with it.

Well, there’s one other problem, too: I haven’t been yet able find a reliable source for biodiesel in Palm Springs, so on the way back we’ll have to run dino-diesel. (UPDATE: I got the new biodiesel-compatible fuel hoses and am talking to California biodiesel producers about how I might get a refill near Palm Springs.)

See? I’m geeking out about it. I love it when, rather than mixing business and pleasure, business is pleasure. It’s not always that way, and in fact I can think of a lot of times I’ve hated what I had to do, but on balance the times like this make up for it. Just a simple roadtrip — but it’s going to be one of the highlights of February and a memorable experience for years to come. I can’t wait to get rolling.

Jan 29 2011

Car and trailer shows

Although much of the rest of the country is frozen solid right now, it’s car show season in southern Arizona. Every couple of weeks there’s a small car show somewhere around Tucson, and about once a month there will be a fairly major one nearby. California has the reputation as being the state most crazy for collector cars, but here in southern Arizona we’re not far behind. We’ve got a lot of old retired guys with classic rides, and they love to show them off.

This weekend the big show was the Santa Cruz Valley Car Nuts’ annual show at Tubac Golf Resort, which is about 50 miles south of Tucson. I decided to enter the old Mercedes 300D because it was a way for me to get into the middle of the show with a picnic lunch and watch all the action. I didn’t think many people would give a hoot about a slow and squarish 1984 Mercedes, since at these shows most of the attention seems to go to hot rods, American muscle cars, and exotics.

And I was right. The car was mostly ignored, which gave me the opportunity to sit in my folding chair and read a book while occasionally glancing at the parade of people going by. Once in a while someone would point and smile at the car and I could hear them relating a tale of the “one we used to have just like that.” A lot of people used to have Mercedes cars like mine, which is not surprising since 2.7 million of them were made worldwide.

A few people took note of the car, but I wonder if any of them noticed that mine was the only Mercedes on the line bearing a “250,000 km” badge on the grill. That’s an honorary badge awarded by Mercedes Benz USA for very high-mileage cars. My next badge comes at 500,000 km (310,000 miles) and I hope to get that one someday too.

I was flattered when a guy came by and asked if I wanted to sell the car, because he wanted a nice example of an old Mercedes to drive around in Mazatlan, Mexico, where he had a house. I declined. I wasn’t looking to sell, just to have fun.

It is fun, just to be a small part of the spectacle. There were over 500 cars on display, ranging from a Nash Metropolitan to an Aston Martin Vanquish. You name it, it was there. Most of the cars were in excellent condition, but I was pleased to see that even people with interesting cars in poor condition came out to show the world what they had. It wasn’t just a show of garage queens. Some were obviously daily drivers.

Eleanor had made me a huge picnic basket with lunch, suitable for about five people. I had grilled chicken skewers, Israeli couscous, a sort of marinated tomato/zucchini/onion salad in a homemade dressing that I can’t even begin to describe adequately, a delicious homemade chutney, and Emma’s “rainy day” brownies with chopped nuts on top.

Since I had the opportunity for elegance, she also packed me a big blue tablecloth and cloth napkins. When lunchtime came around, I spread my tablecloth and hauled out the wicker basket, and invited my friend Charlie and his friend Flash to join me on the grass. More than a few people spotted our little picnic on the golf course next to the Mercedes cars and said, “Now, that’s the way to do it!”

Ken and Petey showed up with their 1955 GMC pickup and a 1947 teardrop called a “Tourette.” Most teardrop trailers were made of wood, but this one was made of aluminum. It’s remarkably intact and in good condition. I believe it was the only travel trailer at the show, and it got a lot of attention. Teardrop trailers were mostly made from kits, and there have been dozens (if not hundreds) of teardrop kit manufacturers over the past decades, so if you’ve never heard of a Tourette, join the club.

With spectacular weather (about 70 degrees and all sun), a fine golf course setting, hundreds of interesting cars, many more interesting people, and a fine picnic lunch, the day passed very quickly. I was surprised to realize it was 3 p.m. — I had been there for five hours. It was rather a shame to pack up and head out, but at least I had the compensation of a leisurely drive of 50 miles to get back home in a fine old German sedan on a beautiful day in beautiful southern Arizona.

I am really getting into this show thing. That’s part of the reason why I’ve been working for the past few months to curate another show, the Modernism Week “Vintage Trailer Show” sponsored by Airstream Life magazine. We are expecting 19 very interesting vintage trailers at that event:

1935 Bowlus Road Chief

1960 Airstream Caravel

1959 Airstream Globetrotter

1962 Airstream Flying Cloud

1962 Airstream Globe Trotter

1961 Airstream Bambi

1960 Holiday House

1950 Airfloat Landyacht

1973 Airstream Safari

1969 Airstream Tradewind

1957 Catolac DeVille

1948 Spartan Manor

1958 Airstream Caravanner

1936 Airstream Clipper

1948 Westcraft

1960 International Harvester Housecar

1965 Airstream Caravel

1955 Spartan Manor

1948 La Cosse Vacationer

If you are coming out to Palm Springs for Modernism Week this February, tickets for the Vintage Trailer Show can be purchased on-site at the Palm Springs Riviera Resort & Spa, Saturday and Sunday Feb 26-27. It should be quite a spectacle, with some very rare trailers open for tours, an Airstream “bar,” presentation of the new Airstream Life “Wally” award, vendors selling cool stuff, and a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll see you poolside at the Riviera?

Jan 21 2011

The bug list

With the Airstream parked and no trips in sight for a while, I’ve turned my attention to the 1984 Mercedes 300D for a while. I bought this car last summer and wrote about it then. It was not perfect when I bought it but I resolved that if it turned out to be a fun car and behaved itself (not immediately chewing up a bunch of parts, like a new puppy) I would be willing to invest a little into it in order to keep it roadworthy for a long time.

The car has so far passed that threshold. It’s a solid, safe, reliable set of wheels and I like driving it. But even though it is completely drivable, it still has a lot of small issues to resolve. So I made a “bug list” of things that needed addressing and started prioritizing the work, with an eye toward vehicle improvement without personal bankruptcy.

Earlier this week, the list looked like this:

— transmission shifts abruptly when cold

— leak in vacuum door lock system (leaks when doors are locked, not when unlocked)

— center dash vents don’t actuate (no air flow)

— windshield rainwater leaks (needs new windshield gasket)

— instrument cluster lights are very dim

— odometer only turns on cold days

— slightly squeaking AC belt

— rear windows shudder going up and down

— sagging drivers seat spring

— intermittent low fuel light

— electric passenger vanity mirror doesn’t adjust

— chipped wood around climate control

— cruise control does not work

— wiper motor sometimes activates on startup

— tear in driver’s seat

Some of these things are pretty clearly unimportant, while others are a major nuisance. The lack of air from the center vents, for example, means that the car doesn’t have enough air conditioning to be usable in the Tucson summers. But the trick is to prioritize the jobs in a way that makes the most sense, and that means fixing the problems that might compromise safety first. Not only that, but before I start tweaking the little things it would be nice to know that the transmission shift issue doesn’t mean fatally-expensive repair is looming in the near future.

I’ve had the car over to a couple of different shops in the Tucson area for minor repairs, but I wanted to get an opinion from another highly respected Mercedes specialist up in Phoenix before launching into the project. This made the perfect excuse for a long-awaited roadtrip in the 300D, about a hundred miles each way between Tucson and Phoenix. Alex came along for the ride, since he had an old Mercedes years ago and wanted to relive the experience.

The guys at the shop were extremely complimentary about the car. They don’t see a lot of the old W123’s (which is the chassis type of the 300D) in good condition anymore. The prior owners of this car really took good care of it and made sure that it was serviced only by people who knew Mercedes. As a result, there was almost nothing botched by prior shops to undo and repair. They poked around every subsystem of the car and explained things as they went. I’m always impressed with the quality of engineering that went into these old cars. Every part is beautifully designed for function and serviceability in a way that helps justify its original (new) purchase price of over $30,000 in 1984.

The point of the visit was mostly to evaluate the car and come up with costs and priorities. Alex and I left the car for a few hours while we did other things, and when we came back the odometer had been removed, disassembled, repaired and re-installed. They also fixed a few other small items, but unfortunately the list grew more than it shrank. Now added to the bug list:

— broken air filter lower bracket (part was not available immediately, or we would have replaced it on the spot)

— shock absorbers all around for better ride (mine are apparently original to the car)

— right front ball joint is a little loose

— upper control arm bushings are worn

The transmission shift issue was checked and confirmed to be “just the way these cars are.” It shifts pretty smoothly once warmed up. Since this is the third Mercedes specialist to give me this opinion, I’m going to accept it and drop the transmission from the bug list.

The guys also ragged on the Goodyear “Weatherhandler” whitewall tires that the prior owner installed. A more typical choice for this car would be Michelin or Pirelli. I have had little respect for the tires myself, having already experienced a few moments of adverse handling in light rain, but they will probably last for many more miles so I’m stuck with them for a while.

No other problems were noted, so the good news is that the car is perfectly safe to enjoy and gradually improve. We got a list of tips and parts sources to guide the ongoing process, along with estimated costs for each repair.

With that, we jumped on I-10 to escape Phoenix before rush hour traffic turned the highway into a slow-motion lava flow. We had 100 miles ahead of us, which goes pretty quickly when you get to the open road with a speed limit of 75 MPH. The car seemed happy to stretch out a bit after all the city driving I’ve been doing, and for the next 90 minutes Alex and I listened to the purr of the old diesel, and I reflected on the simple joy of once again having an odometer that actually turns.

Every little repair like the odometer puts the car closer to completeness. When I bought it, it was a fine machine that had been kept in good operating condition but the “little things” left unattended were starting to pile up. It seemed to be teetering between well-loved and slightly neglected. Gradually I’m pushing it toward the right end of that spectrum. It will never be perfect or qualify as a “show car,” but it is earning my respect enough to put some money and effort into keeping it on the road.

Dec 12 2010

Why we picked this home base

After we sold our home in Vermont and started traveling full-time, we had the entire country to consider as a future residence. We browsed and briefly lived in something like 46 states before we made our choice. So it’s understandable that one of questions we get asked most frequently is “Why did you pick Tucson?”

Really, the criteria was rather mundane: we liked the desert climate (good for SAD and good for allergies), the cost of living is reasonable, we could buy a “lock and leave” house that wouldn’t need winterizing or constant air conditioning while we were gone, there’s year-round outdoor activity for adults and children, and Tucson has everything we need. Having spent most of my life in rural country, I appreciate the convenience of living in a city even though it’s not as quiet as what I’m used to.

We don’t pretend that our criteria makes sense for anyone else, so after answering this question I am always quick to point out that it’s really up to everyone to figure out what’s important to them. I probably don’t need to do that, since most of the folks asking the question are themselves frequent travelers and they tend to be very independent. Of all the people who have asked the question, none of them have settled here. They’ve all found their own favorite places.

But we like southern Arizona a lot, especially for the diversity of things to do in the area. Take Saturday, for example. We decided that our mission would be to browse the Asian food markets in town. Tucson doesn’t have nearly the Asian population of the California cities, but enough that we can easily find the exotic ingredients that Eleanor likes to use occasionally in her cooking. We googled up a few likely spots and read the online reviews (mostly useless, as usual), and eventually came up with a list of three targets. Right there, that’s a win — because in many other cities we’d just be plain out of luck. I like the fact that I can find almost anything here.

Having just put some money into the Mercedes 300D for front end work last week, I wanted to give it a run. So we loaded up into the “Stuttgart Taxi” and cruised to our first stop, the Lee Lee Supermart in northwest Tucson. This place tries to cover most of the major countries of far east Asia, so you’ll find Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, etc., all through the store.

I’m always intrigued with the strange and interesting new foods and ingredients in Asian markets. It’s a temptation to start buying a little of everything, just to try it out. But since we had three markets on our program for the day (two Asian and one “other”), we tried to be moderate in our choices. I could easily see us filling the roomy trunk of the Stuttgart Taxi with a pile of groceries worth more than the car itself.

Another fun part of this type of shopping is finding truly odd or confusing packaging. There are things both lost and gained in translation from Asian languages, and sometimes the results can be laughable. This keeps both adults and kids entertained. Our first find was “Vermont Curry,” as seen here. Now, I’m from Vermont, and I can tell you that “Vermont” and “curry” go together about as well as “Kansas Lobster.” These days Vermont actually has a few ethnic restaurants, thanks to an increasingly diverse population, but as a child I remember that pizza was about as exotic as it got. If there were such a thing as Vermont Curry, it would probably have maple syrup in it.

Another minor oddity was the House Of Steamed Potato brand kimchi crackers. Apparently this is a major brand in China, with several flavors. I’m sure the name makes sense in Chinese, and I’m sympathetic to the problem of translation. I wouldn’t want to try to translate “Ritz crackers” or “Count Chocula” to Chinese.

But our favorite was found at our second stop, the Grantstone Supermarket: Mang Gong cakes. Nothing odd here, until you look closely at the bottom of the package. It reads, “The False Packing.” It’s hard for an American to make any sense out of that. Given the volume of illegal Asian product knock-offs, is this simply a pre-emptive attempt to admit that these are not real Mang Gong cakes? Perhaps in truth the package contains Nike sneakers.

Sometimes you can figure these things out by playing with synonyms of the words. For example, could “false” be an attempt to say “low-cal”? Or perhaps “imitation,” “see-through,” “empty,” or “absent”? Likewise, “packing” could mean “packaging,” or “wrapper”? Maybe this is an attempt to advertise the see-through outer wrap, or to suggest that this has a decorative wrapper for gift-giving. We need a good Chinese translator to help figure this one out.

It’s amazing that we managed to kill most of a day browsing Asian markets, but we did. We are, as I’ve said before, easily amused. I suppose the prospect of eating whatever Eleanor whipped up with the ingredients was helpful in keeping our patience in check too. By 3 p.m. we were wrapping up and heading home with the trunk only 1/4 full of groceries (fortunately for the budget).

There was just one more stop to make, at the Arizona Petroleum depot off 22nd Street, for biodiesel. I have been wanting to run some biodiesel in the Taxi, since it has an “old tech” engine and can eat almost any type of oil. A little biodiesel helps clean out the fuel lines since it has higher solvency properties than dino diesel. This pump dispenses B5, B20 and B99 (5%, 20%, and 99% biodiesel respectively) for $3.25 per gallon, which is about in line with local diesel prices at conventional fuel stations in Tucson right now.

I bought five gallons of B99 to mix with the 15 gallons of dino diesel in the tank. It made the exhaust smell like a restaurant with a fryolator, which is actually quite pleasant. Most cars I have smelt running B99 exclusively have exhaust reminiscent of french fries, and instead of annoying people, it usually makes them hungry. I’d like to run this in the GL320 as well, but its super-high-tech engine and exhaust system are restricted to B5 at the most.

That’s not an atypical day for us, on a winter weekend in Tucson. That’s why we like it here. If we want to go to a festival, a farmer’s market, go for a hike or bike ride, attend a gallery opening, take sunset pictures, do some gardening, work on the car, roam the gardens, take a class, whatever — there’s always something. You really can’t go wrong in Tucson this time of year, with lots of things happening and fantastic weather almost every day.

That’s our criteria for a place to live, perhaps because it closely mirrors the kind of life we had when we were traveling. For me at least, once I had tasted the diversity and excitement of constant travel, I couldn’t fathom settling back into a town that didn’t have something going on all the time. No wonder it took years for us to find a place to buy a house. Future full-timers beware: life on the road may be your dream, but keep in mind that you will face a tough job finding the ideal place to live afterward.