Hello to the forum (Uncle Lon's rules for the road)

[jasonpap2002]

I defy anyone to read this and not think about getting in the van (or car or bike) and doing a road trip (of any length).

Thank you Uncle Lon!!!

~JP

[Alaric.H]

I knew all this already but I never could put it into words. I will add it is the adventure not the kind van or car you drive.

[Uncle Lon]

So many of you responded about how great a picnic is, that it got me to thinking and then I had to call each of my two grown sons. I asked if they remembered any particular moment, any picnic site in the travels we took. Both are now men, raising debts of their own, but once they were kids #1 and #3 of a family which had regrettably outgrown our Westy. And both remembered the same moment, now frozen in our family memory: an evening in the little park above Carlsbad Caverns. We had driven in just ahead of a desert thunderstorm and from the vantage point high in the Guadalupe Mountains, we ate and watched the thunderstorm and its shivering lightning BELOW us.

I remember the day, of course, but the fact that my sons remember it as well, is a rare gift to an old man, now separated from them by miles and years.

Uncle Lon

[Uncle Lon]

[Uncle Lon]

[IdahoDoug]

Our great state is still home to the largest roadless area in the US outside of Alaska. And without the Mosquitos!
_________________
1987 2WD Wolfsburg Vanagon Weekender "Mango", two fully locked 80 Series LandCruisers. 2017 Subaru Outback boxer. 1990 Audi 90 Quattro 20V with rear locking differential, 1990 burgundy parts Vanagon. 1984 Porsche 944, 1993 Toyota LandCruiser, 2002 BMW 325iX, 1982 Toyota Sunrader

[fixedgear]

[Wildthings]

I have talked to so many people who think they have travelled because they have taken a cruise ship that docked in a few foreign cities for a couple of hours or flown in and out of Vegas a half dozen times. But they have never seen a North Dakota pothole in the spring, a herd of elk moving over a hill, or a night blooming Sonoran cactus.

Great idea on taking a kid with you.

[kamzcab86]

[Uncle Lon]

[whafalia]

Hurray! A new uncle! Bring on some long-winded geezer stories, and I'm not being sarcastic,
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84 westie 2.2 w/ digijet, AT

[Uncle Lon]

Wow, fixedgear, that's wonderful. Original? Or what is it from? Sounds like a mix up of Thoreau and Robt Frost.

And, IdahoDoug, I remember when we first moved to Idaho. I kept complaining that I couldn't find a map with the little backroads on it. Then, I realized slowly that there just aren't any! The highways are mostly backroads and the backroads are mostly trails. On certain mornings in the summer or windy afternoons in early fall, I sometimes think "this is the finest day I've every seen!"

[desertrefugee]

Wow! What a breath of fresh air!

Welcome Uncle Lon. Your insight and experience is sorely needed. (Not to mention your writing style).

Looking forward to it.
_________________
- 83.5 Westfalia - 2.2 GoWesty "power"
- a bunch of vintage motorcycles
- Numerous telescopes of various size and function

"For I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." - Sarah Williams

[Uncle Lon]

[IdahoDoug]

Welcome to the forum! Great advice on the picnics. Long after our kids have forgotten where we went, they'll remember the lunch stop along the river where a beautiful Raven tried to swipe a potato chip, or collecting a green Preying Mantis that rode with us the rest of the trip an was put in the garden when we got home. Good call. I'd add another item which is to take back roads whenever possible. That way you will be able to stop at a farm market, find a cute diner, or best of all see your next Vanagon poking out of a barn!!
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1987 2WD Wolfsburg Vanagon Weekender "Mango", two fully locked 80 Series LandCruisers. 2017 Subaru Outback boxer. 1990 Audi 90 Quattro 20V with rear locking differential, 1990 burgundy parts Vanagon. 1984 Porsche 944, 1993 Toyota LandCruiser, 2002 BMW 325iX, 1982 Toyota Sunrader

[fixedgear]

Hey Uncle Leon:

"There's no sense in going further - it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it - broke my land and sowed my crop -
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated - so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges -
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours -
Stole away with pack and ponies - left 'em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.

March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line - drifted snow and naked boulders -
Felt free air astir to windward - knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.

'Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Norther found me -
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me:
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"

Then I knew, the while I doubted - knew His Hand was certain o'er me.
Still - it might be self-delusion - scores of better men had died -
I could reach the township living, but... He knows what terror tore me ...
But I didn't ... but I didn't. I went down the other side,

Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert - blasterd earth, and blasting sky...

I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy - for I threw a stone to try 'em.
"Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.

But at last the country altered - White Man's country past disputing -
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind -
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.

Thence I ran my first rough survey - chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em -
Week by week I pried and sampled - week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!

Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers -
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!

'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em -
Saw the plant to feed a people - up and waiting for the power!

Well, I know who'll take the credit - all the clever chaps that followed -
Came, a dozen men together - never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!

They will find my sites of townships - not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers - not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.

Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget - (barring samples)? No, not I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.

Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!

Yes, your "Never-never country" - yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further" - till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it but - His Whisper came to Me!
_________________
1986 Wolfsburg Weekender

[kamzcab86]

[scobax]

Great post. Welcome aboard, Uncle Lon! Those are some good tips, the little things matter more than we know sometimes. It's good to have the reminder.

I for one look forward to your future posts, keep 'em comin'!
_________________
87 Syncro Westy w/ Suby 2.5
RIP: 2.1 WBX. You were a good dog 'ol feller

“The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong, that's when adventure starts” -Yvon Chouinard

"It's not expensive, its priceless" -Unknown

[noganav]

Great advice, thanks Uncle Lon, and welcome to the forum!

Only one problem. There is no leftover pie at my house... ever.

[maryloucb]

Love it!