path: root/essays/off-grid-brotherhood-of-the-wrench.txt

There's no temperature gauge. It broke several thousand desert miles ago. But before we overheat you can smell it coming, whiffs of radiator fluid slip in the draft at the front of the engine doghouse. That's when you know, it's time to stop. It doesn't happen often. The 318 likes to run hot, but climbing mountains with a 12,000 pound RV on your back will make any small block engine overheat eventually.

I start looking for a place to pull over. There's nothing. The left side of the road is a sheer cut of rock, quartzite, phyllite, limestone laid bare by dynamite. To the east as far as I can see the barren rocky foothills of the White Mountains bubble and scrape their way along, toward the desert floor, dust swept and brown. Dotted here and there are clumps of green-gray shrubs, creosote and sagebrush, interrupted occasionally by splashes of yellow Rabbitbrush. It's a stark but beautiful landscape. 

What I don't see though is a good place to pull over. Not that we need one really. We haven't seen another car in at least an hour of driving. We are on highway 168 somewhere in Nevada between the ghost town where we camped last night, and the top of the White Mountains. So I stop right in the middle of the road. Why not? 

When the engine shuts off there's no sound. No wind. No birds. No talking. We all, my wife, three children, and myself, just listen to the slow hiss of the radiator boiling over. It's October, but I'm glad I had the presence of mind to stop in the shade, the Nevada sun casts a harsh light on the road a few feet beyond us. After a minute my wife turns around and says to kids, "you want to walk around and see if we can find some fossils?" 

---

As a child of the 70s, I've spent my fair share of time at the side of the road in broken down vehicles. There was a mustard yellow Volkswagen Dasher that routinely overheated near Yuma on its way from my childhood home in Los Angeles to my grandparents' home in Tucson, AZ. There was a 1969 Ford F-150 pickup that was actually very reliable until you stuck a camper on its back and tried to climb over the Sierra Nevada mountains. 

This might help explain why, two years ago my wife and I bought a 1969 Dodge Travco, a motorhome that was just shy of its 50th birthday at the time. When you say motorhome what most people these days picture looks nothing like our bus as my kids call it. The Travco hails from a different era, an era when the Right to Repair was more the need to repair. In its day the need to repair seems to have been an accepted trade off of technology. The Travco was cool enough that it was once featured in Playboy magazine. Johnny Cash had one. So did James Dean and John Wayne. Now almost no one besides us seems to want one. That's probably just as well, there aren't many left.

There also aren't many people left who even know how to fix these vehicles. Well, that's not entirely true. In fact, ever since the first day I bought the Travco people have been coming up to talk to me about it and 90 percent of the time what people want to know is what engine does it have in it?

When I bought the bus the previous owner mentioned that it attracted a lot of attention, but I didn't really pay any attention to that comment until about three hours later when I stopped at a rest area and two different people came running up to the bus wanting to see it, talk about it, and eventually work their way around to asking me what engine was in it.

At the time I knew next to nothing about engines. I knew that the modern ones looked intimidatingly complex and involved a lot of computer chips and automation via sensors. I am a former computer programmer, I wanted to get away from computers. There's not a computer chip in the 318. It's mechanical and relatively easy to understand, which is why so many people do. Take the thermostat, part of the system that had us at the side of the road climbing desert mountains. The thermostat is controlled by a piece of wax that melts when it's hot, releasing a spring that lets coolant into the engine. As the engine cools the wax hardens, the spring closes, coolant stops flowing and the engine heats up again. The entire engine temperature system is controlled by a piece of wax.









Behind that question I've come to think there are several others worth asking, the first is, how did this thing last so long when so little else has? The answer to that is a long and twisting tale, but the short version is that the Chrysler 318 LA engine was made for a long time, and used in a lot of vehicles, which is to say a lot of these engines are out there in the world. That created a huge market for parts and so far, that market continues to exist though I have to imagine it's shrinking every year. For now though, I can walk into any parts store in America and have whatever part I need in a couple of days.[^1]

There is, however, I think another question the people who've asked me about the bus engine have in mind though when they say, what engine does it have in it, they are, almost universally, people from the time when many people could and did repair their own engines.


[^1]: This is still true even with post pandemic shortages, though I, and many others, have noticed a significant drop in the quality of part available.












Somewhere far up the road there are cool pinyon-juniper woodlands with sagebrush meadows and bristlecone pine forests. 


Highway 266 was uneventful, a little climb up into the White Mountains, through a ghost town and down into a small town called Oasis. It was when we turned on 168 that we got some hints of what was to come. The signs read steep, winding roads ahead. Okay, no biggie, probably. Then there was a sign that said one lane road ahead, trucks not recommended. But we’re on a two digit state highway in California, those don’t narrow down to one lane. I thought maybe it meant there was no passing lane. It did not mean that.

We're only going about 25 miles an hour


alpine fell fields 

the horizen 



















Of course they do. They barely notice when we break down. They half like it. It's a chance to get out stretch their legs, explore the desert. This is part of why we live this way, to do impromptu things like exploring the desert.

I unbuckle the lap belt and lean over to open the doghouse and make sure it's just the radiator overheating. We live in a 1969 Dodge Travco, a motorhome cool enough that it was once featured in Playboy magazine. Johnny Cash had one. So did James Dean and John Wayne. Now almost no one besides us seem to want one. Ours is electric blue with a wide white stripe wrapped around it. 

After a night in the middle of Gold Point we hit the road, continuing our somewhat random plan. I came up with something I thought was pretty good: take highway 266 west from Gold Point, grab highway 168, go over the White Mountains, drop down into Big Pine and follow 395 up to my aunt and uncle’s house up in Wellington. It seems simple when you type it out. I bet it made the gods chuckle anyway.

Highway 266 was uneventful, a little climb up into the White Mountains, through a ghost town and down into a small town called Oasis. It was when we turned on 168 that we got some hints of what was to come. The signs read steep, winding roads ahead. Okay, no biggie, probably. Then there was a sign that said one lane road ahead, trucks not recommended. But we’re on a two digit state highway in California, those don’t narrow down to one lane. I thought maybe it meant there was no passing lane. It did not mean that.

Up and over the second pass was not too bad either, though it was the windiest road we’ve been on. Down the back side despite my best efforts at downshifting the brakes started to smell. We took a break to let them rest and enjoy the view. Of absolute nothing. Excepting perhaps some portions of route 50 (the so-called loneliest highway) route 168 is the most remote road I’ve ever been on. There’s no civilization for its entire run over the White Mountains. Just empty desert and one lone building set way back from the road with a huge sign that says “no telephone available.” The only other vehicles we saw were a few empty hay trucks driving way too fast for the road.

We had snack and a road work crew we’d passed up the mountain came down and pulled into the same turnout we were in. I took the opportunity to ask them about the next pass. They seemed to think we’d be fine, though one of them did say, “there’s one part we call the narrows, it’s only one lane through there.” I just stared at him for a minute. “Seriously?” “Seriously.” “Don’t tell my wife that.”

We said goodbye and hit the road again. Climbing the third pass I started to smell that sweet smell of radiator fluid and pulled into the next turn out. The bus sat boiling over for a bit, maybe a quart, and then it stopped. We climbed out to sit for a while and consider our options. Except that there weren’t any really. With no cell reception to call a tow truck, no real way to turn around, and no where else to go even if we did, we had to get over the pass. At one point an older gentleman on a Harley stopped at see if we were okay. We chatted for a bit and he told us the top of the pass was only about four or five miles ahead, which was encouraging.
































Before it explodes you can smell it coming. A whiff of tk slips in through the draft at the front of the engine doghouse. 

That's when I start looking for a place to pull over. Not that I need one really. I haven't seen another car in four hours of driving. Most of the population of Nevada lives in Las Vegas, and we are not in Las Vegas anymore.

We are on highway 168 somewhere between a ghost town and the top of the White Mountains. 

I stop right in the middle of the road. Why not? 

No one speaks. We all, my wife, three children, and myself, listen to the hiss of the radiator boiling over. Then my wife turns around and says to kids, "you want to walk around and see if we can find some fossils?" Of course they do. They barely notice when we break down. They half like it. It's a chance to get out stretch their legs, explore the desert. This is part of why we live this way, to do impromptu things like exploring the desert.

I unbuckle the lap belt and lean over to open the doghouse and make sure it's just the radiator overheating. We live in a 1969 Dodge Travco, 






It's hard to embrace van life as a family of five. Most vans are, well, they're vans. I'll never get Chris Farley screaming *in a van, down by the river* out of my head. I can't live in a van. And RVs are for retirees. I'm not retired. I don't want to be retired. Let's get a trailer then, my wife said two years ago when we decided to try living on the road. So I searched for a trailer, but Google, bless its algorithmic heart, which that day had a bit of arrhythmia, showed me a Travco instead. "That," I said, "that is what we need". Two months later we had one. A year later it was actually liveable. My kids dubbed it "the big blue bus," or just "the bus" for short.









The view under the doghouse is benign. The engine is fine. The Dodge 318 LA series motor is one of the most indestructible engines ever made. I could with a few simple tools pull the entire thing apart right here at the side of the road and fix anything in it. There are some parts in this beast that can't be replaced, but they aren't in the engine. I would like to avoid doing that of course. It's doubtful I'd get it back together in running shape anyway. When we left a year ago I knew next to nothing about engines. I've been slowly learning as I go, learning the hard way, by breaking down and then figuring out how to get it going again. One thing I have learned, it's damn near indestructible. A few mountains in Nevada aren't going to kill it, it just needs to rest every now and then. Catch its breath. The world of 1969 didn't have always-on technology. You took breaks. You rested.

The radiator has already stopped overflowing. In half an hour it'll be cool enough that I can open it and top it off with some water to maybe get us the rest of the way over the mountain. I head outside to see what the kids are up to. 

It's late September in the high foothills of the White Mountains. There's not much around. Tufts of creosote dot a moonscape of rock. There's a cluster of cottonwoods at the bottom of a dry arroyo just down the slope from us. It's the only shade we've seen in a day of driving. My wife and kids head down to play in the shade. 













get out to survey the scene. 



This isn't the first time we've overheated, it won't be the last. If you want to resurrect and live in a piece of 1960's Americana like the Dodge Travco, you have to be okay with overheating. You have to be okay with stepping back in time to an era when travel was more open ended. 


A thin thread of a smell, like bacon frying downstairs when you were a kid and it was too cold to get up until that bacon was ready. You know it's coming though, old RV engines overheat climbing mountains. It is what it is. 

We're bound for California and all we've got are paper maps. Which is good because there hasn't been phone service for days. 

More description of the Nevada desert. The kids go off to play. Corrinne looks for pottery and fossils, rocks.

Something about Henry Miller driving into LA. 


"optional sewage incinerator system, the “Destroilet,” a gas incinerator-type toilet that almost eliminated the need to empty holding tanks. There were problems to be sure: the 318-cubic-inch engine in the early models had to work very hard to go up any significant incline; there were stability issues because of the lack of anti-sway bars, and its low-slung body hampered tire changing"

Highway 266 was uneventful, a little climb up into the White Mountains, through a ghost town and down into a small town called Oasis. It was when we turned on 168 that we got some hints of what was to come. The signs read steep, winding roads ahead. Okay, no biggie, probably. Then there was a sign that said one lane road ahead, trucks not recommended. But we’re on a two digit state highway in California, those don’t narrow down to one lane. I assumed it meant no passing lane.