s: All week, I’d had this feeling of foreboding about the car and the trip. Originally, I’d wanted to rent a car for this vacation, so we wouldn’t have to worry about our own car, and wouldn’t put the mileage on the still-relatively-new Mustang. This was simply (a) too expensive (b) illegal, as the rental folks would’ve wanted us to stay in California. So the Mustang, purchased October 1995 with 17 miles on the odometer, would pass 50,000 miles - and the warranty limit on most of its parts - on this trip.
s: I manage to get off work at 11, but then some imbecile in a small pickup kills himself up by Kastania on 101, and because of the traffic backup, I run out of gas about a mile short of the gas station. I start walking, and a friendly cop soon stops to give me a ride to the gas station at Kastania - where I buy and fill a two-gallon gas container - and back. The car still won't start. I head back for the gas station to call home (and get more gas in case the two gallons were wallowing on the wrong side of the tank or something).
s: By now greatly discouraged, I wait for T by 101 at the gas station. We go to the Petaluma Grand Auto, call AAA, and ask about a fuel filter for a '95 Mustang. The Grand Auto parts guy, to his and their credit, knows that these Mustangs have a fuel pump shutoff switch, which to my discredit, I then remember being shown when I got the car. We go out to wait for the AAA guy by the side of the highway, and when he comes, the car magically starts right up. We're in business, but by now it's almost 2:00(?).
s: In a flurry of activity, we get home, load the car up, and head out to 37 via Lakeville. By this time, I am literally shaking from the stress of trying to get this thing rolling. Near the end of Lakeville, I realize I've forgotten my hiking boots, and ultimately, realize this vacation isn't fated to start till tomorrow morning.
s: We head back to Petaluma, get a nice dinner (and did I mention drinks?) at McNear's, and crash early at home.
s: Starting at 3:30 A.M., we're in the valley on I-5 before daylight. This is a REALLY good time to drive out of the Bay Area - or for that matter, any major metropolitan area - and I recommend it to all for a low-stress beginning to a vacation. We make D.V. in very early afternoon, and the temperature is already 97. We visit Badwater, Artist's Drive, Golden Canyon (which we hike a mile or two up), and Zabriskie Point, before settling in for our first night of camping with a fifth of Seagram's and two plastic bottles of 7-Up.
This is really my first self-propelled camping vacation, where I leave with my own vehicle for a ten-day vacation, fully intending to camp the entire time. It’s going to be car camping, not backpacking, but still, a sort of ‘roughing it’ I haven’t really attempted on my own, for this long of a trip, before.
We already have this really great tent, Cirrus from North Face, which we can now set up or take down in less than five minutes. Our major purchases for this vacation are a wonderful camping stove, water purifier (which we didn’t use but still consider indispensable), and the surprise hit of this trip: a pair of folding camp chairs. These chairs wouldn’t come with us on a backpacking trip, but they will be with us for every car-camping trip hereafter. They are compact and comfortable, and prevent us at various times from having to sit on (a) dirt, (b) wet picnic tables, (c) hot picnic tables, (d) cold rocks, (e) etc. A good investment at about $60 for two.