The Joys of Travel

It sounded like a great idea–see the country and let someone else pay for it. What could be easier? Pick up two small buses at the assembly plant in High Point, North Carolina and drive them 2500 miles to Salt Lake City, Utah. “Uh-oh!” I can hear you sage travelers say, knowing much better than the naive young couple we were at the time the pitfalls of driving an untested vehicle across the country.
     Like moths in the flame, we were dazzled at thoughts of all the sights we would see. We packed bags, farmed out kids, picked up Mike’s parents and hopped a red-eye flight.
     Excitement overrode our travel weariness the next afternoon as we loaded suitcases into buses and headed west. Lush vegetation, new foods, a foreign language they claimed was English: the first day was a marvel. After a good nights rest and a biscuit and gravy breakfast, we fueled the buses and hit the road, ready for another day of adventure. Thirty miles later, Mike flashed his lights–our signal to take the next off ramp (this was LONG before cell phones, remember). Coasting into a gas station, he said the gauge showed empty. We shook our heads because we refueled only twenty miles previously, but he attempted to fill the tank. The automatic shutoff on the nozzle kept clicking off, allowing only a gallon or so at a time to be pumped. By the next day, an airlock in the tanks prevented filling more than a penny at a time in both buses. (We later learned a defect in the chassis installation crimped the vent tubes.) Thank goodness this was when a penny’s worth of gas was more than the fumes it is today, and it only took two to three hours, many angry station owners, ranting from others trying to use the pumps and much frustration on our part to fill the tank.
     Being creative individuals, we amused many, angered more and became the focus of much discussion and finger pointing as we tried rocking the buses, driving up on the curb to create a downward flow and even using a toilet plunger in attempts to clear the airlock.
     At one point I said aloud I’d love to have a book of matches. My wonderful father-in-law took over the nozzle and continued to be the gas-pumper the rest of the way home. No. I wouldn’t have really set the bus on fire, but I sure thought about it!
     Our wonderful “adventure” consisted of many bizarre fuel stops, no sight-seeing, and many late nights trying to make up lost time, but thirty years later we can still laugh about it.