My great friend, the zen master of the artcar world, has passed.
This news will take a while for me to sort out. I hope to have more to share with everyone soon, but for now, I’d encourage you to visit the link below, where many of us are gathering our thoughts and rememberances:
Travel well, Tom.
above: toothbrush, container, rag, filth.
Today: Filth. Not the fun kind.
Photos in auto repair manuals typically show perfect, clean, shiny new parts being assembled by a man who wears a white lab coat and a tie. He has clean hands. The parts fit together perfectly. Do not believe this fanciful imagery, even for a moment… it is but an illusion.
Car repair is a realm of filth and grime, of oozing petroleum byproducts, toxic fluids, of bits of pulverized metal, rubber and plastic and thousands upon thousands of tiny particles of our dirty little world, all stuck together and adhered onto whatever you need to work on.
Welcome to car repair.
Dealing with filth is one of the most formidable challenges for a DIY mechanic. When I think of the worst project nightmares from my past, filth nearly always played a prominent role. Freshly packed bearings accidentally dropped in the dirt, threaded fasteners stripped by hidden grit, clean new parts fouled. Not to mention all of the crap that got stuck into my hair, jammed under my fingernails and tracked into my house.
How do you battle with filth and emerge victorious?
Auto-Didactic Moment 2: Automotive Filth and How to Manage It
There are a vast array of spray-on/hose-off engine cleaners waiting for you and your money at your local parts store. I’ve tried many, and most of them suck. At best, they’ll take off the top layer of grime but leave behind enough dirt to not have really solved the problem.
There is a place for power washers in filth management, but it is a limited one, and over-enthusiastic use can lead to much grief. Electrical parts and connectors are especially vulnerable to water under pressure, a sure recipe for causing corrosion, short circuits and component failures. Still, it can be a quick way to perform some general cleaning if done with great care. There have been times when I wished I had access to a power washer, but I’ve always managed to get by without one.
Commercially available parts washing tanks are another solution. They contain an electric pump that pours a continuous stream of clean, recycled solvent that you can direct onto the part you’re cleaning. I may spring for one someday, but good ones aren’t cheap and take up valuable shop space. Perhaps more importantly, you have to remove parts from the car to put them into the washer. Engine blocks, transmissions and other large, lumpy items won’t fit.
When it’s all said and done, my favored method of filth removal is elbow grease. I use gloves, low odor mineral spirits (paint thinner), various crud removal tools, a couple of old toothbrushes and a pile of expendable terry cloth rags.
I like to use low-odor mineral spirits to dissolve and clean filth; it’s cheap, very effective and relatively safe. That said, like most solvents it can be toxic and flammable if misused. Common sense applies here, make sure you use it in a well-ventilated area, try not to take a bath in it and keep open flames and sparks away from your work area. I would avoid using other solvents (i.e carb cleaner, lacquer thinner, etc.) except under very controlled circumstances. And for god’s sake, don’t even THINK about using gasoline unless you’d like to spend a few years in a burn unit.
Some of the best crud removal tools I’ve found are ones that everyone has access to: old spoons of various sizes. Seriously. If you can’t sacrifice a few from your kitchen, keep an eye out for them at garage sales and thrift stores. Spoons work well because of their curved and dished shape: many of the surfaces you’ll be trying to clean are far from flat, and a spoon will allow you to get into them more easily than a flat scraper. Other good tools include putty knives and old screwdrivers… really, just about any tool that will let you scrape and dislodge things will work.
Old toothbrushes function well as filth scrubbers because of their size and configuration and are another tool that is available to everyone. They’re easy to handle and fit into tight spaces. But really, any stiff-bristled brush will work well for the job. Just pick something expendable, because its life will be fairly short once you immerse it in solvent and grease.
Start the job off with your crud removal tools and physically remove as much crud as you can. In this step, you’re just going for the big chunks, save the detailing for later. Important: take it easy and don’t be too aggressive or you’ll scratch and gouge things up.
Once you’ve got the big chunks off, it’s time to get out the mineral spirits. Pour some in a small plastic container and grab a toothbrush. Take the brush and use it to transfer the spirits onto the crud and let it soak in. Get the area to be cleaned wetted thoroughly and then start scrubbing. Keep going until you can see the surface of the part, then grab a rag and wipe the part clean… a little extra mineral spirits on the rag will help. Clean in phases, clean just a small area at a time, and keep at it. You will probably need to repeat the cycle a few times before you’re done.
A precaution: as you release dirt and crud, make sure you control where it goes. Don’t let it fall into the engine and don’t let dirt-laden solvent dribble into where you don’t want it, particularly around electrical components. It’s worth spending a few minutes before you begin to spot possible problem areas, like open intake ports, open spark plug holes or electrical connectors. I’m either very careful around such areas, or have plugged or covered them with clean rags or plastic.
A Word: Marron: Chestnuts preserved in syrup, flavored with vanilla.
Today: More disassembly. I took the entire exhaust system off of the car so that I could get the manifold clear of the engine compartment without having to separate it from the downtube. Another nice feature of the 240 is the way the exhaust is assembled and the quality of metal used in the parts. On no other car have I ever been able to get exhaust components apart without something breaking, stripping or disintegrating. On this car, a few rubber hangers undone and three fasteners removed was all it took. Cool! Good Swedish steel.
Once loose, the exhaust system showed its age. I will eventually need to replace it from the catalytic converter back, but I will put the old system back in temporarily once I get the car running again. There will undoubtedly be other work that I’ll need to spend money on first, so a new exhaust can wait.
Another item noted: The transmission mount was badly deteriorated, leaving the transmission tailpiece sitting directly on the frame crossmember… not good. I thought that the clunking I heard while driving the car was a loose muffler, but now it’s obvious that it was the bad mount and the transmission flopping around making all of the noise. No problem, it’s a $10 part and easily replaced.
Water pump removal was a bit of touch and go. The bolts were all severely corroded and the risk of something breaking was high. About halfway through removal, one bolt snapped off, despite my gentle cajoling. I lucked out, when I got the pump free from the engine block, there was still enough of the bolt shaft sticking out to grab with a vise grip. I hosed it down with more penetrating oil and slowly eased it out. When I put the new water pump on, I will use new hardware and chase the threads in the engine block with a bottom tap.
I then went to remove the air conditioning compressor. The method Volvo used to attach it to the engine makes doing so difficult, as the power steering pump is fastened to the top of the compressor mount. It took longer than expected as there were several hidden bolt heads, making it all a bit of a puzzle. I managed to loosen one bolt that was actually an oil drain plug, so once I freed the compressor from the engine, it dribbled thick, bright green oil onto the floor… weird looking. I spread some kitty litter to soak it up. Keeping the AC compressor out and the power steering pump in will mean fabricating some reinforcements to the original AC mounting bracket to take the place of the compressor. I have a friend with welding equipment and metalworking tools, so I’ll be giving him a visit soon.
To help with the AC system removal, I sprang for an air conditioning compressor bypass kit from IPD. Not cheap, but it allows the power steering pump to be driven directly from the engine’s crankshaft instead of from the AC compressor pulley. Fabricating the necessary parts on my own would be a nuisance, so I don’t have a problem spending the money for the kit.
Next: Cleaning away a 30 year accumulation of thick, oily, dirty goo.
A Word: Saytriasis: Insatiable venereal appetite in the male.
A Link: The trials and tribulations of the rich and noveau-riche. It is to weep.
Today: I dived in wrench first.
As with my 240 sedan, I decided to start by removing the non-functioning air conditioning system to remove weight (nearly 100 pounds), aid engine cooling and gain free space to make it easier to work under the hood. The system had already lost all of its refrigerant and reviving it would easily cost as much as all of the rest of this project put together, so out it goes.
Mass disassembly ensued. Removed: Grille, headlight bezels, radiator supports, radiator, fan shroud, air cleaner, hoses, fan belts, what remained of the engine’s coolant, water pump, fan, alternator, battery, timing chain cover. distributor cap, spark plug wires. And some other stuff, too.
Then, to the AC system. A small hand hacksaw and utility knife made short work of the soft metal coolant lines and rubber hoses. The condenser unit in front of the radiator came out easily once the lines were clear. The AC compressor would come out later.
The next step was to remove the intake manifold, giving me clear access to a blown out freeze plug in the cylinder head, the fuel injection system and several other parts and subsystems needing attention. Lots of hoses, electrical parts and wiring to deal with there.
Which brings me to…
An Auto-Didactic Moment, the first of a series that I’ll be throwing in this diary from time to time. While much of it will be directed to a general audience, I hope to include something useful for the more experienced gearhead as well… even freaks like myself working on thirty-year-old Volvos.
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Auto-Didactic Moment 1: Organization and Documentation
It may be hours, days or even weeks before you can complete a repair and put everything back together again. Don’t count on your memory to tell you how to put it back together… take the time to organize and document as you go. If you just randomly toss everything into a bucket thinking that you’ll sort it all out later, you will regret it, mark my words. Don’t count on a shop manual to give you this information, either, as even the best ones are notorious for glaring omissions and lack of detail.
I label everything as soon as it comes apart with tape and a permanent marker. I like to use bright green painter’s tape; it’s cheap, readily available and easy to spot. Both ends of all hoses and wiring connections, order of assembly and various bolt locations are all prime candidates for labeling. I typically use number and letter codes to keep track rather than trying to write descriptions on the label. For example, a vacuum hose and it’s connection point will both be marked “A”, a wiring connector and its connection point “B”, and so on. If needed, I will also write details on a notepad.
Keeping track of nuts, bolts and small hardware is equally important. For loose fasteners and hardware, old plastic and glass containers from the kitchen are perfect. Plastic bags and ziplocs are good, too, and can be written on with a permanent marker. In some cases, I will tape a sealed plastic bag containing nuts and bolts onto the parts they belong to.
Finally, prepare a clean space to organize and store your car’s innards as you remove them. It could be the trunk, a spot in your garage or even inside your house or apartment (I once stored a transmission in my bedroom… a story for another day). You’ll want to keep your parts from getting knocked over, stepped on, rained on, damaged or stolen, so try to pick a space where they’ll be secure, dry and out of the way. Cardboard boxes in a variety of sizes will really come in handy for storage, so you might want to collect some before you start.
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Once I’d removed the intake manifold, other items needing attention revealed themselves. Some vacuum hoses were disconnected and had cracked ends, the flame trap had come apart and some wiring and connectors were loose and corroded. All typical 30-year-old car stuff and expected.
I then went after the exhaust manifold so I could access another blown out freeze plug, this one in the water jacket for the #2 cylinder. I’d soaked the manifold nuts overnight with PB Blaster penetrating oil, wonderful stuff which I highly recommend. One of the manifold studs had already been broken off before I bought the car, so I knew I needed to be extra careful; broken manifold studs can be a nightmare to fix, especially if they snap off flush with the cylinder head. I got out my 1/2 inch breaker bar and 6-point sockets and slowly worked the nuts back and forth a quarter turn at a time, saturating them with more penetrating oil as I progessed. It took a while, but I got everything loosened and out in one piece, including the broken stud. Phew!
Enough fun for one day.
A Word: Heptad: The sum or number, or a group, of seven.
Above: The latest progress on my artcar’s trunk lid.
Today: The new project is in my garage. I had to keep it in one piece for a month or so after purchase as I did some work on vehicles for a few friends and needed to play the endless game of musical cars. I eventually bit the bullet and committed it to “beached whale” status: a car under repair that can’t be moved until it is all put back together again and running.
I started with tidying up. Cleaning may seem a trivial way to start a project, but I’ve found that it actually makes rehab easier by making a difference in how I perceive the car, not to mention that I won’t feel like I have to take a shower every time I touch it. I also get the chance to give the car a thorough going over to survey what is broken, missing or in bad shape.
A layer of oily gray finger scum covered the steering wheel, parking brake, door handles and other interior bits, and a big wad of chewing gum had been left to melt onto the dashboard. Nice! The interior had clearly seen children, as evidenced by stickers, glitter, glow-in-the-dark stars, some old toys and numerous bits of food. Yard debris, sawdust and crumbled chunks of drywall confirmed a past life as a beast of burden.
Found objects are what makes cleaning fun. I’ve come across all kinds of stuff over the years: love letters, photos, grocery lists, books, shoes, clothes, drug paraphernalia, abandoned art projects, traffic citations, court summons, funeral notices. And coins… lots of them. I found at least $10 worth of change in one car, which, of course, I mentally deducted from the amount I paid for it.
The most revealing find in this car was a folder of old repair receipts. Any kind of prior repair and maintenance history is nice to have, but often as not it tells a tale of woe, misery and expense, and this car proved to be truly exceptional in that regard. Thousands of dollars had been spent on repairs and bodywork in the last 5 years, much more than the car was ever worth, much of it outrageously expensive and of piss-poor quality based on the evidence left behind… another reminder to me of why I still take the time to do my own repairs.
The tailgate was festooned with the bumper stickers you’d expect to see on a west coast Volvo: Buy Organic! Organize! Support Community Radio! Recycle! Some kind of giant red vinyl symbol thingy on the back window, representing what? I have no idea. And, of course, one of those ubiquitous Shepard Fairey Obama “HOPE” stickers. That’s all swell, I’ve no problem with any of that… but I dislike having political stuff on my car, not to mention that an old Volvo is already enough of a stereotypical hippy car as it is. So, I got out a hair dryer and slowly heated the stickers up to remove them. I was as careful as I could be, but the stickers still stripped all of the damn clear coat off of the paint, more evidence of crappy paint and body work. I now have non-shiny spots where the stickers used to be… no big deal, as I have other plans for the paintjob (mwaa ha ha ha).
And of course, when I looked in the trunk, the jack was missing. The damn jack is always missing.
Next: Really tearing into it.
A Word: Eruct: To eject, as wind, from the stomach; to belch; hence, to emit, as fumes.
A Link: The Sartorialist. I haven’t proven to be much of a clothes hound over the years, but I’ve been looking at this site pretty regularly of late for ideas. Looks like my thrashed-old-suitcoat look is back in, and Chucks never go out of style, do they?
Hey all… time to pay some attention to my long-neglected blog. To my amazement, it still seems to average several visitors a day, despite the fact that it hasn’t been updated in, um, well over a year. I wonder who’s been checking in?
Today: After taking on more car rehabilitation projects over the years than I can remember, I’m finally going to document one with photos and a diary. Thus, I present my latest project: a 1981 Volvo wagon.
I spotted it on Craigslist as a “project car”, certainly one of my all-time favorite automotive mystery euphemisms. Is it an unpolished gem with lots of life left in it, in need of simple repair? The remains of some fool’s broken dream, hideously butchered in a tragic series of half-assed repair attempts? Are vital parts unattached and rotting away in old milk crates, or missing altogether? Is the trunk filled with broken computer monitors and fast food trash? Have cats been pissing inside of it for months? I’ve seen all of the above and then some over the years. After many wild goose chases and disappointments, I now have some rules of thumb that I follow: I want to see a photo first, no cars with missing titles, liens or more than one reassignment, and no cars more than 10 miles from home. Above all, I keep my expectations low, and I’m always ready to walk away.
When I went to look at the wagon, I found that the engine had a blown-out freeze plug and a damaged water pump, the result of diluted coolant freezing solid during last December’s snowstorm… too much water, not enough antifreeze. But, the body was in nice shape and there were no missing parts. Clear title, current tags. It had a fresh brake job, a good clutch, a nice set of factory alloy rims and decent tires. The paint was even kinda shiny, and it had a working stereo! Best of all, it started right up. After some tire kicking and head scratching, I decided that it looked like a good candidate for repair and rehab if the price was right. I dickered the seller down to $300, figuring at that price that if it didn’t work out, it would still make a good parts car for my Volvo sedan. Sold.
The first task: getting it home, a distance of 7 miles. While the engine ran, it wouldn’t hold coolant for more than a few minutes, meaning there was no chance of driving it home without it overheating and trashing the engine. After trying various solutions, I eventually sealed the leaky freeze plug with some Lexel. Lexel is interesting stuff, it’s similar to silicone caulk but much more manageable, and it will adhere to wet surfaces, essential for the sticky, wet, coolant-covered mess that I was dealing with. I formed a marble-sized wad of Lexel, pushed it into the hole in the offending freeze plug and then went home and waited a day for it to cure. The next morning, I filled the engine up with coolant and slowly started back for home with the radiator cap loose to keep the coolant pressure down. Success! My fix worked like a charm, saving me at least $50 in towing fees and allowing me honor another of my used car precepts: whatever I buy should be able to make it home under its own power.
So far, so good.
Next: A closer look and a plan to rehab.
A Link: How to build a car from scratch. Truly awesome fabrication and welding work on a hotrod project.
A Word: Mordant: Sharply caustic or sarcastic, as wit or a speaker; biting.
I took a trip in early October with my artcar pals to Art Car World, where we took part in Artcarfest Arizona ‘07. It was a grand, unforgettable journey and I loved the chance to spend time with my people again… Emily, Philo, Chasterus, Scottling, Nod and Reverend Rot’n Hell were all excellent traveling companions, and we met up with several other artcar artists along the way.
Some of the artistic highlights included visiting Leonard Knight’s Salvation Mountain, Noah Purifoy’s High Desert Test Site installation, Elmer Long’s Bottle Forest (along historic Route 66) and the settlement of East Jesus in storied Slab City, on the periphery of the Salton Sea. Our fearless leader Philo also had his artwork displayed at the True World Gallery in Joshua Tree, California, and we were fortunate to be part of the opening festivities.Here are some of my photos from the trip:
My artcar (pictured above) got me there and back again with no problems, taking in over 4,000 miles of driving in two weeks! It got several scritches on the dashboard for being such a good car. My new convertible top worked like a charm and got me into and out of rain-soaked Oregon without a drop of water coming in. The car has now passed from being a masochistic mechanical obsession to being a boon companion and faithful mule… it’s broken in and is now my daily driver.
I told myself I would name the car on this trip, and I utterly failed to do so… I seem to be stuck on variations of female names, which is odd to me as I’ve never been big on endowing inanimate objects with a gender. Still, I find myself leaning in that direction. The current fave is a composite of several women I have known, but something is holding me back from formalizing it and breaking that bottle of champagne on the bumper. Eh. I will get off the dime and christen it before too long.
A Link: June and Farrar Burn
A Word: Inspissate: To thicken, as by evaportation.
The Pickathon roots music festival was GREAT! The most enjoyable festival that I’ve been to in years. The setup was close to perfect: a beautiful location, well arranged, free drinking water, decent food and vendors and, yes, even plentiful and clean portajohns! But, of course, the best part was being able to see so many excellent musicians and acts in one place. I really have to hand it to the organizers… I can honestly say that there wasn’t a single act that I disliked.
Highlights, in no particular order:
The Handsome Family: Dark and funny as hell. A major part of their show is Brett and Rennie’s on-stage banter… they can spin yarns like no one else, and it’s actually kinda fun to hear them bicker with each other. I am undecided if I like their new drummer (a laptop) as compared to their old one (a 70’s era Sears and Roebuck rhythm machine… foxtrot, anyone?).
Flat Mountain Girls: Damned entertaining, as always. Their banjo player and overall good egg Rachel was heavily involved in organizing the festival and seemed to be everywhere… she was one spent cookie by the end of the weekend!
Sassparilla Jug Band: My favorite Portland band… washtub bass, resonator guitar, bucket drum kit, a portrait of Mike Ditka and gobs of energy. My best memory of the whole weekend was seeing all six of them jammed onto a 10×10 outdoor stage at 1:00 AM. I set off what became a large crowd of manic dancers and before you knew it, it was all slide guitar, flailing feet and dust everywhere… a VERY large time was had by all.
Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band: A gritty little hillbilly blues trio from Indiana. Most memorable song: “Your Cousin’s On Cops”.
Gregory And The Hawk: Singer and guitarist Meridith Godreau, backed by upright bass. Proof that you can get good sound out a $25 Stella Harmony guitar… the only thing more brave than playing one in the sunlight before a large crowd is retuning it for each song, without the aid of a tuner! Yikes! Beautiful vocals… I could hear just a touch of Joanna Newsom in her voice. I hope she makes it out to the west coast again.
Trampled By Turtles: Speed bluegrass, with great harmony vocals and a distinct hard rawk flavor. They really lit up the barn. The pride of Duluth, Minnesota.
Two Man Gentleman Band: An old-timey Vaudeville act, replete with period suits and kazoos. These guys were the life of the party pretty much everywhere they went that weekend, on or off stage.
There was a ton of good pickin’ to be heard in the campgrounds throughout the day and night. Some particularly talented folks were camped out by my tent and lulled me to sleep.
This week, I’m gearing up to do some kind of a week-long camping trip. This’ll be my main outdoor excursion for the summer, and I am torn between a bicycle tour of the coast or a drive out to eastern Oregon. I have four more days to get it together, so I’ll have decide soon.
A Link: Portland artcar herder Emily’s new blog! This is cool, it’s great to see someone organizing our mobile freak-shows like this… look for an artcar extravaganza on September 15th at the Alberta Street Fair.
A Word: Peroration: The concluding part of a discourse, especially of an oration; a final summing up of an argument.
Hey, all… time for an update. The latest news:
I’m going to Pickathon!!! Yaaaaayyyy!!! This is a weekend-long roots music festival not far from Portland. Big, big fun, acoustic music workshops and too many cool bands to list, check out the link below. I’m going to ride my bike out there and camp, which will give me a chance to try out my new tent and backpacking stove. I’m cheating just a bit on the bike riding, a friend is coming later in a van that will have my heavy and bulky stuff like cans of soup, extra clothes and my guitars.
I just got through with my artcar resurrection project. The Volvo that you can see developing in earlier entries in this blog made it to San Francisco and back last year, but barely. By the time I made it back home, its limited slip differential was toast and was making the car hop like a wounded bunny around corners. The transmission’s overdrive unit went south and leaked like a sieve; I had to refill it twice during the trip, not fun as it involved jacking up the car and getting underneath. And, the front brakes began to leak fluid. To top it off, the car also had numerous intermittent electrical gremlins.
So, did I junk the car? Of course not! That would be too easy! Actually, I didn’t want to start yet another artcar and the engine was still in excellent shape. So, I bought a junker 240 that had most of the parts I needed and went at it.
I swapped out the entire rear end… suspension, brakes, differential, rear axle and all. I replaced the transmission and overdrive unit and put in a new clutch. By the time I was through, I’d replaced the entire drivetrain.
Then I rebuilt the braking system, did surgery on the wiring harness and buttoned it all back up. Started on the first try! I have an artcar again!
Okay, gotta get back to getting ready for Pickathon.
A Word: Panjandrum: A burlesque title for a powerful or pretentious official.
A Link: Pickathon
Today: Someone asked me recently about what I’ve been reading… books about traveling was the answer. They wanted some examples, so I cooked up this list. After I got done, it seemed like a good thing to blog on, so here you go.
You can google the ISBN numbers and get some info, or perhaps more directly, go to Powells.com and do an ISBN search.
Bad Trips
edited by Keath Fraser
Vintage Departures, 1991
ISBN 0-679-72908-9
An excellent compilation of essays and short stories centering around horrible travel experiences. Very entertaining, it turned me on to several authors whom I’ve checked out since. A good book to bring to the airport, not in the least because it will assure you that you’re not alone.
Fresh Air Fiend
Paul Theroux
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000
ISBN 0-618-12693-7
A compilation of Theroux’s more recent travel writings. An articulate and keen observer of place and culture, he’s been to some exotic and bizarre places in his day, and his descriptions have the depth of his experience behind them. He can also be a bit of a crank at times, which, of course, only adds to the charm.
Blue Highways
William Least Heat-Moon
Fawcett Crest, 1982
ISBN 0-449-20432-4
I’m re-reading this after finding a paperback to replace my lost hardcover edition. In my mind, the archetypal American road trip book. As much as any other influence, this book got me off the Interstate and into two-lane traveling… and travel writing.
River Horse
William Least Heat-Moon
Penguin Books, 1999
ISBN 0-14-029860-6
Heat-Moon traverses America again, this time via river. This one had me reaching for my dictionary more than a few times, a good, thick read with lots of history, detail and lush description.
Highway 50: Ain’t That America
Jim Lilliefors
Fulcrum Publishing, 1993
ISBN 1-55591-073-4
The story of a man who travelled west across America via Highway 50. Lilliefors is a bit of an odd duck, he tends to dwell in the lesser forms and places of living, making for a slightly depressing read at times… but it’s still worth it.
Travels With Charley
John Steinbeck
Penguin, 1962
ISBN 0140187413
A pickup, a camper, a cranky old man and his poodle.
Metal Cowboy
Joe Kurmaskie
Three Rivers Press, 1999
ISBN 0-609-80911-3
If you like touring by bicycle as I do, you’ll like this one. A light read, not too gritty or exceedingly deep but quite entertaining, it helps explain the sickness that is self-contained bike touring. I like his philosophy… he sounds like a good guy to go on a ride with, to be sure. Interesting tidbit: Kurmaskie lives in Portland on N. Willamette Blvd, only a few miles from my house. I’m going to try to meet him in person one of these days.
Riding Outside The Lines
Joe Kurmaskie
Three Rivers Press, 2003
ISBN 1-4000-4798-6
Another book by Kurmaskie, this one has a bit more attitude, concentrating on tall tales of adventure by cycle. An excellent companion piece to his first book.
Miles From Nowhere
Barbara Savage
The Mountaineers, 1983
ISBN 0-89886-109-8
The story of a couple and their around-the-world cycling trip during the late 70’s. Considered essential reading for those masochists among us who enjoy cycle touring, it describes the joys and horrors in unflinching detail… the reasons for taking on such a quest in the first place, gut-churning descriptions of physical strain, hunger and intestinal disorders, the trust and hospitality shown by complete strangers, being pelted with rocks thrown by locals.
Surely, some of you will ask why Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” is not on my list of travel books. It wasn’t through lack of trying to read it. There were a few interesting moments, but in the end the plot and characters struck me as tedious, solipsistic and more than a little annoying. In two attempts to read it, I put it down less than 1/3 of the way through… I eventually gave my copy away. What can I say.
So, what are you reading these days?
PS: A tip o’ the hat to The Cardhouse Robot for recommending several of the titles above.
A Link: Why are so many of my friends and acquaintances on this site?: Weird America
A Word: Mordacious: Biting or gven to biting; acrid; hence, now of language, caustic.
