More buildings

Eric and I headed out this afternoon to take some pictures of some empty buildings we recently spotted. A sunny 50 degree
saturday in January is not to be wasted! So we headed over to the public market neighboorhood first.
I have been taking picutres of empty commercial buildings for awhile now. I would like to purchase one after I sell my house.





I think I liked this one the best - definately more character. It had a loading bay garage on the union street side as well.






This one had a very nice covered front entrance. I definatelty like the 4 stories.





- but the north side was showing some water damage. It does not help that this building is located in Rochester's worst neighborhood.

I put my van Chilipepper away today for the winter, battery chargers and all. I will have to consult with my vanagon tribe to the casue of the ailments over the next fews months. Gettting the van out in the spring is always fun, yet still a 4 wheel project list. I guess this coming spring will be no different.

Long Trip Home

We grabbed bagels this morning and headed out out around 10. I wanted to get as close to home as possible before the sunset. So we jumped on the beltway headed for 95 North to Baltimore. We put chapter 102[?] of the DaVinci Code on the stereo to listen to as we drove. We have been listening to it for the whole trip. The books on CD can really make the time fly! Which this one did precisely... once we passed a sign for a drawbridge ahead - I knew we COMPLETELY missed the 95 exit and were now almost ALL the way around the eastside of the beltway. Ooops! We put the DaVinci code on pause and did a U turn and kept a sharp look out for the 95 exit this time. A short time after we found 95 - i got the first sign of trouble with the van. While driving - it seemed to momentarily lose power. It was the kind of blip that only a Vanagon owner would notice and start to worry. I thought it may just be a fluke so i did not mention it to Eric. Meanwhile i started doing the mental arithmetic of how far we would get using both our AAA Gold cards with thier towing allowance. Once we passed York - the van hiccupped again. Talk about ruining your mood. We were still 350 miles from home and it was really cold out. i did not relish the idea of sitting on the side of the road today. At least the weather was OK. Well - to make it short - the problem started increasing in frequency and in a couple of spots - the van literally started choking / stalling at 65mph. Twice I literally shut the engine off at full speed and restarted it while rolling. [ Which would temporarily fix the problem. I was figuring that the fuel pump must be flaking out because the engine was not backfiring at all...so I figured fuel starvation. But later I noticed that the problem would happen regardless of where I had the gas pedal....So I hit the gas figuring better to get closer to home before the van completely quit. I got Eric home to Syracuse and then promptly headed to Rochester with the van hiccupping several times along the way. I finally made it home around 8 - very relieved to be in my own bed for the night.

Arrival in Washington with a grumpy Van

The autotrain pulled to Lorton [ just outside of DC ] around 10 - about 1.5 hours late. Since We had the guestroom and no particular plans for the day - the late arrival just meant we slept in a bit. It took about an hour for the crew to unload the Vanagon. I wanted to watch because the vanagon was getting increasing hard to start [hot or cold ] and was now stalling at
idle on occasion. After retrieval - we headed to DC to Brian's apartment where He had left a key for us. After we got off the beltway - the vanagon really started stalling at every other traffic light on Connecticut Avenue. I am really convinced now the idle stabilizer was going haywire. So I was glad to get it parked at Brian's place. Brian's neighborhood is Upper Connecticut just northwest of the zoo. It looks like a fun neighborhood with lots of restaurants to pick from and the metro station right in the middle of it. Eric and I hit a greek restaurant for a late lunch and went back to Brians for a nap until he got home from work.
That evening we headed to Dupont Circle to meet up with our friends Chris and Rick [ former Rochestarians as well ]
After basking in 80 degree Florida weather - arriving in DC with a cold snap was not pleasant.

Here comes the train!








We headed out of Orlando around Noon to head to Sanford [ 45 miles?]. That is where the Autotrain is based.
[ Not the Orlando Amtrak station! ]






Eric and I were looking forward to taking the train. It seemed to be a good way to end the vacation by
cutting out the driving and doing something fun at the same time.









The auto train has three fare tiers:
First tier gets you on the train,
the next tier gets your car or van on the train
the next optional tier[s] get you out of steerage and into first class digs!

I think the rates were fairly reasonable $650 basically got us and the van on the train.












That included a deluxe room for Eric and I
[ that was a surprise for eric when we got on the train.. ]
The deluxe room included a shower and toilet and 2 bunks and our dinner and breakfast.













After we dropped our stuff in our room - we headed down to the lounge car for a wine tasting before the train departed.

Neat signs

We spotted these while driving around in Orlando near Greg's house! I am a old neon sign fan and Eric spotted these while we searching for iHOP. They are both part of an somewhat abandoned car dealership. We were both contemplating the idea of coming back after dark with a hacksaw but Amtrak doesn't have a roof rack.



Someone save these signs!!! Or at least get them on Ebay!









The moravian star was a new one for me. I have never seen anything like it.

After camping

We departed from the Keys the morning of the 2nd to head to Ft. Lauderdale. Our friend David lives there. We spend the evening
visiting and managed to catch "Brokeback Mountain" while in town. Good movie. Not an 11 out of 10 like everyone is saying - but I liked it. After dropping Brian off at the airport the next morning we headed out ourselves back to Orlando to Greg's house.
We had a day to kill before our train back North. We talked about visiting NASA or going to Universal Studios - but the idea of getting back in the car was not appealing. So we spend the day poking around the Outlet malls nearby.

Things to do:


People pointed out to me that I am "not a beach person" and wondered what we might do with all the time we had at the park. "Down time" has never been my strong suit, so i planned to work on the vanagon. i had a bunch of projects i planned to tinker with while we were in warm weather. I brought with us a driving light set along with a factory fog light switch, A box of wiring accesories, my new Makita Cordless drill and the socket set. But motivation to work on the van seemed to evaporate every day as the sun got higher. i did manage to take pictures of some of my past vanagon projects that were proving useful.

An indoor/outdoor thermostat / voltmeter that is modifed to monitor fridge temp and the auxillary battery






Auxillary Fuse block and amplifier under back seat











An extra 12 outlet tucked in the back hatch area wired to the auxillary battery.






A custom window screen with magnets for the front window of the car







When not in use - I store it in the bunk of the van








And this is a Sylvania DOT light. They just came out. I temporarily mounted it above the lower bunk just to evaluate it.
I will be wiring up a pair of the them in the back this spring with a resistor and switch to the auxillary battery. Just to note - the white LEDs attract bugs. :O(