We decided to camp at a Wallmart, where after a few minutes a car stopped with a very nice guy who, after talking to us for only a few minutes, invited us to come to his house and have lasagne with him and his family. We could even park overnight near his house he said.

We spent a very fun evening with Steven and Stephanie and their three kids and had the best lasagne. When we talked about the rest of our route, they told us that the Sonora pass was open and that it was a beautiful drive which they could certainly recommend.

So the next day we decided to go on the Sonora pass to cross the Sierra mountains. After about an hour and a half we saw a sign that mentioned “23% grade ascent”. Oops! We looked at eachother and wondered whether Panda would be able to get to the top. Again, we decided to give it a chance. She does not go fast, but normally she should be able to get us to the top. And she did, without any problem or hesitation.

Sonora pass

However, only a 100 meters after the top (and again 23% descent), we heard a loud beng and all of a sudden, on a very steep part down, the clutch did not work anymore. Luckily there was a pullout at the side of the road, where we could stop Panda against a tree and get out.

Michel tried to look under the car and see if it was something we would be able to repair right then and there, but pretty soon it was clear that we had really broken down. No cell reception, at least 50 miles from the closest town.

We decided to stop a car and ask them if they could take one of us to the nearest town to call the AAA. They offered to call the AAA for us once they would have cell reception again. Instead they called the Highway Police, who arrived after an hour or so. He arranged for us to be towed to a garage. From that moment on, everything went so well that we really felt it had been meant to be.

The tow truck took us to Gardnerville, to CV Transmissions. The owners Kevin and Barbara immediately decided they wanted to do the job and offered us to camp in their parking lot. At that moment we still thought we would have to stay there for three weeks because we would certainly have to order the right parts from Sweden.

But the next day, the guys of CV Transmissions took the clutch out within three hours and within another hour they had located the right parts within the States, which would arrive in 48 hours.

On that same night, another very kind couple brought their car to CV Transmissions to have it repaired. They saw Panda, heard about our story and within an hour they came back and invited us to stay at their home for the next couple of days while Panda would be repaired.

We gladly accepted their invitation and had some very nice days, sleeping in a real bed, taking a hot shower, had a home cooked meal. Greg even took a whole afternoon to show us around in the area. He took us to Lake Tahoe, to the mountains, to his favorite ski resort and to Genoa, a very old, traditional little village with beautiful wooden houses and saloons. At dusk, the deer come down from the mountains and lie around in people’s yards.

On our last morning, Kevin decided to call the local newspaper and have them do an interview with us. An hour later, the husband of the journalist stopped by to have a look at Panda and a chat with us. It turned out he was a locksmith and we had been looking for weeks to get a certain key doubled, because we had only one key left after we lost a pair in the early days of our trip. We had seen many, many locksmiths, but nobody could make it. Aron had a look at it, and after twenty minutes he had it done! We had three extra keys to our main lock!

While spending a few days with Greg and Cindy, the lovely couple who took us into their homes, we had told Greg about our problems of finding the right tyres to replace the ones we have. Just before we left, he located them on ebay, at an address on our route.

So, as it turned out, it all came together in Gardnerville and we felt it just was meant to be that we broke down on the Sonora pass. Thank you so much, Steven and Stephanie for inviting us for lasagne. If we would not have met you, we would not have driven the Sonora pass, would not have broken down, would not have found new keys, would not have found new tyres and would not have met the kindest people like Kevin and Barbara, Greg and Cindy and Shannon and Aron and yourselves!

Even though we are not people who want music on all the time, we do like to listen to some music or watch a movie every now and then. You can just do this on your computer, or put on your Ipod, but we think the sound of a computer or earphones is not particularly good.Therefore we bought a Jambox by Jawbone. This is a tiny little box that gives great sound.

It operates by bluetooth, so that you do not need to hook up any cables. The box itself is approximately 5 x 2 inches, so very small, but especially in a small camper like ours, it gives the idea of a suround sound.

Whenever we overnight at a Walmart parking lot (about once a week) we like to rent movies from the redbox ( which costs only USD 1.30!) and also then we hook up the Jambox to our computer and it gives us the idea of watching television at home.

We bought the box in the Netherlands, but like most other gear, the prices in the US are much lower and I would advise to order it on the internet here. This is a great speaker that makes you feel like watching television or listening to a stereo, all in this very small box.

We went for a hike to mirror lake and to Yosemite falls, which were both beautiful. There are lots of campgrounds in the park and everything is very well organised. It did remind us a little bit of a recreational park but that was also what made it so relaxing and comfortable. There were bicycle paths everywhere, hiking was not too difficult and very well indicated. We could have spent a week there, but unfortunately we are on a bit of schedule and have to leave the country by May 22nd.

In our first eight weeks we have taken care of the following issues, all done by ourselves without too much of a hassle:

- we replaced one seal on the rear axle, which we did not replace before we left, so it was about 35 years old. Not surprised that we had to replace it after about 7.000 km.

- we use about 1 liter of engine oil on 1500 km. Not huge, but more than expected. We check the level every 3-4 days.

- she gets us up the mountains,  but very, very slowly. We easily slow down to about 20 miles/hour on average ascents and even slower when it is a bit more steep. On the pass in Death Vally we had to stop once on the way up to let the engine cool down and once on the way down to prevent the brakes from blowing up. Again, we have to go very slowly going up or down the mountains.

- we replaced a brake cylinder.

- the oil in the carburetor needs to be checked and refilled fairly regularly

So, overall, not too bad and certainly not surprising. Panda is an old lady and needs a bit more attention than a younger model might have needed. However, she drives very comfortably and we are very happy with our choice. We get a lot of attention driving her around, which is nice. Being introvert as we are, it is nice if people come to us instead of us needing to be outgoing to talk to people. The nicest part of this journey has been meeting all these people and learning how they live and think about life.

Panda stretching her legs off-road

Two days after writing the above, Panda broke down on our way down of the Sonora pass in California. The clutch disk completely fell apart on a very steep part down and at this moment we are waiting for parts to be shipped from eastern US. We had to be town from the pass to the nearest town. We just received an estimate, which is not going to be cheap, but fortunately not as bad as we expected. We are hoping to be out of here within a couple of days. 

Broken clutch disk

This area of the States has the largest population of black bears in the country. Even though these bears are naturally shy, they also need a lot of food. And though most of the bears will find their food in the backcountry, in the meadows and in the trees, some also like to find an easy way to food. The parks are known for bears that break into cars and motorhomes to get easy acces to delicious food.

Everywhere in the park we’d find pictures and notes about the amount of accidents that happened with bears breaking into cars and food containers. (5 bear attacks last week in one campsite in Yosemite!). Even though most of the attacks happen to coolboxes with food that people leave outside, it still is fascinating and (to me) very scary. I could not really stop thinking about those bears and, especially in the evenings, kept looking around watching for bears. I sort of expected a bear behind every tree and could not really relax despite the beautiful surroundings.

Part of that fear came from the fact that it was not clear to me what you are supposed to do if you are in a motorhome. In every campsite you’d find large bearboxes, a sort of metal cases, where people can put their food and toiletries. We have stock for a few weeks of drinks, food and toiletries though and we keep that in several boxes all over the vehicle. I asked several rangers and got different responses to my question as to what to do with all that stock. Some said we should remove everything from our car and leave it in the bear box, others said we should be fine as long as we did not leave anything on the counter of the kitchen and keep the windows closed.

We have camped in a few campsites and put all open foodcontainers (fruits and veggies, bread, spices, peanut butter) in the bear boxes. But we also camped off the campsites, in the bush, because that is what we like most. There were no bear boxes though. We kept everything inside the car and closed the windows.

Needless to say that I did not sleep well those nights. I kept waking up, being sure I heard an animal sniffing around the car, trying to get in. Of course it was just Dunya turning in her sleep end breathing loudly. I am glad we are now out of the forest and on our way to Yellowstone, where we should find even more wildlife and   larger bears (grizzlies!!). I’d better get some sleep the next days..

backcountry camping in bear country

The next day we left Dunya in the car and took the shuttle through the canyon to do some hiking. Even though the hikes were nice and the view was beautiful, we preferred the drive from east to south. In our opinion the rocks and the view was more special outside of the canyon than inside.

That plan still stands. But instead of continuing to drive south from now on, we decided to take a (little) Dtour. We will first drive north! Our initial plan for the summer months was to spend them in Mexico and then continue south. But those are not only the hottest months in Mexico, but also the wettest. And of course we knew that, but after reading up a bit more and actually really thinking about it, we decided that hot and wet was not very appealing to us.

Furthermore we were really disappointed at the start of our trip when it turned out that we could not go to Canada due to insurance reasons. So, we decided we will spend the summer months in Canada and then drive down to Mexico in September! We are very excited about this change of plans.

It means we get to see Canada and (a small part) of Alaska after all! We will be able to visit Yellowstone, either in the next month, or on our way back down, depending on the weather. We are hoping to see some bears (not too close of course).

This is where we took the decision to go north.

It also means we will be able to meet up with some friends in California by the end of August-early September. Of course it also means we will have to drive some 4-5000 miles more than expected. But so far Panda is holding up well and we have not encountered any real issues. Hopefully she will continue to behave well.

Any advise on must-see’s up north are now welcome!

The Grand Canyon is very impressive. We were there in early April, before the actual season starts, but it was nevertheless very busy. We set the alarm in order to be there before the crowds, but even at 8h30, the first parking lot was already quite full.

We brought Dunya and were allowed only on the paved roads. Had we not had a dog, we may have wanted to hike all the way down to the river, camp there and hike back the next day, but now we just went for a walk along the rim and then followed the Desert View Road in our car.

Especially the knowledge that that canyon has been made by a river over millions of years is impressive. The colors of the rocks were beautiful and the sight of the river far below was awesome.

A disadvantage however is that on the nicely paved highways here in the States, the tyres run down a bit more than expected.

So we might be looking for a solution. We already researched the internet a bit, but cannot really find the right direction, which is why we thought we might ask you, our readers for help.

Our current tyres are Michelin XZL, 255/100-R16. We know that Michelin produces these tyres only once every few years and that most of that production is meant for militairy vehicles. We contacted Michelin in the states and they do not produce any time soon. They advised us to contact one of their dealers, but the dealers we contacted did not know where to get these tyres either.

We see the following options:

1. We try to find the exact same tyres. Maybe at an army-dumpstore? Ebay? Craigslist?

1. These tyres are known for the possibility that they can be re-threaded or regrooved by at least an inch. In that case we would be looking for someone who could do that. Where would we be able to get that done, preferable in Utah, Nevada or California, because those are the states that we go through from here.

1. We buy another set of tyres. Another brand, a slightly different size. Preferably fitting on the current rims though. In that case we would need to find out what size, brand would be comparable to our current tyres.

Last but not least, for those of you who have already been in Central & South America, how much of a chance do we have to find replacing tyres at an acceptable price there?

We would be most grateful for any kind of advice that you could give us. Please leave them in the comments below.

On the day we were there, it was very hot and in the afternoon and we did not dare to leave Dunya in the car for too long and after five minutes it was clear that she did not want to go for a walk in that strange hot sand, so we did not walk a full trail. We did however go up the dunes for a while to walk around and take some pictures.

Being used to the dunes in the Netherlands, we were not too impressed by this park, but it was certainly fun to play in the sand! It is part of the National Parks, so our annual pass was valid.