There we were….
Fresh out of the desert, detoured by terrorism, hubs still locked in, and… Did… Did my kid just get zapped into that damn painting he’s been looking at???
These are my memories of our family road trip around Tunisia.
(sorry everyone. With no family in the immediate area to torture with awful slide-shows, I have to turn to my GRM for the distribution of the proper abuse)
I had a long intro typed up here, but no matter how I edited it it just sounded like me on a soap-box. I'll trim it down to it's main points so we can explain how we got here, and then get right into the story:
First: I'm a nerd. Always have been. This is something everyone told me was wrong with me right up to the advent of the internet. That's when all us nerds got together and found out there were more of us than there were "normal people". We also found out that we tended to be much happier people as well. This is something I wanted to teach my kids early on:
"Not only is it ok to be exactly who you are, you should embrace it"
Second: Travel (I don't care where to. Next door, next city, next state, or next country) is necessary for a better future. And do it now because there is no guarantee of a future. This is a story I can't trim down, so you're going to have to chew through the raw version (and for that, I apologize)
my grandparents took me on a cross-country trip in their motorhome. We hit every historical site in the US (or at least it seemed). I saw everything from “Mount Rushmore” to “Fords Theater” to “Crazy Horse National Monument” when it was just paint on a rock. And I met people. Many many people. Different people. People so different that when they asked me simple questions like “did you eat yet for lunch”, my poor grandmother had to translate as I had no idea what the heck this thick accent was!
When I came back to my 5th grade class that September and learned about Lincoln being shot, I got to say “holy shirt, I’ve been there y’all!”
My grandfather would die two years after that trip of cancer. The man worked his whole life at a job he absolutely hated. A job that caused him so much heartburn that he would eat tums by the handful and then the guy died after his second RV trip in a retirement he spent his whole life looking forward to…
Not me, I said. No Berkin way am I wasting my life at a job I hate for some promise of “later”. For me “later” is not a guarantee.
And I’ve been very cautious to NOT follow in those footsteps ever since.
Alberto Santos-Dumont believed that air-travel would bring about world peace (linked, so you don't have to look him up). If people traveled, they would meet other people and realize they weren't so different. If they did that, then maybe they would quit fighting.
I believe in this very much. Mark Twain had similar things to say:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
Naturally, when I had my kids (and when the opportunity arose) I absolutely HAD to take full advantage of it (and take advantage we did). Unfortunately my eldest is getting older now, and I can tell I've only got a couple more years left before those teenage hormones took over. That means I had to plan the vacation to end all vacations while I could. And that meant going to Africa.
Back on subject: Ok, so right now you might be questioning my sanity (and you would be right in doing so). “Adventure is one thing” you might say. “But why go to the Sahara in JUNE of all months???”
Yeah, 30-year-old Toyota, painted black, no AC, no airbags… We die like real men, right? We did try to schedule this back in April, but we really needed two weeks of travel (17 days, actually) to do all the things we wanted to do. Unfortunately, there are no breaks in school that are two weeks long outside of summer… And as much as I do think the kids will learn from all this, they do need to learn what the school is teaching them (even if it is just for them to have something to compare to later).
On the plus side that limitation did give us some time to prepare for this great adventure. And prepare we did. We had no fantasies about being able to retrofit an AC unit to our truck in the time and money we had available to us, but we thought we could shore that up a bit with a quality 12v refrigerator. The idea is it will cool our drinks down to “darn-near-freezing” (I have it set to -5C, but it will go as low as -17C if desired) and let us cool off with refreshing beverages as required. Honestly, for a cost vs benefit ratio, I don’t think it gets much better than this.
Let me tell ya, we tested the dickens out of this darn thing! I had it running non-stop at barbecues, just for giggles, out in the sun, inside, and in the shade. It's a Compass Alpicool 30-liter unit. Runs off a 12v cigarette lighter outlet in the truck and has an auto-shutdown to protect the battery.
Anyhoo, I had it out with my notebook and my spare battery every day. I'd charge that battery up and run it on every setting imaginable. I had notes so thorough, I knew down to the nearest 10-minutes when it would shut off and how long it would stay cold afterwards. I really did not want to get caught out in the sand with a dead battery and no cold water.
(also: I've decided to link things as I go. I thought it would make it easier for anyone who read through and wanted to duplicate something in the future.)
Our camp stove also would be making its maiden voyage. We had a proper Coleman unit when we were back in the states but it took pressurized gas containers that we were never able to find on this side of the pond. Plus, our adventures are getting longer now and those gas cans can take up a lot of room (and also may not be available for purchase at our destinations). To alleviate this issue to the greatest possible degree, we opted for a petrol burning stove from the same manufacturer. It's a Coleman 424 unit and, as familiar as I am with cooking on such things, nothing goes in un-tested (including the food packets we were bringing).
(Lucky for me, the eldest can't operate a lighter yet)
Knowing sand was in our future, I also picked up a farm-jack in case self-recovery was needed (some day I’ll have a winch and a proper bumper, but for now one step at a time.
Honestly, I’ve never been in need of a farm-jack. Everything I’ve encountered off-road and on the trails so far has been doable with a good bottle jack and some shoring (when needed). Well, that changed on the Bamako run when I got stuck while driving solo and had to abandon the vehicle and leave on foot. Hindsight being 20/20, I can now clearly see multiple ways I could have got myself out of that situation (and a lot of them include a farm jack)
But that was mud, and this is sand. Truth be told, I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. I especially don’t like driving in it so much testing of the jack was needed, and some adapters were purchased as well as a paper map of our trip. I’ll later draw our stops on the map for quick reference if we find ourselves in an area without cell/GPS coverage.
Having the kids with us meant that Mrs. Hungary and I REALLY had to be prepared. When it comes to kids, they’re going to be an energy drain in any stressful environment, so we started breaking out supplies in April to make sure we had everything prepared, packed, and organized by June. Some items (like camp silverware) needed to be purchased as we needed to take every chance we could get to save room in the back of the truck. Other things like our tarp, or our poop/shower tent, or our poop bucket we’d set up and tear down just for the practice.
Only one sand-track here... I stinking lost the other one when I got stuck in Senegal two years ago and haven't bought any more yet. I'm kind-of hoping to save enough to buy a proper quality unit but figure one is better than none. Anyhoo, building off of previous experience we know that this is the MOST organized the truck will be on this journey. Lucky for us, the cargo compartment is bigger on the inside 
The transmission too, needed to be replaced. I was running a remanufactured unit in the truck and one of the bearings on the input shaft started making noise a couple months ago. I don’t think it was in any danger of letting loose, but this wasn’t the time to be taking chances. Especially when I had since rebuilt the original transmission and had it on my workbench.
So I set about swapping that as well (and may have had a little help)
Once done, I figured an oil change was in order...
And you would think that’s the end of things, but my ADHD knows no bounds. Mrs. Hungary might have lived most of her life in Texas, but she is VERY heat sensitive. I mean not only does she burn easily, but it knocks it RIGHT out of her. Looking at temps in Tunisia right now, I’m seeing peaks of over 110deg F (45 deg c). I’m taking notes from how Kaylee handles herself on the outer rim planets and installed a parasol holder on the passenger side door. Nothing like quick access to your own personal shade to keep yourself cool on hot planets (Bonus points if we can find someone to trade a strawberry for passage).
Shiney!
Not all prep was car related either. To make it a true "family trip" we needed "family games"!
Unfortunately, all our Uno cards had to hold them together was a lousy rubber-band. Hardly something that would hold up to the heat in the Sahara. To rectify that situation, I fired up the 3d printer and printed out an Uno-deck holder!
Posting the license plate surround for nerd credit.
While all the cool kids drooled over the delorian (and I totally understand why), I wanted Marty's 4x4.
On the day we decided to do our final packing, I made two final mods:
1) I installed a fire extinguisher on the roll-bar:
For the record, this is an awful place to install an extinguisher in this vehicle. In order to access the back you either have to crawl over seats OR wait for the rear electric window to roll down. The latter of which may not be operative if you're on fire, and DEFINITELY wont be fast enough even if it is working. However, I already have a second extinguisher installed on Mrs. Hungary's seat rails so I thought this would be a good "camp accessible" extinguisher if needed.
and 2: zip-tied a bundle of my strongest zip ties to the opposite side roll bar. I figured if I needed them, then that would be a great place to be able to reach in and yank some out on short notice (Narrator voice: "Little did he know that he would need them...").
And finally, no trip can officially begin until you’ve decorated your ship. And for that, we’re going to need some red paint.
(Honest to goodness, I have Mal's exact quote about digging up the preacher on the tip of my tongue and can not remember it well enough to type here for the LIFE of me)
Not to be outdone, the youngest decorated our binder:
This has all of our reservations, plans, routes, stops, etc in it. This darn thing has been MONTHS in the making (and the eldest declined the opportunity to draw in it... just to give an example of said teenage hormones)
and in ten...
nine...
eight...
six...
(six??? What happened to "seven"???)
just kidding!
Four...
Three...
two...
one...
Have a nice daaaaaay!
I had meant to get this photo before I put the truck in gear, but messed up in my excitement and forgot. Instead it's from a fuel station in Slovenia. And if my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 400,000kms you're gonna see some serious sh*t.
All in all it's pretty uneventful on the 2-lane blacktop. Our destination tonight is a camp site in Italy that I found on iOverlander
Right now though, it's mostly just fuel stops and whatnot:
(You know you're on the good roads when the motorcyclists start passing you)
The kids are keeping busy by taking turns cleaning the windows at the fuel stops. The youngest likes to get REAL excited when we're close to a city with a big futbol team (and then very disappointed when we don't stop. The eldest largely keeps to himself. He brought the 6th Harry Potter book with him and is reading through it. This is something he's already done, but really he's just not interested in the outside world right now.
We're also taking turns on our playlists. We use Tidal to download our music to our phones and are going around the truck playing whatever we like.
Our windows are down and around noon Mrs. Hungary decided to prep for our first over-night stop. She opened the binder and the passenger window promptly sucked the paper out like it was it's job. I erupt in a fit of laughter (both actions vexed her quite a bit 
). Luckily we took the liberty of printing 2 of everything, so we're not out anything.
we're also rotating chargers in the truck. I wired in one extra 12v socket to run the fridge in the back, but up front we only have one cigarette adapter that has two USB-b sockets. Unfortunately we have 4-phones, and a bluetooth speaker that need charging from time to time. We're not using the phones much right now, but they will be our cameras, GPS, and audio devices for music on this trip. It has me kind of worried about battery life in the future.
The eldest doesn't seem to like our fuel stops though.
Don't be so quick to grow up kid...
“I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in "The Little Prince"
<frantically reloads the page>
What an unbelievable adventure.
This is glorious! Subscribed
Im sure there's no power in the 'verse that could stop you.
In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :
"My grandfather would die two years after that trip of cancer. The man worked his whole life at a job he absolutely hated. A job that caused him so much heartburn that he would eat tums by the handful and then the guy died after his second RV trip in a retirement he spent his whole life looking forward to…
Not me, I said. No Berkin way am I wasting my life at a job I hate for some promise of “later”. For me “later” is not a guarantee.
And I’ve been very cautious to NOT follow in those footsteps ever since. "
I cannot stress enough how much I agree with this.
Have fun traveling and I'll look forward to all the updates
Fantastic! Looking forward to vicarious travel.
Bill, you're my hero!
Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:Bill, you're my hero!
Same. Nothing against the rest of you clowns, but Wally and Hungary Bill are tied for first place in "GRM MF's that Angry wants to have a drink with."
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:Bill, you're my hero!
Same. Nothing against the rest of you clowns, but Wally and Hungary Bill are tied for first place in "GRM MF's that Angry wants to have a drink with."
I'm going to work on a " be more like Bill / what would Bill do?" attitude in this unexpected summer of free time.
You guys are way too much.
DrMikeCSI: Love the profile pic, sir!
XLR99: Not even if it was awake. Facing me. And armed
Anti: That was a big wakeup. Not just for me, but for our whole family. When the retirement age was raised to 67, my dad quit his job and bought a cabin in the woods. "We don't live to 67" he said (and he was right. He, too, got just a couple years).
Ransom: 100% hope I can deliver. I've got lots of pics, so I hope GRM has the storage space 
Doc, Angry, and GTCS: (well. All of you, really) If you ever make it out to the area then 1) the beers are on me. But 2) You're always welcome to putt around the continent in one of my Jalopies (I mean, they're going to be poorly maintained and will probably break, but I think that's part of the fun)
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