It's 4am. Yosh is sound asleep. Dixie's upside down snoring like a motor boat. Pete and I sneak out of the house in shear darkness and head for the JP diesel grand cherokee. Today will be a good day. Today will be the day i get the Landcruiser back. You know the one i sold and now 7 months later im getting back exactly how it left us, if not better. It's like the day you go to the liquor store to turn in your winning lottery ticket. Yep, its that good.
So the game plan is to drive to Portland Oregon from Corona California all in one shot. Yep, 16 hours straight through. Pete's done it many times for his job at the magazine for various events all over the nation so he's very confident in the trek being no big deal. Me on the other hand, i could care less if it was 40 hours straight through.. i was going to get the cruiser.
The first day we'd drive up to Portland and eat as much greasy fast food one's body can take. Burbon burgers, beef and cheddar's, ultimate sandwiches, extreme breakfast sandwiches, shoot we could handle it. This was old hat. After a short while on the road, we noticed tons of old classic cars. Some were on trailers, most were not. I'd say the majority were Ford Mustangs. It was like there was a show we didn't know about or some type of Canon ball run with Burt Reynolds we missed out on. We managed to snap two photos of cool wagons going our way. A Willys Wagon and a Toyota Fj55.
Passing through the good old Sactown. I had a few emails from people asking me to go give the Governator a piece of my mind about our state, but i didn't have time for that. Im sure he was too busy to see me anyhow. I'll meet up with him for lunch some other day. Right.
All the while Spotcasting, Pete loaned me his insanely fast supersonic laptop to check mail and post about the event. Working off a cellphone it was actually fast enough. Service was spotty as we left major areas and entered into the forest covered areas of the Pacific northwest. It was acceptable for me to get a little work done, talk to yosh via chat and check in on things back at the office.
It was very possible we were getting radiation while in the Jeep. I mean this guy has multiple GPS systems, cellphone, usb chargers, laptop, and we had SPOT all going at the same time. I think if Pete keeps it for another year, he'll have to do a dual battery swap for all his gadgets. So many gadgets that there wasn't enough room for all of them. I think the SPOT flew off the dash 30 times. Either it was no room or Pete's driving. I won't say which, but the roads are exactly straight once you get into Oregon.
Chances are when you drive 1000 miles in one day, you'll see something weird. Yep, this was that something weird.
After one last stop for diesel and averaging 24 mpg and 65mph we arrived at Mike's place at a hair after 8pm PST. We were exhausted, but when we stepped foot on Mikes property it was like entering a theme park for car guys. He even had a main attraction, the Cruiser! While Pete oogled the Sprinter, checked out the Earthroamer Jeep, i got to work apologizing the Landcruiser and seeing how things looked again. I sat in the seat and it fit like a glove, i was home again and i felt this was right all along now. The rig looked great. Mike took very good care of it and even added a few goodies. I was truly very happy. Well, the tired that we felt surely didn't last long, because we hopped in the cruiser and ran over to Rogue brewery to grab some beers to celebrate.
We felt like, no matter how tired we were we were going to stay up and toast the occasion. So the three of us stayed up late checking out Mike's fleet or rigs. Bikes, luxury motor cars, jeeps, the whole nine yards. We ended up taking the full tour and hitting the sack around midnight. Mike was a very good host. We each had our own bedroom, shower and bathroom. It was like the Clampett's staying in the Ritz Carlton but we weren't about to argue.
Before i knew it, morning came and it was time to fire up the Cruiser. She was ready to run home to her stable.
The drive would be a shorter 11 hours back to Antioch CA where the trailer was. We got sleep in an extra 2 hours since we didn't have to drive as far. We were on the road by 7am. First stop was good ol' Mcdonald's. Where they insist to put the creamer and sugar in your coffee and do the worst job possible.
Next stop was for fuel and some real coffee. The Cruiser has dual fuel tanks so from this point on we wouldn't stop from Portland till Mount Shasta. From Shasta we'd drive the entire way to Antioch, no problem. At any given point i still had almost a fuel tank. The diesel grand laughed at the cruiser. It was getting twice the gas mileage if not more and it had half the fuel. It really proved to be quite the road trip rig.
Not a bad looking paint and body for a 16 year old rig.
After 4-5 hours on the road we decided to grab a bite to eat in Shasta. Mt. Shasta had a nice coat of bright white snow. It was almost blinding. Amazing.
It could be seen 40-50 miles out, easily.
At some point we came to a CHP road break. He escorted us down the mountain several miles till we came into one lane. We were hoping it wasn't a long back up.
I was trying to figure out how they got this diesel backwards on the highway. Pete assumes they brought him on the highway from the next exit down from the incident.
Listening to the radio we found out it was a over turned big rig. This is what we saw when we passed.
After getting back up to highway speed or something that resembles highway speed in the Cruiser.. we headed for the trailer. The trailer was paid for and it was sitting, waiting for us to come reunite the cruiser with it. It was located down in Antioch CA , not far from San Francisco CA. At this point i really missed the northern I-5 freeway where i could just use cruise control. Heading into the bay area was like driving through LA. Roads cracked, uneven lanes, people cutting you off left and right and the scariest part.. tall bridges tossed in the mix.
But after 11 hours we arrived at the trailer. She looked good. We stepped outside and realized it was hotter than heck. Almost 100 degrees. We'd had our a/c on and didn't realize it, or at least i didn't. The 16 year old cruiser doesnt have a fancy pants inside thermometer for the outside temp!
Grabbing the trailer from Thom's place. He had it ready to go, with the fridge on and even tossed some waters inside.
We even got caught snatching the trailer on a CCTV system! Im sure Thom got a kick out of watching me do a 40 point turn to get the trailer and rig out of his driveway.
Once connected and lights/brakes tested, we headed for the grocery store. Our original plan was to go out to eat at a local place, but it was 40 mins from dark and i wanted to find camp before we lost our light. So we headed over to the local grocery store , grabbed some water, sandwiches and of course beer.
Arriving at camp, it wasn't super impressive but it was a place to stay. Brannan Island is a small island located inside the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It's like a maze of water ways and bridges. We lit a fire to keep the bugs away on the hot night and cracked open a few or more ice cold beers. We were stoked to be relaxing and enjoying the night. The stars were out, the cruiser and the trailer were out... it was a good night.
The next morning we woke up whenever we got up. There was no rush. After all we could make it all the way home without fueling with our setups. So we stopped for breakfast, topped off the tanks, cleaned the bugs off our windshield for the last time and headed home.
In Bakersfield we saw these on trailers, don't have any idea what it is.
Trying to keep my eyes open and my butt from going numb we pressed all the way to the grape vine. It was probably 95-100 degrees in this section and the grade is always tough for the high mileage cruiser. So i proceeded with caution and with no hurry. I turned the heater on to prevent over heating and drove up at 40 mph and in 2nd (yes 4.88's are next!). The water temp gauge barely budged and she did great. I promised her that would be the last time i'd make her do that climb in that heat.
Coming up the Grapevine, Pete snapped this pic as i blazed by at a whole 40mph. Quick, find the cruiser, betcha can't!
After saying goodbye to Pete, i headed home (100 miles further) to Corona CA. Hit a small bit of traffic near Magic Mountain, but other than that, uneventful. Once 20 miles out from home i was ready to be home. It was tough holding my 55 mph speed with the trailer. After leaving Antioch area at 9am, i arrived home just after 6pm. It wasn't all that bad.
The next day the trailer was placed back in it's stable. Home sweet home. We're very happy to get our old rig(s) back. I guess everything happens for a reason. Thanks for reading this everyone, i think it's a great story.
Photos by Pete Trasborg and Dave Druck
I would like to thank 4 people.
Mike Hiscox - Thank you for giving us the opportunity to buy back the Landcruiser. Thank you for taking such good care of it and making sure everything was up to snuff and then some.
Thom Dyson - Thank you for passing up the opportunity to buy the trailer and letting us have it back instead. That was truly an amazing thing you did and we are very grateful. The whole setup would have never been the same without the trailer.
Pete Trasborg - Thanks for driving me up 1,026 miles to Portland Oregon and putting up with my damn chatter the whole way about the Cruiser and every other oddball thing along the way. You really know how good your friends are when they offer to drive that kind of distance.
Yosh - Thanks for putting up with me and all this excitement, without you none of this would be possible as well. Many sleepless nights of stress and excitement to get to this point.