A summary of our transcontinental drive so far.
We left Virginia on 4Aug14. We didn’t hit the road until about 2000 so we didn’t get too far.
We met up with my parents, my brother, SIL, and nieces in Beattyville, Ky for a few days. Did some camping, shooting, 4 wheeling etc.
Then we drove to Excelsior Springs, MO, visited my in-laws,more shooting, went to the drive in.
After that we headed southwest to Albuquerque, NM. I had to keep the windows down and the heat on full to keep coolant <210 degrees across texas. It was about 100 degrees outside, and it did not like the hills at all.
After that, it was a decent trip to Moab, Utah. We met up with the coolest couple from Manitoba, Canada,Wayd and Laura Foxon. They were at the same campground as us, and were looking for some people to wheel with. He had a huge buggy on 55s. We did some wheeling, I lost the master cylinder on Hell’s Revenge at the first drop into dragon’s tail (which I thought was escalator like the map showed). Did the rest of the trail with no brakes. FWIW, the puddle in front of Baby Lion's Back is now a pond. I remembered it being < 1 foot deep and just started chugging in until it went on the hood...slowed down, water was at the top of the impact bar on the door, about 3 feet deep. Got some good ol moab water on my floorboards, good thing I have no carpet and it is all herculined inside
Had to drive to Salt Lake City the next day to get a new master cylinder, and hit up a pick n pull for a back up and a new proportioning valve. 9 hours of driving for 30 minutes at Autozone and the junk yard.
Got the truck up and running. We went “rafting”, which was a bust. I did the rapids in the water instead of on the boat, it was much better that way. Our raft had a bunch of old people who did not want to get wet. Who the hell wears jeans on a rafting trip?!
After we left Moab, I stopped and noticed the hard hits from the ledges and no brakes cracked the weld on the hitch where I welded it to the frame. I stopped in at 4wheel parts in SLC, but they couldn’t help me. They did hook me up with the guys over at Fat Bob’s Garage in Layton.
We swung in there, and they were able to fix me up. They were the coolest the dudes ever! They crawled all over the VX, noticed all of the dents, scrapes, rash on the tires, and noted that I actually wheeled the old girl, no mall crawling here. That was enough to buy us a tour of the shop, all their sweet fab equipment. We spent an hour in there after closing, just talking and looking at stuff. They gave us tshirts, decals, and an open invitation to come back and do a SAS one day. I highly recommend them, my tow strap bag, hi lift cover and the repair was 90 bucks! He put 6 weld beads on the hitch, it will never break again.
We went ahead and made it almost to twin Falls, Idaho. Today, we drove from twin falls up to Kennewick, WA. About 4 more hours to Bremerton. We stopped a few times, scored some more 22LR at a cabellas…lol.
Total of 62 hrs in the driver’s seat so far, 3300 miles. 8 quarts of mobil one. Average speed is 56mph, 12ish mpg overall. Haven’t done the exact calculations yet, will get that later. I got 15mpg on the run from Moab to SLC! Mountains, towing 2500lbs and 15mpg? I was stoked. At 200 miles on the tripometer and still had a quarter tank to go. Scangage said 14.8 mpg.
Nothing too exciting today, met a lot of cool people along the way. Frogs has been a champ, walked him in stores, rest areas, really no leash needed anymore.
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