Across Country Trip

I'm assisting my neighbors in moving from Central California to South Haven, MI. I towed my 1986 FJ60 behind a 26' rental truck and will be driving the 60 back to Ca.

Here is the rough outline of what I have done so far.

I met with hudywho and pick up a a set of wheels and tires for Lunyou.

I met with Orangefj45 in stockton and picked up a few knuckles and a welder for FJ40Charles in Dallas.

I checked with dehondagod and picked up a 60 tailgate for Mace.

Had everything loaded thursday night around 1:00am. I shrink wrapped the welder in case it is raining when we unload or raining on us and FJ40Charles or his way home to dallas. The weather there has been awful wet in Texas this week.

I left my house at 6:45am friday. I had to drop some guests off at the airport in Visalia for a 7:30am flight.

I went up the Tehachapi grade at a whopping 27mph. I new this was going to be a long trip.

I called Mace and explained the governor situation on the rental.

I drove to Needles, CA and met Mace. Mace was nice enough to meet me in Needles so I did not have to drive to Las Vegas. He had dehondagod with him. We swapped Mudship items at the intersection of 40 and 95. During the wait for Mace I decided to remove my rear drive shaft. By the time I found my 14mm/916 wrench and got the bolts loose, they were there. There was no wait. If anything, they were waiting on me. It was 116 degrees.

Mace is a really nice guy. I'm sorry that the KTM 500 was not sold since I made sure I had room for it.

I will then head across interstate 40 for Oklahoma City. Weather permitting, my plan was to be there Saturday evening. I got there sat around 2:00pm.

I called FJ40Charles when I was on the east side of Amarillo, TX. FJ40charles drove up from Dallas and we exchanged Mudship items on the north side of Oklahoma City, OK at a truck stop parking lot. I guess I miss read the traffic signs in Oklahoma City. I ended up at a different truck stop than he did. I told him were I was and he drove up the road and met us.

FJ40Charles is a really nice guy and very thankful for me bringing his stuff to him. I made a reservation for Katemsey next year to try some of his fine Barbeques skills I've heard so much about.

From Oklahoma City I caught the 44 tollway and head towards Rolla, Mo. ran into a major rainstorm in Joplin. Mo. We pulled off the road and had a sit down dinner while waiting for the weather to clear a bit. It was so bad the truckers were off the road.

I met with Lunyou at 4:30am in the morning at the University parking lot. We swapped Mudship items and he was happy. It was spitting rain and the sun was not up yet so I did not get a chance to see speedy in person since he drove his other rig.

From there, I headed to Saint Luis, MO. I took the 70 to the 57 and into Chicago. The 80/94 toll road was a mess for a Sunday afternoon at 2:00pm.

I arrived in South Haven, MI around 4:30pm. We unloaded the 26' truck at a mini storage unit and then went a took showers and ordered pizza & .

I got to bed around 12:30am


Total travel time 59hours

Drive time 40hours 57minutes

Total hours sleep 2

From here I will be go north to lundington, MI and take the ferry across the lake.

I'm hoping to have a late lunch with Mr. Woody. I will spend the night in Mashfield tonight.

On tuesday I drive to South East Iowa and visit family and friends.

I will leave the morning of the 5th and head to CA. I will stay in Denver thursday night and too camp in Moab on friday night.

My return trip I will be driving through Kansas City and then Denver on the way home. I have to pick up a grill/bezel and some things in Denver.


I should be back home late Saturday.

Damn.. you don't sleep much do ya
nice meeting you amigo, thanks!

Mace said:

Damn.. you don't sleep much do ya
nice meeting you amigo, thanks!

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I don't sleep during full moons.


I don't know why.

Here is the full moon that was coming up as we entered the Winslow, AZ area.

D'Animal said:

From here I will be go north to lundington, MI and take the ferry across the lake.

I'm hoping to have a late lunch with Mr. Woody. I will spend the night in Mashfield tonight.

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OK

The ferry ride never happened.

I was told by the local in-law who has lived in the area for 40 + years that it runs 4 times a day. I drove 1:45 minutes north just to find out they are running thier summer schedule. Thier summer schedule is 8:00am and 7:00pm and started July 1st.

LOL


I turned around and drove around the lake on the south side.

I met up with Gumby on the south west side of chicago. He drove up from the south and met me at the Hinsdale Oasis. We had a cup of coffee and discussed FJ's and projects in general.

He looked over my rig and kept the laughter to himself. I checked out his new hauler/tow rig. Super nice.

We BS's longer than I thought but not long enough to pull all his knowledge out. Really nice guy. Really smart guy. I can't wait to wheel with him.

(Selma was busy so she could not make it.)

I left and headed straight into the Chicago 4:00pm traffic.

Toll Roads in Chicago. That's all I'm going to say.

It would be crazy late to meet Woody in Appleton, WI so we rescheduled.

I arrived in Marshfield, WI around 10:00pm. I crashed at my sisters house.

I met Woody for Breakfast in Steven Point. It started to rain on the way from Marshfield to Stevens point. It was during this rain storm that I noticed my alternator did not like running the headlights, windshield wipers, GPS, Laptop, Cell phone charger, CB radio all at once.

I met Woody at one of those nice little local resturaunts that only the local know about. He called me as I drove by it and informed me that I missed it. LOL! He was surfing mud on his laptop at the table when I arrived. His laptop has better signal strength than my CB. ARRRGGG!

The Food was great and the conversation was better.

After breakfast he looked over my rig and kept his laughter to himself. He gave me the time to explain everything I did to and it why I did it .

Function is key.

We stuck a white sticker on the 60. Yes I said a WHITE STICKER! It matched the two black ones on the side of the rig. Woody also hooked me up with a 60 Cap.

Woody had things to do and I had some maintenace to do.

I drove across the street to the Napa store. I had a trail spare altenator with me so I had them check it before I installed it. Dan said it was bad since it was only putting out 13.8amps. The nearest one was in Kansas City, Mo and would not be there until thursday. I installed my trail spare. I took my old one in and it was putting out 13.8amps as well. Dan could not beleive I replaced it as quick as I did.

I topped off the fluids and bought a few things from Napa in exchange for the use of thier parking lot.

Dan came outside to look at my rig and my set up. I gladly showed it off to him. I would guess he is about 19y/o or so. He was looking at the axles and the tractor engine. He said ti was the first one of these he had seen. He compaired it to his buddys TJ.

He laughed at all the mods I had done. Bigger axles, 6 cylinder instead of a 4cyl, drive shafts. I let him look it over and then told him that was all stock. I think he pooped his pants. He asked where he could get an FJ. I gave him the MUD website.

I headed back to Marshfield.

I arrived in Marshfield in time for the niece and nephew to wake up.

I taught my neice how to drive a stick shift in the 60.

If you have every done this you will understand when I say "she cleaned the dash off a few times".

We went to Jurrasik Park, which is a neat art display made up of welded junk. We then went to Foxfire gardens and walked through the 1,200 species if Hostas. I was not interested since the bugs were bad. I did find a 30lb snapping turtle walking around. I informed the owner Steve. He thought I found one of his wifes painted concrete ones. When I showed it to him he screamed like a little girl and jumped back about 10 feet. I picked it up and put it in the back of his gator. He drove around showing the neighbors. We turned it loose in the nearby river.

I left Marshfield around 2:00pm. It is normally a 6 hour drive to south east Iowa.

It rained. It f'n rained hard. It took me 5hours and 20 minutes to get to Madison, WI. It is 100 miles. Traffice was bumper to bumper and was going about 10 miles an hour.

My 33" BFG AT's totally sucked. It was raining so hard, I was able to hydroplane at 18mph. That is with a 60 with a swing away rear bumper loaded with fuel cans and a spare. A front bumper with headlight protecting and a warn M6000. I have trail spares of vital parts and two Dana 60's in the back. I'm loaded and heavy so the hydroplaning was pissing me off.

I was in the storm all the way to south of Davenport Iowa.

I arrived in Fort Madison at 5:00am wed morning.

I still have altenator issues.

WOW!

450 DUDE said:

WOW!

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yea wow

Glad to hear you've been safe so far, hope it stays that way. Sounds like a lot of fun. I was in South Haven MI five years ago.

I checked my Alternator today and everything checked good.

I changed all the fluids and installed the GL-4 in everything. Both Axles, Transmisison, Transfer Case and hit everything with a grease gun.

I saw the family and friends and was a good day. I took my Dad wheeling on a few of his logging trails. We went about 3/4 of the way through his skidder trails until I had to stop. i forgot to lock the hubs in. He laughed and thought I was BS'ing him. I locked the hubs and we finished the logging trial. He was a believer in the Land Cruisers.

Here are a few poser pics from the Fort Madison, Iowa area.

The top one is the worlds longest swing span bridge. Well a few years ago a company in China built one longer. (The made in china bridge is in china and is used to cross a river over there as well.) So now it is the longest operational swing span bridge north america. It was build in the 1800's.

Two lane traffic and two lanes for trains underneither. The vehicle traffic. bridge. This bridge was heavily defended during WW2. There is a bomb making plant in burlington and this was one of the only bridges haevy enough to transport the loads of bombs in the area. If this bridge was detroyed the driver would have to go all the way to Saint Louis, MO or Rock Island, IL to cross the river.

The next picture is the orignal Sheafer Pen head quarters. It all started here and eventually became the only place that made the White Dot pen and mechanical pencil set's. Mr. Sheafer lived in the hill's behind the building. When they sold to Bic the manufacturing was moved to other countries.

The bottom picture is the widest part of the Mississipi river. It is one mile wide at that spot. No islands in between the banks, just open water for 1 mile.

Back in the day of boy scouts, you had to swim across the river in order to get you 1-mile swim award. No cheating on this one. Now they count laps in the swimming pool.

Across the river you can see Navuoo, IL. It's claim to fame is the Morman Temple, Blue Cheese and Wine. They just rebuild a replica of the original temple. A few years ago I was able to tour it before it was closed to the public. Very nice craftmanship!

this is great. cant wait to see some pictures

Awesome!!! very cool trip so far

landcrusher909 said:

this is great. cant wait to see some pictures

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I will start taking them today with a real camera. Cell phone camera's just suck. So far the pics would involve a 60 on a tow dolly and rain.

glad we both found the time and place to meet up...and good to know your trip is still going well!!

You drove through a crazy rain storm brother!
I live across the mississippi river from davenport, ia.It rained HARD.
Not as bad as kansas, or missouri has had, but I thought about building an ark there for a while!

GOOD LUCK TO YOU....

Went wheeling in Farmington,IA after my conference calll in the morning. The web conference lasted longer than anticipated, oh well.

I then headed to Des Moines, IA to meet up with Overton, Erics and Casey from the Tall Corn Cruisers. I met Eric under the Gi-Normis flag off of interstate 80 and 35. I followed him to Overton's Garage. Overton and Casey were already there.

We looked over each other rigs for a bit and solved some of the worlds problems.

Casey had to leave. Overton, his son, Eric and I all went to a local resturaunt around the corner. I dropped it in 4x4 just so I could say I had been wheeling with the Tall Corn Cruisers. I did not lock the hubs in. LOL.

The dinner was good and the conversation was better. I left around 9:30 and then drove to Denver, CO.

Here is a picture of Des Moines, IA 5:25pm rush hour traffic on July 5th. This is on the outer belt way of the city.

It was great to meet you Dan!

Glad to hear you made it to Denver... I was a little concerned with you pulling out out for a 12 hour haul at 9:30 in the evening. Your mud name sure fits...

Hope to see you again soon.