Across Country Trip

[D'Animal]

I wanted to stop by Cabela's in Kearney, NE but they were closed. I slept in thier parking lot for an hour and a half instead. The top picture is when I hit the road in Kearney.

I made it to Denver at 9:00am. It was a good thing I made it early since my buddy called and said he took an earlier flight and had justed landed at the air port.

I picked up Bob and we headed west into the Denver traffic. We had not made it out of the airport parking lot when Bob noticed that I did not have a radio.

He had me stop at the Best Buy at the Denver West shopping complex. He bought a Satellite radio and the boom box that it connects to. He had it activated before he left the store. LOL!

 

[D'Animal]

I met up with motoloco in Conifer, CO. I had bought 60series grill and headlight bezels and was going to pick them up.

He is a super nice guy but was in the middle of selling one of his FJ40's when I arrived. I literally met him at the bank that they were doing the money transfer at.

My original plan was to stop and visit nuclearlemon and 2badfj's. I knew Ige was on her way to Chicago to pick up the 80 series she just bought from Gumby.

I did not have SROR phone number and the 411 did not have it either. I could not remember what the first two letters of the acronym stood for. I guess it was not meant to be.

I wish I had more time to spend with motoloco so I could check out his new shop and talk to him a bit more but I wanted to get up and over the mountains before rush hour traffic and the sun went down.

 

[D'Animal]

I headed up the 70 West out of Denver. I was the slow lane monitor. Look at the bottom picture. I think I was down to second gear when I noticed the tunnel at the summit. I also noticed that a semi truck driver had blown a radiator hose.

I stopped to offer my assistance and let my crew cab tractor cool a bit. I fixed his radiator hose since it just blew off the nipple. His hose clamp was not small enough to get a tight fit so with some radiator hose tape I increased the OD and tightened it down. I brought the radiator tape with me. Yes it was actual radiator tape and not the black Gorilla Uber heavy duty Duct Tape! LOL!

I gave him two gallons of anti freeze and 2 gallons of water. This cut my trail spare quantity in half so I was still OK. I also figured that as heavy as my rig was, it would not hurt to loose a few pounds.

He was from Hungary and spoke little English. My first though was to call Mickey Rubicon and have him translate for me. If you look at the left hand side of the picture you can see another truck driver coming across with some more supplies. He was from Yugoslavia.

Just out of view of the picture is the tunnel.

 

[overton]

Thanks Dan

Good to meet you Dan! Hope you have safe travels and I look forward to seeing you again on the trial - P.S. you left a case of Bud at the building so I'll buy the next case!


"I then headed to Des Moines, IA to meet up with Overton, Erics and Casey from the Tall Corn Cruisers. "

 

[D'Animal]

After we got the Hungarian truck driver going I noticed that my crew cab tractor had died. I tried to start it but it seemed the battery was dead. Mr. Hungarian truck driver pulled out his jumper cables and I pulled out mine and we tried to jump start it.

When it finally started smoke poured from the engine compartment.

The smog pump froze up!

So here we are, half way up the hill, just before the tunnel in a 21yo crew cab tractor right before rush hour on a Friday. Nuclear Lemon was in Chicago, 2badfj's number is not listed as 2badfj's nor is it listed a SROR. LOL!

Bob was sweating, Mr. Hungarian truck driver was sweating and the other truck driver was sweating. I was laughing after I found out what it was.

I pulled out a tow strap and hooked onto the back of Mr. Hungarian truck drivers trailer and he pulled me to the brake check area. If you look in the above photo it is where the orange sign is.

Here is a picture of the seized smog pump as the belt is melting to it.

 

[D'Animal]

SO,

 

[D'Animal]

I
























































just
































,

 

[D'Animal]

Whipped out my Trail Spare from my onboard parts supply box.


Doesn't every body carry an extra smog pump?

 

[Gumby]

Here I was thinking that your trip was going to be event-free and VTCruiser was going to be stuck in Death Valley in an unknown truck without enough tools and parts to get home.

He's home and you're on the side of a mountain.

Ige's back in Denver. I seem to remember her saying there was going to be a ton of Cruiserheads at her abode today.

 

[D'Animal]

Here is my mobile shop. If you look in the back ground you can see the Eisenhower Tunnel enterance.


Bob could not let me work without the Sat radio going.

We had to let the engine cool enough to work on the pump so it was all good.

 

[D'Animal]

Good Bad and Burnt.

 

[D'Animal]

Total down time was less than 45 minutes.

Here we are up and running on the other side of the tunnel. We saw patches of snow but it did not cool down the tractor cab. A couple are just random pics from the road.

 

[D'Animal]

MOAB

Here are some pics from MOAB.

Bob was real happy about being woke up at midnight to go wheeling but that is when we got there.

 

[D'Animal]

Here are a few pics of the Gemini Bridges trail.

The first one is at the end of the trail with the 3/4 moon coming up.

We hiked over too the Arch but the pictures did not turn out.

The next picture is going down the 300' hill.

 

[D'Animal]

We hung around the Gemini Bridges area and wheel all the trails we could find. We did not go to the Pison Spider trails.

My 60 only has a 3.5 Utimate, extreme heavy duty lift and is running some 33 BFG AT on open difs. We did not have another rig with us. We did have a winch, tow straps, etc.

We left the trail head around 3:45am and headed to Las Vegas

 

[D'Animal]

Here is my co-pilot taking a nap.

 

[D'Animal]

Proof my crew cab tractor can almost do 77mph. This was a long down hill coming from St George Utah towards Las Vegas,NV.

It never did hit 77mph. LOL

 

[D'Animal]

The first is a view of Las Vegas in the distance. Just looking at that picture makes you want to de-smog something doesn't it?

The next two are of the strip area taken from I-15.

Bob drove and I slept from Las Vegas to Barstow.

 

[D'Animal]

Just a few more mountians and I'm home. Actually at this point I'm less than 5 miles from the house.

 

[Mace]

The first is a view of Las Vegas in the distance. Just looking at that picture makes you want to de-smog something doesn't it?

The next two are of the strip area taken from I-15.

Bob drove and I slept from Las Vegas to Barstow.

80ish % of the "smog" in Vegas is particulate matter. There is a reason tat most construction sites are required to wet their sites down.. We even have "Don't be a Dusthole" ads