So been doing a terrible job updating this thread. I wanted to document everything each step of the way, but got behind and have been holding off from posting to wait to post about things that happened months ago.
so I’m gonna go in new direction and just post things as they happen and as I remember.
2 months ago I wrapped the show that I had been working on for the last 5 months. It was a tough season with all the extra Covid protocols, PPE & daily brain swabs in addition to our normal 70 hr weeks.
So we rented a cabin up in Lake Arrowhead for the month so I could take some time off to relax and get out of the city for awhile. A day after pulling the trigger on the cabin I get a call for another 2 month show.
I take it as an opportunity to drive the truck up into the mountains every weekend. I’ve had her back from a transmission rebuild for a few months now, but haven’t had any opportunities to push her at all just driving to work & back.
The wife works from home and sets up shop at the cabin with the dogs. It’s beautiful, here the view.
Fast Forward a few weeks. It’s Friday evening, I just finished up a 12hr day at the end of a long week. It’s dumped about 12” of snow up in the mountains earlier in the week, and there’s another storm rolling in.
But it’s been a week since I’ve seen my lady & the pups and there’s a good chance that if I don’t make it in tonight I won’t be able to get in till Sat afternoon. I check caltrans & the weather and by my calculations I should of been able to sneak in right before the snow hit, so I decided to roll the dice.
I make it through all the heavy traffic and start my decent up the 18 right as the sun starts to set. As the temp starts to drop a heavy fog blankets the mountain and I notice my driver side headlight is out.
Visibility in the fog is about 5’, I can kinda see the white line marking the edge of the road and that’s about it. The truck is climbing the mountain like a champ though, my foot is barely on the pedal and she’s keeping a nice steady pace. I think back to how slow this drive used to be in my FJ62.
I’m wishing I had set up the fog lights that are sitting unwired on my bumper and that I had noticed the dead headlight at any point before right now.
I will say that I was very impressed with how well Gaia GPS worked with my iPad mini. I’m essentially blind in this fog, but the GPS was accurate enough that I could almost steer just following the map. That and making sure I’m hugging that white line that keeps appearing out of the abyss about a 1’ in front of my bumper.
I pull into the gas station in Crestline and release the death grip that I had on the steering wheel and let some of the blood flow back into my knuckles. I top the tank off for good measure in case I end up spending the night in the back of the truck.
I switch my working headlight into the driver side to help me see, but with the factory wiring harness it’s a hardly noticeable improvement. I get the idea to adjust my brights to point down, but find that the adjustment screws are rusted out. With a little bit of elbow grease I get them pointed down enough for me to see the road and pull back into the abyss with my truck looking a little cross eyed.
The storm finally hits and as the snow starts to come down, the fog finally dissipates. I make my last push through the meandering hills between Crestline and Lake Arrowhead, passing a few other vehicles here there.
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