The Heinous Truck in the Magnificent Desert - Big Bend 2017 (2 Viewers)

[Papalud]

Yep, the token hippie was profiled like a sumbitch. "Sir, pull your vehicle over to the side there and turn off the engine." All kidding aside, they were all really nice and professional. One was really interested in camping in the state park. They did run the dog through my truck, though. "The dog is trained to smell for multiple human smells, drugs (rattles off long list of narcotics), and explosives." I had already told him I had multiple guns in the car and plenty of "human smells". He asked if all the guns were because I was nervous about being close to the border, and I told him not really, but I did watch Breaking Bad and Narcos. I may look like a hippie but I'm just a hillbilly. He also kept giving me these opportunities to tell him that I had drugs in the car..."we don't care if you smoke pot, we just need to know if you have any in the car." I should have told him the real drug dealer would be rolling through in a few hours. Anyway, they were very professional about it all and I was out of there in about 10-12 minutes. Looking back, I really wished I had asked them to take a picture with me. Would have been cool to add to the post. Next time...

 

[jfz80]

Bastids...... how come a guy aint allowed to farm a lil hair anymore these days. Lemme guess half of them were bald? I call jealousy.

Sounds like one of our trips to OBX. Dudes were so visibly frustrated they couldnt find anything. They just knew they had me haha

Amazing trip and report guys. BBSP has been on the list but you've just moved it up towards the top.

 

[dnp]

This trip would not be @dnp approved. In fact, I think he is done with me. Lol

Whatchall talkin bout? Easy solution: ignore the pre-trip "oh man, don't worry about your nice paint, we're not gonna go through anything that'll scratch it" advice and just take a different truck for that crap......easy enough!

 

[Bodean]

Yep that white 80 needs to be scratched up! In fact, you wanna sell it?

 

[dnp]

Yep that white 80 needs to be scratched up! In fact, you wanna sell it?

HA! That one's soon to be "upgraded," so I'm hopeful the addsomeballstoit surgery will make it a keeper. Plus, I'm sort of in acquisition mode right now......

 

[wngrog]

This thread is not dead. PMc is punishing me for taking over his story.

Stay tuned ......

 

[Fireman]

What is killing me is the total absence of the mention of the heckling that Andy took for his casino lighting system.

 

[under_psi]

close encounters of the third kind for sure....

 

[ntsaint]

What is killing me is the total absence of the mention of the heckling that Andy took for his casino lighting system.

Ha. I don't remember you complaining while cooking on the beautifully appointed and well lit casino floor!

 

[FJ60Cam]

We need a visual so we can fill the heckling void.

 

[pmccraney]

We need a visual so we can fill the heckling void.

Even Ron could not take a picture of it without becoming over-exposed at night... You could probably land a f-14 on the guale mesa using his lights as an airport beacon. Just picture the Christmas Vacation House and substitute a land cruiser and you've got the visual.


Once we left the park, we limped into Presidio with our gas lights on and filled up and aired up the tires....


As the other guys noted (prematurely), we hit the border patrol checkpoint on the way up to Marfa:

Although we had nothing to fear, the border checkpoint is always a little bit intimidating....especially when you are packing some serious heat....

"What had (really) happened" was that we all rolled through with simple questions like "where have you been?" "are you a U.S. Citizen?", or in Nolen's case - "what part of Scandinavia are you from?, etc...

At this point, we all have cell service again and we are texting with the larger group ahead of us braving the storm....

We mentioned that that we had just rolled through the checkpoint, when Ron sheepishly asks? "I'm guessing none of yall got stopped and searched, huh?"

We were like, man, they don't stop normal-looking Americans........ Oh wait, nevermind, of course..... you got hippie profiled didn't you???

"It's okay if you like to smoke a little hippie lettuce, Mr. Blaylock; we just don't want any in your car." (hilarious).

Although I've never had any visual or other confirmation of whether Ron does (or does not), I was personally a little shocked that they didn't find a couple of acres of grass in there......, but I guess that's why we shouldn't judge the super chill people with long hair, snow beanies, organic veggie juice and big cameras...

 

[pmccraney]

I've admitted that I've used creative liberties in certain parts of the story (primarily to protect the innocent). What follows is a very factual, unembellished account of the most harrowing encounter of my adult life.

So, as we are driving up to Marfa, the wind is still howling. It was hard to keep the trucks (especially with all of our "roof thingies") from drifting pretty hard with the push. So, here I am, minding my own business, with 2 hands on the wheel when I see something very large out of the corner of my left eye approaching my vehicle at hyper speed....

As I'm starting to flinch in advance of the coming T-bone collision, I realize I am being attacked by the largest piece of tumble weed that has ever rolled across the desert southwest. This thing was the size of a live oak and it hit me right on the driver side door and gave me a nice shove before spinning down the side of my car and then jetting through the opening between my tail gate and the trailer.

having survived the border check point and now the tumble weed, we cruised through Marfa en route to the Davis Mountain Range, which we hoped to catch right at twilight.

^ Marfa, TX.

 

[Fireman]

The impact of the tumbleweed on the River Rock Mica Green Kingdom Chair Toting vehicle was amazing to witness.

 

[wngrog]

Ha. I don't remember you complaining while cooking on the beautifully appointed and well lit casino floor!

Yet I bitched for 2 hours until you shut that landing module down. I am going to put that Close Encounters music on Pandora so we can play it next time.

 

[pmccraney]

Yet I bitched for 2 hours until you shut that landing module down. I am going to put that Close Encounters music on Pandora so we can play it next time.

Funny, I remember Ron trying to shoot all his night-time shots with long exposures and getting all irritated....

"Can you kill all the damn lights, please; all that artificial light is ruining my shots."

 

[wngrog]

People ask about the gas situation at BBRSP so I'll toss that in here.....

Coming up from the south I filled up at Study Butte and did not need gas until Presidio. That said, I did not take my truck to Uranim Mine and Road to nowhere. I had 2 gallons left and still had 10 gallons on the roof.

Andy took his everywhere from Maria to Presidio and made it with a tank plus a overpriced Lego gas can full (4 gallons)

Maria is a cool ass town. Tons of weirdos but that's what makes it great. We blew through though hitting the Magic Texas 17 north in daylight was still in our grasp

These people did this s*** in covered wagons with Indians trying to kill them.

This place is usually good for a cool Land Cruiser or 6 but he is into Zuks now it seems.

This road is unreal. Beginning in Marfa it covers some of the most beautiful Texas grasslands with the Davis Mountains looming to the West. Once at Fort Davis though it runs through Wild Rose Pass. This is a must-see stretch of Highway in the daylight. Truly unreal.

 

[ntsaint]

Funny, I remember Ron trying to shoot all his night-time shots with long exposures and getting all irritated....

"Can you kill all the damn lights, please; all that artificial light is ruining my shots."

All horse****. My lights were only on that night while David was cooking.

The previous night...guilty.

 

[pmccraney]

All horse****. My lights were only on that night while David was cooking.

The previous night...guilty.

Since when did this story become burdened by silly concepts like truth and accuracy?

 

[pmccraney]

The ride out through the Davis Mountains would be last our last really strong scenery of the trip. We had originally planned to camp there on Sunday night, but none of us were thrilled about the prospects of a 14-15 hour return leg the next day. So, we decided to press on and just enjoy the views from the road with the goal of making it to Midland-Odessa for the night.

My crappy iphone pics through the windshield really don't do it justice...

Nolen has 2 red mountains at home, but said he also wants to own this one:

A lot of really cool geological stuff going on in this area.

I really would like to go back there and camp some day. It's definitely one of the better paved drives you can find anywhere...

After driving through this pass, the landscape quickly transitions into West Texas prairie with windmills and oil rigs being the only distinctive features on the horizon as far as you can see:

 

[pmccraney]

Nolen was able to cash in some of his traveling drug dealer street cred points to get us a nice hotel in Downtown Midland. We pulled in dog tired and dirty about 10:30 that night. Nolen raced off to find a taco truck, while Andy bribed the doorman to keep a watchful eye on our gear (and his dog) as we had to park street-side because the garage could not accommodate the awesomeness of our #eaf vehicles.

Since Fireman had a shorter drive home than the rest of us, we rolled out early the next morning as a pack of 3 and let him snooze.

Turns out some street walker in the night was equally offended by the BBT, and left him a nice message on his camper top to greet him the next morning:

And, with that, we conclude the epic journey of the BBT right where it began.