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Will it ever be truly drama free?!?
Hello All,
I left Wed pretty much on schedule..only one hour later than my 1:00 plan. Everything was loaded failry organized and my bed was ready in the back seat of the truck. Driving all that time alone with no one to talk to I began noticing things I might not have, had I been distracted in conversation. 1. There are a lot of big rigs with "Express" in their business name. It would appear that word puts them all in a big hurr. 2. I really need to remember earlier to load stuff on my Iphone to listen to through the radio much earlier than 5 minutes before I'm leaving so that when I get frustrated I have time to mess with it and not just give up. 3. There are a butt load of country and Christian stations on AM and FM that you can get out in the boonies but Rock? not so much - See #2
I made decent progress with no issues for about 12 hours, until IT happened. I was getting tired and even though I still had half a tank of gas, I stopped at a Flying J around 2:30 a.m. I got the gas pumping and then started my walk around to check the trailer out. I was shocked awake by this:
Sure call me lame but I didn't hear anything or feel a noticeable difference in the way the trailer was acting. I finished pumping the gas and pulled the trailer around to a lit area of the gas station where I wouldn't be in the way and went about swapping the tire out with the spare.
I gotta say the Trailer Aid ramp deal is the bomb. You'll see more of why later but it was super easy to use and it didn't slide at all when I pulled up onto it, not even on this slick concrete.
So I get the spare on there with no problems but when I set it down on the ground I felt my heart sink a little (more). The spare was pretty close to being flat. (children always check your spares before you leave) Thank goodness I was at the gas station when I swapped the tire. I drove over to the air machine, pumped in a handful of quarters, and commenced to add some air. It was slow going but I eventually got to 40pounds. I then checked out the others and they were fine. Now pretty well awake witha full tank of gas, I thit the road again. I came to a rest stop an hour later and decided to stop for a rest in the back.
The rest lasted for about 90 minutes and I was back up and hit the road again. A while later I was going through Gallup NM and let CDMBill and Swede know where I was. I was talking to Bill and I found they were only about an hour behind me so we planned to meet in Albuquerque to cruise the rest of the trip together. We talked and decided I would go ahead to Alb and look for a new tire to replace the bad one and hopefully I'd be done by the time they reached me. I found a chain called Peerless Tires and the guy switched out my tire and put it back on the spare tire rack. I headed back to the meeting spot and when Bill and Floyd showed up we had lunch at Denny's and then got back on the road.
We were making decent progress with no issues untl IT happened...queue enemy music...again. No I didn't just repeat myself by mistake:
This time it was on the passenger side. It's hard to tell but that shoulder is kinda rolled/ angled down. Once again the Trailer Aid did its job with no hassle and got the trailer (with car still loaded) off the ground. Once I dug the tire's remains out of the brake mechanism, I quickly swapped in the new one I'd just bought a few hours before and got it back on the road. Bill was about empty so we went in search of fuel.
Our target for the night became Amarillo where we would meet Mike (Swede). We checked into the hotel he found us, had a good dinner at the place he found, and I found another Peerless tire place on the list he got me of local tire places. I replaced the 3 remaining tires for a matched set. At some point, I don't remember when, I realized that those tires were 7-8 years old. Even though they looked great with killer tread left, they were not up to the task anymore.
Mikes Baja Trophy Truch support vehicle...it runs 11's in the quarter with no power adder and it is one heeaavy truck.
The next day I went and got the new tires, Bill had his trailer tires checked out, and we hit the road again. We went thru some thunder storms and for awhile had a wall fo constant lightning to our left. It was pretty wild seeing all that lighting and the cloud formations.
See Wall of Lighting here
We eventually made it to the hotels in Tulsa around 5 pm and holy cow was it windy. Roof shingles were being ripped off the hotel at a constant rate. After being warned by Jason with the killer tribal flamed coupe, I moved my truck and trailer to get away from the falling debris. I wound up moving it all the way in to the shelter of the complex. We had dinner at an Italian place close by and then it was back to the room. But..the power was still out at the hotel so I hung out with Jason for awhile with some refreshments that still retained some of their colder properties and just talked cars.
This morngin I got up and cleaned the car while talking to a couple of Australians who came to join in/ watch the event. Their 66 Impala didn't make it out from LA due to overheating problems so they rented a big SUV and are just gonna hang out for most of the week. After Lunch at Charlie's Chicken, Jason and I walked back to the hotel and the parking lot was already showing signs of arrivals.
As the days go by I will try to take lots of pictures and post them. My copilot is now gonna be my friend Chad and he will be taking pix as well so we'll have more.
There are already some new cars here and they are bad ass!
Rich
Here's a shot of what the parking lot looked like at about 5 pm Sat.
Hello All,
I left Wed pretty much on schedule..only one hour later than my 1:00 plan. Everything was loaded failry organized and my bed was ready in the back seat of the truck. Driving all that time alone with no one to talk to I began noticing things I might not have, had I been distracted in conversation. 1. There are a lot of big rigs with "Express" in their business name. It would appear that word puts them all in a big hurr. 2. I really need to remember earlier to load stuff on my Iphone to listen to through the radio much earlier than 5 minutes before I'm leaving so that when I get frustrated I have time to mess with it and not just give up. 3. There are a butt load of country and Christian stations on AM and FM that you can get out in the boonies but Rock? not so much - See #2
I made decent progress with no issues for about 12 hours, until IT happened. I was getting tired and even though I still had half a tank of gas, I stopped at a Flying J around 2:30 a.m. I got the gas pumping and then started my walk around to check the trailer out. I was shocked awake by this:
Sure call me lame but I didn't hear anything or feel a noticeable difference in the way the trailer was acting. I finished pumping the gas and pulled the trailer around to a lit area of the gas station where I wouldn't be in the way and went about swapping the tire out with the spare.
I gotta say the Trailer Aid ramp deal is the bomb. You'll see more of why later but it was super easy to use and it didn't slide at all when I pulled up onto it, not even on this slick concrete.
So I get the spare on there with no problems but when I set it down on the ground I felt my heart sink a little (more). The spare was pretty close to being flat. (children always check your spares before you leave) Thank goodness I was at the gas station when I swapped the tire. I drove over to the air machine, pumped in a handful of quarters, and commenced to add some air. It was slow going but I eventually got to 40pounds. I then checked out the others and they were fine. Now pretty well awake witha full tank of gas, I thit the road again. I came to a rest stop an hour later and decided to stop for a rest in the back.
The rest lasted for about 90 minutes and I was back up and hit the road again. A while later I was going through Gallup NM and let CDMBill and Swede know where I was. I was talking to Bill and I found they were only about an hour behind me so we planned to meet in Albuquerque to cruise the rest of the trip together. We talked and decided I would go ahead to Alb and look for a new tire to replace the bad one and hopefully I'd be done by the time they reached me. I found a chain called Peerless Tires and the guy switched out my tire and put it back on the spare tire rack. I headed back to the meeting spot and when Bill and Floyd showed up we had lunch at Denny's and then got back on the road.
We were making decent progress with no issues untl IT happened...queue enemy music...again. No I didn't just repeat myself by mistake:
This time it was on the passenger side. It's hard to tell but that shoulder is kinda rolled/ angled down. Once again the Trailer Aid did its job with no hassle and got the trailer (with car still loaded) off the ground. Once I dug the tire's remains out of the brake mechanism, I quickly swapped in the new one I'd just bought a few hours before and got it back on the road. Bill was about empty so we went in search of fuel.
Our target for the night became Amarillo where we would meet Mike (Swede). We checked into the hotel he found us, had a good dinner at the place he found, and I found another Peerless tire place on the list he got me of local tire places. I replaced the 3 remaining tires for a matched set. At some point, I don't remember when, I realized that those tires were 7-8 years old. Even though they looked great with killer tread left, they were not up to the task anymore.
Mikes Baja Trophy Truch support vehicle...it runs 11's in the quarter with no power adder and it is one heeaavy truck.
The next day I went and got the new tires, Bill had his trailer tires checked out, and we hit the road again. We went thru some thunder storms and for awhile had a wall fo constant lightning to our left. It was pretty wild seeing all that lighting and the cloud formations.
See Wall of Lighting here
We eventually made it to the hotels in Tulsa around 5 pm and holy cow was it windy. Roof shingles were being ripped off the hotel at a constant rate. After being warned by Jason with the killer tribal flamed coupe, I moved my truck and trailer to get away from the falling debris. I wound up moving it all the way in to the shelter of the complex. We had dinner at an Italian place close by and then it was back to the room. But..the power was still out at the hotel so I hung out with Jason for awhile with some refreshments that still retained some of their colder properties and just talked cars.
This morngin I got up and cleaned the car while talking to a couple of Australians who came to join in/ watch the event. Their 66 Impala didn't make it out from LA due to overheating problems so they rented a big SUV and are just gonna hang out for most of the week. After Lunch at Charlie's Chicken, Jason and I walked back to the hotel and the parking lot was already showing signs of arrivals.
As the days go by I will try to take lots of pictures and post them. My copilot is now gonna be my friend Chad and he will be taking pix as well so we'll have more.
There are already some new cars here and they are bad ass!
Rich
Here's a shot of what the parking lot looked like at about 5 pm Sat.
You should keep getting some enjoyment if that is the case. Here we go on Sunday. 
Maybe tomorrow!
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