O brother where art we?

Well nuts, I just wasn't eating the right things.

Great journey. Yeah, Vandyland is always cold in the morning. I once marched down into the blast pit for that shuttle launch facility, back in my youth (CAP).

Day 11, 9/16/2010: Today I failed as a navigator. We left Salinas and headed north on Rt 101 right into rush hour traffic. We did successfully find a Starbucks in Gilroy but we hit nasty traffic in San Jose. In hindsight I should have sent us back to Monterey and onto Rt 1 but I didn’t think of that at the time. We found a road in San Jose that got us back out to the coast and much better scenery. We made our way to San Francisco and started hearing a loud rattle coming from the roof rack. We stopped on the side of this street to check it out. Turns out that one of the brackets for the rack had broken. We stuffed a towel under it and pressed on. We went across the Golden Gate Bridge but it was completely fogged in. We finally made it back out to the PCH. We stopped at a turnout for a snack and Eric decided to attempt a repair on the broken roof rack bracket.
A perfect opportunity to play with the cool little gas welding kit he had brought along. My contribution was the custom welding rock I had found next to the road. The weld looked great but didn’t hold up to a manual stress test. We stuffed the towel back under the rack and pressed on. We soon rejoined 101 and came across the Real Goods Solar Energy Center. Eric is a fan of Real Goods and I was interested in the solar technology so we stopped. They were about to close but they stayed open so we could look around. It was getting late so we stopped in a small town called Willits. We got another decent deal through Eric’s haggling and military discount with the bonus of being right across the street from a fine diner. We went over for dinner and I had the chorizo burrito and Eric had juevos rancheros. We both thought the others' meal looked so good that when we went over for breakfast we just inverted our orders.

Day 12, 9/17/2010: We headed up 101 out of Willits after breakfast and started to notice a strange phenomenon. Every couple of miles there were groups of young people gathered by the side of the road that could only be described as “hippies” or whatever the modern equivalent are called. Occasionally a vehicle would stop by one of these groups and they would all climb in with their backpacks and guitars and the group would head off down the road. Eric and I had understood that this cultural niche was well represented in this area but we were surprised by the numbers we were witnessing. Traffic soon slowed and the reason for the hippy population became apparent, in a large field by the side of 101 was a festival called “Earth Song” or something similar. Eric and I were tempted to stop and gawk but it looked like it might cost money (they had a gate and security) so we headed up the road. We soon got into coastal redwood territory. We jumped off of 101 and onto “The Avenue of the Giants”; a road that runs basically the same route as 101 but weaves through several redwood groves. These trees are incredible. We stopped at a state park to use the bathroom but it was overrun with hippies and their children. I had to improvise. Call me a tree hugger but I could spend all day in a redwood grove and be happy. This is Stout grove in Crescent City. There are some real whoppers in this grove, especially if you get off the road and onto some of the hiking trails.
After the grove we had the Garmin plot us a course to I-5 so we could make time to Eugene. We had promises of good food and comfortable beds at my brother David’s house. We made it by dinner time and were not disappointed.

Day 12, 9/18/2010 David took us kayaking. The small river we paddled on was lined with blackberry bushes. Every now and then Eric would disappear; we would backtrack and find him eating berries off the bushes by the side of the river. It was raining but decent rain gear and a hat made things downright pleasant. After kayaking we went back to David’s, ate and played HALO. I really suck at HALO but David and Eric had lots of fun killing me.

Day 13, 9/19/2010 We went out to the coast today. I wanted to see sea lions. The following pictures are courtesy of my sister-in-law, Kari. We found quite the writhing mass. These suckers were loud. The hat and rain gear came in handy again as it rained all day. Thank you Central Florida Region SCCA for the jacket, it has served me well. We then went up the road to a place called The Devils Churn. It was one of those places that you really didn’t want to fall into. The wave action was quite dramatic. One of the things that disappointed me a little was that I couldn’t see much of the bridge architecture on the PCH. It could be done but we would have had to get off the highway and make a special side trip to do it. We just didn’t have time for that. I did get a picture of this one though. We headed back to David’s house, stopping to eat along the way.

Day 14, 9/20/2010: Not much happened. Eric and the Coprolite headed back to Colorado Springs and I did my laundry. It was nice to have a day to just lounge.

Day 15, 9/21/2010: Kari let me borrow her van today so I could head up to a town called Sisters. The road out was beautiful, on David’s recommendation I stopped at the Old McKenzie Fish Hatchery. I think it’s a Department of Agriculture facility. It is used to try to bolster the salmon population. Visitors are welcome to come in and walk around; I was the only one there that day. Salmon A covered bridge across the McKenzie River. One of the main attractions on this drive is the lava field from an eruption that occurred about 2000 years ago. It still looked pretty fresh to me and I guess, geologically speaking, it is. The Civilian Conservation Corps built an observatory out of the lava; it had windows that pointed at the various mountains in the area and plaques that explained what you were seeing. Sisters I headed back to Eugene and picked up some groceries. Since it was my last night in town, I cooked dinner for David and Kari.

Day 16, 9/22/2010: Kari and I went and visited David at work and he gave us a tour of the plant. When Kari and I were leaving, we saw this car and I knew it had to belong to someone on this board. It showed up in a thread about 2 weeks after I got home. David and I went kayaking through Eugene later in the day but I didn’t take my camera. I packed all my stuff and we headed to the airport to catch my 7:00 pm redeye back to Orlando. The nice ticket lady in Eugene upgraded my flight from Seattle to Orlando to first class and didn’t say a word about it. Imagine my surprise when I boarded in Seattle and found that nice, wide leather seat with leg room. I was a happy man. Thanks to all who have taken the time to read this, I hope it has been worth your time. A special thanks to my brother Eric for providing such a capable vehicle and not killing me in my sleep. Thanks also to David and Kari, your hospitality was wonderful. The biggest dose of thanks has to go to my wife, Adiena, who not only allowed me to go on this adventure but didn’t throw my stuff out onto the front lawn and lock me out of the house when I returned. I say this partially in humor but a lesser woman probably would have under similar circumstances. I am a truly blessed man.

Dude? What? "I hope it was worth your time to read." What?! Of course it was! I personally owe you a debt of thanks for taking the time to post and caption your pictures! This whole thread is full of awesomeness!

Check out all the other adventures that are just hinted at in this thread! You inspired those postings.

I LOVE THREADS LIKE THIS!

For this, I give you the coveted Great Thread award. Here it is:

Don't leave us in suspense! Other than the vapor lock, you suffered only a broken roof rack bracket. We know the weld didn't work out...but what happened? Did it get fixed? Did the towel prove as useful as Ford Prefect said it would? We are dying to know!

In reply to pinchvalve:

The towel blew out on I-5. Eric disassembled the roof rack and stowed it in the back of the truck for the return trip to Colorado Springs and I have not heard anymore on its' fate. That was not the first bracket to fail, just the only one on this trip. We were not impressed with its' durability. We did have a problem with the engine temperature indication system. The gauge pegged hot. Eric changed the sensor when he got home and that fixed the problem. We also had an idle problem that was probably dirt from the gas can. The heater/ AC blower also quit. The brushes were worn down to the wires. Eric found replacements at a hardware store in Eugene and the fan worked fine after that. The towel was as critical as Mr. Adams suggests..

In reply to Xceler8x:

I would like to thank the academy.......... Seriously, thanks for the kind words!

The rack has been fixed properly--I'm no good with a torch but it only took five minutes to fix with the MIG welder.

Had not thought about the Douglas Adams/towel connection (and I even met the guy before he died).

Very proud of the truck--even the interstate drive home didn't give it any trouble.

Total trip carnage: -- Heater Motor -- Engine Temp Sensor -- Safari Rack Bracket -- Tent

258,000 miles & going strong--Landcruisers rock!

Outstanding trip & thread - thanks for the entertainment!

Coprolite wrote: 258,000 miles & going strong--Landcruisers rock!

That's pretty impressive. My 11 year old Disco has 125k on it and I cringe anytime I use it more than 1-2 hours a day.

There is a Landcruiser junkyard near here and everything in it has at least 200,000 miles--great trucks!

Aaaand now my FJ62 is jealous!