The Adventures of Big Red

So for those of you who have Facebook, I started basically a page for my pictures when I go out on the road. Been to a lot of places I haven't been before and so I like to take pictures. Sometimes not as many as I'd like, but at least I get some. Come check it out if you'd like, I'm going to try to post some stuff on here as well, but it gets quite tedious doing it from the phone.

https://www.facebook.com/bigredtruckadventures

I missed this the first time around. Great idea! Thanks for sharing.

So on my most recent trip, I went to St. Augustine, Florida. I knew about St Augustine from some old documentaries, but have never been. If you don't know anything about St. Augustine, it is the old city in the nation. I believe it predates the pilgrims by 100 years or so.

I had to stop at the Castillo de San Marcos. Such an awesome piece of history and one of our oldest at that. I spent a few hours there and actually learned a lot. Great place for any history buffs out there. If I have any suggestions for anyone, get there right before it opens to get parking. The tourist season was still in full force and even though it's pay parking, it will be gone fast.

Anyways here's some pics:

So I decided to walk to the historic downtown and even though it was a tourist trap, it was still pretty decent. The original town gates were here along with a wall that ran along the same path as the original. Also saw the oldest wooden school house in the United States. Stopped at a place called Hyppo which has gourmet popsicles. I had an "Elvis" which is Banana, Peanut Butter, and Honey. Delicious.

Last but not least, I stopped at the St. Augustine Distillery. Pretty neat place. Was the original St. Augustine Ice Plant where block ice was made. Got to taste some booze and bought a bottle of Port Finished Bourbon for my dad. I was most impressed with what they do there. They make a valiant effort to use Florida only products, with some exceptions. I Hope to stop here again and stock up on some stuff.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote:

Huh huh, huh huh, huh huh...

I do like a old fort, and those brass cannons are really cool to see. Everything we have around here is Civil War era, serviceable but not exactly pretty to look at.

Toyman01 wrote: I do like a old fort, and those brass cannons are really cool to see. Everything we have around here is Civil War era, serviceable but not exactly pretty to look at.

Well this is THE oldest fort. The $10 I had to pay to the National Park Service was totally worth it. I am a huge advocate of the National Parks and I have no problem paying my way in to see them.

Those cannons and mortars were pretty awesome. Leave it up to the Spanish to have ornate cannons.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

For $80 you can get into almost all of them for a year. Some places like FDR's house and the Stature of Liberty have an additional fee but everywhere else we've gone has been good.National Park Pass

In reply to Wall-e:

Nice! Good to know that. I'll have to look into that.

oof. I'm trying to talk myself out of the approx. 16hr drive from D.C.

St Aug is cool, even if the old town is touristy. Still neat to see the buildings and stuff from the area. It's been a few years since I was down that way. The distillery wasn't there last time but that really looks like something I should go check out!

So I had a trip I never want to do again. I triple checked the weather before I left to take a trailer to Idaho. Wyoming was absolutely horrible. The wind was so bad (75mph) that I got held up for about 24 hours, but I almost lost the truck and trailer on black ice doing 35 mph on the interstate.

First off, I got this gargantuan:

10k lbs worth of poorly distributed weight fun.

Well I drove against a headwind from the time I left home in Illinois to the time I hit Utah.

The truck wasn't happy.

I stopped in Laramie, Wyoming to avoid death. Around 3pm the wind advisories were dropped and I made some headway. Unfortunately it was only a couple hours and I had to call it quits in Rock Springs.

Grabbed a shot of one of these double trailers that we don't have our where I live.

While I was there I encountered two gentlemen who had picked up a camper in Sidney, NE and were on their way back to NAPA, CA when they decided to stop at the Walmart I was at. Everything was fine until I watched their trailer lights go out when they backed up. I got out and told them what happened. After a quick inspection, we found that the pigtail was severed when they backed up. I decided to repair it for them because they obviously weren't prepared for something like that to happen, so I spent an hour in the bitter cold and wind repairing a strangers trailer wiring. They gave me $40 for my troubles. I refused it at first, but they insisted, so I accepted.

The next day I headed out and made my new friends aware of the impending winter storm coming before I-80 got closed again.

By the time I hit Utah, it was like the weather never happened. The snow was gone, the roads cleared, and clouds broke. Made for some good views.

Plus, my mileage increased dramatically. I finally was able to hit 70mph and by the time I hit Idaho, I was averaging 10mpg.

After I dropped my trailer, I decided to not even try to attempt I-80 again. I did see that Wyoming closed it for the 4th time in 24 hours anyways, so it was probably a bad idea regardless.

I decided to dip down through US 6, then cross over to I-70. Utah is sure a good looking state.

Pretty cool little rest area on US 6, meant to look like a train station and round house to pay homage to the trains that ran to and from the mines in the area.

I finally stopped for the night in Grand Junction, CO. Started getting icy again and I wasn't pushing my luck. Luckily, I was welcomed by the treasure trove of vehicles that reside in Colorado.

The next morning I had some good views before dipping into the Rockies. Saw some cool cars going through the Rockies as well.

After that it was boring. I just wanted to get home.

These are really fun to read. Keep posting them.

Thanks for the updates!

Btw, the Facebook link doesn't seem to be working.

In reply to GPz11:

Unfortunately I quit Facebook and that also shut down the Facebook page. I have been contemplating coming back on, so it could be back on soon.

I actually have another update!

This was last week and I went to Rapid City, SD.

It's a fairly boring drive from Indiana, but I try to make the best out of it.

Now, I have stopped at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop a dozen times, but never actually gone inside. Pretty impressive facility. They have a giant Semi Truck accessory showroom.

That is a full length semi truck with a mural.

Needs more Dekotora

They have a nice little homage to service stations of yore. I love Visible gas pumps.

Anyways, if you ever end up in South Dakota. It's pretty boring until you hit the west end of the state. That's where the fun begins.

However, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!

I love Jimmy Johns. If anyone was looking at getting me a gift card, this is the place.

The clouds broke and had a nice sunset.

So I dropped my trailer the next morning and since I was in Rapid City, that meant there was one place I had to go.

That's right, Mount Rushmore. One of the places I have always wanted to go and never have.

If you've never been here, this place is awe inspiring. It was in the 40's and I just sat there and observed. It was so peaceful, calm, and so insanely quiet, it's surreal. The other thing I always appreciate is that being a national monument, on the third picture down, they represent all the States in the union and all of our territories. I always think that's great. It's kind deceiving, but the monument is lot smaller than you think it's going to be, still huge, but not as big you'd think.

The museum there was quite cool. They have a lot of the artifacts from the construction.

Kind of a crappy picture, but this was the dedication flag. This thing is ridiculously huge.

This was a random device used in the construction that had no tag of what it was, but it was made in Chicago Heights, IL where I spent a lot of my childhood because it's where my family grew up. Looks like a hand crank blower.

I am a fan of lever action rifles and Winchester made a commemorative Model 94 50th Anniversary Mount Rushmore rifle in 1991.

That was it for Mount Rushmore, but on my way out through Keystone, was an honest to god phonebooth!

The rest of my trip was uneventful.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote:

It's a manual turbocharger.

Not the adventure I wanted, but replacing a driver side tire on the interstate is quite the adventure. I struck a URS (Unidentified Road Shrapnel).

Dang, you.just got those too.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

That sucks. I hate changing tires on the side of the road.

I have an affinity for transportation history. Route 66 is no exception. I love the stories, history, and overall awesomeness that is the Mother Road.

If you're ever heading west out of Missouri on I-44, make sure to stop at the Misssouri Welcome Center right before Joplin. They pay homage to Route 66 through Missouri with their picnic area.

They also had a couple of vintage gas pumps in the visitors center.

Yay! More roadside adventures. Blew a trailer tire rolling through Arkadelphia, Arkansas tonight. Nothing like changing a tire on the side of the interstate in the rain. Driver side again to, so I had to deal with cars and Semis that didn't want to move over. Luckily I had a poncho that I leave in the truck, but the hood wouldn't stay up with all the traffic and my jeans are soaked from kneeling in the rain. I'm just glad I bought a cheapo 2-ton trolley jack a couple weeks ago, it helped immensely.

So now I will get my first damage claim, but usually the tire damage doesn't stick, because they consider a tire blowout an uncontrollable act and it usually is not considered the drivers fault. We'll see what happens.