Just one more thing
Part of the fun of this year were the adventures had while driving the boat trailer with Chris. Aside from the long discussions over technique, recruiting plans, and training, we also had our fair share of (mis)adventures along the way.
Las Vegas (Returning home)
We decided having run down the Central Valley in California that we'd take a different road back. The primary reason we'd chosen to come down the CV was to avoid any snow accumulation around Reno, but the weather apps showed clear roads so we decided to chance it.
There's been this belief that whatever your first encounter on your first road trip is will be the issue you run into the rest of the season - I don't necessarily count fall - and while losing our running lights was a constant issue - beginning with my trip to Seattle in January - the major issue we had was running out of fuel.
This is our truck. It was kindly donated from a construction job in Canada a few years back so it has some quirks, mostly being that everything is in metric. The first time anyone drives it, they're thrown when they look down and see "100KM" rather than MPH.
The biggest issue with the truck is that she doesn't have a large gas tank. I'm not sure what it might be, but I believe it's 26 gallons. Maybe it's litres. I haven't decided. Regardless, the truck gets roughly 280 miles per tank, or 100 miles fewer than my truck with a similar sized engine and tank gets. Add a trailer, and that quickly falls down to around 180-200, and less when traveling through the mountains. The program added a 30 gallon spare tank in the back - barely visible in the picture - which gives us some leg room.
So being aware of your fuel consumption and the distance to the next truck stop with diesel fuel is paramount, especially when you're driving up the backside of the Sierra Nevadas.
This is where we first decided to pull off after running the tank down. The picture isn't the best because it was taken while moving, but those signs do advertise that the road we're on is restricted. Also you'll note that the road is rather narrow, so one can only imagine what those sitting in the buildings in the far distance were thinking as we did our best to parody the "Austin Powers" 500 point turn.
The rest of the trip up toward Reno was uneventful, passing through towns that advertised populations we felt were grossly generous, and a very large, salt lake with abandoned buildings and an empty campground. We theorized that we'd have plenty of time to grab gas before we crossed over the mountains, and emerged in Redding, where we planned on crashing for the evening.
We were wrong.
There's nothing quite like the exhilerating feeling your heart and gut gets when the fuel light pops on in the middle of driving through Mt. Shasta. I'm not sure where exactly Google Maps thought we were heading, but driving through the mountains, with deep piles of snow on either side of the road was not the plan.
With roughly 12 miles left in the tank, and well over 50 to go, we pulled over in the middle of nowhere to use the back tank. I casually mentioned to Chris that this is exactly where Bigfoot liked to find his or her victims and drag them screaming into the unknown. After what felt like 10 minutes of fueling, we popped back into the truck and were astonished to see the truck had taken on exactly...20 miles of additional gas.
I'd like to point out that it was around 10 pm at night, on a Sunday, and the prospects for finding fuel were low, and the mountains and trees were playing hell with my wireless service.
We limped down the mountain, laughing about our prospects of marrying Bigfoots/feets, and wondering how we managed to get into this situation. In our defence, there weren't a lot of places in Reno we wanted to drag a 40 foot trailer, an excuse we felt made our situation a bit more understandable. We managed to pull into a tiny place called, "Shingletown" to the only gas station we'd seen since Reno. Despite the place being closed, and the entire town looking dead, the pumps worked. As Chris remarked, "I'd pay $10 a gallon at this point." We filled the truck, and the back tank and made it to Redding and our hotel.
Running out of fuel became the constant with Chris and I.
We ran short heading into San Francisco.
We ran out in Weed.
We ran short heading to Sacramento for Pac-12s.
And on our final run to Sacramento and the IRAs, a semi truck caught fire at the pumps in Roseburg causing everyone to come running with cell phones in hand. Luckily the shop guys and the station attendants also came with the correct fire extinguishers. Chris and I opted to get out of dodge and head down the road to the next station.
Needless to say, running low on fuel was a fun way to add excitement to each road trip.
We decided having run down the Central Valley in California that we'd take a different road back. The primary reason we'd chosen to come down the CV was to avoid any snow accumulation around Reno, but the weather apps showed clear roads so we decided to chance it.
There's been this belief that whatever your first encounter on your first road trip is will be the issue you run into the rest of the season - I don't necessarily count fall - and while losing our running lights was a constant issue - beginning with my trip to Seattle in January - the major issue we had was running out of fuel.
This is our truck. It was kindly donated from a construction job in Canada a few years back so it has some quirks, mostly being that everything is in metric. The first time anyone drives it, they're thrown when they look down and see "100KM" rather than MPH.
The biggest issue with the truck is that she doesn't have a large gas tank. I'm not sure what it might be, but I believe it's 26 gallons. Maybe it's litres. I haven't decided. Regardless, the truck gets roughly 280 miles per tank, or 100 miles fewer than my truck with a similar sized engine and tank gets. Add a trailer, and that quickly falls down to around 180-200, and less when traveling through the mountains. The program added a 30 gallon spare tank in the back - barely visible in the picture - which gives us some leg room.
So being aware of your fuel consumption and the distance to the next truck stop with diesel fuel is paramount, especially when you're driving up the backside of the Sierra Nevadas.
The rest of the trip up toward Reno was uneventful, passing through towns that advertised populations we felt were grossly generous, and a very large, salt lake with abandoned buildings and an empty campground. We theorized that we'd have plenty of time to grab gas before we crossed over the mountains, and emerged in Redding, where we planned on crashing for the evening.
We were wrong.
There's nothing quite like the exhilerating feeling your heart and gut gets when the fuel light pops on in the middle of driving through Mt. Shasta. I'm not sure where exactly Google Maps thought we were heading, but driving through the mountains, with deep piles of snow on either side of the road was not the plan.
With roughly 12 miles left in the tank, and well over 50 to go, we pulled over in the middle of nowhere to use the back tank. I casually mentioned to Chris that this is exactly where Bigfoot liked to find his or her victims and drag them screaming into the unknown. After what felt like 10 minutes of fueling, we popped back into the truck and were astonished to see the truck had taken on exactly...20 miles of additional gas.
I'd like to point out that it was around 10 pm at night, on a Sunday, and the prospects for finding fuel were low, and the mountains and trees were playing hell with my wireless service.
We limped down the mountain, laughing about our prospects of marrying Bigfoots/feets, and wondering how we managed to get into this situation. In our defence, there weren't a lot of places in Reno we wanted to drag a 40 foot trailer, an excuse we felt made our situation a bit more understandable. We managed to pull into a tiny place called, "Shingletown" to the only gas station we'd seen since Reno. Despite the place being closed, and the entire town looking dead, the pumps worked. As Chris remarked, "I'd pay $10 a gallon at this point." We filled the truck, and the back tank and made it to Redding and our hotel.
Running out of fuel became the constant with Chris and I.
We ran short heading into San Francisco.
We ran out in Weed.
We ran short heading to Sacramento for Pac-12s.
And on our final run to Sacramento and the IRAs, a semi truck caught fire at the pumps in Roseburg causing everyone to come running with cell phones in hand. Luckily the shop guys and the station attendants also came with the correct fire extinguishers. Chris and I opted to get out of dodge and head down the road to the next station.
Needless to say, running low on fuel was a fun way to add excitement to each road trip.
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