5,790 Miles; 18 Days; 11 States; 7 Mountains = One Hell of a Road Trip TR

[altagirl]

Minus 1,000 for drinking white wine!!!

I'd guess champagne, being New Years and all.

[Arty50]

Nice TR, but I could help myself from thinking you cake boys look like a Abercrombie Fitch or Gap commercial.

Minus 10 points for the sweaters and a big minus 50 for the scarf

Must I teach you people everything...

+100 for the pink Polo with upturned collar.
-5 for covering it up.

Wrapping the sweater around your neck instead of wearing it would have gotten you bonus points.

[altachic]

Nice meeting you briefly that day. Glad you had a great time on the road and on the mountain.

[flatlandcheese]

Chucks got the one-up as usual.

"Crop circles are Chuck Norris' way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie the fuck down."

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Bad ass enough to have his own site!

Nice trip Raps! Station wagons are cooler than monster trucks

[Raps]

Glad you had a good trip & the Disco got you there. Quick thread-drift for a moment:



Get used to it or ditch the rack. It gets worse once you get the lift & add armour, too. I feel your addiction.'96 D1 5-speed with CDL, 2" OME HD lift, Rovertracks custom steering relocator w/ OME HD dampener, QT front rack & pinion guard, QT rear diff guard, 235x85x15 BFG MTs, Wilderness rack, custom rock sliders, custom trailing-arm protection, Powertank, ARB front, True-Trac rear, custom front sway-bar removal, rear sway bar removed, numerous dents & scratches. Hella 1000s in a box; upgrading to Hella HIDs come springtime, as well as a new WARN. Yeah tax-return!
Have you considered Rovertyme's slimline bumper? Better clearance/departure angles. Looks better...

Cheers,
Jax

Thats one hell of a set up - you ever check out discoweb.org, good stuff. My next move is my front end and protection, but we shall see, my current set up is treating me well but yes it is addicting, just like skiing.....always wanting to go fatter......always wanting to lift more, bigger tires......


And you are all wrong with the wine vs. champagne......its actually red bull and vodka in a wine glass...........

Altachick, nice meetin you as well....you all are very lucky to call that place home......

All of your solo drives that you have posted sound pretty crazy.....but solo drives build character, i recommend them to all....

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Man, I am so freakin' jealous. Sweet pics, sweet TR. I was too inhibited in my youth to do anything like that and boy am I regretting it now. If I ever have kids I'm going to encourage them to get out and see the world and do crazy shit just for the experience because that's what being young is for.

Thanks for the pics & story!

[whatcomridaz]

Bozeman, Mt to DC. 32hrs nonstop solo. Slept for 2 days after

[Jax]

Thats one hell of a set up - you ever check out discoweb.org, good stuff. My next move is my front end and protection, but we shall see, my current set up is treating me well but yes it is addicting, just like skiing.....always wanting to go fatter......always wanting to lift more, bigger tires.......

There are some good ideas/tips/advice on DWeb, but many posters can also be too close-minded at times in regards to what you put on your vehicle. I know Ho Chung, however, and support his business whenever I can. Take one of Bill Burke's courses...worth it if you plan on doing any treks off the beaten path. If you ever come out to CO in the summer, let's go wheel! I also lead trails at the National Land Rover Rally every year; it will be in Moab again this summer. Check out www.solihullsociety.com for more info. Good times...

Cheers,
Jax

[Blatant]

phila to Tucson

and san diego to dc.......lost fawkin track of all reality on both trips but they were straight through. A bunch of jet alert and a cb, fun shit. I also hardly drank any water as i hate stopping to piss and only ate granola and jerky as i definitely hate stopping to shit, nasty ass rest stops. Plus I'm too paranoid and feared my shit would get ganked off the rack or some other horrible, kurt russel break down/ candycane style scenario. Both times i arrived all dehydrated and banged the fuck out but I'm proud to say no deuces the whole way and 10lbs lighter and tweaked. I'd do it again and actually will be on FEB 10. it'll be Phoenix to Boston, this time.....wtf....when will i grow up?

[Toby]

Another disco owner here. Used to visit discoweb a lot before the board shat itself last year (or the year before?). Stock '98 D1, diesel, auto, TJM bar, Cooper ST's in stock 235/70R16.

[stump832]

Nice to meet you raps - you certainly got Alta on a good day. And theres absolutely no proof that its me in that crash photo.

[Squirrel99]

college road trips (particularly ski trips) kick ass!

no doubt you'll ever forget the good times had on this one.
and way to work in CO, UT, ID and WY! Impressive.

just for fun- how many Flying J truckstops did you count on I-80?

[snorkeldeep]

you all lose. my buddy just drove from ny to la in ~35 hours.

[gravitylover]

Meh...

Solo - Vancouver BC to San Jose in 20 hours in a 1960 Willys that only went over 55 going downhill with a tailwind.

[Obstruction]

45 minutes to the office this morning with NO coffee!!!

Nice TR RAPs!

BTW -- Red Bull and Vodka in a wine class. Oh son has it come to that?

[Raps]

college road trips (particularly ski trips) kick ass!

no doubt you'll ever forget the good times had on this one.
and way to work in CO, UT, ID and WY! Impressive.

just for fun- how many Flying J truckstops did you count on I-80?

Soooo many flying J's.......but i was kinda dissapointed. I was hoping to find random trucker stuff to entertain me, but they are just big rest stops........nothing like south of the border in SC which is the the highlight of any southern road trip......

I did go to the worlds biggest truck stop in Iowa......

[bklyn]

Glad you had a great time. Jet Blue is running a winter sale, so get after it again! Post more adventures.

[bad_roo]

San Francisco - Tahoe - Vegas - Amarillo - Memphis - Daytona - Miami - Sanibel - New Orleans - Houston - Tucson - Tijuana - Los Angeles - San Francisco. 7500 miles in 12 days.

[Raps]

San Francisco - Tahoe - Vegas - Amarillo - Memphis - Daytona - Miami - Sanibel - New Orleans - Houston - Tucson - Tijuana - Los Angeles - San Francisco. 7500 miles in 12 days.

Holy testicle tuesday.........i'm assuming you did it on a sweet set of wheels? Which rocket this time?




And P.S. - here is a shot of me i froze from vid.......look at my O face!

[bad_roo]

That was for the launch of the new VW Beetle back in '99. Sweet O-face.

PERSONALITY GOES A LONG WAY – Volkswagen’s New Beetle
The Times – 27 March 1999

“Is she dead?” I asked. “I don’t know. Did you hit her?” co-driver Ian Brown enquired. I hadn’t, but there she lay, barefoot in the crawler lane of Highway 50, showing no signs of life. It was approaching midnight and snow had started falling. Boldly taking the initiative, Brown poked her with his tripod, whereupon she rolled onto the verge, murmuring incoherently. After propping her against a tree, we rang the Placerville police, who identified her as a well-known local lush. And so marked our first encounter with the law on a two-week journey that would see Volkswagen’s new Beetle clock up over 7500 miles, taking us from Pacific to Atlantic and back again.

The route was being calculated on the fly. After picking the Beetle up in San Francisco, weather reports had scotched any chance of visiting the northern states, but as we headed into the Sierra night, past the unblinking blackness of Lake Tahoe, the car was creating a good first impression, its eerie blue and red displays marking swift progress. I battled jetlag, anxious to put a few miles on the clock. When rest finally came at the silent village of Lee Vining, both Brown and I were hallucinating through lack of sleep.

As we left California behind and struck out across the high deserts of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, so sightings of other Beetles diminished. If ever a car seemed to typify one city, the attitude and zeitgeist of one snapshot in time, the new Beetle is turn of the millennium San Francisco. Haight Ashbury is clogged with them, their determinedly alternative drivers reacting with weary resignation as they become swallowed by the mainstream. Strike east into the real America of the old Route 66, and the ecosystem becomes alien, dominated by eighteen wheeled rigs and four wheel drive sport utes, where folk in petrol stations don’t know at which end the engine resides. Everywhere the car stopped east of Las Vegas, it would draw attention, some of which was decidedly unwelcome. Come the Texas panhandle, the police stop score read Brown 2, Enright 2, although on each occasion, the officer was more interested in the car than any moving violation. Darkness proved a welcome ally. Entering Amarillo, the fifth stop looked routine. Travelling at 75 with the rest of the traffic, the police Camaro on the shoulder had accelerated up to a point on our rear three quarter and hauled us in. Not a problem.

After licence and registration formalities, the policeman cocked his head curiously, bug-eyed aviators staring at my tee shirt. Somewhat unfortunately, I was wearing a souvenir shirt from a famous US road race, emblazoned with the legend ‘Anyone Can Run Flat Out On A Public Highway.’ “You really believe that, do you boy?” he barked. “Well, no. No, not really”, I temporised, English buffoonery personified. He changed tack, staring contemptuously into the car whilst questioning our sexual orientation. I found this quaintly amusing; an error which resulted in a citation for laughing at a Texan police officer. Half an hour later and $90 lighter we were back on track.

Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were despatched without further interruption before spending a humid night in Memphis where cockroach crushing in the Elvis Presley Boulevard Inn marked a personal motel nadir. Next morning, we drove into the rising sun over the great muddy artery of the Mississippi, as barges headed south to the soupy waters of the Gulf. The Mississippi defines America, and marked the end of the monotonous plains and the beginning of the South Proper. From here, the road arced southeast, towards Jacksonville and the Sunshine State. Looping down through Daytona, Miami and back up to Tallahassee via sweltering Biloxi, Mobile and New Orleans it was time to sample the famous Cajun cuisine. Brown unearthed a Swine Tasting evening at Scuttlebutt’s Restaurant, which was effectively a medieval orgy with barbecue sauce, and was the debauched precedent to the grimmest morning I ever care to experience.

So far, the car was bearing up better than we were, although a warning light on the dash informed us that our indicators didn’t work. They did. When they did later go on the blink, the warning light staged a no-show. The cream cloth trim is a bad idea, getting grubby remarkably quickly, and the automatic gearbox suffers from a heavily pregnant pause when switching between drive, park and reverse. Interior quality is generally good, although a few plastic fittings, such as cup holders and glove box are prone to failure. Chief sources of annoyance were the omnipresent warning chimes and the obtrusive wind noise above 70mph, but the car had personality, and that goes a long way.

Eight hundred-mile days took huge bites out of Texas, as the Continental Divide was passed in the opposite direction. The cool beauty of White Sands, the dry heat of Tucson and the coruscating sun of the Sonoran desert were all imperiously bested by the VW’s air conditioning. California rolled past, a scrolling, north facing theme park, greener by the hour, punctuated by fuel, food and photo stops. As the Golden Gate hove into view through the keening rain, exhaustion was replaced by anticlimax and the penniless realisation that this journey which had so comprehensively depleted our reserves had run like Pacific rain water from the Bug’s back. It was better than we were. Way better.

[AtomicTwinStix]

Still got you beat:

Jackson, WY to Chapel Hill, NC - 36hrs
Charleston, SC to Tucson, AZ - 34hrs

both solo

I teleported from Miami to Seattle in just under 30minutes.....solo..

[Bum Z]

Nice TR, and good to make turns with you. Let us know when you're back in Utah.

[StroupSkier]

Still got you beat:

Jackson, WY to Chapel Hill, NC - 36hrs
Charleston, SC to Tucson, AZ - 34hrs

both solo

What the hell were you doing in Chapel Thrill?

[StroupSkier]

Raleigh, NC to Salt Lake - 31 hours nonstop
Snowmass to Raleigh, NC - 31 hours nonstop after skiing a foot of fresh
Raleigh, NC to Denver - 21.5 hours nonstop
to many 12-14 hour drive between VT and NC to count.

Nice TR though. I think my days of the long drive may be over though...

[Dantheman]

Nice writeup man. I was good to meet you and and it looks like you hit the pow pretty good along the way.