Well....I got back to the home base from a 3137 mile roundtrip to Alabama last Friday afternoon. Some of this trip was covered by "Wreckerman" in a nice post and I just wanted to use the opportunity to thank him again for all his help!
Anyway....the trip was originally conceived as a 1ton "pick-up and trailer" adventure, to recover a Mk48 cab and some other "goodies" from Ted's Truck in Alabama.
After talking to Sirblissfull about the trip, he mentioned that his M820 was still in a storage place near Huntsville AL.
Make a long story short, and after some fuel calculations, it turned in to a M920A1 and M870A1 trip!
After a pretty quick trip to Huntsville AL and an good nights sleep I woke up to a non starting M920A1....
Luckily we did not underestimate the sheer starting power of Richard's Dodge pick-up and off we went to load the M820. (see Wreckerman's post for details and great pics!)
After leaving the storage facility with my kind of tall load....I headed south to Ted's Truck.
After being remeinded again to not trust my GPS, spending 45min "cruising" the back roads around Midland City AL, having to listen to "Miss Garmin's" recalculating efforts every time I refused to turn on a non-existing road and engaging in some major "tree trimming" for the County along the way.....I finally arrived in PARADISE.
It was to late a that point to get everything loaded, so I decided to spend the night and deal with the tasks in the AM.
The next day, after a big rain storm overnight and after finding way more "goodies" then I planned on finding, but that I had to have never the less, I left Ted's paradise and headed back west again.
I crossed Alabama and Mississippy and made it just inside of the Louisiana line where I spent the night at a truck stop.
The next morning I worked on getting the roof mounted AC unit on my S-250 sleeper re-attached, that had decided to seperate itself from the roof of the sleeper and was only hanging by one little screw!!! That would have not been good!
After almost running out of fuel later that day (I guess it does not matter how much your tanks hold....when they are empty...THEY ARE EMPTY....regardless of capacity!!!) and after crossing in to the "great and vast" state of Texas I met up with Justin Wehring. (The guy is the best....he drove like 4 or 5 hours up, from below Houston...just to buy me dinner!!!) This has to be some kind of record....Thanks again Justin!
I continued westbound and felt a little more at ease with my high load. I did not need any overhight permits for Texas and New Mexico since their legal hight was 14' 0", and the M820 on my lowboy measured exactly 14' 0".
Dallas was of course the usual road construction and it happened to be rush hour traffic, when I ended up getting a pretty good scare.
So I came around this curve on the Interstate, doing about 65 Mph, when I encountered a 14' 2" underpass, just to be followed by a 14' 0" overpass!
Talking about being wide awake again
.....this is in a construction zone and you never know if they might have added some new pavement....
Anyway later that eve, on TX 114 I run up on a 13' 10" railroad underpass and spent the better part of an hour getting the rig backed up in the dark and then turned around in a tiny driveway....in traffic and on my blind side of course....
After a 30 mile detour, I was able to get around the "pesky" obstacle but was mentally and physically drained, so I decided to call it a day.
I woke up just 15 miles SE of Bowie TX, where Mark Dodd opperates RAPCO Parts.
I called him up to see if I could swing by and stock up on some paint. This was affirmative and up on my arrival, I got a tour of his place. We had a nice lunch and once again I ended up with more "stuff" then I had planned on....what a surprise!
Leaving RAPCO, I had a quick stopover in Amarillo TX, to show the M820 to a potential buyer, and then headed in to the sunset....
Spent the night in Santa Rosa NM and after an other stop in Santa Fe for lunch, I finally arrived at the home base at 1640 hours last Friday.
3137 miles later...here are some pics from the trip....
Soni
Anyway....the trip was originally conceived as a 1ton "pick-up and trailer" adventure, to recover a Mk48 cab and some other "goodies" from Ted's Truck in Alabama.
After talking to Sirblissfull about the trip, he mentioned that his M820 was still in a storage place near Huntsville AL.
Make a long story short, and after some fuel calculations, it turned in to a M920A1 and M870A1 trip!
After a pretty quick trip to Huntsville AL and an good nights sleep I woke up to a non starting M920A1....
Luckily we did not underestimate the sheer starting power of Richard's Dodge pick-up and off we went to load the M820. (see Wreckerman's post for details and great pics!)After leaving the storage facility with my kind of tall load....I headed south to Ted's Truck.
After being remeinded again to not trust my GPS, spending 45min "cruising" the back roads around Midland City AL, having to listen to "Miss Garmin's" recalculating efforts every time I refused to turn on a non-existing road and engaging in some major "tree trimming" for the County along the way.....I finally arrived in PARADISE.
It was to late a that point to get everything loaded, so I decided to spend the night and deal with the tasks in the AM.
The next day, after a big rain storm overnight and after finding way more "goodies" then I planned on finding, but that I had to have never the less, I left Ted's paradise and headed back west again.
I crossed Alabama and Mississippy and made it just inside of the Louisiana line where I spent the night at a truck stop.
The next morning I worked on getting the roof mounted AC unit on my S-250 sleeper re-attached, that had decided to seperate itself from the roof of the sleeper and was only hanging by one little screw!!! That would have not been good!
After almost running out of fuel later that day (I guess it does not matter how much your tanks hold....when they are empty...THEY ARE EMPTY....regardless of capacity!!!) and after crossing in to the "great and vast" state of Texas I met up with Justin Wehring. (The guy is the best....he drove like 4 or 5 hours up, from below Houston...just to buy me dinner!!!) This has to be some kind of record....Thanks again Justin!
I continued westbound and felt a little more at ease with my high load. I did not need any overhight permits for Texas and New Mexico since their legal hight was 14' 0", and the M820 on my lowboy measured exactly 14' 0".
Dallas was of course the usual road construction and it happened to be rush hour traffic, when I ended up getting a pretty good scare.
So I came around this curve on the Interstate, doing about 65 Mph, when I encountered a 14' 2" underpass, just to be followed by a 14' 0" overpass!
Talking about being wide awake again
.....this is in a construction zone and you never know if they might have added some new pavement....Anyway later that eve, on TX 114 I run up on a 13' 10" railroad underpass and spent the better part of an hour getting the rig backed up in the dark and then turned around in a tiny driveway....in traffic and on my blind side of course....
After a 30 mile detour, I was able to get around the "pesky" obstacle but was mentally and physically drained, so I decided to call it a day.
I woke up just 15 miles SE of Bowie TX, where Mark Dodd opperates RAPCO Parts.
I called him up to see if I could swing by and stock up on some paint. This was affirmative and up on my arrival, I got a tour of his place. We had a nice lunch and once again I ended up with more "stuff" then I had planned on....what a surprise!
Leaving RAPCO, I had a quick stopover in Amarillo TX, to show the M820 to a potential buyer, and then headed in to the sunset....
Spent the night in Santa Rosa NM and after an other stop in Santa Fe for lunch, I finally arrived at the home base at 1640 hours last Friday.
3137 miles later...here are some pics from the trip....
Soni
