gt6star

Arizona to Oregon on Trails
Introduction:
So, we're home now finally rested and relaxed after our epic journey through 3.5 states (we dipped into Kali for a few minutes) to get started telling our story I'll start with the numbers...
Vehicle used: 2009 Jeep JK Unlimited X on BFG all Terrain KO's
Ramsey winch/hi-lift jack/terraflex budget boost/Garmin gps/maps/and enough food/water clothing/camping gear to last about a month.
Gas used:205.05 gallons at a cost of $806.08
we drove a total of 3883.46 miles from my driveway to Portland back to my driveway
We got an average of 18.93 MPG
Average gas cost was $3.93 per gallon
Those are the quantifiable facts, here's the story...........
Planning:
We started planning this trip back in March. It started out as a need to go to Oregon for my girlfriend’s cousin’s high school graduation. In the initial discussion I piped up and said "hey, wouldn’t it be neat if tried to do most or our entire trip on dirt." Can it be done? Can you still cross the western United States on dirt or have we finally strip malled and interstated our way into one indistinguishable gas station after another? In her usually enthusiastic demeanor she replied "hell Yes! Let’s do it!”
Well it's settled then; we're on our way to a life changing adventure. We got out the maps, poured over Google earth, posted on Expedition Portal, planned studied and planned some more. Then with enough money saved up (we hoped) and our leave from work approved we set out....
Day One May 16th 2011:
We started in the evening after Nola (my girlfriend) got off work. Our plan was simply to get out of town the first night and camp about 50 miles north of Tucson to check our gear and if we forgot anything we were still close enough to go home and get it. We camped just east of Red Rock Arizona, the weather was perfect and everything worked fine, especially our new air mattress. Incidentally this was one of only 2 nights on the entire trip we actually used our tent.... more on that later.
The campsite was the usual southern Arizona desert camp, a few cows and some jack rabbits for company and the occasional coyote howl. We slept like babies
Day Two May 17th 2011:
We awoke to perfect Arizona weather, nice cool crisp air we had a quick breakfast of granola bars and tea. We packed our campsite and began to head north on dirt roads. We had to cheat a little cutting through Phoenix and up I-17 until we hit the road to Crown King. We turned off the highway and hit the trail. This was also a good chance to test our airing down skills and ultimately or airing up equipment. After airing down the usually bone jarring ride on the jeep turned into a nice quiet drive in the country. The front road up to Crown King is a winding hair pinned dirt road passing through a few (very) small towns on its way up the mountain. Crown King is a sight to behold, right out of the 19th century this old mining camp is pretty well left alone because of the effort required to get up to it. The fresh alpine air felt good after passing through Phoenix and eating dust all day. We stopped briefly to grab a water out of the cooler and toss a few things into our Trasharoo (this thing was invaluable during our trip, and started more than a few conversations at gas stations). Heading out of Crown King down the back way is much more challenging and the going was slow. 3 hours later we popped out in Kirkland. We thought it would be a good time to air back up, one tire, two tires, than bang our little air compressor gave up swallowing a reed valve (MV-50 air compressor) We limped on into Skull Valley and found a small '40s era gas station being restored. We pulled in and I met the owner, a guy named Butch, who in his late 60s was restoring this place on his own. Luckily he had an air compressor and got us fixed up. He was one of those guys you wish you had all day to sit and listen too, he had the look of an ex marine and age wasn’t going to stop him from doing anything. Thanks Butch for the air! We pressed on to Bagdad Arizona and made camp near an active mining claim. This was the second and last time we used our tent. We fixed a big dinner of Turkey burgers and baked beans (baked beans will be the source of many late night giggles and "Dutch oven" attacks in the sleeping bags throughout the trip. We relaxed for a few hours and even took a shower using our water jug on top of the jeep. Again we slept like babies, gassy ones
Day Three May 18th:
This time we awoke to not so perfect Arizona weather, it was windy and rainy. After a little bit of extra "denial" sleep we finally decided to get up and face the weather, we got dressed and quickly broke camp. Once finally in the jeep we set out towards Kingman Arizona. Kingman was just a quick gas stop and lunch for we had a mission that day. Las Vegas was our goal or as I called it "our resupply depot that happens to have a casino or two" We crossed the new bridge over the Hoover Dam and incredible walk if you ever pass by that way it’s worth a stop. After oohing and aahing at the new views of the dam the bridge provides we headed into Vegas, here again we cheat a little staying one glorious night in Sam’s Town Hotel Casino. We got dressed in our finest duds and hit the strip that night. We got back to the hotel late and hit the sack. We awoke early and checked out. As we headed out of town we stopped at Pep Boys to pick up a new air compressor. We headed north........


Day Four May 19th:
We left Vegas, happy and a little bloated on M&Ms, (we hit the M&M store on the strip).
I have to give credit to Expedition portal here as they helped with this leg of the trip. We had with us a printout of the 3 towns called Lee overland route. We followed it from Amargosa Valley. Amargosa Valley was also our gas stop, and was the first time in my life I had ever seen a gas station/brothel with attached brothel museum. I was intrigued, what’s in a brothel museum? After short consideration we decided the trail was our mission and we needed to focus on that. We turned west into the desert....
After a few miles the smooth graded gravel road turns into a carnival ride of woopdydoos for miles and miles, you could get sea sick on this trail, it was great fun! While riding the waves we passed what looked like a recently dead horse, complete with shoes and a bridal/bit and what appeared to be a bullet hole in its head. We figured some poor cowboy had to put his trusty friend down. We pressed on briefly crossing into California’s Death Valley National Park for a few minutes, no movie stars were seen. While heading back east we watched a couple of F-16's on low level zooming across the desert. They did in 30 seconds what it would take us 4 hours to do... We popped out of the desert on I-95 and headed north to Beaty NV. We got a few gallons of gas and started our next downloaded overland route "Rhyolite to Tonopah" This leg was truly magical for me, I love ghost towns and open desert, and this route had plenty of both. We stopped in Rhyolite a well preserved mining town with some sizable buildings still standing. After that we crossed a low mountain pass and into a massive flat valley, after about 2 hours of crossing the valley we arrived at the site of Bonnie Claire ghost town. A small house and some mining equipment lie strewn about everywhere, nothing rots away in the desert. After a little poking around we mounted up and headed north east towards Big Blossom mine and Gold Point. After hours of following wrong trails, back tracking, almost smashing our front diff on a rock hidden in some weeds and a lot of skilled navigation on my part we finally found Gold Point. There looked to be some overlander types camped out in Gold Point and it would have been great to stop and hang out, but we were burning daylight and had a ways to go before camp. We moved still northwest towards Lida. Where we turned up into a massive mountain pass stopping for dinner at the top, Hot Dogs and yes, more beans. After the pass we crossed another massive wide valley and entered Silver Peak, nothing to see here folks, just a small (still working) mining town and you'd think they way they looked at my jeep that the circus had come to town. We passed right on through and headed to Tonopah. Arriving in Tonopah well after dark, 2130ish we got gas and talked for a few minutes with the girl behind the counter at the gas station, everyone in Tonopah seemed friendly and it was actually a cool looking town with a classic main street feel. Nola and I looked at each other and neither one of us was tired; maybe we were running on the excitement of what we were discovering. We pressed on through the night, heading still North West towards Winnemucca. This was by far the longest stretch of unbroken dirt we drove on so far, over 200 miles of it! The road was so straight I could have set the cruise control and ridden on the roof of the jeep for hours. At about 0300 I had had a long enough days behind the wheel, we pulled off and unloaded the jeep and inflated out air mattress in the back of it. It was perfect, easier than the tent and was better shelter; again we slept like babies, until about 0730 when we were awakened by a nest of vultures in the tree we parked under. We watched in awe as 4 baby vultures squawked for food from mom who was out somewhere scavenging. And folks yes, even baby vultures are cute in their own way....

Day Five May 20th:
....."I was totin my pack along the dusty Winnemucca road".... or so the Jonny Cash masterpiece goes....I thought to myself as I actually drove along the dusty Winnemucca road With Mr. Cash still belting out his hits on our IPod we arrived in Winnemucca, a sleepy farm town/truck/train depot along I-80. We pulled into a gas station after burning what we thought was going to be the most fuel on the longest stretch we had thus far traveled between stops. As we were gassing up, a guy who was topping off his cowboy Cadillac across from me proudly proclaimed that my Jeep is what they are supposed to look like, he was referring to the 2 states worth of mud and dirt covering everything. I must have paid an extra $40 in gas just to haul 400 pounds of Arizona this far north into Nevada. Again I was asked about the trasharoo, I explained what it was for, he looked intrigued, than looked at his pickup truck, no need for a trasharoo there...

I called my dad before we left town to let him know we were ok and we were having a blast, I also gave him a rough estimate of the direction we would be traveling and where we hoped to end up that night.
We pressed on north out of town on Jungo road heading to the ghost town of Jungo, when we arrived at the dot on the map that said "Jungo" we found no town, what we did find was a huge dry lake bed called Jungo Flat, we took this opportunity to let the massive horsepower "snort" of our Jeep JK's 3.8 liter minivan engine run free! Across the lake bed we went setting land speed records and doing wide sweeping turns, it was thrilling. We stopped to take a few pictures and pop off a few rounds from my Springfield XD-9 and Nolas 357 magnum. Dry lakebeds are perfect ranging and testing grounds for different types of ammo because you can see exactly where and how far bullets travel. That was fun! On the edge of the lakebed we discovered an abandoned 50's era Buick, this beast had more steel in the front fender than my whole jeep had in its body, it was massive covered with rust yet the chrome still gleamed in the sun. America could build some cars back then! After our diversion on the lakebed we started north towards the biggest mountains we had seen so far on our trip, following Bottle Creek Road we moved quickly, this was a nice smooth graded dirt road. I've got to add here that this (to me) seemed to mark our entering into the north country, the air felt different, there was green grass, the cows were fatter, and there were flowing streams everywhere. We turned onto Nevada highway 140, another beautifully graded dirt road (Nevada takes care of their trails nicely) and headed towards Denio Junction near the Oregon Border. We turned left and continued to follow 140 across another picturesque mountain valley, while in the valley we stopped for lunch, more hot dogs and even more beans hehehe! After lunch we followed our trusty GPS onto what looked like a gently sloping mountain pass. Dear reader we climbed 5 thousand feet in about 5 miles in 4 low crawling the entire way, we crossed snow patches that were more like glaciers! We'd reach the crest of one ridge only to see more climbing and more crawling, 2 hours later we pointed the nose down the other side of the mountain pass, riding the brakes in 4 low down the hill into yet another awesome mountain valley, this time Nola proclaimed we can see Oregon! We drove on up the trail passing nicely laid out camp sites and Kiosks that detailed local wild life and posted vague park service maps of the area. (Does anyone use these? most of the ones in Arizona are riddled with bullet holes) We crossed into Oregon on Coleman Canyon road pushing north towards Adel. Oregon is much wetter than I'm used to, what they call streams here are raging rivers in AZ. I'm used to being able to jump across a stream, you could sail a destroyer up these creeks! Needless to say being a stranger in a strange land (I’m a desert rat mind you) we stuck to the pavement. We had hoped to get gas in Adel but there wasn’t a single open gas station in town, so we pressed our luck, and our range, and headed towards Paisley, we actually started thinking about what we would do if we ran out of gas here, the low level light was on and we had 95 miles to go before the next gps located gas station, we weren’t going to make that. Thankfully Paisley did have a gas station. I must state here that I think Oregon’s full service gas station law is silly! The attendant was nice and I stood next to the pump awkwardly as this guy pumped my gas for me, essentially doing my work. No one has yet been able to explain this law to me; does Oregon not trust its citizens to pump their own gas? This was not the last Oregon law I would have trouble with.....
After we got gas we decided to try some trails, after all that’s what we were here for, one forest road after another petered out into a locked gate or an impassable river. We were running out of daylight and we had to be in Portland that night.

We hit the highway up 97 thru Bend then Madras, at Madras we turned onto 26 and headed towards Mt Hood and Portland, it was disappointing because by now it was dark and raining hard as we passed Mt Hood, we never got to see its majestic peak. While on the highway, a friend I went to high school with back in New Mexico who was following our trip on facebook offered us her spare bedroom in Portland! That was great because we really had no clue where we were going to sleep that night. We finally made it to her apartment deep in the heart of downtown Portlandia. We parked the Jeep on the street in front of her building, grabbed a few bags of clothes and our air mattress and followed Rose up to her place, it was 0130. A little small talk and a beer or two later and Nola and I were ready for some sleep! We were dead to the world once we hit the mattress. I did get a disgusted giggle out of Nola right before we drifted off to sleep, the lunch beans strike again! haha! We slept like babies............

Day Six May 21st The end of the World?:
We slept till 0900 that morning, we needed the sleep, and I had essentially been driving for 48 hours with nothing more than a 3 hour nap. I stumbled across the hall into my first shower since Vegas, it was great! Oregon water is so much better that Arizona water! After a little more smalltalk with Rose we headed out to do the thing we actually made this trip for, Go to Nolas cousins high school graduation party. I should say here that In the almost 2 years Nola and I have been together I had not yet met her father, today was the day I was going to do that. We met her family at her Aunt’s house and I was immediately made to feel like family. Her father (Cliff) is a retired 30 year Coast Guard vet who currently spends his time playing in his band at wineries and festivals. We hit it off instantly after figuring out that we had the same sense of humor, the fact that I'm in the Air force and have been for 18 years so we sort of speak the same language, didn’t hurt either. We spent the day at the party, me making small talk with her family and friends and even drifting off to sleep on her cousin’s couch for a while, I was still exhausted from the drive. That night we went back to Roses place and hung out for a while before crashing on the air mattress again. Thanks Rose for putting us up! I ate no beans that day so all was quiet on the southern front. We slept like babies...........

Day Seven May 22:
We started our day with breakfast at Nolas Aunts house, a massive home cooked meal that felt more like an event than a meal! We said our good buys and hit the trail once more, Nola’s family was heading down to Medford where they live and we were heading to the coast to continue our adventure, we would meet up with her folks again in a few days.
We left Portland about mid day and headed west Towards Tillamook We followed highway 6 into the mountains passing thru towns like Gales Creek and Balm Grove, I was particularly fond of Idiotville, and may consider going back and running for mayor someday. It was here that we decided to try our luck at some trails. We turned off at Lee’s camp and hit the dirt, not 5 minutes into the forest we were stopped by a sheriff’s deputy who asked us where our front license plate was. I explained in Arizona we don’t have them, he quickly and tersely replied that all states have them. I wasn’t getting anywhere with Deputy Dickhead, so I simply smiled and bit my tongue as he shook us down for 5 minutes about some sticker were supposed to have to go off road in Oregon and our license plate, he even asked what we were doing up in Oregon. You should have seen the look of bitterness on his face when we told him that story. I guess the law in Oregon just can’t stand to see people doing what they enjoy. After our run in with the law we continued driving up the trails and enjoying the view. After going up one particularly steep trail we were disappointed to see a sign that said, motorcycles and ATV's only beyond this point! ARGHHHH! We had to turn back, another hour of daylight burned. We returned to the main road and continued our drive to the sea. We passed thru Tillamook and hit the coast, for the first time on our trip we saw the Pacific Ocean! We drove down the coast road to a place called Sand Beach where we set up camp. This was the first time on our trip that we had to pay to camp at a campground Camping next to us was a scruffy looking guy with what looked like a hobo campsite, he had everything, and old trailer with a frame and tarps tied over it to make a shelter with a cot inside, he had a 20 lb propane tank with 3 hoses coming off of it for light, cooking and a heater. He was heating up a can of stu in a pot suspended over a campfire with a tripod. He also had a really cool 1985 Honda Pilot. He was a man on a mission, to play on the huge sand dunes that go on for miles near the campsite. We put up our sunshade/old tarp and cleared out the back of the jeep to put it into bedroom mode. We made dinner, Raman and spam, Nola refused to fix me some beans tonight! It was getting cold quick and beginning to rain when we crawled into the back of the jeep and went to sleep. We slept like babies......

Day Eight May 23rd:
We woke up early and broke camp quickly, rain again.... I want next door and woke up our neighbor (he had asked for a wake up before we left, apparently he slept till 1530 the day before and didn’t want to Rip Van Winkle another day away) We headed down the coast towards Tierra Del Mar, when Nola spied a small road that led out onto the beach, and a sign explaining the rules of driving on the beach. I didn’t know you could still do this in North America without the enviro police arresting you. We gleefully hit the flat sand and roared down the beach, splashing thru the surf as if in some really cheesy 70s jeep commercial! The salt air smelled great, like a huge air freshener we drove down the beach toward a massive out cropping called Haystack Rock, think One Eyed Willy's hide out from Goonies here. At the other end of the beach we saw another couple with a jeep and a dog; they were collecting muscles for dinner. I didn’t have a clue what they were looking for. I played with their dog "Lewie" for a while, tossing a stick out across the beach and watching Lewie cheerfully run and get it to bring it back to me. I felt like a 12 year old kid again. After tiring Lewie I decided to go exploring on foot, gravitated towards the sound of thunder behind some massive rocks, I carefully stepped over star fish and other squishy sea creature to an opening in the rock where I was promptly met by the raging Pacific Ocean. About 30000 gallons of it at least, exploding through the rocks and soaking me to the bone. As the water retreated I could hear the waves laughing at me, or was that Nola?

After playing on the beach for about an hour I could hear the Jeep beginning to rust, I figured it was a good time for a car wash. We drove on down to Pacific City and hit the car wash; we also did a load of laundry and got some groceries. WE got a 5 pound block of dry ice to see how it held up in our cooler too. After our stop we kept driving down the coast enjoying stunning ocean views and quaint Oregon seaside towns. We passed through towns like Depoe Bay and Otter Rock, Newport and South Beach on our way to Coos Bay, where Nola had grown up. We drove around Coos Bay and Nola pointed out places from her childhood, we stopped at an extremely good mom and pop pizza place for dinner. After dinner we decided to start looking for a campsite, first we went to the sand dunes near Coos Bay thinking we could easily find a spot, nope, there were signs everywhere telling us nothing was allowed anywhere. So we decided to head for the hills east of town, we drove around aimlessly in the mountains looking at one pay campsite after another $20 for a spot to park is robbery Oregon! In our driving and searching we were growing a little frustrated, that’s when the suicidal duck came out of nowhere and flew right into the front of the jeep, we were going about 65 mph. He slammed against the grill bounced up onto the hood and danced the jig of death as he flopped all the way across the hood. We recovered from that quickly and pressed on into the hills, that when I noticed that one of our headlights was pointing up into the trees and flopping around, that damned duck broke my driver side headlight mount! I felt less bad for him then. I rigged the headlight up with (Ironically) duck tape, this is exactly the kind of thing duck tape was invented for, and I quipped as I made the repair. We found a small clearing in the woods and turned in, We couldn’t see what was around us and we didn’t care as long as we didn’t pull into Leatherface's back yard I was fine with it. We made camp quickly and slept in the jeep. We slept like babies........

Day Nine May 24th:
We awoke in what turned out to be a small clearing in the woods, the trail we came in on being the only access point to this clearing and I could see no discernable use for this area other than a small campground. We got up, got out of the jeep and packed up camp, breakfast was a granola bar and some tea, and we had a lot to do today. Our ultimate goal was to get to Medford Oregon where Nola’s parents live. On the way we wanted to see Crater Lake and hopefully find a replacement headlight for the one Daffy Duck took out the night before. We drove down from our creepy mountain campsite after thankfully no run ins with Leatherface We pointed the nose back to Coos Bay to find a Jeep dealership, once there we ordered a headlight and arranged for it to be shipped to a dealership in Medford where we would pick it up. Than we gassed up with the help of Oregon’s mandatory gas station attendant and headed towards Crater Lake. We passed through Canyonville and on to Tiller stopping to play in the South Umpqua River; the water was freezing but clear and swift moving. I walked out to the middle of the river and let the icy water rush around me; I was surely wide awake after that! I talked Nola into wading into the water and for a few seconds as well. We dried off and drove on through sleepy little towns and miles of trees and stunning views. This is what I always thought Oregon looked like, it doesn’t disappoint. After a few more hours of driving we made it to the foothills of the Crater lake range, we climbed from warm breezes to cool air, to cold air, till finally we were driving down a road with 10 feet of snow on both sides, we made it to the rim of Crater Lake not prepared for the cold and snow, I struggled up a huge snow drift to get a glimpse of the lake itself, falling on my *** much to the amusement of Nola (good thing it takes a second to get the I phone camera up)
The Lake: Words cannot describe the stunning beauty of this place. The white snow and crystal clear blue water contrast sharply against a clear dark blue sky and green trees, as if normal eyesight is somehow made sharper when looking out across the lake. We spent a few minutes looking out across the lake and then began heading back down the mountain towards Medford. We stopped for lunch at a small campsite just below the snow line. Hot dogs and beans! It was going to be a fun drive now the drive to Medford was more awesome Oregon countryside and great twisty roads, the kind of roads that you wish you had a sports car or motorcycle for, a heavily loaded Jeep handles like a dump truck, even still the drive was fun. We pulled into Medford late in the afternoon and arrived at Nola’s dad’s house. Our "campsite" for the next 2 days. We slept like babies............


The Trip Home Day Eleven May 27th:
We spent a few days with Nola's family. We explored Medford and the surrounding area. We went and watched her dad’s band play at one of the local Wineries and sampled some of Oregon’s finer beverages! As we pointed the nose of the Jeep south east-ish I can't help but think that this is the beginning of the end of our trip. But like all mountain climbers say, reaching the summit is optional coming back down is mandatory. That phrase will be tested in a day.....
We top off fuel, water a few snacks on our way out of town. We leave Oregon and enter Nevada by way of Coleman Canyon and head towards the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge. We stop at a small cabin at the entrance to the refuge. The cabin was built in the 30's and from the looks of it will be standing in 200 years; to say this thing is solid would be an understatement. Inside it is stocked with all the items you would need to survive a few nights out there, food, water, cooking supplies and a bunk bed. After poking around for a bit we decided to head up to Bald Mountain, at the peak is a weather station with a small jar containing a notebook. We entered our names and where we were heading. Near the jar I found an old weathercock lying on the ground. This was my chance to take some hilarious pictures (my 6th grade sense of humor is well represented here) It was very windy and freezing so we didn’t hang out long. There was a little snow on the ground and the trail was very muddy. We trundled on down a long dirt road managing to capture a few pictures of a baby pronghorn just learning run, we passed abandoned homesteads and stunning views going by Catnip Reservoir camp and pressing on to Horse canyon where we made camp at "Andy's Place" We set up our camp kitchen and had dinner. There were some clouds rolling in and the temps were dropping fast. Incidentally this is the first night on the trip we actually made a campfire. We inflated the mattress and went to bed. We slept like babies..........

Day 12 May 28th:
My eyes opened slowly at first. I was awakened by what I thought was the sound of gentle rain, oh boy another wet morning I thought to myself as I lifted my head to look out the window. To my surprise it was snowing....hard! There was already 6 inches on the ground and it was piling up fast. Luckily I head the foresight to cover our gear with a tarp before bed last night. We got ourselves up and dressed without ever opening the doors. It was cooooooold outside and we weren’t looking forward to packing up and driving out of here. As quickly as we could we gathered our stuff, brushed off as much snow as we could and tossed it in the back of the jeep. By the time we were done my hands were frozen and getting the heater going only made them hurt more. No big deal I'm a tough guy we got ourselves situated in the cab and ready for a long drive through the snow. Before we started rolling I spotted 3 horses walking slowly through the snow, I took a picture of them, it’s a lonely place and to see horses so far out here was cool. We began driving down the trail towards Blackrock dry lake looking forward to a fun day of cruising the lakebed. It was just 80 miles away; we'd be there by lunch. The snow on the trail was deep but we had good traction and were making good time trudging along at about 30 miles an hour. That when it happened.......

I felt a small bump and the jeep went to the right while the steering wheel went to the left and got very wobbly, followed by a horrible grinding sound. We stopped and I got out seeing what happened. I thought to myself, we just broke a tie rod end, no big deal, I'll have it replaced in a few minutes and we'll be on our way. I bent down under the front of the jeep to take a look at the damage, hmm no broken tie rods, no loose bolts, nothing hanging down.... that’s when I saw it.

The axle housing had completely snapped just inside the right lower control arm, the only thing holding the right front wheel on were the shock and the axle shaft. I stood up and looked at Nola sitting inside the jeep patiently waiting for the news. She saw the color run out of my face; she could see we were in big trouble. We were 60 miles from the nearest "town" and it was snowing heavily. I took stock of what we had with us and tried to come up with a way we could limp along the road, it was going to be a long day. So much for playing on the Blackrock playa today. This must be what the crew of Apollo 13 must have felt like when they realized they weren't landing on the moon and would be lucky to survive at all. After poking around in the back of the jeep I came up with a limp along solution, I took a ratchet strap and ran it between the 2 lower control arms and began pulling them together. I got the axle as tight as I could and tried driving on it, it was a little wobbly and making some noise but we were moving. At 1 mile an hour. We drove like that for 4 hours, stopping every few minutes to get out and tighten the strap, and check everything. We had 60 or so miles of this to go, the math didn’t look good, would we have enough gas? probably not at this speed, enough time? Nope, would the axle even hold up to 60 miles of essentially being ground down on a Chrysler powered lathe? Unlikely.

Luckily on the horizon we saw what looked like a ranch that wasn’t on our map or GPS, as we got closer we could see people, cars, farm equipment! Farm equipment might mean a welder! We had hope now; we limped up the long drive to the ranch house in the world’s only independent front suspension Wrangler, where we were met by Roger. We asked if they might have a welder we could use, he answered simply "pull it in the barn" As I pulled into the barn the strap finally gave and the wheel went out the side of the jeep. Luckily his "barn" was a well equipped auto repair/ machine shop. As I talked to Roger we discovered that he too was an aircraft mechanic and pilot, so naturally we had something to talk about. We began to weld around the crack; we filled the broken tube with as much wire as we could and just for good measure welded a 5 inch piece of angle iron on the bottom of the axle tube. What we were left with was the ugliest weld ever, but it was also strong, "a big blob does the job" Roger said...Thanks Roger for the help

As it turned out the ranch we found was a resort for people camping up at the Blackrock. They had hot springs nearby....tempting... but we had to get moving, sadly towards pavement.

Our trip had turned into a nervous drive towards Las Vegas and on to Tucson, from here on our goal was to make it home without breaking. We passed the Blackrock Playa, I stole a few longing glances, we’ll be back here for sure “I said to myself as we drove by. After a few more hours we hit pavement. We followed 95 souths toward Las Vegas for the rest of the day until we hit Mt Charleston at around 8:30 at night, I was struggling to stay awake, and it was time to find a place to camp. We went up Mt Charleston road and pulled off into the first desert trail we saw, set up the air mattress and hit the sack....oh, and we slept like babies..........

BadPunkin

Awesome trip. Exp portal is a great resource.

jkinportland

What a great story. I would have happily put you up for a night (or 2) in Portland.

SRAYMOND68

Wow thats a long trip on asphalt i coultn't imagine on dirt roads.

Tight_wad

Totally awesome story! Too bad for the breakdown though. But at least you slept like babies.

GCM 2

Epic, just an epic wheeling event.

JC4me

Great trip. I think Nola is a keeper...

gt6star

Thanks for reading! Nola is definatly a keeper In fact just after we got home from the trip, we found out she was pregnant After the initial shock and about a week of getting our heads around being parents the first thing Nola said to me was "well, we'd better start saving for a rooftop tent and a better suspension so we'll have room for the kid on our next trip." The great thing is, I retire from the Airforce in just under 2 years (I'm gonna be an old dad) so I'll have time to take our kid on adventures and enjoy life with him......or her....

2vpblaze

Wow, thanks for sharing. Sounds like a trip to remember. A trip like that though, there has got to be more pictures.
Congratulations on the pregnancy!

danmojo82

I started reading, thinking ill be done in like 5 mins, wow. What a read. Sounds like it was an amazing trip. Im jealous.

Well played good sir