The journey has begon! Started out a little scared hauling this 11,000 LBS monster around and with every bump in the road I was convinced it would come crashing down...You never realize how bad some of the American roads can be when you are hauling a massive boat around! But the trip inside the truck was probably way less comfortable than in the boat. The 1ton truck has massive shock absorbers but they are expecting the pickup truck to be filled as well and since it was empty i was rocking and shacking in the truck but the boat was fine.
I wanted to hit Interstate 40 as fast as possible and Mike was so kind to give me a route that would get me there the fastest and it worked like a charm...Thanks MIke! The trip towards I-40 was probably the bumpiest but once on I-40 it was smooth sailing from there... Around Flagstaff I saw a sign for Meteor Crater and thought it was a nice idea to have my boat photographed at a few cool places so I soon found myself on the road to Meteor Crater...Unfortunately, it was closed for another hour so just settled for a pic with some cows near the crater.
RareBear and some cows near Meteor Crater and the weather was starting to look a little ugly
Was a a little tricky to turn around the truck and trailer but soon I found myself back on I-40 and heading further into Northern Arizona. I was running low on gas and found a lonely gas station on famous route 66 and got some really expensive Diesel ($5.24 per gallon!) Not sure why they felt they could get away with that, but being the only gas station for 100 miles around probably had something to do with that :) But I got some nice pics of RareBear amongst the palm trees and the Route 66 sign
And then I finally hit California! But I was still only half way...I hit route 58 and that is when the real bad roads started. Highest income tax in the union and they can''t be bothered fixing the roads. Anyway. Flame off. I soon hit Mojave, the place of Burt Rutan's Scaled Composite and the test site for Spaceship One and Two. Also the site of the famous airplane graveyard there and could not resist making a few pics there.
And then the heavens opened and I was really glad I was bringing a boat since man did we hit some bad weather...Drought my ass! I also was not able to close the cabin hatch completely due to the mast being in the way, but if a boat cannot handle a little rain, it has no business trying to be a boat. Also lucky that the boat is still leaking, so the water could make it out form the bottom. Always look on the bright side of life, tudu...tudu, tudu, tudu. At the turn off from Route 58 to Route 99 there was a massive accident involving a propane truck and lots of other cars, but no fire (or at least dowsed fires) so no explosions etc. but there was a car wedged under the propane tank and I can only imagine the feeling of that driver when he/she was wedging him/herself under the propane tank and waiting for the BOOM! I also counted my blessings that I was not there a little earlier since I could have been part of that since it was obvious this accident happened not half an hour ago, since police was still arriving at the scene. No time for pics and I feel I am getting closer to my goal...STOCKTON!