johnny May 28th, 2008
Well, our house gets about 14 mpg on flat land such as Florida. We got more in the neighborhood of 12 mpg in the Virginia and North Carolina mountains.
I know everyone has been screaming about fuel prices lately, and I’d rather not get too terribly sidetracked other than to say that in less than two weeks while we were at the Bike Rally, we watched fuel prices go up 12% across the street from us.
I know these prices probably look low to many of you, but we are currently in one of the least expensive ‘fuel zones’ according to this map over at gasbuddy.com. The last I heard, diesel prices in Mexico are about half of the prices here in South Carolina. I guess it pays to be a country that is exporting oil and have state run petroleum companies. Hopefully we’ll make it into Mexico in the next year or two and brush up on some very rusty Spanish.
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beach,
bike rally,
campsite,
family,
fuel,
mexico,
north carolina,
scooter,
south carolina
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johnny May 1st, 2008
After far too much time spent planning, preparing and waiting, we are finally on the road!
We spent a few hectic days cleaning out the remains of our storage unit and some work on the truck. Friday afternoon, our Bodiak front end receiver came in along with a receiver mounted cargo carrier. Unfortunately, the cargo carrier stuck out an absurd amount from the front of the truck… roughly 14 inches past the receiver before the basket portion even began! With some fiddling, I found that we could use the holes drilled for people that wanted it to stick out even further (I have no idea why) to reverse the basket so that it would mount over the raised portion of the carrier support. This still left about a foot of useless steel sticking forth, which I was tempted to use as a battering ram. Instead, I waited until the welding supply shops opened on Monday (I blame Murphy for using all my gas on Thursday) and cut it down to a manageable size. See? Everyone really needs an oxy-acetylene torch in their rig!
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Tags:
campsite,
civil war,
columbia sc,
fuel,
oxy acetylene torch,
pirate,
storage,
winchester va
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johnny December 30th, 2007
We hope everyone had a great Christmas. We spent Christmas with my parents in the middle of nowhere. Well, 10 miles or so outside of Boone, NC; but 10 miles is a long way in a place where everything is uphill both ways and not even the crow flies in a straight line.
As you can see from our Charlie Brown Christmas tree, Jenn, my brother and I went for a hike until we found something roughly Christmas tree shaped. The process of hiking in, choosing a tree, sawing it down and carrying it out took less time than the last tree we bought off a lot. It’s apparently a lot easier to choose a tree when you’re trying to convince yourself that something looks like a Christmas tree than when you’re trying to decide which Christmas tree is ‘best’. I’m not sure if we were completely on Dad’s land when we found this one, but I doubt the neighbor will miss it.
We spent the first couple of nights down on the road leading up to my parents place. We got in after dark the first night and weren’t brave enough to try the driveway. It’s something like a 30-40% grade and would have our rear jacks dragging if we hit it at the wrong angle.
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Tags:
boone nc,
charlie brown christmas tree,
christmas,
evdo,
family,
fuel,
geek toys,
internet,
oxy acetylene torch
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johnny December 16th, 2007
Today was a work day as we try and get the truck ready for a trip to North Carolina over the Christmas holidays. We were hoping to change the air filter, fuel filter, oil, the front brakes and add a set of timbrens.
We managed to get everything except the brakes done today. Thankfully, the rain held off, but it should come in full force tonight. We’re hoping it will be over by tomorrow and we can get the brakes done as well.
There was some mild excitement during the proceedings. Mostly, myself cursing the engineer that decided to use fine threaded bolts in the timbrens as I tried to get them to line up without being able to see them. The other exciting bit involved screwing the fuel filter cap down too tightly, which caused the gasket to bunch up and allow diesel fuel to spray out. It was a very fine stream, but between the wind and the spray, it covered the entire front half of the truck.
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brakes,
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johnny October 16th, 2007
It took a couple of months, but Jenn finally found a truck she was happy with. It’s in good mechanical shape with low mileage (for a diesel), but the paint job may have to grow on you. She drove down to south Florida to pick it up a day before we left town for a week and a half.
Here’s a grainy shot of Jenn’s new truck. She had to drive mine down south to pick it up, so you can see it tossing my old pickup around like a rag doll.
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fuel,
navigation
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Well, our house gets about 14 mpg on flat land such as Florida. We got more in the neighborhood of 12 mpg in the Virginia and North Carolina mountains.
