Boat ownership is a Disease that starts small
08/27/06 04:59 PM
TW-Tonight at 7:00 pm Chris and I will make our way to NH via Vegas and the great D.C. We should arrive there 6 pm eastern standard time tomorrow. There we will meet “The Deuce”. Hey, to tow a big boat, ya need a big truck. The events that follow will surely test us. We feel prepared and hope and pray for the best. Everyone polled feels that we are stark raving mad to drive a 3 axle 2 1/2 ton unproven military truck 1200 miles in 3 days. We’ll soon find out.
Machineguns for rent, Only in VEGAS!
08/29/06 06:10 PM
CQ-7am, our trek begins at Kahului Airport with Todd & I meeting outside the Aloha terminal, so far so good, we both showed up! 6:45 am Vegas airport, man this place is good for the ego, we seem to be the youngest people in the airport at this time. Everything, flights, going smoothly until we get to Dulles, 14.5 hours into the journey we run into our first snag. Our 1 hr 45 minute flight from Dulles to Manchester takes us 4 hr & 30 minutes! This due to weather conditions, thunderstorms. During this time, another issue arises, I get a call letting me know that the Deuce has a problem. At first listen to the voicemail I hear “problem, head, out, can’t get safety check”. A little freaked at the prospect of our still unseen purchase having just blown a head, I replay the VM to find that it actually said, “blown out headlight bulb”. End result is we will not be able to start driving tonight, which as it turns out wasn’t going to happen anyway due to flight delay, so no big deal. They will have a replacement bulb for us early in the morning. Our enthusiasm is not dulled, but our butts are, can’t wait to stand. Over 19 hrs after we begin, we finally arrive in Manchester. A couple of great steaks and some local brew later, in addition to some invaluable advice from local patrons, we finally crash for the night.
At last we meet...
08/30/06 06:29 PM
TW- After much anticipation, a month, and 5200 miles, we finally got our hands on the truck. Burke’s Trucks of NH and Steve, Mark and Denis in particular were fantastic. Great bunch of guys and very helpful. Denis picked us up from the hotel, Steve walked us through the operation of the truck personally, and Mark finished our paperwork. By 12:00 EST we were on the road and on our way. We drove through NH, MA and NY and are coming to you now upon completion of our successful invasion of Canada. They never knew what hit them. We figured, all the way to Buffalo NY and not see Niagara Falls? No way. Of course we still haven’t actually seen the falls yet. We arrived around midnight, but I’m sure they will look lovely in the morning... For those of you that are interested. The truck runs far better than I had hoped for or imagined it would. At 2600 rpm Monroe’s loaner GPS (waas enabled) said we were doin’ 60 mph! Not kilometers!
Our cruise speed was an average 2400 rpm @ 55mph. Fantastic for a Deuce. I’ve never been passed by so many 18 wheelers before! Those guys all drive 65 and over. As we are a 3 Axle vehicle we got socked with huge tolls. There are toll booths everywhere on the east coast. Crazy. In the photo section I’ve place some pics for you to see.
Aloha
CQ-Day Two-Buying the Deuce=$$$$, Flying 5200 miles to get the Deuce=$$$$, Paying toll booths all over the East coast=$$$$, Getting passed by everyone=ego deflating, Invading Canada=$$$(well $2.50 to be exact),Driving the ear and butt numbing former military machine cross country with your friend and business partner=PRICELESS!!!!!
Niagara to Iowa
09/01/06 06:25 PM
CQ-7am Day Three-And so day two on the road begins. We start off feeling fully refreshed and rested, NOT, after a full four hours of sleep. First we go see the falls which are all they are made out to be, big, wet, and impressive. By 8 am we hit the road. Our Canadian Invasion ends successfully having taken back the best part of Niagara for the Red, White & Blue, those crazy Canucks never saw us coming! Quick stop at WallMart for some much needed seat cushions (my butt stopped talking to me last night!). Deuce continues to run beautifully, purrs like a kitten, well maybe a lion, no, ok maybe a rabid hurd of buffalo, yeah that’s it! Seat cushions, really good ones, and ear protection like shooting ear muffs, are a must. Don’t get me wrong, we both love driving our little lady, but she makes her presence well known and felt (not at all like most women). We run into our first mechanical issue this afternoon when a bolt apparently vibrates loose on a housing for the speedo cable, rendering it useless. No worries, as between GPS and RPM’s we are able to track speed, not like we have to worry about going over the limit. As we exit state number 6, Indiana, and enter #7, Illinois, we have our next mechanical issue. We both notice a strong smell of coolant, which is quickly followed by a shower of spray on the windshield, and then a pool of coolant on the cab floor. Of course we are then stuck in traffic with no exit in site! Despite this apparent worse case scenario, the Deuce keeps her cool and shows no temperature rise. We finally are able to pull into the Lincoln Oasis Truck Stop to access the damage. As luck or the gods would have it, a trucker filling up nearby comes over to check on us and Mike just happens to have driven Deuces and other vehicles in the military for years. It takes him just minutes to locate our problem, it seems the last original piece of hose in the engine finally gave out. It’s tough to tell where coolant is coming from when it is everewhere. Then, believe it or not, Chris (not me), another very friendly and helpful trucker (not to mention a diver) comes over and of course, yes you guessed it, he drove Deuces in the military! This is starting to get freaky, what are the odds. Well with their help, phone numbers, maps, etc... we are able to locate and contact Brad from the Gary Indiana truck stop repair shop, and brought us a new hose and some coolant. Can’t thank these guys enough! At 3am, we are finally back on the road. Behind schedule but a bit wired, despite our near complete lack of sleep, we press on. At 6am, 22 hours later, we actually arrive in Fairfield Iowa. We meet up with Brian a little later and get introduced to the Novamarine RHI. This 30ft former Navy Seal RIB meets & exceeds our expectations. She is big and beautiful, and she mates (pintle hitch matches and connects) with the Deuce perfectly! They are a perfect pair. Bryan our builder, is terrific. He shows us what he has done and will be doing with the boat, and we discuss and agree on some changes. He and his wife Janice treat us like old friends, just making this amazing day even more so. If you haven’t been to Fairfield, Iowa you should go. Very cool and interesting little town. Some years back it seems it became a hub for Transendental Meditation. Many of the original members have stayed and now their children continue in their footsteps. Mix with this the individuals one would expect to meet in a small midwestern town, a Vintage Power Wagon parts supplier,and you have Fairfield. Art shows w/performances by young Trans. Med students ( twirling fire balls, fire breathing and accrobats), cool bookstores and a Thai Vegan restaurant are just some of what awaits one here mixed in with plenty of rural small town charm. All in all it has been an amazing trip. The Deuce will stay with our new found friends and get some love, new glass and a change of fluids from Steve and co at Vintage Power Wagons inc. Then she, and her new found boat friend, will wait until we return to take them home to Maui. Stay tuned... Next road trip is Iowa to San Diego.
Back in the heartland
11/17/06 02:20 PM
TW- After a long two days for Todd and a solid day of travel for Chris we are back in Fairfield Iowa. It has been two and a half months and things have changed. Everything went from green and beautiful to Nuclear Winter. They had snow last week but it looks as though we’ll get a reprieve. The weather should be nice... In the 40s! The plan is to spend a few days here with Bryan finishing up the boat and then hit the road for San Diego the beginning of next week. The route for the trip will be entirely weather dependent as we don’t want black ice with a heavy load. Wish us luck...
More as we see the boat and get to work.
Cold is a state of mind.
11/19/06 12:00 AM
TW- Maui people have no business in Iowa after September. When we arrived we thought the 40s were cold... Then the temp fell to the 20s and we thought we were going to die. Work is slow going and the sun seems to take forever to rise and set as it arcs low and fast across the sky. I must admit the sunsets are a sight to behold! Todd is working on the trailer and Chris and Bryan are doing fun stuff like electrical wiring and RADAR installation on the boat. We will just keep plugging away and get on the road asap.
I know this looks fun but...
11/20/06 12:00 AM
TW- Our early morning run to Mike’s parts and service in Richland, just north of here, caused the obscene behavior you see in the photo above. I found the room key of the Best Western here to be a fabulous substitute for an ice scraper. While collecting our parts for the air over hydraulic brake system, Chris saw fit to purchase a real ice scraper with a blade and everything... I’m going to auction it on ebay when we finally get everything to Maui. More work on the trailer for me today. Chris and Bryan are still doing the fun stuff. It’s not all work though. We ate free food and watched Monday night football in the restaurant (The Kokomo) down stairs. Imagine that... A restaurant named after a road in Haiku! Go figure. It has lovely palm trees (fake) and everything. The food is good and Donna is wonderful. A+
Chris gets dirty (it’s about time.)
11/21/06 07:08 PM
TW- No complaints. None. The weather has taken a turn for the better. Highs in the 50s lows in the 30s. Tomorrow it may even hit 60!!! This kind of weather speeds things up tremendously. Chris finished the RADAR today and helped me with the trailer and brakes. With any luck the truck will be ready to tow tomorrow. We won’t hit the road until Friday and we have a lot to do between now and then but we should have the ability to leave when the time comes... Chris and I decided to bring our work home with us. We are converting the trucks 24v electrical trailer connection to a 12v system that our trailer can use. This involved a lot of tedious work so we decided to do it indoors after dark rather than waste valuable daylight. Soldering in a hotel room with a butane powered iron is okay until you accidentally burn wire insulation. After that the room smells like you are at the drag races an someone has just done a huge smokey burnout! Yum. We ordered a pizza and the pizza boy asked if we were doing “spy stuff.” We said no... boat stuff. We were surprised that security didn’t pay us a visit later.
Success for now...
11/22/06 12:00 AM
TW- After much effort and a lot of errands the long awaited 24v to 12v converter for the lighting system on the trailer is complete. We found a request document on line written by the military for production of a similar assembly so we just built what they described. Today we tested it and it worked. Even Todd was surprised which doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. The weather is still improving and tomorrow looks to be the best yet. The days are short and the hours are long. The driving portion of the trip will be quite the change of pace. Weather here should hold till Tuesday but we will be gone by then.
A man and his tractor are seldom parted...
11/23/06 08:03 PM
TW- Crunch time. Everyone worked extra hard today to get us ready to go. Bryan finished his work and walked us through the boat before joining his family for Thanksgiving dinner. Chris and I prepped the boat for travel. Once the truck was loaded with spare parts, Bryan and family (most as onlookers) came out to back the boat out of the field. Be sure to see the video titled Deuce and Boat for a look see. Thanksgiving is a time for doing just that so I’m thankful for my home (Maui), my lovely girlfriend Joanna, Chris and all his support, Bryan and all his effort and patience, and for my family who supports and encourages me in all my worthy and some questionable endeavors unconditionally. Tomorrow morning we hit the road... but first a run by the Fairfield NAPA auto parts (privately owned and operated) without whom we would not be on the road tomorrow...
Matt saves the day... again.
11/24/06 12:00 AM
TW- Friday morning and we are getting ready to hit the road when I realize the brakes on the trailer are just not up to snuff. This can mean only one thing. Off to Banner Auto (NAPA) in Fairfield to see Matt, the “special projects guy” When you need to be creative Matt is the guy to go see. Before long we were good to go. Bryan stopped by to wish us well and the guys at Banner sent us along with some Amish sweet rolls. Yum! In route I was accosted by a man who inquired, “was that there boat designed by NASA?” Ah the wisdom of the masses...
The sunset found us in Kansas (N38 25.581 /W95 48.123) and around 10pm all hell broke loose. Actually it was an axle on the trailer. We are still not sure how it happened but we managed to shred 2 tires, shear some half inch U-bolts and tear off the end of our fender on the trailer.
Leaving the boat on the side of the road we went to The Wall-Mart for a late night tool run. After much effort we chained the axle in place and limped to Emporia, KS some 20 miles away.
We finally found beds around 3:30am and crashed...
Williams Automotive, Emporia, KS
11/25/06 08:17 PM
CQ-Ok, having survived, barely, the night, didn’t get run over, eaten by the pack of nearby Coyotes etc.. We wake up and immediately begin calling around to find help with our trailer. Todd finds and talks to the guys at Williams Automotive, so we take the trailer there & Brad and Doug end up saving the day! They dropped everything and got us up and running about as fast as is possible. With a few runs to a local store, Bluestem (this place is amazing, a variable handy mans wonderland, wish we had one back home!) and we are off and running. We immediately test our newly attached axle, brakes and new tires and drive to Oklahoma City with no issues. Oh, except that we lost a bearing buddy, grease cap, somewhere along the way, it seems our new trailer is going to continue to test us!
Todd returns to his “birth state” after 36 years
11/26/06 06:21 PM
TW- Woke up in Yukon, OK. Took a walk around the truck and boat and found that in addition to the bearing buddy that fell off somewhere in OK we also lost the foot off the tongue jack on the trailer. This thing was huge and heavy. I hope it’s not laying in the middle of the road somewhere!
Today we crossed OK and made our way through the TX panhandle. We stopped for dinner and to see my friends from Haiku, Maui Shane and Moiata and their two beautiful girls. It was great to see familiar faces on this long haul. Amarillo, TX had a great sunset and was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. There was a lot of road construction today and it made driving a challenge especially at night. Concrete barrier on one side and ditch on the other... Scary!
Today nothing broke. We covered a lot of ground and are spending the night here in Tucumcari, NM and will tackle the mountains in the morning on our way to Albuquerque. None to soon as there is a huge cold front moving our way. The weather is expected around Tuesday. At some point today Chris and I discovered we have been on Route 66 and will have covered FAR more the the 2400 plus miles from Chicago to LA that defines the “Mother Road”.
CQ-In fact we will have travelled all told 1000 miles further than the entire “Route 66”, and have done it entirely in a M35 “Deuce & a half”, most of the way towing a 40ft 15000lb boat and trailer. Safe to say this is a unique trip, and don’t think anyone is going to try and duplicate it, nor do I recommend it! Looking forward to being able to look back on it and appreciate what we have accomplished, especially while at the helm of the Pailolo heading to our next dive. But we are definitely enjoying and appreciating this amazing experience as much as possible.
I want to say Mahalo and send my love to my family who I miss and look forward to seeing soon. Don’t tell him, but I got something really cool for my son in Texas.
Favorite quote of the day someone inquired,“what the f*%# are you going to do with that”. Just a little disappointed that we didn’t stop at the “Big Texan” and try to finish the 72oz steak, maybe next time.
Well, New Mexico is purdier than Texas
11/27/06 09:27 PM
TW- Today we started in New Mexico and ended there as well. 466 miles of sheer unadulterated pleasure. I believe I remember to thank Chris at least once a day for the gel seat pads he bought. Without the pads my rear would not be in pleasant communication with the rest of my anatomy. Today was mechanically uneventful. With the exception of a small roadside soldering job (butane powered iron) nothing happened. For those of you following along you may have noticed a distinct lack of information regarding the truck we are driving. Truth be told it is running flawlessly. So much so as to be considered un-comment worthy. The only problem we have had at all has been the same speedometer issue we dealt with before. There is a cap at the T-case end of the speedometer cable that seems to work itself loose rendering the speedo inoperable. You may remember we left one on the highway in Indiana and we left the new one somewhere in Missouri or Kansas. I shot some video of the truck doing her thing and will post it in the next couple of day. TTFN
CQ-We did really well today, especially considering the hills we covered. We have 665 miles to go, flatter country so should do well, we will get as close to SD as we can. Today we went through Truth or Consequences, NM. & of course we chose the consequences! The Deuce has been amazing. It may be hard to understand how we can love something so much that is so big, noisy, ugly (not to us-beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that) and that causes us so much pain, but we really do. Favorite billboard today, “Hillbilly Figurines Collection”, and this is a sales pitch, go figure.
Marathon Day
11/28/06 12:00 AM
CQ-Another successful day, we made it from Deming, NM to El Centro, CA. about 513 miles. We hit the biggest hills we have encountered yet, really slow going, but we made it! We will complete the journey in the morning, just about 115 miles to go. Only problem yesterday was losing a headlight toward the end of the trip, still works on high beam though. Deuce continues to amaze. Really long day, very tired, but were almost there!
TW- All is right with the world. I don’t want to jinx us by celebrating just yet. We’ve got a few miles to go still but things are looking good. Stopped for ice cream today in the middle of nowhere, AZ. I’m not sure if it was even a town. Just a gas pump, some orchards and ice cream. Tasted great. I considered applying it to my bum as a soothing ointment but thought better and just enjoyed eating it instead. As this portion of our trek draws to a close I’m excited to see my family in San Diego but will miss the nail biting excitement, lack of sleep, and freedom that is the open road. It is hard to put into word but this country is vast and yet somehow smaller in my mind now that I’ve driven across it (at incredibly slow speeds). In truth, I’m looking forward stepping of the plane in the remote corner of the US I call home. Seems much longer than the 15 days it has been.
Back where it all began...
12/01/06 02:05 PM
CQ-Wow, we actually made it, and in one piece too! Looking back now at the over 3400 miles we have covered from New Hampshire to San Diego in the Deuce, over 2000 of which was done towing the Pailolo, it is really hard to fathom it. The last section, El Centro to San Diego turned out to be some of the most challenging hills we covered the entire way. I think it is very fitting that our final repair was made with a wire coat hanger, no kidding, got pictures to prove it, the ultimate Macgyver! We heard a rattling sound going over the pass, at about 4000 feet, almost sounded like wind chimes. Todd stopped once to check, adjusted some stuff and we thought we had it, but no still going on. Stopped again and we found a clip snapped on the emergency brake, held the E-brake pad away from the drum until activated. With this clip broken the E-brake pad was hitting against the drum wearing it down and causing the lovely wind chime noise. We tried soldering it, but clip, wire, was too thick to heat enough, plus it was freezing up there! Finally I starting walking the road looking for some wire or something we could use and sure enough found a wire hanger, we cut a section and fitted it in place, perfect! Between the “magic box”, chained axle, and hanger repair I would say we got through this pretty well.
A big Mahalo to Todd’s brother, sister-in-law & family,Jedd, Rachel, Elizabeth, Jason, Natalie & Steven for a place to stay and home cookin in Imperial Beach.
The Pailolo is now in San Diego for some final work and repairs.
This was a truly wonderful and amazing journey that we will never forget. We got to see a great deal of the USA and meet, work with and get help from a lot of really nice people along the way. And the best part is that now we get to play with a really cool boat and truck on Maui! Hoping that some of you will come and play with us and our new toys as well.
For Todd & I this journey is another example that when we say “Go Boldly” it’s not just a catch phrase, we mean it, we live it and we hope you will have a chance to do so as well.
TW- I am thrilled that this excursion concluded with minimal damage. You see, normally I ride with Murphy. His law seems so prevalent at times it is overwhelming. I will therefore take it as a sign that there is disaster ahead as no one goes unscathed for long. I can only cautiously hope that the axle incident leans in our favor and allays future trama. We are now back to the waiting game. The boat is getting a much needed once over and some modification that should bring her capability up to match what the North Shore of Maui dishes out regularly. Today we will meet with the guys at the shop and get our quote. The boat should make the ship on or before the 21st. putting her on Maui the first week of January. Thanks for following along and for all the support. It has been a challenge and a lot of fun. Don’t think for a minuet that we are unaware we brought this on ourselves. So, if you catch us whining about how sore we are... Just remind us whose fault that really is. Aloha.
