Ok, I know there are some good trip home stories from this spring break. I know Tate has a good one and I'm sure other people do too, so let's hear 'em. Here's mine and St.John's adventure back to Dallas.
Las Cruces to Dallas, TX.
est. driving time-10 hours
actual driving time-14.5 hours
We left Las Cruces late due to having to reseal the rear diff after the last day of wheeling's bashing, duct tape up the bottoms of the taillights from the bashing they recieved so we wouldn't get hassled by state troopers much like we did on the trip there, pack the cherokee like refugees fleeing Cuba, and help tate put his Bronco of death back together. So Ryan and I get on the road and are heading along...crusing fairly well, and about the state line we decide the Cherokee is swaying and wandering too bad to keep driving like it was. So we pull over to find out we didn't put enough air in the tires and also lost a swaybar disconnect pin somewhere between Cruces and the State line. So we found a bolt and jammed in it in there and put duct tape on it and went on down the road. In El Paso we decide to stop at the Harley Davidson dealer and check it out. For those of you that don't know, Barnett Harley Davidson in El Paso is the world's largest harley dealer. So we stopped, checked it out, and got back on the road. About an Hour later, we notice something smells like burning and low and behold, the Cherokee was on fire! Ryan slams on the brakes and we dart to the shoulder and proceed to chunk luggage all over the side of I-10. What we quickly discovered was that somewhere in our week of wheeling, the muffler had been pushed up into the floorboard and once we got up to highway speeds, it got hot enough to catch the carpet padding on the inside, behind the passenger seat on fire. So we ended up dumping our cooler out onto the fire and got it all out. Luckily we had a prybar that we moved the exhaust back down with. But, we still had one little problem. There somehow was a hole in the floorboard about the size of a baseball. This hole let in a lot of heat/noise/exhaust, so after we got packed back up, we rolled the windows down and proceeded to cruise with caution all the way to Midland. Once there, we located a Home Depot for all our hole repair needs.
We purchased the following from home depot:
1 $20 drill
1 pair metal shears
1 22 guage piece of sheet metal
1 box self tapping screws
1 roll foil sealant tape
We then proceeded to look for a place with a 110 outlet to plug our drill in. We found our power requirements at the local Albertson's where they had a row of coke machines plugged in. Once power was established and a slew of cokes were getting warm, we constructed a floor patch panel that would rival the most cunning of rednecks' best creations. (Once I get my pictures uploaded, I'll do a "trail fix" writeup on it)
By this time, it's about 8:30, so we grab some food and fill up and get back on the road. The trip was pretty uneventful after that until we arrived back in Dallas. Ryan dropped me off at my parent's house at 4:30am and apparently they didn't think I was going to get home that night, so they locked the house up and went to bed. Luckily I found an unlocked window in the kitchen to climb through. The next morning ryan was going to drive back to my house and drop off all my stuff we didn't bother to unpack the night before and his jeep wouldn't have any of that. So we spent yesterday and part of today chasing electrical issues finally determining that the coil was dead. Now all I have to do is make it back to College Station. :( Hope I make it.
