Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I slept about an hour, double and triple checking my mental list of gear for the big Rubicon off-road adventure.  As soon as the clock ticked 9:00 a.m. I was out the door and racing to Metal Tech to meet Mark and caravan down from Portland to Sacramento.

Well the plan was to leave…  and you know the say about the best laid plans…

Turns out Mark got a call from a Three Letter Television Company (Top Gear Bolivia Adventure) to be technical adviser for an up coming shoot for a top secret project where they would be using a Japanese old school 4×4 rig in the middle of no where….  There is certainly no one better to have on your team than the guys from Metal Tech, but that meant Mark was a little busy working the phones, tracking down parts and loading the rig for the Con.

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10:00 a.m., turned into noon, turned into 2:00 p.m. and at 2:47 p.m. we hit the road.  Sacramento, Ca. is 580 miles south of Portland, Or. and requires two turns…  Turn on to I-5, drive straight, turn off I-5.  Thanks to CBs the miles seemed to fly by…  those of you who know Mark, know he is full of great stories and I listened to them all…  I never knew there was Suicide Girls karaoke in Portland…

Leaving late meant we would be avoiding the heat, although cruising by Yreke at 9:30 p.m. the outside temp still read in high 80’s. And by the time Redding, Ca. was in sight, the temp hadn’t dropped much.  But Redding meant In-N-Out Burger and by 10:00 p.m. nothing sounded better than an order of burgers, fries and vanilla shake… Yum!

Midnight, 1:00 a.m. and finally as the clock clicked off 2:00 a.m., the lights of Sacramento sparkled in front of us.  After 580 miles and some 10 hours on the road, the thought of clean, crisp sheets and a soft pillow is racing through my mind as I finish writing this story and look forward to tomorrow’s meetup.