Saturday August 17th @ 7:15 AM
We’re off, but first a detour. Because of all of the time I’ve had off already this year I didn’t take all of car week off. I did however take Friday off for a couple events, and had one last must attend show before heading out. The Concorso Italiano was it and we were there by about 8:30 AM. The Concorso is always a great event and something I always have a hard time walking away from. By 2PM we knew it was getting late so I finally gave in and we headed for home.
3:30PM
Arrive home and pack. And it only took us like two hours to do it.
9:00PM
Arrive in Auburn Ca and grab a hotel for the night. We didn’t get very far, but at least we escaped “the bay” which gives us a good start for tomorrow.
Sunday August 18th @ 7:00AM
We’re off again.
7:15AM
It dawns on my that I set my shoes on the back tire while I was loading my bags in the truck and that they are probably laying in the parking lot. After a quick rewind to retrieve my now slightly more broken in shoes we are off again.
All and all it was a pretty boring straight I-80 driving kinda day. We called it quits in Rawlins Wy sometime around 10PM.
Monday August 19th @ 7:30AM
I feel a pattern developing. Oh yeah and “we’re off”. By 11 we were into Nebraska and stopping at Sidney for our first Runza stop of the trip.
Besides a great burger this was a strategic stop. The Bomgaars next door had something I wanted for the 4Runner.
And that was today’s big fun. By 6:30 we were at the shop and getting re-acquainted with the kids.
Tuesday August 20th – Sunday August 25th
This was pretty much 5 days of non-stop action:
We did some adulting. Turns out I have no wealth to manage, but you probably already knew that.
We had the easiest time ever at the Nebraska DMV and got a good start to getting all the cars legal in their new home. The hardest part may have been explaining why the Hachi came with a “gross polluter” moniker in the DMV system thanks to fine folks in California. Otherwise a $10 VIN inspection was all it took before were ready to register. No more smog checks on cars that only occasionally get driven. No more modification restrictions. Maybe this is what “The Good Life” on the Nebraska sign refers to!
As always, we had some great food.
Got the shop cleaned back up and some “decor” added.
Thanks to my past co-workers over at Inphase I got the relays I needed to finally fix the cooling fan issue that had been plaguing the 4Runner since we started the move.
All of the cars that got driven got cleaned up and tucked back in to their respective cocoons.
And I took a couple of artsy pics.
Monday August 26th @ 9:30AM
On the road again. Oh I could certainly wait, but it was time.
We did get off of I-80 for a bit to enjoy some of the back roads and see a few Nebraska towns with out the snow coverage that we usually get. It was all very pleasant windows down driving. And it had to be the AC clutch decided to lose the center bolt. This wasn’t the first time, and luckily the undercover caught the clutch center. The 3 special shim washers, well those were completely MIA.
Tuesday August 27th @ 7:00AM
Here we are in Rock Creek Wyoming. We didn’t get here until 11 and now I’m rigging the AC to always on so we don’t have to sweat and listen to windows down wind noise at interstate speeds.
The drive was pretty uneventful. We spotted a sea serpent in the Utah Salt Flats, and in Reno we spotted an FX16 GTS and had a burger.
Traffic, more traffic, oh there’s CHP. Oh and there’s the accident. Yep back in California. Soon to be followed by Jamie and I bitching to each other how much easier this drive was when we didn’t have to go “all the way back to San Jose”.
