| Max and Rosann met Sophia and me at 6am just as planned and we got on the road right away. We made it as far as Junction before we stopped for gas and Max made a quick swap of his clutch slave cylinder.
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| There was such a horrendous head wind that Max was drafting semis whenever possible. One would go by and he'd jump in it's wake and try to catch the draft. When he succeeded we saw a triumphant shake of his fist; when he failed the screaming head wind would force him into a lower gear until the next big rig came by.
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| The unusually high winds were kicking up dust storms on either side of the highway.
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| By the time we hit the wilds of west Texas, however, all the grabbing 4th on the hills had taken it's toll. No longer able to use 4th gear and with a head wind that made the 3rd to 5th short shift impossible Max made the difficult decision to turn back. I got an email from him later saying "that tail-wind kept us in fifth gear the entire way.....AND I used 15 gallons less gas on the trip back."
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| An old school building in a west Texas town on the decline.
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| Once we made it to El Paso there was fresh oil spread around under the truck and one of the tires was low. While changing the tire and looking for the source of the oil (a blown front shock) I also took the time to tighten the header bolts that have a tendency to vibrate loose at inopportune times. Nothing says "Okie white trash headin' west!" quite like Frank packed for a road trip!
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| After driving until 3am, checking in at our motel in Gold Canyon, and getting a reasonable nights sleep, we headed out to see who was at the camp site. The AZ chapter did a terrific job of organizing the event, right down to the signage! Mike laughingly commented that the NorCal chapter uses paper plates for their event signs and I immediately remembered looking for the camp in vain at last years Rubicon run because I didn't see the paper plate until the next morning!
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| After waiting on the land access permits that never showed a few of us headed out to check out Lower Woodpecker. Here David crawls right over the first obstacle in spite of having wet muddy tires.
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| Frank was up next but had to be strapped because I hadn't aired down. Everybody was like "WTF, I thought this guy knew how to wheel?"
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| After that, Jason and Matt started running the obstacle forward and backward just to rub it in. Fawkers...
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| A little farther up the trail David...
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| ...and Karlton play on other obstacles.
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