Hog Hunting and East Coast Road Trip 2010
Extended road trip through Texas and the American Southeast
20100322 through ??? (in progress)
Last update: 2010831 from Show
Low, AZ
Back to Bill Caid's Home Page.
Kathleen
sizes up a Mercedes 1017A.
Canon 1DsM3. All photos
copyright, Bill Caid 2010. All rights reserved.
New Capability - Track our current location!
After our mechanical issues that we suffered in southern Utah, we purchased a SPOT geo-location transmitter. This device reports your position through a satellite network and plots your path on Google maps. Additionally, the device has the ability to send messages through the satellite indicating that you are "OK", "Need assistance" or are having an emergency event. We hoped to not use the emergency capabilities of the device, but after the last trip, we felt that being prepared was the best solution. To follow our progress and see our current location in "near real time" see http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0W876btSW8SH7xrG6Z70n0NhXS9sne7me Bookmark this location to see our position over time. It shows the last 50 positions.
The Team and Equipment
The away team for this trip consisted of only one vehicle and 2 folks. Kathleen and I went in our turbo-diesel Mercedes Unimog 1300L with our now-proven Alaskan camper. We would have loved to go with another vehicle, but this was planned to be an extended duration trip and therefore would have been a great imposition on any partners who had "real" jobs. As always, we were prepared for primitive camping. But, analysis of the available road system suggested that we would always be within several day's travel of "civilization".Indeed, most of the travel route would be on paved highways in one form or another. This will be in radical contrast to our other trip, but may turn out to be a welcome change.
For this trip, we will be running our "new" set of Michelin 395/85R20 tires. But, these tires are so big that it is impossible to bring a full size spare without significant re-engineering of the camper setup (which I elected not to do). So, we brought tire repair components instead and are hoping that we will be able to repair any issues we encounter. We do have a spare, but it is significantly smaller that the tires that are mounted. The spare is a 14.5R20, which is not a small tire, just smaller than the 395's. Also, for this trip, we elected to add a 130 watt solar panel and charge controller. That said, we will likely be reasonable close to civilization most of the trip so ask me later about the utility of the panel.
The Trip
Kathleen and I have traveled extensively in the arid portions of the west. However, we have never been to the south or east coast (in the truck). We had planned a trip to south-central Texas to do some hog hunting and that would be the "anchor date" of the trip. Our plan was to get from San Diego to the hunt site in a timely manner and then do a "slow roll" from there. Neither of us have done hunting before, so our assumption is that we will either love it or hate it and nothing in between. Assuming that we survive uninjured, the balance of the trip should be rather benign.
Trip Details
The link table below contains links to the daily adventures that include photos and dialog.
Conclusion
TBD. Trip is in progress.
Traveler's Advice
TBD.
Miscellaneous Information
TBD
Back to Bill Caid's Home Page.
Copyright Bill Caid 2010