i had an adventure. put about 200 dirt miles on the truck this weekend doing the mojave road from laughin, nv to barstow, ca with a bunch of buddies. we had 15 trucks going ranging from a couple of 4x4 rangers and toyotas, an ex-army diesel blazer, fully caged 2wd prerunners, and a 100% stock 2wd tacoma with a pop up camper in the bed. i don't have many pics, but i figure i'd share what i got. awesome trip. 3.0L of fury got sick with it. flying j in barstow, threw a RDC sticker on there. Mikey's bronco got flat towed 100 miles by the rad as hell diesel blazer and they showed up around 4-5 AM. next day they went into needles and got some parts to throw at the thing. they got it running somewhat, and we pressed on to balancing rock. some guys got separated but we caught up to them a bit down the trail. this is where one of the rangers decided to seize his carrier bearing. i had to pull up the trail a bit to a wider spot so scott's 4x4 yota could back down and pull him up. i then followed them for like 20 miles up the trail to a flat road where logan flat towed them to pavement in his explorer. scott and i then backtracked a little bit to the penny can and waited for everyone there. from there, we pushed on a little bit and camped a few miles off the side road to hole in the wall. we camped, did some moonlit RC rockcrawling and then in the morning we cruised to hole int he wall. Mikey, Steve and I took a bonus line straight up a rock face that was sketchy enough getting up. once there, we found another guy who climbed up and found out that was the way down too. Steve's rock climbing skills came into play and we pretty much had to hump a rock ledge to be able to get up and out. we made it next to the lava tubes. back in the day, now dormant volcanoes made the tubes with their liquid hot magma. now, they're good for awesome photos and memories. after the lava tubes, we stopped at the 'Mailbox.' Its basically a box in the middle of nowhere that people put/take things that are useful for them or others. we signed our names in the book, left a frog for the frog monument, and pressed on. the frog garden at the mail box we then got back on the trail, and cruised. we picked up some rocks for traveler's monument in the middle of the lake bed, then hit silt and no one could see ****. i managed to get stuck once following too close behind the Mouse, i couldn't see the sand through the dust and didn't hear anything on the radio. eddie's buddy zack got stuck right behind me too. Diesel blazer to the rescue, he got us both out and we kept cruising. somewhere on the lake bed, flaunt's clip came undone and when it came off it ripped the wiring apart for his headlights. after the lake bed was the sand dunes and the wash. the game plan was pretty much keep your speed up, go however you want, and just head west following the dust of the people in front of you. personally, i got sick as ****. somehow carlos, bryce, travis in the blazer, and the tacoma camper got separated from the rest of us. we met up with them at the train trestles bridge, then travis, eddie and elliot went to find bryce in the midst of his unexpected adventure. right as those guys showed up, a train was crossing the bridge. me, mikey, and some others were up on the bridge, that was S K E T C H Y. the whole thing was shaking and swaying and the wind as the locomotive went by almost blew me off cuz i wasn't expecting it. homie lost one of the posts for his hood latch, then ripped out his headlight wires. i'm the dude standing on the bridge in the center. it's pretty much dark now, flaunt's codriver is holding two mag lights out the passenger window to act as headlights. i tossed him a halogen spotlight i had, and with the light of my dust light we were able to at an ok speed. the river crossings weren't too bad, scott would go down and check them out for all of us in the back. We then made it to afton canyon where chris, alissa in the ranger that had the carrier bearing seize, and logan with his explorer were waiting for us. one of the yotas decided to die, apparently the kill switch he wired up to his alarm was giving him issues. we pushed him out of the way, they got it fired up, and then we all made it to a plateau at the top of a small hill. we were all partying and then some RANDOM dude in a samurai showed up around midnight and was ready to party. i passed out, but he apparently got **** faced and fell face first into the fire. good times. in the morning, scott, mikey, eddie, zack, matt, travis, me and the camper special kept going on dirt while everyone else went to the freeway. we were all cruising through the wash, the camper special was flying at like 30mph. we stopped a few times because mikey's trans overheated, and one time eddie and his buddy zack got stuck as we were entering back into the wash from a detour. out of the wash, it turned into hard pack fire roads and we flew down the trail for awhile and popped out to the freeway like 7 or so miles from barstow and cruised in to barstow del taco for a victory meal.
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thats really sweet man, to bad there isnt public places out here you can do that. it looks huge out there!
it was fun, that's for sure. there are more pics coming, the ones above are a combo of mine and one other's, there are more to come.
i can't take credit for all the pics, only like 5 in the first post are mine. but it's definitely an adventure i'm glad i took and i'm counting down the days till i can do another similar one.
found some carnage from the trip. i heard the rock hit, thought it was either the diff or a crossmember. guess not.
