"The Trip"

The Trip:

A 6 week journey through Mexico and Central America
Surfing, Mayan ruins, fine cuisine, and adventure.

The Vision:

Doing board repairs, surfing with locals, making some new friends, giving away a few surfboards, handing out a few Spanish Bibles...

The Crew:

J Small, Tim Rousse (childhood friend and MacGyver), Jason Terwee (pick up in Costa Rica)

The Truck:

'92 Nissan hardbody extended cab 3.0 l V6 5 speed manual 4 x 4.

This weekend was the first weekend of "work" for the trip. I drove to Boise on Friday afternoon immediately following school. Laura stopped by and hooked me up with a ridiculous care package....mainly edibles to be consumed during the trip.....free good food (all using double letters) is very good!

After my first stop in the Dalles to urinate, I picked up a hitchhiker named Thunder. (I have a policy of picking up hitchhikers that I know I could throttle if it came to it). I didn't ask Thunder if that was his real name or not, I felt that would have been stepping over into his territory. Thunder it was. The peaceful drive to Boise was gone, and so was half my sub, an apple, chips, and many other misc snacks. Thunder passed out about 4 hours into the trip and caught his falling/bobbing/falling asleep head for the remaining 2 hours

Made it, a little over 7 hours and about $80 in gas. Not bad.

9 am Saturday began the work on the rig. Tim is not a mechanic, but I'm certain he could earn a healthy wage if he opened a small business. The great part about Tim travelling with me on the trip....is the fact that he can make anything run, blow-up, or die. I'm pretty excited about this!!! He popped the hood and within minutes, he knew the waterpump, timing belt, distributor cap, rotor, plugs, airfilter, pcv valve, vacuum hose, radiator hose, and all fluids were in sad shape. We replaced them all! I say we, but I mean Tim. My only contribution was the cash I payed for everything. It was a team effort. I buy, Tim install.

While Tim cursed and groaned on the truck, I was busy finishing a rack I've been working on for the past three weeks. I finished the welding, wiped it down with mineral spirits (steel is coated with grease so it wont rust) and primered and painter the rack. Together we think the rack could support about a dozen road killed deer, two dozen surfboards, 4 spare tires, 50 gallons of water, and 36.5 gallons of gasoline.....ALL AT THE SAME TIME.......this thing is BEEFY.

Tims best guess is this...Despite the truck having 167,000 miles, the spark plugs have never, repeat, NEVER, repeat, NEVER been changed. Yes, I say this thrice. Apparently the timing belt, which should be replaced every 60,000 miles is an original too. How this thing hasn't caused serious, ultimately fatal truck damage, is beyond Tim.

Other fixing options include, but are not limited to.....getting more than 1 speaker working, rigging up a locking method for the tailgate (it has no lock), buying one more spare tire, finding a trail jack, rigging up the bed and canopy for camping, and areas to hide either firearms or sharp cutlery. Crossing the border with guns and large knives....bad things happen.

We still need to collect a bunch of equipment for the trip, first aid, emergency road kit, camping gear, but after this weekend we are both resting a little calmer when it comes to heading south. The rig is nearly ready.

Soon I start shaping surfboards.