Today was the
day we would test the Jeep and get the opportunity to see
how the next couple of weeks would go. After we had
made our final preparations and put the sponsor decals and
logos on the Jeep and trailer we headed north on Highway 27
out of Cairo, GA. The moment was kind of surreal, we had
only been planning this for a short time but the moment was
finally upon us and we were now doing what we had spent so
many days and hours planning. Vance drove the first
shift so he graciously climbed behind the wheel. To
put things in perspective, Vance is 6’4” and had to fold
himself up just to get behind the wheel. We had a few
good laughs as he tried to stop us at the first stop sign.
Luckily there was no oncoming traffic because we rolled
right through the intersection. Because of the lack of
leg-room he is unable to get his right foot on the brake
pedal. The only way he can do it from 1st gear is by
putting the jeep in neutral and moving the shifter to the
far right position so that he has the leg-room to raise his
foot from the gas pedal to the brake pedal. To make it
even worse the brake pedal needs to be mashed to the floor
in order to stop. This is sure to create some
heart-stopping excitement along the way. Once we got
on the highway we were delighted to learn that the top speed
of the old Jeep was much more than we had anticipated.
We managed to get it up to a top speed of 64 mph (going down
a hill) but we felt much more comfortable at a steady
cruising speed of 40-45 mph.
20 miles down
the road we went through a small town called Bainbridge
where we decided to stop at a local Home Depot to see if we
could find some lettering for us to make a banner that would
let the public know how far we intended to drive on our
journey and to better promote our cause. After getting
out of the Jeep we decided to look underneath just to
ensure that everything was ok. We noticed that
there was some 90 weight oil coming from the transfer case.
This was not something that we had hoped to ever see, let
alone only 20 miles into our trip. We grabbed our
tools that NAPA had supplied us and checked the fluid level
before going any further. We were really glad that we
had the support of NAPA and the tools they provided us with.
Once we got the fluid level back up we hit the road again.
This time Will got behind the wheel because Vance was
exhausted from his first shift as driver. After all,
it had been a long and grueling 20 miles so it was only fair
that Will took over to give Vance a much needed and deserved
rest.
Due to fires
in the area there has been a thick haze of smoke hanging in
the air that we could smell as well as see. We had gone
about 65 miles before running into our first and heavy rain
storm. Luckily we had a cover on the Jeep helping keep us
somewhat dry and our tarp from Surplus City Jeep Parts on
the trailer keeping all of our gear from getting wet and
damaged.
We made it as
far as Columbus Georgia today, in about six hours which was
much further than we had expected. We checked into the
Holiday Inn, grabbed some dinner at a Mexican restaurant
next door and headed back to the hotel. We met
with Sam and Hayden Cross (fellow Jeepers that Will had
previously met in Moab at a Jeep Jamboree) and sat out in
the hotel parking lot and chatted with them as well as
Hayden’s father and her sister about the Jeep and our trip.
Before we knew it, almost an hour and a half had passed and
it was almost 11:00 p.m. We then headed up to our
hotel room so we could get started on adding our pictures
and details of the trip to our website. We were up
until 2:00 a.m. working on the website and we still didn't
get everything accomplished that we wanted to.
We are both
excited and really looking forward to see what unfolds
during the rest of our trip. Tomorrow we are planning
on checking out the local Civil War Naval Museum before we
hit the road north.
Click on the pictures
below to see the full-size...
