The GREATNESS that was our last night on the Mojave.
Well, you guys have probably been able toe piece together parts of all of our pics and stories of what happened the last night in Mojave, but unless I tell the full story, none of the images portrayed earlier, give it justice, in fact I cannot even give the night justice, but I will try.
This is a long read, but for those that are willing and patient enough to endure it, I assure you, you will leave thoroughly amused as I will try to make it worth your time.
So, here we go. It is about midnight, we are at Afton Canyon campground having a great time reminiscing about the trip when we decide it would be fun to go explore more of the caves (you have seen pictures of this already). So, we all decide to jump into Eric’s Tacoma (stock) and see head out. (Mistake #1…only one rig).
Eric sets out, nice and responsible like, as there are 5 of us in the bed of his truck, however, that doesn’t last long. Now I will admit, most of us have had a few drinks, so after a few minutess of “my grandma drives faster than this….is this all you got” from those in the bed, Eric decides to show us what the stock taco can do (I must say, as a taco owner myself, Eric proved a stock Tacoma is VERY capable throughout the trip, more so than I even knew), this is where are problems begin..haha.
We had already made it thought the large crossing at Afton with no problems, as Eric was being good with a nice bow wake, however, after all of our goading, he didn’t exactly crawl into the second (shallower) crossing…..he barrels into it, as all of us are just laughing and having a blast UNTIL he starts to come out the other side, we hear
“Uh oh, my engine is dead….hey is that my bumper!”
Sure enough, his bumper was floating over to the side of us. :REExeSwimmingHL: At this point the laughing stops and we realize our situation…we are about a mile from camp (where our other rigs are) and stuck in the middle of the crossing…..Once we actually realize the situation, we all start laughing again, even harder than before…hey, this is the kind of adventure that makes trips memorable!
So, we decide to huff it back to camp to get my truck to pull him out onto dry land so we can work on the engine. Of course, being in the middle of the water, none of us wanted to get wet, so we played a nice game of “monkey on the Tacoma” as we all tried to climb over the taco to get closet to dry land and then jump….ALL of us got wet hahah. :snorkel:
So here we are, 5 of us walking back to camp….it was a beautiful night with a BRIGHT moon, so most had our flashlights and headlamps turned off as we headed back down the road. All the sudden someone calls out, “he what is that noise” we all stop for a second to listen, then, ALL our lights spring to life as we all recognize the sound…RATTLE SNAKE!..
Sure enough, we meet this little fellow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wzKJe9hBRA
So we watch him/her for a few minutes and decided to keep our lights on the rest of the way back. After a while, we get back and get my truck. We also decide to bring Garrett’s jeep along, as we want to have two rigs just incase (Learned from mistake #1). We all head back in the two trucks to go rescue Eric’s truck, driving carefully as to not run over our new friend we found:
After a quick winching operation (yes we could have just used straps, but I wanted to use my winch haha) we had him out on dry land so we could work on his engine without getting we.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouLf5KNOM5I
Time to dive into the engine….now, anyone that has ever worked on a modern Toyota engine knows very well that thing HAD to have been put together by a little tiny midget with baby hands (I don’t mean that in a non PC way, so please, no-one get offended), as just the simple act of getting to the spark plugs was IMPOSSIBLE and required removal of many brackets. But FINALLY after probably an hour of racking out knuckles on everything inside the overly stuffed engine bay, and dropping numerous things with my “too fat for Toyota” fingers, we get down to the plugs.
Now, if you have never looked at the plugs on a new Tacoma, they are buried down about 1.5 miles INTO the engine, which required a extra long extension, which, of course, we left in the other tool kit at camp, so…time to run back to camp and get it….it’s ok, we brought two rigs, so Garrett can go in his jeep right?
WRONG! Garrett goes to fire up the jeep to go back, and DEAD BATTERY! (once again, this is what makes trips memorable, right)…haha so, luckily Garrett has a dual battery system, so he is able to self recover (though I had cables if we needed), but to save time, we jump back in my truck and head back for the extension.
After more crossings (Man I wish I had installed my snorkel PRIOR to the trip), we get the extension and make it back to the stranded truck. Garrett’s jeep is back up and running by this time….next step, pull the plugs. Just to give you an idea of the water, the air filter was SOAKED and when I pulled the plugs out, water was dripping off of them!)
OK, now I have read how to rescue a flooded engine before (hence how I knew what to do) but I must admit, I have never done it in real life…so when I read that the water sprays out, I was prepared. I had warned everyone that the water should come shooting out, though none of us knew the magnitude of the explosion that was about to occur.
Here we are, several guys standing over the engine with a Coleman lantern and a camera to capture the action (camera is a few inches from the spark plug holes and we are not to much further behind it)…….and Eric turns the engine over………..
Alineh, who was sleeping in my truck at this point stated the following about the events that proceeded the act of turning the engine over “All I heard was a bunch of guys screaming like little girls”…hahah….the water SHOT out like a fire hose! I mean SHHHHHHHHOOOOOTTTTT out. We all scream in surprise and jump back, the water nails the lantern that sizzled as the cold water hits it just to add to the dramatic event.
But, sure enough, water DOES come out…a LOT of water. After a few mins of turning over and pumping water out, I start to smell gas, so we call it good, and spend another hour trying to reassemble the PITA engine.
With the engine finally reassembled, it’s the moment of truth…..Eric goes to start it…it takes a little persistence, but sure enough, the Tacoma comes to life. YAY!!!!!! And now we all have a GREAT story to tell.
So that is the event of our last night on the Mojave road….it was a great adventure…Hopefully I portrayed it well enough and amused you guys, if not, I apologize…. it really was a great night…I laugh every time I think of it. Hmm I feel as though this adventure deserves its own thread..hahah
