chris snell
Adventurer
I got an e-mail last week that my truck had arrived at the port in Texas after its three-week voyage across the Atlantic. Several months prior, I purchased my MOD 110 sight-unseen from a company in the UK who specializes in the disposal of ex-Ministry of Defense assets. The purchase was a bit of a gamble because I was provided with only a few low-resolution photos of the truck by the seller, who deals primarily in bulk. These guys have thousands of old Land Rovers on their lot and they typically sell them by the truckload to resellers in the UK. They're not set up for onesie-twosie sales like the one I was making and it was immediately clear that I was taking a risk by purchasing this way. If I ended up with a rusty pile, there would be no groveling on my part.
A few days after transferring funds to the seller's bank, my truck was loaded on a flatbed and trucked to Southampton where it was driven onto the M/V Tijuca, a RORO ship run by Wallenius Wilhelmsen. Once the Tijuca had departed, I was able to track it using AIS, which is the marine version of ham radio's APRS. I watched in real time as my ship sailed out of VHF range in the Irish Sea; a few days later, it appeared on the east coast of the US. Eventually, the Tijuca made its way to Savannah, Georgia where it appeared on webcam:
Finally, weeks after the Tijuca departed the UK, it arrived at its Texas port and my truck was discharged for clearance processing by CBP and the USDA. This was the moment of truth. I purchased my truck only days before the big east coast CBP crackdown on Land Rover imports. I wasn't terribly concerned, however; I had done my research and had a good understanding of what can be imported and what cannot. I was bringing in the very best 25 year-old 110 that I could find: a solid truck but ****ty enough to pass through without raising eyebrows. Sure enough, my truck cleared customs the next day and I got the e-mail that I had been waiting for: my truck was ready to be picked up.
I read the e-mail at 0900 and I was on a plane at 1030.
I had to haul *** to make the plane so I took a cab. I had the quintessential Puro San Antonio cabbie. Big fat guy in purple gym shorts, GO SPURS GO sticker and Spurs Coyote doll on the dash, rosary around the rear view mirror, talking on his Bluetooth headset while simultaneously texting, driving 90 down the highway, cutting off hazmat tankers. I wanted to grab the rosary and pray a few. I made the plane.
I never drink Bloody Marys on land but I always drink one when I fly. Booze at 1030? Why not.
Once on the ground, I took a car service to the port.
As we approached, I saw another RORO unloading at the port. I was very excited.
When I was initially purchasing my truck, I obsessed over what it would be like to pick up my truck at the port. I knew that I would need a TWIC escort to enter the secure area but where would I find one and how much would it cost? Would I have to go through a TSA screening process like at the airport? Could I bring my tools? The answer surprised me: I simply walked up to the gate, showed my ID to the guards and met my escort on the other side of the fence. For $30, the one-armed "Junior" took me over to the W&W office.
The port itself was incredibly grimy. Some very rough characters pass through these places, as evidenced by the grafitti at the W&W office.
The process at the W&W office (which was really just a trailer) was ridiculously easy. I showed them my ID, wrote out a check for $80 in dock fees, and signed a couple of pieces of paper. Once that was done, I was free to go and retrieve the truck.
I had initially pictured my truck sitting in a massive expanse of parked cars of all sorts. As it turned out, my truck was the only non-new vehicle to be unloaded that day. Here it sat, waiting for me:
On inspection, it looked pretty good. There were some blemishes that were conveniently cropped out of the photos that the salesman sent me but it wasn't anything that I couldn't fix later. Overall, the truck was in outstanding condition. I had won the MOD 110 lottery.
I had a bit of a scare upon leaving the port. The transmission brake linkage had frozen after sitting in salty air for a month; the brake was stuck engaged. I can only imagine the abuse that my truck saw at the hands of the brutes that drive cars on and off RORO ships. After a hasty repair just outside of the main gate, my truck was rolling. It was getting late and I decided to call it a day and checked into a hotel. I took a photo in the hotel parking lot and only later noticed what I was parked next to.
I woke up early the next morning and starting the first leg of my trip, back to San Antonio.
Taking the back roads, I left the marshes behind and headed up onto the coastal plains where the wildflowers were in full bloom.
I made it to San Antonio later that day and spent the rest of the week visiting family and enjoying the unusually comfortable weather.
Because my truck has a top speed of about 60 mph on flat land, I decided to take the backroads all the way to Colorado. The first stretch took me up the Sisterdale Highway past the town of Luckenbach, made famous by Waylon Jennings' song. Luckenbach isn't much of a town. In the words of Todd Snider, "there's a beer hall, a post office, a parking meter and that's the whole ************* thing." These days, it's a tourist trap really popular with the biker set. I didn't stay long.
From Luckenbach, I headed northwest through the edge of the Texas Hill Country towards San Angelo. I couldn't have picked a better time. The weather was gorgeous and warm and the bluebonnets were blooming.
Past San Angelo, the land dries out as you head up onto the Edwards Plateau.
After a late arrival in Plainview, Texas, I began my second day of driving heading up through the Texas Panhandle. Hereford, TX is cattle country.
North of Dalhart, I stopped to have a look at a wind farm and it dawned on me what I should call this truck. I'm not going to be the guy that calls his truck by a name or puts the name in his signature line, but I was looking for something that would define this truck and what I had planned for it. Rocinante. For those unfamiliar with the Cervantes novel, Wikipedia describes Rocinante perfectly:
Safely in Colorado without a single malfunction since the frozen linkage at the port, I was ready to see how the truck ran on dirt roads. I left the highway near the town of Campo and covered most of the remaining distance on dirt.
The final leg took me on the Old Pueblo Highway, a disused stretch of dirt road that was left behind when I-25 built in the 1950s. It was a fitting end to a successful road trip.
A few days after transferring funds to the seller's bank, my truck was loaded on a flatbed and trucked to Southampton where it was driven onto the M/V Tijuca, a RORO ship run by Wallenius Wilhelmsen. Once the Tijuca had departed, I was able to track it using AIS, which is the marine version of ham radio's APRS. I watched in real time as my ship sailed out of VHF range in the Irish Sea; a few days later, it appeared on the east coast of the US. Eventually, the Tijuca made its way to Savannah, Georgia where it appeared on webcam:
Finally, weeks after the Tijuca departed the UK, it arrived at its Texas port and my truck was discharged for clearance processing by CBP and the USDA. This was the moment of truth. I purchased my truck only days before the big east coast CBP crackdown on Land Rover imports. I wasn't terribly concerned, however; I had done my research and had a good understanding of what can be imported and what cannot. I was bringing in the very best 25 year-old 110 that I could find: a solid truck but ****ty enough to pass through without raising eyebrows. Sure enough, my truck cleared customs the next day and I got the e-mail that I had been waiting for: my truck was ready to be picked up.
I read the e-mail at 0900 and I was on a plane at 1030.
I had to haul *** to make the plane so I took a cab. I had the quintessential Puro San Antonio cabbie. Big fat guy in purple gym shorts, GO SPURS GO sticker and Spurs Coyote doll on the dash, rosary around the rear view mirror, talking on his Bluetooth headset while simultaneously texting, driving 90 down the highway, cutting off hazmat tankers. I wanted to grab the rosary and pray a few. I made the plane.
I never drink Bloody Marys on land but I always drink one when I fly. Booze at 1030? Why not.
Once on the ground, I took a car service to the port.
As we approached, I saw another RORO unloading at the port. I was very excited.
When I was initially purchasing my truck, I obsessed over what it would be like to pick up my truck at the port. I knew that I would need a TWIC escort to enter the secure area but where would I find one and how much would it cost? Would I have to go through a TSA screening process like at the airport? Could I bring my tools? The answer surprised me: I simply walked up to the gate, showed my ID to the guards and met my escort on the other side of the fence. For $30, the one-armed "Junior" took me over to the W&W office.
The port itself was incredibly grimy. Some very rough characters pass through these places, as evidenced by the grafitti at the W&W office.
The process at the W&W office (which was really just a trailer) was ridiculously easy. I showed them my ID, wrote out a check for $80 in dock fees, and signed a couple of pieces of paper. Once that was done, I was free to go and retrieve the truck.
I had initially pictured my truck sitting in a massive expanse of parked cars of all sorts. As it turned out, my truck was the only non-new vehicle to be unloaded that day. Here it sat, waiting for me:
On inspection, it looked pretty good. There were some blemishes that were conveniently cropped out of the photos that the salesman sent me but it wasn't anything that I couldn't fix later. Overall, the truck was in outstanding condition. I had won the MOD 110 lottery.
I had a bit of a scare upon leaving the port. The transmission brake linkage had frozen after sitting in salty air for a month; the brake was stuck engaged. I can only imagine the abuse that my truck saw at the hands of the brutes that drive cars on and off RORO ships. After a hasty repair just outside of the main gate, my truck was rolling. It was getting late and I decided to call it a day and checked into a hotel. I took a photo in the hotel parking lot and only later noticed what I was parked next to.
I woke up early the next morning and starting the first leg of my trip, back to San Antonio.
Taking the back roads, I left the marshes behind and headed up onto the coastal plains where the wildflowers were in full bloom.
I made it to San Antonio later that day and spent the rest of the week visiting family and enjoying the unusually comfortable weather.
Because my truck has a top speed of about 60 mph on flat land, I decided to take the backroads all the way to Colorado. The first stretch took me up the Sisterdale Highway past the town of Luckenbach, made famous by Waylon Jennings' song. Luckenbach isn't much of a town. In the words of Todd Snider, "there's a beer hall, a post office, a parking meter and that's the whole ************* thing." These days, it's a tourist trap really popular with the biker set. I didn't stay long.
From Luckenbach, I headed northwest through the edge of the Texas Hill Country towards San Angelo. I couldn't have picked a better time. The weather was gorgeous and warm and the bluebonnets were blooming.
Past San Angelo, the land dries out as you head up onto the Edwards Plateau.
After a late arrival in Plainview, Texas, I began my second day of driving heading up through the Texas Panhandle. Hereford, TX is cattle country.
North of Dalhart, I stopped to have a look at a wind farm and it dawned on me what I should call this truck. I'm not going to be the guy that calls his truck by a name or puts the name in his signature line, but I was looking for something that would define this truck and what I had planned for it. Rocinante. For those unfamiliar with the Cervantes novel, Wikipedia describes Rocinante perfectly:
Safely in Colorado without a single malfunction since the frozen linkage at the port, I was ready to see how the truck ran on dirt roads. I left the highway near the town of Campo and covered most of the remaining distance on dirt.
The final leg took me on the Old Pueblo Highway, a disused stretch of dirt road that was left behind when I-25 built in the 1950s. It was a fitting end to a successful road trip.
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