TORXreport: Sierra Fest 2012
Deer Valley, California
August 9-12, 2012
This whole adventure started for me one night during an NWC BOD meeting, when the idea of attending Sierra Fest was tossed out. Darren (goblazers_6), Eric (dellstopjeep), and I figured it would be kind of neat to check out another chapters event. With the Sierra Chapter being our friendly neighbors to the South, it was a no brainer.
Fast forward to Tuesday the week of, and we got the news from Darren that the vehicle we planned on road tripping down in was no longer an option (Exploder living up to it's name). Luckily for us Darren convinced the wife to let us borrow the Brendamobile in exchange for fixing the dryer. Fair trade.
Thursday after work I loaded up my junk, and headed out to Woodland to meet up with Darren and Eric. We immediately discovered we all had way too much stuff between the three of us to fit inside the XJ. Solution... hog out the roof rails for ratchet straps.
With some creative puzzle work fitting everything inside, we were loaded up and ready to hit the road.
Our route for the drive down.
We hit the road at 4:30, and not before long hit traffic going through Portland. We burned up a decent amount of time in the stop and go traffic. Eventually it let up, and we were able to cruise. When we reached Medford, Oregon we made a pit stop for some dinner.
Eric decided to get food along the way, so we then had to go grocery shopping at 10:30 at night. Once we got all of our errands done, we were back on the road. Hit up the weigh station for the Brendamobile. Not bad for a late model with two guys, camping gear, and 102 beers.
Once we got to California, we cut over on 89 East. This road was a deer sanctuary. Fortunately, Darren wired up a set of Lightforce 170's for the front of the Brendamobile. We were seeing road signs eight tenths of a mile in front of us.
Eric passed out in the back shortly after leaving Medford. I began dozing as the night drug on. At one point I woke up, checked my phone and discovered we had missed a turn. Darren wasn't happy with TORX at this point. It could have been worse (think Dumb and Dumber), we only had to back track 9 miles.
From that point on I forced myself to stay awake and help Darren navigate. We were only going 50mph due to the surprise deer attacks, so progress was slow but steady. Around 0330 we hit Susanville, California where we stopped for our third tank of gas (18.5mpg). We continued on, and eventually crossed over into Nevada. Darren eventually called it quits in Carson City. Even with seven hours of sleep in the back, we both didn't trust Eric to drive, so I opted to drive the last leg. Sun was just beginning to rise.
We set off on the road again, and for some reason decided to head over to Lake Tahoe. Come to find out this actually added a decent amount of time to our trip. It was pretty scenic though.
After dropping down from Tahoe, we continued on, made a few more wrong turns, and jumped a stop sign.
We started climbing in elevation pretty quick. 7000ft, 7500ft, at 8700ft we began to wonder where the hell we were actually going. After dropping down from the summit, we finally reached Hermit Valley home of Sierra Fest 2012. We pulled in a little after 8:30, making for around a 16 hour fun filled drive down.
As we pulled into the camp ground we didn't see any signs of life, just a few XJ's. That's when we were greeted by the smiling face of Travis aka djmack aka McLovin. As we started to unload, McLovin informed us there was another camp just up the road, it had been a late night for them, and they even had a love doll. At that point we through the tent back on the roof, piled back in the Brendamobile, and peeled out of the campground one tire fire style over to the other camp. Camp NWC was established.
Deer Valley, California
August 9-12, 2012
This whole adventure started for me one night during an NWC BOD meeting, when the idea of attending Sierra Fest was tossed out. Darren (goblazers_6), Eric (dellstopjeep), and I figured it would be kind of neat to check out another chapters event. With the Sierra Chapter being our friendly neighbors to the South, it was a no brainer.
Fast forward to Tuesday the week of, and we got the news from Darren that the vehicle we planned on road tripping down in was no longer an option (Exploder living up to it's name). Luckily for us Darren convinced the wife to let us borrow the Brendamobile in exchange for fixing the dryer. Fair trade.
Thursday after work I loaded up my junk, and headed out to Woodland to meet up with Darren and Eric. We immediately discovered we all had way too much stuff between the three of us to fit inside the XJ. Solution... hog out the roof rails for ratchet straps.
With some creative puzzle work fitting everything inside, we were loaded up and ready to hit the road.
Our route for the drive down.
We hit the road at 4:30, and not before long hit traffic going through Portland. We burned up a decent amount of time in the stop and go traffic. Eventually it let up, and we were able to cruise. When we reached Medford, Oregon we made a pit stop for some dinner.
Eric decided to get food along the way, so we then had to go grocery shopping at 10:30 at night. Once we got all of our errands done, we were back on the road. Hit up the weigh station for the Brendamobile. Not bad for a late model with two guys, camping gear, and 102 beers.
Once we got to California, we cut over on 89 East. This road was a deer sanctuary. Fortunately, Darren wired up a set of Lightforce 170's for the front of the Brendamobile. We were seeing road signs eight tenths of a mile in front of us.
Eric passed out in the back shortly after leaving Medford. I began dozing as the night drug on. At one point I woke up, checked my phone and discovered we had missed a turn. Darren wasn't happy with TORX at this point. It could have been worse (think Dumb and Dumber), we only had to back track 9 miles.
From that point on I forced myself to stay awake and help Darren navigate. We were only going 50mph due to the surprise deer attacks, so progress was slow but steady. Around 0330 we hit Susanville, California where we stopped for our third tank of gas (18.5mpg). We continued on, and eventually crossed over into Nevada. Darren eventually called it quits in Carson City. Even with seven hours of sleep in the back, we both didn't trust Eric to drive, so I opted to drive the last leg. Sun was just beginning to rise.
We set off on the road again, and for some reason decided to head over to Lake Tahoe. Come to find out this actually added a decent amount of time to our trip. It was pretty scenic though.
After dropping down from Tahoe, we continued on, made a few more wrong turns, and jumped a stop sign.
We started climbing in elevation pretty quick. 7000ft, 7500ft, at 8700ft we began to wonder where the hell we were actually going. After dropping down from the summit, we finally reached Hermit Valley home of Sierra Fest 2012. We pulled in a little after 8:30, making for around a 16 hour fun filled drive down.
As we pulled into the camp ground we didn't see any signs of life, just a few XJ's. That's when we were greeted by the smiling face of Travis aka djmack aka McLovin. As we started to unload, McLovin informed us there was another camp just up the road, it had been a late night for them, and they even had a love doll. At that point we through the tent back on the roof, piled back in the Brendamobile, and peeled out of the campground one tire fire style over to the other camp. Camp NWC was established.
