Up and back on the road. The three tote kitchen system really worked out well for making and breaking camp. Its so simple, why didn’t we think of it before?
Climbing up the next mountain on WABDR section two. Run the truck, cool things down when we need to.
At least there is some shadows for us to hide from the heat in while climbing. Another thing that seemed to really help was to drop down a gear and just run the engine at a more leisurely higher RPM setting.
Plenty to see and not a lot of traffic to worry about.
Cool looking lake. I told Julie to shoot this picture.
And we’re off-road. Climbing and doing switchbacks. The road looked smooth, but it was washboarded and that actually slowed us down to second gear. Around 8 to 10 mph. Any faster and the ride was unlivable.
And of course there is always the vapor lock issue. Here we found a side road off of a switchback in the shade.
While we were cooling off, a pack of Jeeps along with a Land Rover came past. We all waved at each other. We wondered if they were doing the WABDR as well.
Cruising through the mountains seein’ stuff.
Back on the paved road waiting for the current vapor lock to cool down.
While we were sitting here the road repair guy we’d met two days before showed up. “Hey, how you doing!? Etc.” He filled us in on some local road conditions and we chatted for a bit.
Lunar landscape. We actually hadn’t realized how much there was to see in this state, ‘till this trip.
Maybe traveling at 1930s speeds lets you notice more.
Allie taking a ride in the truck. Julie and Alex swapped back and forth during the trip. They didn’t feel comfortable driving the truck so that was my job.
Hauling a ton of camping.. junk.
Notice the water jug? Don’t leave home without one! Two sacks of ice, a gallon of spring water and you’re set for a day.
Allie taking pictures. This is getting near Naches.
In the tiny town of Naches we pulled into Van’s 1885 Bar & Grill. It was the only place open. And the food.. Was amazing! What a great burger!
It was screaming hot and we remembered we’d left a sack of ice outside the cooler in the back of the truck. I wen’t out early to deal with it.
And found..
What the heck? Vapor lock isn’t working for you anymore? You have to pull something new?
Good lord!
Ah! But from reading the Overlanding forum, I discovered onboard compressors and brought one along.
Hook it up, turn it on and I re-inflated the tire. Pretty slick. Take that lazy truck. Going to take more than a leaky tire to stop us!
And as we were standing around thinking thoughts along these lines, the tire blew! POW! SSSSSssssssss...
Now what?
I only had a little bottle jack and that was going to be a bloody nightmare for lifting up he truck. I ended up calling local tow truck to bring a floorjack to us. He didn’t really want to come out, until he herd what kind of vehicle we had. Suddenly everything was easy peasy.
Back on the road looking for the closest Les Schwab tire store. Why Les Schwab? Because they will do split rim wheels whereas most tire shops I’ve found won’t touch them.
Les Schwab was a bust. I’d have to order my own inner-tube and that would take at least two days.
We ended up in a Hotel in Yakima. I was NOT a happy camper that night. It felt like the entire universe was fighting me making this trip. And, spending the night in a Hotel in the middle of a city felt like a complete cop out. Julie and Alex went out for happy hour and I took a nap.