Holy cow, what a trip! So much happened on this trip that I'll just go in smple point form,:-)!
Saturday, May 19th
Get up at 2:15am for cruise to Matsuri.
Andrew gets over to my house for trip at 3:30 am.
We get to Byron's house 3:45 am.
We start on the road to Hope, 4:00 am.
We pick up Richard on Highway one outside of Chilliwack, 4:45 am.
Get to Hope Chevron to fuel and Meet up with Maurice and Keith 5:15 am.
Stop in Merrit to regroup and water the trees, meet Merlin 7:00 am.
Stop on 97c to fix Byron's blown alternator, ended up switching my battery for his to charge in my car and leave his charging system alone, 7:45 am.
Stop in Westbank to wash cars, 8:15 am.
Get to Knox Mountain Hillclimb and our Datsun show, 9:00 am.
Nice turnout, biggest collection of roadsters I've seen in a long time and some pretty neat stuff including a SD22 diesel pickup, about 50 Datsuns or so with a big bunch of the show from Alberta, we spend most of the morning roaming around, chatting etc.
Richard takes us up the hill in his BMW Datsun support vehicle so we can view the Knox Mountain Hillclimb from the course, 11:15 am.
Stretch's "Purple Grape" V8 510.
Cam T's 510.
We walk from the finish line at the top, stopping at each turn with commentary from our resident racing guru, Keith at each stop, AWESOME!, finally get to the bottom at 3:45pm.
Show ends, prizes given out, Maurice wins for best 510, congratulations Maurice!, Merlin gives me a really cool "Mooneyes Christmas Sticker", thanks Merlin!, I drive Richard back up the hill to retrieve the support vehicle, 4:45 pm.
We head out for a really light dinner at Wendys and fuel a Chevron for the trip back 5:30 pm.
Stop in Merrit, water the trees and change batteries in Byron's car, mine has croaked already, 7:00 pm.
Head back down to Hope, looking good, we run into roadblock at 221 Fall Lake, fortunately right at a rest area, we are told Highway 5 is closed southbound until at 11 pm due to a serious accident (this means fatality if they've got it closed for that long). Looks like 3 hours back to Merrit, Spences Bridge and down highway 1 to hope at his point. We elect to pull into the rest area to wait it out as it's a tossup wether they open the road or not in the 3 hour span, WE HOPE!, Richard's BMW Datsun support vehicle loses it's fan and overheats sending billows of steam, out, 7:45 pm.
Keith builds us a fire at the rest stop, we discuss who goes on the fire for dinner, big and meaty or small and skinny? Chairs are brought out and we make ourselves comfortable around it, joined by people stuck with us, Richard and Andrews work on the BMW and get it sealed up and running again, temperatures drop to the low 40's/high 30's by 12 am, Byron and Richard are checking
http://www.drivebc.ca for updates for road openings constantly, finally road opens, we head for home, 12:15 am ...
I get on the road and start off with the boys, I quickly realize I'm done, my eyes are watering, I pull over and switch up with Andrew and keep on going. We make it past Hope and realize that Byron's battery is done for, his lights are flickering, we pull over outside of Chilliwack and swap out my battery for his again, 1:15 am.
We start out again, headed for alternate, Richard's dads in Chilliwack, drive through the most odiferous farm fertilization program ever, so pungent, you can taste it on your tongue as you drive through to Rich's, we get there, swap out batteries again, Byron, Richard and Andrew adjust my "low" beams so they don't burn out drivers eyes as they seem to be adjusted to about 5' off the roadway! My brake lights are now done at this point having packed it in some time during the night, Andrew and I head off for home, 2:15 am ...
We drive the Chilliwack punch drunk with fatigue, we now know why it's called the " 'WACK", it's because the roads all end up in funny intersections and dead ends and the only thing open at this time in the WACK is 7-11 and the LIQUOR STORE, we finally end up on the Highway headed for home, 2:30 am.
We get to Abbotsford and pull into the Chevron for fuel, we are down the 1/8th of a tank and get make Richmond without a refueling, 2:45 am.
We pull out for the last leg, really groggy at this point, get home in Richmond it's alost 4:00 am ... At this point I've been up for 26 hours with 4 hours of sleep to start ....
What a fun trip! Thanks guys!
NB, we needed to keep hydrated for the trip to avoid fatigue, 10 cups of coffee, 6 cans of soda, 3 litres of water, a litre of juice later I have watered the plants faithfully many, many times ... Good calls for stops on the road guys!
Note on Highway Closure, only thing I found was a comment on News 1130, single vehicle accident with fatality (Ford pickup caught fire?).
We are also going to need to carry a more comprehensive list of tools and spares, everything got taken care of, but, these cars aren't young any more!
