Day 1

They day had finally arrived! After months of planning and preparation it was time to go. We finished all of the upgrades and necessary maintenance to the Jeeps. The new truck was broken in. Everything was packed and loaded. We were set.

We left Henderson, NC just after 6am (almost on time) and headed towards Asheville, where we would meet the other members of our group, JR, his wife Catherine, and Tracy. After a few stops at various truck stops for fuel (I'm not EVEN talking about that) we made it to Asheville and hooked up with the other group members around 2pm.

Our tow-rig is a 2008 Ford F350 Powerstroke and JR has 2006 Dodge 2500 Cummins. These trucks had no problem booking it over the Appalachians and we were through Tennessee (and it's devil pot-holes) and into Arkansas. By this time it was about 10pm Central and we decided to stop in West Memphis. After deciding this town was a hell hole and not wanting our jeeps to get raped in the night we took and gamble and moved on down the flat flat flat stretch of I-40. Never having been in the flat country, it was really strange to me. In the dark it almost looked like large bodies of water on either side of the highway.

At about 10pm CST we stopped in Forest City at a surprisingly nice Hampton Inn. After a good nights rest and a decent breakfast, we're ready to get back on the road.

Today we'll head down I-40 to Albuquerque. We wanted to take I-70 through Colorado, but everything we've heard so far indicated that it's a hellacious trip carrying a heavy load. That combined with the chance of snow forced us to chose the less scenic southern route.

Here we see the full cast of characters:
John's F350 Powerstroke
John's 04 Wrangler
My 96 Cherokee
JR's 06 Dodge Cummins
JR's 01 Wrangler
Tracy's 04 Wrangler