Feb 16th, 2008 by admin
Yvon arrived last night from Charlotte on a typically late US Airways flight. We stopped for a late night supper and retreated to bed. It was about 3:30 AM for his internal clock. He was snoring in about 2 minutes.
Feb 15th, 2008 by admin
First the good news – I’ve retrieved the car from EastSide Subaru in Kirkland, Washington, where it was delivered on Feb 5th. Thanks to Butch Damgaard, Jason West and everyone at EastSide for the help. You guys are the best.
The bad news – Barbara has developed a large kidney stone and has had to drop out of the rally. We’re both terribly disappointed but the problem was too severe to ignore and there are sections of this rally where we’re a long ways from medical care. Monday the doctors try to break it up with some sonar doohinky-thingie. There wasn’t really any other option. Bummer.
Feb 10th, 2008 by admin
Barbara and I are competing in the Alcan5000 Winter Rally. The Alcan is a 5,000 mile, 10 day TSD rally that starts in Kirkland, Washington (a Seattle suburb), goes north through Canada to the Beaufort Sea on the Arctic ocean and ends in Jasper, Alberta. The route covers some of the great roads in the Canadian north. THe Alcan Highway, the Cassiar, the Taylor, the Dempster. It even uses a frozen ice road to get to Tuktoyaktuk, an Inuit village on the Arctic Ocean. Temperatures in Inuvik (the end of the road, literally) on the Dempster early in February were -59 °F at 6:00 AM. Hmmmmm….. Continue Reading »
Jan 5th, 2008 by admin
The retreat from Lisbon is in full swing. I called Delta yesterday after we were told of the rally cancellation and tried to change my departure from Dakar to Charlotte to Lisbon to Charlotte. After a few minutes the woman who was working on my request simply started to laugh. What is going on in Lisbon? There’s nothing available until Wednesday.
Jan 4th, 2008 by admin
The organizers of the 2008 Lisboa-Dakar Rally pulled the plug on this years rally because of the threat of terrorist activity in Mauritania and southern Morocco. We were scheduled to enter scrutineering at 11:30 when we were given a notice of an extrodinary meeting at 12:00. At the meeting we were told that the rally had been cancelled because the organizers could not guarantee our safety along the route so they cancelled. We will get a refund on our entry fees. Whoop-Ti-$^&*-doo!
C8-(
Jan 3rd, 2008 by admin
It’s still raining. During the morning it’s been showers and sunny weather. But as the day has gone on, the weather has been getting steadily worse. It’s not continuous rain but the showers are getting very heavy and quite frequent. Early this evening, we started getting small thundershowers with one of the bigger ones giving a nice dusting of hail. The forecast is for clearing tonight and tomorrow and it looks like the forecast is probably correct. The thunderstorms are part of a cold front that moving through after days of having a stationary front camped offshore. The forecast looks like sunny weather through the weekend. The stages will be muddy but at least there won’t be rain.
The Official Truck Toilet Paper of Team Destination Dakar
Jan 2nd, 2008 by admin
The weather is variable to say the least. One minute it’s a beautiful blue-sky day. Then 20 minutes later, it raining again. Not much rain but enough. And then 20 minutes later, it’s sunny again. The forecast for the weekend is still good. I hope so – I don’t want to be doing scrutineering in the rain.
The T-4’s await the start of scrutineering
Jan 2nd, 2008 by admin
It rained last night but the true torrential downpour waited for us to leave the marina restaurant and walk back to the rooms. Maybe 30 knot winds and horizontal rain straight off the Atlantic. Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen for the Europeasn stages.
This morning, though, is absolutely beautiful – sunny and rain-soaked . John is off to retrieve his bike (and his sanity). Charlie and I are off to get tires, radio and others odd bits and pieces. Miro is back in bed taking a nap (he’s recovering from a bout of insomnia that hit him for 2 days when he first arrived.
More later,
C8-)
Dec 30th, 2007 by admin
It’s a rainy Sunday, the 30th, and I’m ready to start putting stuff in bags. The web site is ready. The blog is ready. Euros have been bought. Visas secured. Shots done.
Ready to pack. And then unpack (too damned much stuff). Out come some t-shirts. Re-pack. And unpack. And repack.
Maybe I’ll just straighten out my desk instead. And make sure that I’ve got all the info I need for the trip. And finish up the chores around the house. I just hate these last days before a trip.
Here’s a photo of the new truck that we’ll be using. It’s a 2004 diesel Ford F-350 that Charlie and Robb built for Don Hatton’s Team Destination Daker.
Dec 25th, 2007 by admin
The TV schedule for the Lisbon/dakar rally has been posted. Coverage will be on Versus TV.
The Adventures of a Rally Roadie
The story of a retired crazy who seems to be able to find one adventure after another.
There are 46 Posts and 30 Comments so far.
