It only took 630 miles of motorbike riding, four wires cut in my tow harness, and one near death experience sliding through a film of invisible pig shit to bring her home. May I introduce you to the Nanny ?

I didn’t expect to buy a Hundy. I’d been hot and heavy for FJ62s and FZJ80 Land Cruisers. I liked the look of the 62s but the capabilities and comfort of the 80s. But after letting more than one very nice 80s slip through my fingers through indecision, once I saw my new Cruiser listed online something snapped. UHJ100, I choose you.

Ask me again in 9 months. But I believe I scored. Hopefully the newer, softer Land Cruiser will still be more than capable for anything the Pan-American Highway can throw at it. And if all goes to plot, I’ll be uglifying her up enough that we won’t appear to be marks at every border crossing between here and Ushuaia.

But First, The Pig Shit

I was able to hop the following plane to Missoula and decide the way to get right down to Hamilton, Montana. But I’d already made the mistake of focused on riding my motorcycle there, then finding the way to bring her back. Or rather, the mistake was telling Joe Brown about it . As regards to four hours when I decided to buy this particular Land Cruiser, I was puttering down the Columbia River Gorge on my Suzuki SV650 with 600 miles to move.

It was awesome. Mostly.

I only made it about 200 miles the first night before stopping. It was cold. Not as cold as it might had been, though. I was layered up with thermal silkies, street clothes, and the lining of my textile riding gear. I’ve got this waterproof pair of gloves that I hate riding with because they’re so thick, but they block the wind pretty well.

The only new addition to my wardrobe was a headband from my girlfriend. It wasn’t thick at all, but wrapping it around my nose and tying it behind my neck like a ninja a minimum of let my own breath warm my face and kept the wind from slipping down into my jacket. I’m sure they make some form of riding gear that does an analogous thing, but after dropping several hundred on gear once I first got into riding I’m seeking to stop buying one-off gear for the moment.

One of you guys texted me and said to bungee a pillow to my seat. I didn’t have any spare bungees-I know-but I happened to have thrown a stupid little roll-up backpacking pillow from REI into my tail bag that has two elastic loops at one end that were easy to lash on. I’m unsure how much the pillow helped, really, but with 600 miles ridden in 24 hours, every little cushion helped. (So did stopping every hour or in an effort to stretch. All and sundry of you who recommended that were right on the cash. It felt wonderful even after I didn’t think I wanted to forestall yet.)

In fact, let me say this before I forget: You guys rule. I probably got 30 or 40 text messages before I left with tips, encouragement, and good lucks. It really added to the mania of the moment in a completely positive way.

Anyway, the pig shit! So I stand up at 6AM, suit up, and head up 82 as the sun comes up. I’m maybe a half-hour up the road-all scrub and dirt inside the high desert-once I start seeing little patches of dust inside the road. Easily avoidable, even though they wouldn’t affect my traction enough to matter.

About a mile or two later as I’m cruising at 70MPH I am developing a slight grade once I notice the tarmac in front of me shift color as my eyes match a unique approach on the reflecting sun. Before I realize it I’m in it-maybe two seconds when I see it.

The rear tire of the bike starts to slide ever so slowly off to the left, perhaps ten degrees off center. Before I actually have time to think, I’m happening, the rear tire is now ten degrees to the best. Back again to the left, slightly more. Then the suitable. The bike is installation a rhythm, crossing forwards and backwards. It does this just long enough for me to finally think, Yup. Happening.

Then I’m on dry pavement and the bike is as taut and straight as a guitar string with nary a chirp of recovery. I throw on my hazards and pull over to the shoulder before the adrenaline stops while it’s telling me You made it. Go go go.

The bike reeks. The complete rear fender and a few of the front radiators are covered in what appears like tan mud, but what my nose is reminding me smells similar to the hog pens I used to play in after I used to hang out on the farm throughout the summer. May have been some other wet, muddy manure, I suppose, but all I will say is that I’ve spent far too much of my life slipping on greasy pig shit to think it was anything.

The spatters are already almost dry by the time I start to scrub the bike up with a spare handkerchief. And that’s after I realized that each one the dust I’d been seeing on the highway wasn’t really dust, but thin puddles of hog shit, the tops of which had begun to dry within the sun leaving slicks of shit below.

I bet in another half hour they were dried up and blowing out into the desert.

The Best Uhaul Man In Montana

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, provided you could possibly call riding a 70HP engine in an open metal frame throughout the northern Rockies on highways that smudge throughout the forests like they were traced by the finger of an idle, toddling titan uneventful. Motorcycles have done wonders for my sense of what-hath-man-wroughtness.

Joe had located a guy in Hamilton who rented Uhaul trailers, but once I called him multiple hours before I got into town he said he didn’t have any reachable. That guy-Dan-called me back an hour later and said he’d gone up to Missoula and drove one back to Hamilton just for me. Later that night he stayed at his shop late to fulfill me, then crawled underneath the Land Cruiser and helped me determine which wires to snip to remove the old, rusted towing lighting harness so that we could wire in a short lived clip to get the lights on the trailer working. What a contented, helpul guy. He’s the type of Montana I really like.

Sometime around 10PM last night I had the bike on the trailer and ratcheted down. I put a hundred or so miles on the odo before conking out in a rest stop, then pushed through to Portland today.

I’m absolutely zonked now. My girlfriend Shannon and I were going to check out to move drive all the way down to that Overland Rally tonight to attempt to catch a minimum of more than one days of educating, but regardless of her driving I just feel too beat. (Plus I truly wanted to put in writing this update as soon as i’ll!)

So instead I’m going to have a number of glasses of wine and go to bed early. Hopefully we will make it all the way down to the Bay Area tomorrow and catch a minimum of a day.

The Nanny

But the truck! So I won’t talk money in specifics, but let’s say that I got a 2003 Land Cruiser with 118k miles for almost 30% more than what I’d been gazing 1996-97 FZJ80 Land Cruisers with similar miles and lockers. It’s a respectable bit more than I had planned on spending after I first started looking a few months ago, but I suspect it’s okay.

Especially due to the nanny. The story from the dealership is that this vehicle was driven by the complete-time nanny of a rich couple who live in a ski town in Idaho. (That might certainly explain why the front cabin is in great shape but the second row of seating has your complete knobs and dials kicked off.)

It’s from Idaho, so it certainly saw some snow and ice, but I will be able to’t see any indication it’s been offroaded or driven too hard. It’s slightly distressing that the various minor interior repairs weren’t done-I believe like you’ll be able to always tell a whole lot about a car’s history from the condition of its interior-but since I’m planning on doing lots wrenching over the following few months, I’m not too worried about it.

Plus it’s the latest car I’ve ever owned, so no matter if it’s eight-years-old now, it still feels incredible posh to me. It has a navigation system! That you just don’t ought to hold on with suction cups! So what if it has some little paint chips that must be Rust-Morted and there are a number of spots within the interior that seem to be some brat gouged them with a silver spoon?

When I dropped off the Uhaul trailer today in Portland I got blocked in by another customer, but there was a dust road that cut between two houses.

” Does that go out to the road?” I asked the attendant.

” Yeah, nevertheless it’s super muddy, so people get stuck always.” He looked at The Nanny. ” But you’ll be fine.”

Yussssss. (And we were.)

I probably shouldn’t have, but I shoulder surfed the girl who was doing the paperwork and got the names of the previous owners, so I feel I’m going to track them down and ensure the nanny story. (Plus I wouldn’t mind asking them a bit more of the maintenance history, provided Toyota doesn’t have the records themselves.)

But even though the story ends up being more used car dealer hogwash, it gave the look of a name fit enough to stick either way. So ” The Nanny” it can be.

Or maybe Nanny.

Like a goat?

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This post is tagged: columbia river, columbia river gorge, death experience, hamilton montana, land cruisers, pan-american highway, street clothes