Alright. So as planned I headed to STL on Friday and hung out with some college buddies. Saturday morning I met up with Andy and he had rented a Ford Expedition so he wouldn't be taxing the transmission on his truck plus we were able to maintain speeds much faster than we'd be doing if we were in his truck.
When I arrived I helped him load a few things into the truck and I loaded a few things of my own and we headed to Uhaul to pick up the trailer. We left Uhaul just after 10am.
Then we hopped on the road where we picked up his Eagle an hour or so north of St. Louis where he had it tucked away in storage.
Andy pulling his Iron Duke SX/4 Sport out of the storage unit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Reb2UvTeAOMAnd then loaded it on the Uhaul. Didn't take us but maybe 10 minutes top to get back on the road.
I took a nap not too long after this so I could make sure I was rested for my portion of the drive to Kansas City. Once we hit Minnesota though I took this picture of us in transit and the fertile farm land!
Around 7pm we got to the drop off point for his Eagle. Unloaded some things and were back on the road before 7:30.
Andy went ahead and drove for a bit more longer before I took over and drove for about 4 hours on the way to Kansas City. Andy has a bit more experience driving with a trailer than me so he did all the hauling with the Eagles loaded. I just relieved him briefly so he could get some rest for the drive to Rolla and then back to St. Louis. About an hour outside of Kansas City it started snowing on us though! It wasn't really sticking to the road at that point though and luckily Andy rented the top of the line Expedition with 4WD. On the way to get my Eagle we stopped to pick up a Fender for Pat and in the process managed to pull into the only Hotel that didn't have a looping/turn around lot and I had to back the trailer out! That was a pain and in the process Andy lost his credit card! We finally got out though and met Eric, SpreadEagle to snag the fender and then we were off to pick up the Penny.
By the time we got to my Eagle it was covered in about a half an inch of snow and the ratchets on the trailer were completely frozen. We had to hammer at them for awhile to loosen them up and get them to slide into position. After installing a fresh battery and cleaning off the windshield on the Eagle we got it all loaded up and were back on the road by just after 3am Sunday.
The drive through Kansas City was a little sketchy at times as the snow wasn't bad, but it did manage to freeze over the bridges and overpasses and we passed probably 20+ cars on the side of the road/median before we got out of town and the roads started clearing up. After that is pretty smooth sailing to Rolla where we dropped the car off at another shop for the meantime.
These pics were from after I returned to Rolla later Sunday night, but we dropped my car off in Rolla a little after 7am and got back on the road to STL.
At this point we were pretty much in the clear. Uhaul got returned a little after 9am. Then we took the Expedition to Andy's. Cleaned it out and had Pat meet us there to pick up his fender. After that we said goodbye and Andy took the Expedition to the car wash so it didn't look like we abused the crap out of it! As far as I know it was all returned before the 11am time limit he had to return it without being charged for a second day. So all and all it was a rather successful trip! Thank you again Andy for all the help! Thanks again for SpreadEagle for being willing to meet us at 2:30am so we could transport the fender. And thanks Pat for meeting us in STL so we didn't have to come to you. Oh and if you are wondering we stopped like a million times to fuel up. The Expedition was getting around 12mpg with the Eagles loaded. We only eat gas station food and used the restrooms during our fuel ups.
When I got back to STL I went to my old college roommates house and took a long nap before getting back on the road to go home to Rolla!
And then this morning I stopped by the shop Penny is at and got a VIN/Odometer verification and swung by the DMV so I could finally get the title in my name!
Topic: Mission Impossible - The One Day Rental (Read 12724 times)