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That's Jason and myself in front of his M109 shop van. A shop van is the basic truck with a large body often used as a workshop for delicate materiel or sometimes as a command post. I would have bought an M109 if one had been available back in the day I decided to go for the hevy metal. Shop vans have a little more room inside and have windows. Granted my S-280 shelter is RF-tight, but I sometimes would like a window.
After meeting Brian and Alan in Chester, IL, I drove to east of Springfield MO and got a room. The drive to Jason's place, at least from I-55 to I-44, was interesting, taking HWY 51 from Chester across the river into MO and south to HWY 72 west, then north on 67 to HWY 8, and west to I-44. I stopped in Farmington, MO for directions, and was warned about the 'crooked' cops along HWY 8, that like to give speeding tickets, and to drive 5MPH below the limit so there could be no issues. I don't know how much of that is fact, as I was not stopped. I did see a few people stopped though. The interesting part of the drive was steep hills and narrow winding roads with no streetlights, and some with no shoulder. Driving these at night in a big truck was quite an experience. I enjoyed the challenge.
Unfortunately, that's not all that transpired. My monster of a truck blew an exhaust manifold gasket! It happened without warning. Before approaching Springfield, I pulled into a truck stop for Diesel fuel and when I re-started the mighty multifuel engine, there was a loud ticking sound. Some fiddling around and a little help from a kindly truck friver helped me find the issue. Sure enough, when I put my hand behind the exhaust manifold, I could feel the pulsating gas coming out. Jason said to come on anyway the next morning, and we would look at it. Well we looked at it, and the job seemed to be pretty big to try to tackle in his front yard.. I decided to head for Memphis TN and see if Memphis Equipment would be able to get me back on the road. Jason's got a few military trucks, some GMC gassers and a fire truck.
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