Reno or Bust!

Since it's become my daily driver I've been dying to take the truck on a longer road trip to see how it holds up.  Troy had been talking about going to Bonneville for speed week and that's something I've always wanted to see so we made plans to go to Utah.  Unfortunately speed week was cancelled this year, but with days off already planned I started looking for something else going on around the same time that would make a fun trip.  Hot August Nights in Reno happens to be in full swing on the weekend we had planned, and it's something neither of us had been to so why not.  The wives had other things going on (and the lack of A/C in our trucks probably didn't help) so we decided to make a guys trip out of it and off we went.

We took off in the afternoon on a Thursday and went as far as Bend the first day.  Truck ran great, but a saggy spot in the bench seat was a real back killer.

We camped near Bend and between the saggy seat and sleeping on the ground my back was a wreck the next day.  Troy took over driving to give my back a much needed break and it loosened up some, but that seat had to go.  More on that later...
Anyway, we made it to Reno with no problems at all.  I only calculated fuel mileage on the first two tanks.  Tank #1, with a little in-town driving before getting on the road, was a decent 20 MPG. On the second tank, strictly freeway driving, we hit 25 MPG.  Not too bad for 65-70 MPH in a truck that's only slightly more aerodynamic than my house.

We hadn't really put a lot of thought into what to do once we got down there, we knew there were car shows at pretty much every casino but that was about it.  After checking into our hotel we decided to head to the nearest big casino and see what was up.  We had only been there for a few minutes when I spotted what looked like Crown Vic steel wheels on a Ford truck.  Sure enough it was another Cruck (our nickname for Crown Victoria trucks)...

We talked to the owner Kyle, who had driven it down from Seattle with a friend.  It was a 64- a little newer than mine but a couple years older than Troy's.  A lot more polished than ours, he kept the Vic floor and mated that to the truck cab.  He also raised his entire bed floor up to accommodate the rear end which was the only thing I wasn't too keen on.  It was great exchanging ideas, checking out his truck, and showing off mine.  We also learned that to participate/enter in all the shows, and even to cruise at night, you have to pay a $200 entrance fee in advance.  I hadn't done that, and my truck wouldn't really fit in with the sea of shiny tri-5 Chevy's, Camaros, Mustangs, etc.  No big deal, still lots to see down there.
Since we didn't have the pass to enter the cruise we decided to go have a look at the other cruisers.  Lots of revving engines, drunk crowds, pretty crazy.  So after that we went and checked out parking lot drag racing... very short track but hey, it's in a parking lot!

It was late and there wasn't much more to see so we called it a day.  

The next day we decided to hit the swap meet.  It was pretty decent, I found a big hood ornament cheap which is something I'd been looking for.  But the thing I couldn't get off my mind was these sets of bucket seats for sale... They were rear stow-n-go seats from Caravans, available in a variety of colors/fabrics.  With my aching back reminding me of my bench seat I knew I had to get a set- no idea how we could install them, but we had to find a way.  While I tried to rationalize $350 for mocha leather heated versions we went and watched some parking lot autocross that was going on.  I loved this Caddy! It could barely make the tight turns, but it was awesome.

I couldn't bring myself to spring for the most expensive seats, so I settled for black velour seats for $120.  The deal was done.  We had no welder and nothing to cut metal with, but I did have an impact driver.  We stowed the seats in the motel and headed to Lowe's for supplies.
Next up was motel parking lot engineering at it's finest.  Of course that was the only time on the trip it decided to rain, but we got it done...

Not perfect but good enough to get us home!   Reminded me of something you'd see on #roadkill.  With that handled we checked out some more show cars then went looking for this night's cruise to watch.  Troy was driving and we somehow ended up at the entrance to the cruise... we had no entry pass but played dumb, ignored the guy directing traffic yelling at us and snuck into the cruise.

I stuck a white piece of cardboard in the window that somehow passed inspection by one of the event staff (it really looked nothing like the fancy holographic pass) and we made one loop before we decided to quit pressing our luck.   We checked out one more parking lot show then called it a night.

We got up Sunday, had some breakfast, and decided to head out.  A quick stop a random garage sale, a tank of gas, and we were on our way.  We had planned to camp on the way back but we were making good time, it was a nice day, and the seats were so comfortable that we just kept going.

A stop for gas yielded the only broken part on the trip-  One of my wiper blades just spontaneously disintegrated while cleaning the windshield.  No idea why that happened, but we didn't see anymore rain so it didn't matter.

Overall I couldn't have been happy with the truck's performance.  Checking out another Cruck, swapping seats in a parking lot, and sneaking into the cruise were all way better than the rows of show cars and made for some great memories.