The Night Before

This blog covers a journey to Marfa Texas. A journey shard with my good friend Aaron. Along the way we are visiting various land art installations, with the ultimate goal of Marfa Texas to visit minimal artist Donald Judd's ranch. The trip will be recorded via time lapse photography as we drive.

This blog will also be a record of my car's performance on this road trip. The car is a 1985 Mercedes Benz 300D making another trip into the USA. This is no ordinary vehicle. It is on it's third engine now, the last one, having made it to 560,000km was too tired after a trip to Las Vegas to be of service any more. The chassis only has 340,000km on it, the first engine blew a ring, this current one has 379,000km, with a suspect injection pump (we have an extra one in the trunk). I do have faith in this car, after all it did take me and 3 of my buddies up Old Priest Grade, located in Mocassin Califorina on the way to Death Valley. For those of you who don't know of this road, let me tell you, it will test all your skills. One goes from 280m (910feet) to 750m (2450feet) in 4.3km (2.7 miles), and is met with a yield sign at the top of the climb!

The current engine was taken out of a car bought from a good friend in Vancouver. It and the car sat for 4 months waiting to be  swapped in by a mechanic that owed me money, Ideally it should have been done back in April when I gave him the car, but it was only completed last week, I have no feeling of what new engine is like, and after asking my good mechanic what he thought of the me going on this trip said "I have seen worse go farther". That comment made up my mind. I did have the option to rent a car to to do this trip, but thought half the challenge and excitement is us getting there, and this blog will serve as record of what happens mechanically along the way.

This will not just be about cars, but observations of the trip and what happens along the way.

For now, it is time to get some sleep as we plan on an early departure.