The “little” things like mountain passes gave us some trouble. At one point the brakes began to spark, dropping from 4000’ to sea level in about 6 miles. I was gently tapping the brakes, and I guess enough to get them really hot, hot enough to spark.

That freaked us out pretty good. I was doing my fair share of “White knuckle driving,” to say the least. There is something about racing down a mountain pass, with God-knows-how-much weight behind you, knowing that “stopping” or “slowing down” is sort of out the question. There is no way those little brakes are gonna bring that beast to rest. You gotta go with the flow and trust the road. One part trying to be brave, 2 parts being fucking terrified. I coasted down the hill and once things levelled out I tried tapping the brakes.

There was this weird bumping sound.

What was making that sound? Warped rotors? Welded together? Cracked drums? Broken brake lines? Way too many ugly things were racing through our heads. We coasted for a awhile, gently giving her gas to get us to the next exit ramp. I rolled off the big road, slowly, and came to a snail-paced stop. The brakes made some funny sounds but did the job.

They were just heated up real good, that’s all. That first big pass “turned things up a notch” as far as the metal-to-metal quotient is concerned.

I leaned down and spit a good one in through the hub cab into the brake drums. The metal hissed. I could’ve fried an egg on that metal. Hot stuff.

We let her cool down before we continued on.

That night we made it to Bakersfield. We were sook up so we called it a night.

The next couple days went pretty smooth, even through the Shasta Gulch passes. We made it into Portland, pulled into Floyd’s place and unloaded the Passat off the car-carrier. This way we had wheels to get around the city.

It felt good to be here.