I'm finally home!
Today was probably the most challenging day of driving during the whole trip. I could have cut over to the coast for some cooler temperatures, but that would have most likely added one more day to the trip and I'd have to deal with bay area traffic.
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At this point I was ready to go home, so I decided I could probably get an early start and head straight down the California's central valley and tough it out. Right around 3pm I was regretting that decision. You can see by my location on the map that it was 103 for most of the afternoon, which means the jeeps interior was probably 10-15 degrees hotter. It was so hot inside the jeep that my phone shut down a few times due to the temperature protection. I started having the vapor lock problems even on flat level ground, so I'd have to stop every half hour or so by the exit ramps just to pop the hood and let the engine cool down.
Even if I weren't having the vapor lock problem, I'd probably still be pulling over every half hour because that was about my limit for driving in that kind of heat. I knew it was bad when I would step out of the jeep in 103 weather and breathe a sigh of relief because if felt better than being inside the jeep. Sor for that stretch of freeway which I'd normally cover in about 3 hours, took 6-7 hours because of all the stopping.
I was so focused on making it home that I barely took any pictures. Here's one during my lunch break trying to let the jeep cool off.
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And the only other pictures is me stuck on the side of the road going up the grapevine. For those that don't know it's another mountain pass that climbs at a 6% grade for about 5 miles. Not that extreme, but doing it in an old jeep in 100 degree weather is a challenge. I stopped at some outlet stores at the base of the climb to let the engine cool a bit and wait for the sun to go down to give myself a better chance of making it up. In the beginning I was fine, I could manage about 50mph on the initial climb. That slowly went down to 40, then 30, then 25. Luckily I was able to pull in behind some slow semi's that were also struggling to make it up. I got to within a mile of the summit before I stalled.
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The jeep's finally back home. It needs a few repairs, but it made it all the way to the Arctic Ocean and back again. There are a few things I'll probably change now that I'm back, and I'll have to solve that vapor lock problem and tie rod, but other than that I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
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