1 February, 2000

The axle is back on the trailer!! Not the tires and wheels yet, of course, but it's a start. True to his word, Dan at Doghuera's had the work done this afternoon. In a rare automotive-repair moment, he even came in under his estimate of the total cost!

J's mom got us hooked on "A Town Called Alice" and so Steve and Jocelyn spent TWO HOURS this morning wasting time watching this blasted movie. Now we're about to sit down and watch some more of it -- it's a saga-length, three-tape engagement.

We also put the website URL and some sponsor stickers on the truck. Sandy looks so cool! Thanks to Bret Van Tuyle at All Bright Signs for the URL lettering, it looks great. We got lots of looks driving around town this afternoon.

Yesterday, we left Steve's parent's house in Carmel about three hours later than the latest we possibly wanted to leave which put us pulling out at about 6:45 p.m. We had to stop and say goodbye to 90-year old Grandma B. So that took another 45 minutes. Our goal was to get to Simi Valley and Man-A-Fre by 8 a.m. this morning. We decided it was easiest to just drive on through, so we pulled in around 2 a.m., took out a couple of boxes from the back of the truck and laid out our sleeping bags.

We're at Specter Off-Road Inc. right now exchanging our old tires and wheels for some spare parts. Pretty good deal all around if you ask us. We hit Kumho Tires next for a new set of eight mud-terrain tires and then head back to Man-A-Fre to pick up Sandy and off to hopefully Long Beach to spend the night with Dave and Haven.

THANKS.

To all of the people who wrote such great letters of support- Thanks. And thanks for the encouragment. We'll post more details as soon as we have them.

That's about it.

They took the winch, bullbar, compressor, lights, cargo-area side-panels, OEM toolkit, repair manuals(?) and a _long_ list of equipment, clothes, supplies and personal effects (everything we had packed for a 4 month trip through Central America). It appears that they took her off-road a little or just weren't very good at parking as there are a few extra pinstripes and some dents… but that is no big deal. They also mangled the door-locks and broke a window.

Oh- they also left the spare tire/wheel on the roofrack, that was a pleasant surprise. Of course, they did take the 7gal water jug… go figure.

At this point we are feeling a little shell-shocked. We had allowed ourselves to hope for more, and were disappointed. Our hope is that some combination of home-owners and auto insurance will help us pay for and/or replace some of the items that were stolen. If not, things look a little dark for the expedition at this point as we just don't have the funding to start over from what is almost scratch. In all honesty, there is some doubt in our heads about just how much we are ready to undertake the process of rebuilding and re-equipping. But no major decisions have been made yet.

Thanks to all who have been there to support us through this difficult time. Your kind words help us hold on to our sanity a little bit.

Hopefully we'll have some great news to share in the next few days- at least now we can do *something* besides wait.

In other news, the trip is definitely still on. As soon as we can leave, we will. In the meantime we are enjoying the generosity of close friends who are putting us up while Sandy rehabilitates.

Moving forward, we ask you to forgive us if the journal is a little vague. Jocelyn, probably more than Steve, is feeling cautious and wary of putting too much specific information up on the site these days.

We'd like to thank the literally dozens of you who've written us such warm and heartfelt letters. Your kind words and encouragement have helped keep us sane and positive in the last week and a half. One note in particular has been especially useful to Steve for helping him maintain perspective- "This is just one of those exciting and dangerous chapters near the beginning, where we're not sure if our heroes will make it ouf of this pickle." Thanks, Morgan.

And thanks to all for checking in on the site despite the lack of new content. Stay tuned, hopefully things will be getting back to "normal" soon.

We are also dealing with our homeowners insurance, and things are looking good there. The Hartford is treating us fairly so far and our agent has been helpful, especially considering that we have been bouncing around, staying with various friends and our phone number changes about every three days.

Things are coming along with rebuilding Sandy and getting our lives squared away again. We are spending more time being excited about our trip instead of feeling despondant about our loss.

Of course, the thief (thieves?) who stole the truck have been causing us all sorts of grief so we spend a few hours a day doing damage control as we find out what has been done or remember another thing that is missing. Not fun, not cool, and definately a bummer for everyone involved- except perhaps the criminal(s). The most frustrating part has been the overwhelming feelings of anger that we have… and nobody at whom to direct it.

Jocelyn realized last night that the important thing to remember is that for us, the stuff is replaceable (for the most part) but that they are going to continue to be living a pitiful and cowardly existence. Small consolation, but it helps.