6 October, 1999
Steve spent some time extending the breather tubes for the differentials. Took about 20 ft. of ¼" ID fuel hose, but could've done it with less. Now the diffs breath at the back of the engine compartment- no way they are getting wet there! Also spent some time on the phone with sponsors- still getting that squared away. Jocelyn ran into Bill O'Brien (Baja 1000 driver) on the plane today… fascinating how things "fall into place" when you are concentrating on it. Bill had some great suggestions for things to do and people to see. Only 22 days until we are out of the house and on the road.
9 October, 1999
Busy day today. Spent much of it under Sandy at the body shop giving her a new undercoating. Used up over eight 20oz cans of undercoating and we still could have used more if we had had it. Of course we forgot the digital camera at home, so we haven't any pictures to show…. but you'll have to take our word for it- the underside looks fantastic, and should be much better protected from rust and such.
Spent the rest of the evening packing. Getting closer. Can't believe that there are less than 20 days left until we are on the road.
New wrinkle in the plans: we are now looking at towing a trailer. There are several options and we are sorting through them. If you know of a good off-road trailer for sale please drop us an email by clicking here.
Our server-woes should be settled soon. We've gotten great support from Off-road.com so far and we expect that www.sandcruiser.com will be fully operational within a few days.
10 October, 1999
Put up some new pictures of Sandy, nothing too special. Check out the front page and The Ride. Also built a new page to house the cover photos that are no longer on the home page, don't know exactly where to put it, but you can see it here for the time being.
12 October, 1999
Plenty of good news today. The house has cleared all of the contingencies for escrow- now "nothing" stands in the way of a smooth sale (big load off of our minds). We also heard back from some sponsors today and that is moving ahead nicely. Finally, www.Sandcruiser.com is finally on-line!! Whoo-hoo! Many thanks to Pat Chicas at ORC for his help. Only 16 days left before we are on the road.
14 October, 1999
Spent all day yesterday packing up the house (which is always more tiring than one expects). Amazing how much stuff we have accumulated. Having packed away most of our kitchen, we have really entered in to the spirit of the trip and are now cooking with only the kitchen gear that we are taking with us (with the exception of the stove/sink/etc). It is going to take some getting used to. :^)
On the up side, we received our MaxAx multipurpose tool from Forrest Tools, Inc. 
today and it is safe to say that both Steve and Jocelyn are very impressed with the construction quality and the apparent usefulness of this thing. Almost makes us look forward to getting stuck, just so we can put the Max to work (almost!).
Only 14 days left before we are on the road.