Last Voyage of the Endurance

"Dude, your truck is like a ambulance!!!"

"Nah friend, this aint no truck, this here.........is a ship".


For years, I drove a 1990 Nissan 4WD pickup truck, passed to me by my brother Joe. It was the ideal vehicle for adventure and exploration both on and off the grid. It's had great gas mileage, lots of cargo space and plenty of power. 

One spring, while sailing across the California high desert, the boys and I took refuge for the night at Giant Rock/Spy Mountain after a long weekend of climbing at Josh. After sorting gear and eating a hot meal, i told the story of Ernest Shackleton and the Imperial Trans-Antartic Expedition of 1914-17. The heroics and Shackleton and his men must have struck a cord with the boys because it was there, in the moon shadow of Giant Rock that Carlo and Mitchell dubbed the truck 'Endurance', after Shackleton's ill-fated ship. After that, we never called it the 'truck'. It was from then on known as 'the ship' or Endurance.

We could see dark thunderheads on the horizon in every direction, moving ever closer to us. So with no where left to run, we were resigned to take our beating from the storm. We crammed as much gear as we could into the cab, and the rest underneath the Endurance on the road.

The weather had been chasing us for days across the desert, now we were caught. We could feel the humidity, even smell it. We could see lightening to the east over Havasu and we the thunderheads ripped open by Mt Ord to our north. The clouds seemed to converge on us from all directions at once. And the came the rain, drops the size of golf balls, warm as the sun. We just stood in the empty bed of the Endurance, passing the bottle of camp soap back and forth, enjoying our first shower in a week......
 

Equipped with a solid V6 engine, 4WD, an extra 'crew' cab, sunroof and a bomber Duraliner, the Endurance was fit for action the day I got it. It had already been driven across the United States and had seen multiple trips through the mid-west. It had hauled my brothers bands equipment for a time as well. But me and the Gorillaz used the Endurance as it was intended; a powerful, reliable conveyance that could transport multiple passengers, carry a ton of gear and be driven literally anywhere. And we did exactly that.

After 20 solid miles of Carlo behind the wheel, now it was Mitchell's turn. We reviewed what I taught him back at New Jack City as he got settled into the drivers seat. He adjusted the seat, fixed his mirrors and got his seatbelt on. I instructed him to go ahead and turn the engine over, put it in gear and to slowly let out the clutch. A little jerky starting out, not quite as smooth as Carlo but, after a few anxious minutes, Mitchell was cruzing in third gear, steady as she goes. And then the climbing started. The road twisted and turned, up and down through the stunning volcanic landscape of the Rodman Wilderness. Mitchell did his best to keep up with my instructions, "OK, clutch in, now shift down to second, eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, clutch in again, remember 'up and right' to get back into third", but alas, Mitchell became overwhelmed and at a wide bend in the road he took his hands off the wheel and the Endurance swerved off the road and into a gully. No injuries, and the ship suffered zero damage but we were stuck. So like Shackleton and his ship, trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea, we were stuck in the volcanic sand of the Pipkin Cinder Cone. Difference is, Shackleton didn't have four wheel drive.......


Ive lost track of the number of books read, nights spent and meals eaten in the bed of the Endurance. I couldn't even guess how many smelly teenaged boys Ive folded up and packed into the jump seats of the ships "extra cab", or the number injuries Ive treated from its bumper or the number of lonely dirt roads weve sized up wondering, "Hmmm, I wonder where THAT goes....lets find out". Like a moble clubhouse, the Endurance was our base of operations in the California wilderness and she never once let us down. Not once.

Somehow, Stillman and I managed to get the same extended weekend off from the Cath Lab. As it was late November, Joshua Tree National Park was the obvious destination. I was kind of sketchy about taking the Endurance out there. I had just had the transmission repaired and I wanted to be sure the ship was seaworthy for some planned trips to Mountain High and Mt Pinos. I wasn't sure how many more trips to the high desert the Endurance could handle. Unfortunately, the Perciverance, Stillman's ship, would be hauling his wife, her friends and all their gear out to Mammoth that weekend so Dave asked me to get us out to Josh. The day we left he was still kind of embarrassed about the whole situation, though it wasn't a big deal to me. We were gonna get up on some nasty, sharp Joshua Tree monzonite, do lots of crack climbing and generally raise some hell in Hidden Valley campground for three days. So I told him, "Its cool bro, the Endurance is good to go. Just um.....well, the passenger seat belt don't work, so youll have to use that carabiner to hook the buckle. Oh yeah, and what ever you do, don't roll down the window, its broken too. Its gonna be a cold ride if you do.....

 

 The last voyage of the Endurance was not some glorious 600 mile epic. She didn't burst into a ball of flame whilst hurtling down the 395 (my wife's prediction). And I didn't wrap her around a Jeffrey Pine or crash her into a lonely desert boulder.