The date is December 30, 2004, and I am running around like a madman trying to get ready to leave for the Resolutions show in Blythe, California. I planned for a weekend of shooting show coverage, clicking off images of a few sweet feature trucks, and showing off my freshly finished '85 Chevy C10. My computer at work was turned off at 2 p.m., and I headed home to pack, charge up my camera batteries, wash and detail the C10, and load up my lifted truck for the drive. With quite a list of things to do on that Thursday evening, I was glad I had arranged to pick up the car trailer at Huntington Beach Line-X the night before. My adrenaline level increased so much as I pushed through the evening that by the time I finished everything around 11:30 p.m., I was so wired that closing my eyelids was pointless. A little late-night TV fixed that problem, and I settled into sleep mode.
By the time the sun rose Friday morning, all I had to do was load the C10 on the trailer, strap it down, and head for the desert. There was only one problem: The sun didn't come out. Rain decided to rear its ugly head instead. I waited patiently and walked to the front door of the house several times to see if the rain had slowed to a dull roar. Around 11:30 I caught a break. I backed the truck out of the garage, drove it up on the trailer, strapped it down, and got behind the wheel of my '95 Chevy extended cab to start the trip. The next five to six hours would be filled with lots of hard rock from the '80s, yanking close to 7,000 pounds with a 1/2-ton truck (ouch), and lots of talking to myself-attempts to convince several different friends that going to a truck show on New Year's is actually a good time had failed. Even my girlfriend stayed home to enjoy the night with friends and family. Oh well. My enthusiasm for custom trucks and this event-which I have been attending since I was 17-was enough to make me brave the weather alone on New Year's weekend.
As I clicked off the miles, my mind rewound to 1994 when I drove to Reso in my '83 GMC shortbed with a high school buddy and a truck bed full of camping gear, cleaning supplies, and a few coolers. On that full-throttle weekend back in '94, I was introduced to the craziness of truck runs. Reso '94 had been my first, and it felt wild to be going back more than 10 years later as a writer and photographer for Truckin'.