Message posted by Ben on October 09, 2006 at 14:20:18 PST:
So I don't know where to post my trip report, so I figured this was the best spot. It seems like this was a long post, so I'm sorry, but it was fun and felt I should write about it all! I don't know how to post pics, so I was hoping I could email them to one of you guys and you can post them for me, perhaps the webmaster? The trip started out by me freaking out that we didnt have enough supplies. So Friday night around 8pm, my girlfriend Tabatha and I headed off to WalMart to get some last second supplies. By the time we were done shopping, it was already 1130 pm. Dont ever go shopping with women, boys. As we were about to leave, I forgot that we needed firewood for our campfire. DUH!! So we drove around Las Vegas in search of firewood, which turned out to be harder than we anticipated. Finally we found an Albertsons selling a bundle of 5 logs for 6 bucks each. We bought 6 of em and headed off. We left Vegas at around 1 am. After reading all the other posts, I knew this was going to present a problem for us later on, but thought screw it. We drove for about 2 hours unti finally getting to the ET highway. We had a GPS System in the car so we relied on the coordinates t oget us to Groom Lake Road. As we were getting closer, I realized what people were bitchin about. Those damn ribbits were coming out of nowhere!!!! At first i swirved a couple times seeing as ther ewas no one lese on the road. But after tabatha talked some sense into me , I realized it was either the rabbits or me. So I just drove forward not worrying too much baout them. Luckily, they only liked to tease suicide, as most of them (or all i hope) managed to dodge the explorer. After not paying attention to the road very well, we noticed that we had been on the ET highway for a little while and had just passed mailbox road. I looked at my GPS and realized it was off by about 2 numbers (I.E mailbox road was on 25 degrees instead of 24 or whatever it was) SO we turned around and easily found GLR. This is where the noobsters got scared. This small dirt road in the middle of nowhere at 330 am with no sense of what to expect somehow had me going literally 15 mph!!! I didn't care, we wanted to see headlights in the distance. And about 5 minutes into our 15mph journey, we got em. The Cammo Dudes must have been bored or curious at lurkers at 3 in the morning because they really began to F with us. As we were driving up GLR, we could see them turning their headlights on and off. Tabatha thought they were telling us to stop and turn around, but I remembered our talks on the board and said "no we are legally allowed to do this, we will carry on" She sighed thinking i was being a dumb man, which she was probably right. Keep in mind i am going about 15 mph now.... After another 15 minutes, we are about 1/2 the way to the border. And the closer we got, the cookier these cammo dudes got. They would drive from up on a hill and flash their lights, to acutally drive up to GLR and stop and put on their brights, letting us know they were just yards ahead. Everytime they stopped I just kept going, and they would turn around back off go to another pearch and flash us. This all came to a head at the border. WE finally arrived. They were pearched up on the hill to the right of the road. I'm sure you all know where I mean. This time with no lights on. But because of the full moon, I could see their car. So like an idiot, I pointed my explorere directly at them and flashed my brights. They didnt like that. They vroomed the engine and flashed their lights (which were considerably brighter than ours) at us. Tabatha was like '' ok ben, enough, we'll come back for pics during the day''. I gave in, being a little scared myself. We drove back one mile down the road to an obvious campsite. We decided not to set up camp that night, being A. afraid and B. very cold outside at 4am. So we nestled in our car and saw the cammo dudes drive by us 4 times!!!!! That was night 1. We awoke the next day and laughed expecting to wake up in a flying saucer or with cammo dudes pointing guns at us. We were a little dissapointed to just see cows.lol. We decided , since it was 1130 am, we should drive up to the Inn, have lunch, buy some tourist supplies, and check out the mailbox. This is were things got a little creepy. We have a great lunch, talk to the gang from the Inn. They really liked us I guess since we were from Vegas and didnt have suc ha lame touristy look. Im not sure, but they were GREAT! At the end of lunch, a guy wearing cammo came in and was talking on his cell saying he was leaving the base and checking some things out. We could hear him through the wall as he walked in. He had a cammo gear on un bottoned with a grey shirt underneath. No one in the Inn seemed to recognize him. The waitress asked his name just as she did us. He kpet staring at us as we finished up. We bought some stuff, and got out of ther ea little quicker than we had thought. We looked around the parking lot and did not see any other cars. Both of us being worked up from the previous night were thinking he was def a cammo dude. We forgot about it and went on to the mailbox. After leaving our mark there. Which you can cleary see on the front top of the mailbox. Ben & Tabatha 10/7/06... We headed back to set up camp. As we set up camp, we saw a cammo dude coming from the base in his tan Silverado. He drove all the way up to the top of GLR, which we though was odd. We went back to setting camp up and saw the silverado drive back towards us and on to camp. IN THE DRIVERS SEAT DOOR WAS THE SAME GUY AT LUNCH WHO WAS STARING AT US. We were like , wow, what in the world did we do to deserve to be followed. As we finshed setting up, I noticed my rental explorer did not have front plates on, and though perhaps they saw something fishy in an unmarked explorer coming in a 3 am last night. Who knows. But we found it very entertaining think we were followed all the way to lunch!!! The rest of the day and night was calm and relaxing. The moon was still about full which made it tough to see al lthe atars, but compared to the Vegas skyline, it was a delight!!! The cammo dudes watched us till about 9pm when they wer eoccupied with some guys in a jeep wrangler driving all over the place. These guys were defintily trying to F around with the cammo dudes. They were at the border for at least an hour at around 10pm. After driving back from the border, they went on one of the roads that veered off and began to drive around at a fast pace. The cammo dudes were watching them pretty closely, even going so close as to one point driving to the exit where the jeep veered off and blocked a way back on to GLR. The jeep came at them, flashed there lights and waited for the Cammo Dudes to back off. They did and sped back to a safe lookout and the jeep tried to follow and keep up. This went on for baout 2 or 3 hours. Pretty fun to watch. I'm sure it pissed off the cammo dudes. We woke up early Sunday and packed up and headed out to catch some of the NFL. As we finished packing, the cammo dudes drove by, slowed down to about 5 mph and waved at us. We jumped up and down and waved back, and they smiled and drove away!!!! All in all, a very fun trip and we will be going back all the time!! Next time, with some friends and some high powered telescopes!!!!!! Thanks for the advice guys. It all made sense once we were there!
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