I was lucky enough to be asked to participate in the latest Expeditions Seven adventure, the E7 MSMO Rivers Trip. I’ve been a part of E7 since the beginning. Proffitt’s Cruisers built the two VDJ78 Land Cruisers that drove around the world. Fernweh, the lead vehicle of the expedition, is actually the only four wheel‘d vehicle ever to drive on all seven continents. E7 has been a big part of my life for the last 10 years, allowing for plenty of adventure. This last round however was different. Instead of Land Cruisers, the method of travel was actually boats. The expedition‘s goal: Put two jet boats in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, and drive them all the way to Three Forks, Montana, the headwaters of the Missouri.
Long story short, the adventure was a success. Despite numerous mechanical failures, a tight schedule, and all that the river (and the lakes) could throw at us, we made it. We navigated over 3500 miles of river in 22 days. We had covered the lower Mississippi from The Gulf to St Louis, and the entirety of the Missouri. We believe this is the first time this adventure has ever been done.
This leg of E7 also marked the first time that I’ve been out of the shop for a month in the last nine years. I was confident, albeit a little nervous when I left on the trip because I knew I wouldn’t have connectivity a lot of the time, and our entire crew would be on their own for quite a while. Upon returning, I can’t say that I’ve ever been more proud of our team. Using the systems we’ve developed, they literally handled everything presented to them while I was gone. They even finished and processed two restorations that were in progress when I left, but at home with their owners when I came back! That is really significant.
All of the credit goes to our team of technicians and managers who care so much about our mission. But I can also feel good about the fact that all of the systems that we have been developing over the last decade work so well. For those of you who don’t know, we use a hybrid of a system called Scrum to run the shop. That system, combined with hundreds of core processes, guide decision making and empower everyone to keep things going in the right direction. Great people and good systems really account for the special thing we’ve got going on!
Thanks as always for reading my ramblings. We have a couple of really exciting things coming up this summer so stay tuned and keep Cruising!
Yours In Land Cruisers Jeremiah
