Land's End to Land's End...

bkrobbie

Observer
A mighty wind...

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We're out of the mountains after a really remarkable turn camping on a remote little beach off the road to Agua Verde - a campsite that you can only access when the tide is out, as you have to get yourself over a rock shelf and skirt some cliffs before you find yourself parked on a lovely bay hemmed in by mountains and offering the solace of a hot spring.

The commute to the place didn't really threaten us, but the wind on the first night quite nearly did us in.

We lived to see dawn, and for the rest of our time there we explored, dove, swam, read, ate, and drank.

It was gorgeous, and once again, the company was great.

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We met and deeply enjoyed our evening campfires with fellow overlander "Ace", and the girls basically mobbed his lovely retriever, Kyla, nonstop.

Evidence of all this pleasant activity here.

We're resupplying in Ciudad Constitucion right now, doing laundry and ordering parts to be picked up in La Paz at some later date, because tomorrow we're back into the hills to look for some ruined missions that have escaped every guidebook we have... if and when we find them, a full report will be posted on our website.

Until then,

Robbie
 

bkrobbie

Observer
Checking In: Los Frailes

Hello All:

Checking in from a dive shop in Cabo Pulmo, just north of a beach at Los Frailes where we have spent the past week enjoying our morning coffees as the local whale population frolics dramatically in the bay (as in, multiple, full breaches), floating in the ocean ourselves, snorkeling the reef and spotting parrot fish, wrasses, all kinds of puffers and blowfish and schools of angel fish and jacks, and, importantly, lazing about with good friends we've had the fortune to make, and then continue to run into down here.

We had a real adventure coming south from Agua Verde, resupplying in Ciudad Constitucion before heading into the interior mountains to try to locate the ruins of the mission at Los Dolores.

From there, we made our way via the backcountry to the coast again, visiting San Evaristo before camping for just inside a week on an unnamed beach to the south without another soul in sight.

At La Paz, we stocked back up and restored body and mind with hot showers before moving south again past Las Barriles and down to Cabo Pulmo, and from there, to here, here being Los Frailes.

Along the way we celebrated not one but two birthdays, as our five year old became six, and our seven year old became eight.

They both had serious overland birthdays, complete with cakes baked on open fires in a borrowed dutch oven (thank you a thousand times over to Alex and Ashek) and presents that Val had cleverly squirreled away in secret hiding spots in the truck months ago. Oh, and scorpions, and rattlesnakes.

And yesterday, we snorkeled with a bunch of sea lions, and as an unplanned bonus, a couple of ten foot long bull sharks.

Thanks to the generosity of a young expatriate family we met here on the beach, we have the last serious equipment deficiency of ours, namely, the lack of a solar panel, about to be solved for - we're having a panel sent to them in San Jose del Cabo which we hope to pick up in a couple of weeks.

We were arguably nuts to do the trip without some kind of solar array, but truth be told in the five months we spent traveling prior to getting down here we legitimately never needed one, and given that they're not exactly cheap, it was an easy thing to forgo.

But the conditions down here are challenging our fridge and we're running our house battery down every four days or so, and the places are so lovely that we're staying longer and longer, so it just makes sense to cave in and get one.

Until it arrives, we plan to spend more time here on the beach, and early next week get ourselves over to the Pacific side of the peninsula in order for me to take some surfing lessons so I can finally, credibly, tell people that I know how to surf.

The girls are great, and having a great time, and all told it translates into my wife and I having a great time too. We keep meeting terrific and interesting people, and learning a ton about not just all these places we travel to, but ultimately, ourselves.

Which, of course, is the reason to do something like this in the first place.
 
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bkrobbie

Observer
Leaving Los Frailes

So, we decided to finally say good-bye to this:

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Which, as you might imagine, is not so easy to do.

We had been on the beach at Los Frailes for a few weeks and ran our supplies down to basically zero ("hey, who wants a half a cup of pancake mix and a tin of corn for dinner?") because we were enjoying the place, and the company, so much.

We decided to combine having to do a major resupply with another small adventure and drive down through the two Cabos and back up the Pacific side to Todos Santos, in order for yours truly to take some surf lessons. The drive was uneventful, save for a section of road early on that demonstrated we might still have something to learn from our Roman friends about building roads (hint: asphalt on beach sand is not exactly durable):

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We stayed at a modest but lovely little camp in the town of Pescadero, within striking distance of the beach at Los Cerritos, and which to the sheer delight of the girls featured not one, but two, quadrupedal friends for them to play with while dad was hobbling around and complaining about how sore he was from getting pitched, relentlessly, from a surf board.

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And, importantly, we re-acquired The Hippo, who after a two month absence had tracked us down and rolled into our camp bringing his good nature, guitars, and an assortment of fine cheeses in his new fridge for us to sample. We were anxious to introduce him to the beach at Los Frailes, so we wrapped up our visit to the Pacific and migrated back to Los Frailes, where we spent another week or so having a superb time, swimming, snorkeling, reading, and simply resting.

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However, a lot of the folks whose company we had been enjoying began to experience the gravitational pull of the migratory call northward, which had us, in turn, talking about what to do next. In a sense, the original organizing principle (Land's End to Land's End) has been realized, though looking back at the original pictures of Land's End at the tip of the Gaspe and seeing Land's End at Cabo San Lucas across a street and through the parking lot of a Pemex station, hemmed in by enormous cruise ships, was sobering.

It kind of begged the "what's next" question, and we felt we might be best served by sitting still for a month to tackle some projects that would necessarily benefit from a more structured environment (not to mention a hot shower and electricity). We've been on the road for over seven months now, after all, so establishing some modest roots would be a treat for all of us.

One thing to note is that, while we tackle the "North or South" question (do we keep working our way further south, and head into mainland Mexico and on to Central America in the heat of summer, or do we treat ourselves to spring and summer in the Western United States, maybe up into Canada, maybe even Alaska?) we are leaning toward going to the Overland Expo in Arizona this May.

This will serve a couple purposes. Not only will some great people we have met on the road be there, but we also look forward to spending some time with a bunch of great people we have yet to meet who constitute this ridiculous, diverse family of overlanders we now belong to.

We're packing up and heading to Los Barriles for a month in an effort to cross some projects off the to-do list and come to some decisions about the great hereafter, but it will be extremely difficult to say goodbye to Los Frailes, which certainly now occupies a very special place for us as a family.
 
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EZE

Observer
Thanks for sharing this! The wife and I are looking to replace our 93 pickup with something a bit more family friendly for long overland trips. We've basically settled on the 2014 version of your truck and makes me very happy to hear its working out for you!
 

bkrobbie

Observer
If you haven't already, go ahead and look on our website and check out the sections on Red Beauty.

There's a decent amount of build information there that will at least help you get started and get the juices flowing.

If you're going to start from scratch with a new truck, based on our experience on this trip (this could be its own thread and open a huge can of worms, but there you go) I would suggest the following:

  • Get a contractor's cap, used ARE caps can be found for very good prices in our experience and they are lockable, durable, and keep everything in your bed pretty organized, yet still very accessible. Get one with a roof rack so you'll be able to get gear up top.
  • Get a good roof rack for the cab. In our experience, FrontRunner Slimline II is about the best thought-out roof rack system there is, can't be broken (despite our trying), is incredibly versatile and when not being used for overlanding can be left in place because it isn't obtrusive at all. Looks good, too.
  • If you're getting a new truck order some Wet Okole seat covers now. Put them on. Otherwise, your kids will wreck your seats just by being kids. Then, ten years from now when you go to sell your truck, you'll be able to pull them off and have a mint condition interior, and the seat covers will pay for themselves.
  • I don't know if the factory suspension is still terrible, but if it is, and you are on a budget, get a set of Air Ride bags under your rear leafs and, for a couple hundred bucks and an afternoon of fiddling around in your driveway, you'll be able to really improve the behavior of the rear end under load. You may well end up caving in and getting the good stuff, if so, you'll find it makes a huge difference (improvement). You just have to pay for it. One thing I cannot emphasize enough: if you're going to be off on a big trip, load the truck up and have an alignment done under combat conditions - an extra thousand pounds of weight in your bed will change the geometry, and there is nothing less fun than shredding a $300 tire because your front end isn't properly aligned for traveling under load.
  • Extra battery and fridge. It will change your life and the way you camp. Just not that hard to do, we got an IBF controller and a Sears Platinum marine battery, and I got the thing wired up over a long day. Has worked flawlessly ever since.
  • Get sliders. They protect the truck, they act as a (very useful) jack point along the entire side of the vehicle, you can climb on them to get stuff on the roof, etc.
  • We got a decent stereo and speakers. You're road tripping, after all, and the difference a good sound system makes on the long haul days is pretty significant. Ours was an '05, and the premium sound system was a B- effort, at best. New stereo is, frankly, awesome.
  • Extra gas. Don't be the dad who runs out of gas in the backcountry. You won't believe the peace of mind the two jerry cans we have mounted up top bring me (we have a FrontRunner system, dual jerry can, fabulous).

There's a zillion other things to talk about, of course, but the thing about the family rig is that your first priority is really comfort and storage, your second is getting you there and back, and the third is something I can't quite think of yet.

So, there is a heretical universe we (the Roving Bugs) live in where it turns out that the decent aftermarket stereo is actually of higher value than, say, a winch. Your experience may vary.

As I write this (from the safety and comfort of our camp in Los Barilles) I realize this is excellent fodder for a post on my website, and I should think carefully about this (and will, with the help of a can or two of Tecate) and put up a pretty comprehensive page on this.

The key thing, by the way, is that regardless of your rig, you get your family into it and get the hell out there. Planning against all kinds of contingencies while you're sitting at a desk and your truck is sitting in the driveway means you're not busy goofing around on a beach, or a mountain, or in a forest, with your kids.

Said differently, you are always better off being stuck in a ditch than stuck at your desk.

Get out there!

R.
 
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joeyabisa

Adventurer
I don't know if the factory suspension is still terrible, but if it is, and you are on a budget, get a set of Air Ride bags under your rear leafs and, for a couple hundred bucks and an afternoon of fiddling around in your driveway, you'll be able to really improve the behavior of the rear end under load.

One thing I discovered for airbags are the Daystar Airbag Cradles. These things are awesome. They give you back the travel/articulation that you lose with the airbags. I have them installed on my truck and I love them. You'll wonder how you ever lived without them (if you use airbags). :)
 
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bkrobbie

Observer
Is it June already?

It has, obviously, been some time since I updated here, and many miles have passed beneath us.

This, however, is not to imply we have not been busy.

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We're not in Mexico any more, having crossed the border at Yuma in May and migrating north to the Overland Expo, which was fantastic for a thousand different reasons.

We were able to reconnect with long lost travel pals, make new travel pals, look at a bunch of stuff we really, really, wanted and couldn't afford (you know who you are, orange Unimog with teak floors and a plasma TV), and connect with some vendors whose gear we use every day in our travels and who have been really supportive (the team at Front Runner comes immediately to mind, and it was great to see all of them and catch up).

From ExPo, we made our way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon where I spent some time collecting myself as I got some sad news from home.

It was, as it turns out, a pretty good spot to clear my head:

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We met a great couple there from Salt Lake City who pointed us to our next destination in Southern Utah, Calf Creek State Park. It probably gets overlooked thanks to being tucked in the shadow of Bryce and Zion, but what a fantastic spot:

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From there, we made our way to Capitol Reef where we collected the A-Team of high quality overlanding misbehavior - seen below is Oliver, using his 180 watt solar electric toothbrush:

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After a few days there, as a group we decided to migrate to Canyonlands and tackle the White Rim Trail:

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A great trip from start to finish and it was sad that to have it come to a close, but we were low on water and running out of time - Val and I had to hustle to Jackson, Wyoming, for a close friend's wedding.

From Jackson we made our way south again, as I had to fly home to Brooklyn to tend to some real world matters and then Val and I decided to take the kids to Dinosaur National Monument, followed by a week of installing ourselves at a friend's cabin in the northwest corner of Colorado.

We're now going coastal, making key detours at Aspen, Grand Junction, and Truckee before saying hello to the Pacific again in and around San Francisco.

There are a lot of questions for us to answer in the next few weeks about what is next, and not just simple ones like "north or south" but "um, should I get back to work, and if so, what, and where?".

But it's all part of living, certainly, and with the clarity afforded me by this trip and the decision to re-order my priorities, I'm looking forward to coming up with some decent answers to those difficult questions.
 

NewRider

New member
Just read through this entire thread an plan to cruise around your website for a bit next. Absolutely amazing journey you've had and thank you very much for sharing it!! I'm currently planning my own sorta-short-term trip for the end of July next year and now have some great idea of things to do to get ready. Overall though, very inspiring and I can't wait to see what's next!
 

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