The Grand Expedition Colorado to Alaska to Baja...

aero

Adventurer
I've been watching threads here but mostly keeping my shenanigans and build thread on Tacoma World. Build Thread

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Somewhere in Co/Ut/Wy

My 2015 Tacoma Double Cab Short bed will be my Tahoma. I am still accumulating awesome points of interest and places that I cannot miss, as well as hidden gem campsites.

Plan is to leave Colorado, explore Wyoming, Montana, Banff and Jasper and while I'm up in that area, roll up to Inuvik and Alaska. After that, I'll head south to the PNW since I have never been there before. Then I'll either head towards Baja or take the longer route through Idaho, Utah with lots of time in SW Utah, then head to Baja. Six months seems like it would give me enough time to see a bit of the country, no set end date, so we'll see where the trip takes me.

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3 Corners (Wyoming, Utah, Colorado)



Suspension/Tires
King 2.5 extended travel external Reservoir
Dakar rear leafs with AAL
Goodyear Durtracs 265/75/16 Load C (tried 235/85/16 KO2's for a week and a half, didnt like them)

Armor
RCI bolt on sliders
RCI Front skid (aluminum)
RCI Trans skid (steel)
Prinsu roof racks

Lighting
42" LED bar at the front Wired to hi-beam switch.
7" LED bars on each side of the roof rack
Amazon rock lights under the truck
Extra amazon rock lights for in bed lighting
5" Hella 500FF with 55w hids in grill

Communication/Navigation
Baofeng Handheld HAMs with 12v adapter and extended mic/speaker
Browning Ham antenna on custom folding mount
TechDeck HD with Asus Zenpad tablet
Cobra 75 CB

Electrical
Group 31 AGM Battery
Blue sea fuse box under hood
Renogy 100w solar panel
Blue Sea aux fuse box in bed
80a re-settable breaker
Iggy switch plate for in front of shifter

On the road comforts
12-gallon on board water
Puma PD-1006 on board air
Indel-B 51L Fridge, modified hinges
Platform in bed
Sleeping platform inside cab
400w anytime mod, additional outlet in the back of the center console.
In channel Vent visors
ARE Topper
Husky front floor mats, worth more than every penny
Eccotemp water heater
SHURflo water pump (so quiet compared to my other pump for the on board water)

Interior
Fire Extinguisher mounted to seat brackets (ones with metal handles can be refilled/re certified where the plastic topped ones cannot)
Coverking Neosupreme covers... falling apart AGAIN. Need to get Wet Okoles
Cargo Net on rear ceiling of cab and topper
Bug nets for windows/ventilation

Recovery/Tools
Plano 36" and Plano 42" boxes
USOffroad Hidden winch mount
Smittybilt x20 10k winch/synthetic line
Hi lift
Straps
Maxtrax
USB Borescope
 
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aero

Adventurer
.

Camp Locations so far:
Pike and San Isabel NF, CO
Medicine Bow-Routt NF, CO and WY
Arapaho NF, CO
Medicine Bow NF, WY
Great Divide Basin, WY
Bridger Teton NF, WY

Potential stops
Yellowstone
White Mountains
Big Spring Scenic Backway
Beartooth Highway
Bomber mountain plane wreckage
Magruder
Lulu Pass (Cooke City)
Sun Light Basin (Cooke City)
Squaretop Mountain
Lower Falls Yellowstone
Pryor Mountain wild horse sanctuary

If youwant mountains and pretty views than keep going west throught Butte, missoula, up to flathead. then around the lake to Kalispell

Mt robson park

Pryor Mountains (MT)
Glacier
Banff
Jasper np
Inuvik
Prudhoe Bay
Pacific NW
Ferry to islands
Redwoods
Baja
Zion
Bryce
Escalante
Grand Canyon
.... Any must see suggestions, post them up!
 
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taco007

Observer
I am heading to Alaska beginning July 1, but only have 30 days. I'll keep an eye out for you. I'm driving a silver 4Runner with black James Barroud on top, CBI rear bumper.

Subscribed for further updates.
 

jlbstock65

New member
Looking forward to following this post. Very envious actually. Good luck, and post a lot of pictures and posts.
 

aero

Adventurer
I am heading to Alaska beginning July 1, but only have 30 days. I'll keep an eye out for you. I'm driving a silver 4Runner with black James Barroud on top, CBI rear bumper.

Subscribed for further updates.

Awesome! I still need to nail down my route since I have to catch a flight down to LA from somewhere along the way. So I may not head into Canada until the second week of August. After I get a chance to look up flights then I'll know better.

Looking forward to following this post. Very envious actually. Good luck, and post a lot of pictures and posts.

Thanks, there will be plenty of pictures. I love taking pictures and now I'll have time to stop every time I see something picture worthy. And I picked up a Mavic Pro for some aerial photography. It is able to follow the vehicle, so I'm stoked to try that out.
 

aero

Adventurer
I realized that the Morrison Jeep trail is on my way, going to have to hit that up while in the area!


On an extended Memorial Day weekend trip, took it out with a bunch of friends for a lot of time off pavement (at least 500 miles, likely closer to 600). Crossed back and forth over the CO/UT/WY borders 10 times over the trip. Got some good pictures of the trip. Truck worked well, and my sleeping area in the cab was so nice. We were driving most of the day and would get into camp a bit later, while everyone was setting up tents and RTT's.. I was just hanging out since my sleeping area was done. I only plan to use it for late night arrivals, bad weather, but needed to test it out.

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3 Corners

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Dinosaur National Monument, on the Yampa Bench looking over the Yampa River

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Echo Park campground in Dinosaur National Monument

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The climb out from Echo Park CG

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Northeast Utah

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Somewhere in CO or UT

Best part of the pictures... they were all taken with a cell phone. Very impressed with my LG G5 camera. My 'big boy camera' had a new wide angle lens for the trip and the cell phone did such a good job that I didn't use the actual camera, and returned the lens.
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
those are great pics, cell phone or not
Thanks for taking us along and extra thanks for taking the time to post
keep the good stuff coming
 

aero

Adventurer
15 days until departure!

Been last minute prepping stuff for the trip. The stock seat in the Tacoma is good for regular driving, but distance driving, its not so great. I picked up a Recaro seat, waiting on the bracket and a seat heater now. I picked up the same seat heater I had in my stock ones so it'll just plug right in.

I also ordered a quilt/sleeping bag from Enlightened Equipment, I already have one bag, but wanted to try out a quilt since I roll around a lot when sleeping.

Garage sale tomorrow to get rid of a bunch of stuff, the rest will be donated! Its amazing how much junk we can amass when we have the room to. So much stuff I hardly used, or haven't used in years. It'll be really nice to get back to a clean slate of only stuff I need. I have a feeling I'll be packing a lot of extra clothes and whittle it down to what I actually use while on the road.

I think the biggest thing I will be modifying/adjusting while on the road is my eating/food prep and storage. I like to eat often, and I like healthy stuff and it is certainly going to be a jump in with both feet and wing it situation as far as that goes. I just added a second cargo net for the ceiling of the topper and that'll likely be where I'll store things like chips and bread that i dont want to be crushed, thats the idea at least. I picked up some tortillas thinking I wanted to figure out how to use those for most 'sandwich' meals since they take up less room and are more forgiving on the road. Havent tried a PB&J on one yet, but it cant be that bad, can it?

I'm still ... teetering on the idea of snagging a King suspension. Its a lot of money, but it would be nice for all the offroad. I currently am running OME stuff on stock UCAs (bilsteins in the rear), but adjustability would be nice. Theres also possibilities of something to replace the rear half of the truck in the near future... We'll see!
 

aero

Adventurer
Lots of stuff sold/donated over the weekend. Feels awesome!

Installed some extended rear brake lines today. More of a "just because" item. Stock work but were tight, so I just wanted to go ahead with it.

12 days left. Time to do a bit of organizing with bins and see how much room I'm really going to have and what extra stuff I'll need to get rid of.
 

Jaunt

Observer
Lots of stuff sold/donated over the weekend. Feels awesome!

Installed some extended rear brake lines today. More of a "just because" item. Stock work but were tight, so I just wanted to go ahead with it.

12 days left. Time to do a bit of organizing with bins and see how much room I'm really going to have and what extra stuff I'll need to get rid of.

Thats awesome man, good luck with everything, nice truck/build. I remember that feeling of selling everything as well, I've never looked back!
 

aero

Adventurer
Thats awesome man, good luck with everything, nice truck/build. I remember that feeling of selling everything as well, I've never looked back!

Yeah, it was so nice getting rid of all the "junk". Most of my stuff is packed and ready, just wrapping up stuff at this point. I also got a little trigger happy and purchased Kings for the truck. I figured I could use a little more comfy ride! They'll be here in two days, installed on Saturday.

Something I have been researching and just pulled the trigger on I figured I would share with the masses and see if anyone had any hands on time with it.

So... I hadn't thought much about the internet side of my trip.

AT&T Mobley
USB Adapter

I dont want to be on the internet a lot, but researching nearby stuff, uploading pictures and videos will take up a lot of data. I currently have a 2gb plan with my cell phone, go over once in a while if I use spotify when off wifi... so I dont use much data.

My cousin pointed me to this device. AT&T Mobley. Its originally meant for a car or RV and gives you wifi when the car is on (connects to the OBD2 port). Its been around for a quick minute, and AT&T offers a $20 unlimited plan ONLY for this device. Well, people made adapters for it (OBD2 only provides power) and now people use it as a $20/unlimited plan.

I figured I would pass on the intel for those who were interested. Since its a crazy good deal, you can't find the devices themselves since AT&T discontinued them. Only way to pick one up is resold on the internet. This is the cheapest I've found thats new in packaging ($179) AT&T Mobley I also purchased the USB Adapter since having that thing hanging out of the OBD2 port would get annoying. The ones on Ebay are nearing $250 and up.

https://slickdeals.net/f/9903008-at-t-zte-mobley-unlimited-4g-lte-20-per-month-like-a-hotspot?page=4

I called the AT&T Connected Car Dept. 1 (866) 595-1222 and they confirmed that there is a $20/unlimited plan ONLY for the Mobley, once I get it, I can call them to activate it. I do not have AT&T and they will do that plan by itself, so it'd be $20 plus the taxes and BS fees they usually put on a cell phone bill. No contract. Anywhere AT&T has cell service, it will provide wifi, in US, Canada and Mexico.
 

aero

Adventurer
I've been getting closer to ready. I activated the mobley and it works great!

Unfortunately uploading pictures on this forum on mobile devices is not very user friendly, I've tried a few times in the last week and ended up moving on since I didn't have time to find an external site to host on to be able to post on here. And I like adding pictures!

I ended up swapping out the suspension i had (ome/Bilstein) for extended travel Kings with icon Delta UCAs. Got it aligned and likely thanks to big-o tires who decided in the past not to correctly torque my LCA cam bolts, the alignment was not easy as the cams were nearly seized already.

But he (not big-o) was able to work them loose and get it properly aligned.

Trying to get stuff wrapped up, my original date of Saturday will probably be pushed back to Sunday or Monday due to new stuff popping up.

If I seem to be missing for too long, check my Instagram (aero3685) or Tacomaworld thread (link in first post). I like to update with pictures, usually from mobile and those two options are much easier than here for doing that.
 

SDDiver5

Expedition Leader
Thanks a lot dude now I want to say screw work and go drive somewhere remote!

Nice build! Just spent an hour looking at your build on TW. Very nice and neat.
 

aero

Adventurer
Thanks a lot dude now I want to say screw work and go drive somewhere remote!

Nice build! Just spent an hour looking at your build on TW. Very nice and neat.


Doooo iiiit!

Thanks. I need to work a little more on finishing the build and linking to the first page. But I'll have plenty of time on the trail when I get a little bored and want to do some "work".

I've got a busy next few days, getting excited to start the journey though. Planning on taking a few days to do another shakedown while helping some friends and family with some stuff for the second half of next week. Then it'll be time to roll out after that!
 

aero

Adventurer
Starting to a final organization/packing and last minute additions. Installed a shoe rack to keep some organization since space is at a premium!


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Yesterday was originally my planned date of departure. But I got tied up with some last minute stuff, so I am thinking Tuesday I'll hit the road, swing by some friends and family and then head north next weekend. I've realized that most of the trails in Wyoming are closed until July 15 (including Morrison Trail), so it'll be a play it by ear situation.
 

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