A funny thing happened on the way home from Sema

[Ray Hyland]

Once the sun went down, the moon came out and between the moon and the campfire, we had enough light to take a few more pictures.









And then the wind picked up, the tequila came out, and everyone got pretty mellow. We were also pretty full after scarfing down Mario's Thai-Burritos for dinner.

 

[Ray Hyland]

The next morning was pretty beautiful. Everyone was in their luxury roof tents snuggled up with their wiffle bats, but I opted to try out the little Nemo ground tent, because I had never tried the air-beam technology before and wanted to see what it was like.



Other than some slight operator confusion at first (note to self, don't try this for the first time, at night in the wind after some tequila, or you end up trying to set it up inside-out) it was a very cool little tent. It is called the Morpho 2P. Meaning it will fit two people if you are very well acquainted. It comes with a built-in pump, and all packs down in a sack the size of a coconut.

 

[Ray Hyland]

Oops, I kind of got side-tracked there for a while and left this thread hanging.



The next morning, the boys were all in fine form.

 

[Ray Hyland]

The light was amazing. We all sort of stood around gobsmacked by what a cool place it was.

 

[Ray Hyland]

The little point in the back is called "Molly's Nipple" I think. And according to Mario she must have been pretty notorious back in the day, given how often her "attributes" are featured on maps of the area.


Mario made some coffee and Thai Burritos to get us going...


Paul had the coolest bumper sticker in the world. More on that later.


Mr. Action Camper himself.


Paul and Mario adding some class to the joint.

 

[Ray Hyland]

So then we headed further down the road to Toroweap.


What a cool spot. The colours in the rocks were amazing.


I had to take the obligatory "standing on the edge" picture.

 

[Ray Hyland]

Jess and I just sitting back and taking it all in.


Mario looking cool and telling us stories.


Mooki taking some panorama shots


Mario and I discussing the amount of cameras probably collected at the bottom of this cliff every year.

 

[Ray Hyland]

On the way back, I started to hear a minor noise from the front end of the Jeep, like something was a little loose. Since it is usually a lot cheaper to tighten something when it's loose, rather than replace it after it shakes loose and breaks, we decided to stop and take a look.


Mario suspected a loose shock mount as the shocks were new. He climbed in with a wrench to sort it out.


The offending culprit. Tightened up and we were back on the road.

 

[Ray Hyland]

A couple of miles further down the road, Paul heard what sounded like a small explosion coming from the back of the truck. Since Jess was sitting beside him and not in the back, he figured he'd better pull over to investigate.


Turns out a rock picked up by the truck tires had bounced off the front of the trailer, hard enough to ricochet back at the truck, and through the back window. Paul was able to show off a new parlor trick... watch as I pass my hand through this window...


Close up of the hole the rock made. We knocked out the rest of the glass and collected it all in a plastic-lined box for proper disposal later. Wow, picking up all the little bits of glass off a gravel road is a bigger task than one might think, especially if you don't want to carry 30 pounds of gravel around with you.


Luckily there was a Toyota-door-sized piece of safety-orange tarpaulin (a wind-sock in a prior life) in the back of one of the trucks. This was quickly pressed into service as an interim window.

 

[Ray Hyland]

Back on the main road along the North Rim of the Canyon, we passed through a stretch of pine forest with a fresh dusting of snow.



The flat light made for some fun, slightly ghostly shots.







Tempting to just pop up the top in the Action Camper and put the kettle on. It looks so inviting, wherever it's parked.





The AEV Hemi Jeep is peeking out from behind some trees, as if saying "come on, let's play!"



The LED lights on the Action Camper look very cool.



Mario was getting a few shots from up on the slope.

 

[Ray Hyland]

A couple of shots before we drove out of canyon country.



Still loving the colour of the rocks.




And after that, it was straight run down to Prescott, just in time for dinner at Rosa's Cantina.

 

[TangoBlue]

Neat trip! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Scott Brady]

Some sexy trucks there

 

[udoxx]

This is awesome and I am envious! Thanks for sharing a trip I must definitely place on my bucket list!

 

[GREENI]

Cheers for the pics, there are lots of people who love looking at pictures like this but never say thanks for your efforts...so thanks for your efforts.