Desk To Glory - Vancouver to Panama (or farther...)

[DeskToGlory]

Now that we're a few weeks into our adventure I thought it was time to post here. Here's our Expedition Portal Build Thread.

We left Vancouver on October 1, 2013 and are crossing into Mexico on Friday. Our adventures through the US have been fantastic so far and the list of places we want to come back to see is constantly growing. We travelled through Washington, Oregon, and California and have barely scratched the surface of the incredible scenery, friendly people, and really really cheap alcohol

I've been trying to tell our story through photos so I'll post links to our blog since it's optimized for that. Here's a listing of posts to get you caught up on our adventure!

Getting There and Away

Orchards, Desert and Forest - A Little Bit of Everything in Washington State

Oregon Coast

The California Redwoods

The Lost Coast... and the First Meltdown

Napa and Sonoma

San Francisco

Yosemite National Park

Monterey and Big Sur

Pismo Beach

2013 SoCal Desert Rendezvous

 

[coastal616]

Soooo jealous! Have fun! Ryan at Disturbed is a good friend of mine, he's built me a few awesome motors over the years.

 

[86tuning]

Subscribed. What an awesome adventure.

 

[Scott Brady]

Desk to Glory = super clever

Dig the truck too. Awesome

Let us know if we can help at all. I will be in South America in March and working my way back north. Lets see if we can connect along the way

 

[Man On A Mission]

Add more pictures here please.

A great thread on your truck build. I will look forward to following your trail.

 

[vicali]

Awesome, keep us posted Rich!

 

[gringorick]

We plan to depart in Feb 2014. Maybe we will cross paths for a beer... Nice rig. Have fun.

 

[Kole]

Oh boy. I'm loving this! Congrats on escaping and I'll be following attentively. Is there somewhere I can subscribe on your website to get notified for updates? Or can you post on there a new post when you update the blog so I get an email I want to make sure my Fiance is following along as well.

God Speed!

 

[onemanarmy]

My favorite body style Toyota Pickup. Getting hard to find here. Such a classic.

Keep it coming.

 

[DeskToGlory]

We just crossed into Mexico today. Epic beach camping sunset with wild horses...

We're camping just north of the Clam Beach RV Park. The beach is empty so we paid half price.

Thanks for all the great comments! We'll update this ASAP!

Scott, we'd love to connect along the way and/or contribute to the web page or magazine. Shoot us an email if you're interested in working together on something.

Richard

 

[waterboy222]

Really enjoy reading your blog!

 

[DeskToGlory]

Kole,

There's a link at the very bottom of the homepage where you can sign up for updates... It disappeared for a few days after updating Wordpress! Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

 

[Kole]

Thanks for the reply. I'm signed up now.

 

[bimmeryota]

Safe travels and look forward to seeing the updates!

 

[DeskToGlory]

There was one thing we couldn’t get out of our mind…

Lobster burritos.

Erica from Song of the Road had been talking about lobster tacos and lobster burritos the last time we had seen them and we just couldn’t stop thinking about them. All that stood between us and this mouth-watering garlic butter covered goodness was the Mexican border.

After filling up the truck with genuine USA 91 octane (and only creating a small environmental hazard due to a faulty pump shutoff) we followed Erica and Sam to the border. Within 15 minutes from our campsite in San Diego, we were there. So far so good.

We drove through the main gate, got a green light to proceed, and then quickly pulled over to show the border guard our passports. He glanced at the passports, took a quick peek in the back of the truck, and waved us through. We pulled over into the first parking space we could see (we drove about 50ft) and walked to the brand new SAT building on the right hand side. We filled out the information for our tourist cards (visas), walked across the hall to the bank to pay for said visas, walked back with our receipt to pick up our visas, and then we were out of there. Unlike the sketchy Thailand/Cambodian border crossing we went through a few years ago this was a cakewalk.

We’ll need to import our truck before leaving Baja, but that will be done in La Paz as instructed by at least three separate people we asked at the border.

Once again we followed the Song of the Road XP Camper and were thrust into Mexican traffic through downtown Tijuana. We didn’t understand the new rules of the road, but after cutting off at least one municipal police officer with a sweet right-lane to left-lane exit across 2 lanes of traffic without a signal we made our way to Puerto Nuevo and the famous lobster burritos.

The close-to-the-border gringo price was worth every penny. We rolled out of there in search of a place to sleep off our lobster coma. After about an hour of driving we pulled into the Clam Beach RV park and campsite. We stuck to the “rustic” side of the campground away from the deserted RV park. White sandy beaches were empty and ours to enjoy in solitude except for a couple of horses that decided to wander passed at sunset. Hot showers were had and we had the fastest wi-fi on the trip so far. Oh yeah, it was also the cheapest campsite we’ve stayed at so far. We already love Mexico.

Check out all the photos on our blog post!