North American Ramblings of a Perpetual Transient

[upcruiser]

Monkeying around trying to get up to a cave.

View out of said cave....

You can see the conglomerate rock surface pretty well here. It was amazing that wherever we looked in that canyon there were bolted climbing routes, some of which were absolutely ridiculous.

Well with light rain starting to fall we high tailed it out of Maple Canyon and headed towards Provo. I saw a promising looking dirt road on the map that cut across and over to highway 89. It was very rural, with some ranch land and due to the endless rain of late, super muddy. What would normally be a simple, smooth dirt road was soggy, downright sloppy in spots. Some previous vehicle tracks had rutted it up pretty good and made for a bouncy ride at times. I locked the center diff and powered through the goop fairly easily. Another example on this trip of how a low clearance vehicle that might be tempting to save fuel for light dirt road trips could be a bad choice and having something with a bit of extra capacity for needed times is nice. Even on something that you normally could drive a Civic down.

We hit Provo Canyon on 6 and did a brief detour up Diamond Fork road. One nice thing from all the recent rain is the intense lushness of the hills.

Stopping to take in the view of the canyon from a side trail. We headed up to the trailhead for the hotsprings. The parking lot was packed and we figured we might just head back to Salt Lake versus hike up and enjoy the hotsprings with a bunch of people. Again, I dislike sharing my outdoor experiences with alot of folks.

My intrepid and ever cheery codriver. We cruised back to SLC and found a great, sunny evening for my last night in Utah. I packed up the truck again after a a good cleaning from the day's mud. It was like concrete already and not easy to powerwash off.

The following morning I hit the road, stopping in Park City to finish up some last minute stuff for work at the Center of Excellance. I was in shorts and flip flops since it was so nice when I left SLC, unfortunately it was NOT so nice in PC. It started absolutely downpouring and blowing sideways. I decided to pack my mountain bike inside the back ontop of my gear. Not ideal but out of the weather somewhat.

I was heading east bound, my last leg of the trip and finally heading for home. But first, another stop. I had to get up to Lander, WY to visit the man... the myth, the wandering philosophiser, KC. It was like Luke heading to the Dagobah system, this is how I viewed this mission, this quest if you will. KC was going on about how it was sunny and nice in Lander. I was driving through constant heavy rains as I crossed into Wyoming on I 80. The weather never improved, in fact it got worse. I encountered intense thunder storms by the time I hit Rock Springs and left the interstate.

Well as I got closer and closer to Lander it changed from driving rain to driving snow...... I was starting to wonder if KC was pulling my leg, maybe he lived in an igloo and this was his idea of a beautiful day?? Hmmmmm, confidence waining.... must make it. I stopped to clean the wipers, still wearing shorts and flip flops. I started to question the merits of my attire, but no, I stubbornly refused to admit I was visiting winter. I continued, down into Lander. Then amazingly, the skies cleared, the sun came out and there was this little, western town, dry, warm, ahhhhhh NICE! Ok, my faith in KC has been restored!

So, there I was at KC's overland oasis (seriously, I think you need to coin that). Of course the requisite checking out the 60 series ensues... I desperately try to convince him of the need to trade for a well tested Land Rover Discovery despite some brake work it needs..... haha

I got the tour of town, the history, and then followed up by dinner at the historic Lander Bar. I loved the place, tons of history and alot of character....not to mention some great burgers with local beef.

A real hearty local at the Lander Bar.

 

[Pskhaat]

Keep 'em coming upcruiser.

...oh and remind KC to get some OEM wheels, would you?

 

[suntinez]

Kristian, great writeup! I still can't get over the pics you get with an iphone :Wow1:

Too bad you didn't make it this far, next time! Or I may just show up on your doorstep again

I never noticed before that from one direction you're from CO, and the other you're the overlord from MI. I guess if you're the overlord, you can do whatever you want.

 

[upcruiser]

Keep 'em coming upcruiser.

...oh and remind KC to get some OEM wheels, would you?

I think he has more pressing issues at the moment with it... Besides, its a cruiser, you won't see the wheels most of the time anyway because they will be muddy.:smiley_drive:

 

[upcruiser]

Kristian, great writeup! I still can't get over the pics you get with an iphone :Wow1:

Too bad you didn't make it this far, next time! Or I may just show up on your doorstep again

I never noticed before that from one direction you're from CO, and the other you're the overlord from MI. I guess if you're the overlord, you can do whatever you want.

The Overlord gets his way.... hahaha I just switched the plates from CO to MI this past winter but hadn't driven the truck much. The screws for the front plate were all rusty and I was going to wait to nicer weather to mess with them but I was pressed for time before the trip and just left it. Funny how many people notice that and ask me about it. I was going to slap my Chilean plate of the Cruiser on it just to really make people wonder!

Yeah, get healed up and get out here! I still have the best part of the UP to show you.... You could caravan out with that KC guy!

Honestly, the one thing that I was frustrated with the most this trip was my lack of camera. The iphone's biggest limitations are low and high light situations where it is tough to get good shots. It definately has a sweet spot for certain lighting conditions but most of the time it isn't that great. I got to borrow one of the AEV guy's nice DSLR in Moab to shoot with in Canyonlands a bit. I was ruined forever with the depth of field, clarity and just the shots I couldn't begin to capture with my phone. I see all these great potential shots all the time and i am like, Damn! I wish I had a real camera! So yeah, thinking that might be my next investment.....

 

[upcruiser]

I setup for the night in KC's backyard, perfectly over a giant dead spot in the lawn from Ara's visit last summer. Again, I slept like a rock. Its funny how comfortable you can be with some simple things when living out of your truck. Some of my best sleep the past two months has been in the RTT. Zipper aside, it is a comfortable place to lay your head, even when the weather is foul!

KC had a couple of days free so we formulated a plan, a route if you will, that took into account the bad weather forecast and wetness everywhere along with my desire to work my way east. We came up with a promising looking route that travelled northeast across the state through some out of the way spots.

We got on the road the next morning and check out the overview of the Canyon as you come down into Lander from the west, the name of which is eluding me at the moment...argh. Anyway from there we continued east and got on dirt to check out an overlook.

I thought this shot of the hood looked cool.

Working our way out to the overlook. The sky was great for landscape shooting...

Pano of the view looking west.

Stopping to snap some shots.

A land of high desert with sage and small buttes.

After another brief jaunt on the black top with arrived at Jeffry City, a place I was curious to see. It is basically a modern day ghost town. It was a town of 4,000 out in the middle of nowhere that was founded due to the nearby Uranium mine. When the mine closed, well, the people left too and left houses, businesses, schools, etc all mostly abandoned. There are some randoms out there though living, not sure what they do, KC suggested meth, but I can't really disagree.... strange, strange place!

Driving down a resendial street in Jeffry City. Weeds grow up through the pavement. Some of the homes were moved, relocated to Lander, others were just left.

An old, abandoned service station. Despite the cool, post apocolyptic/Mad Max vibe the town had going on, it also had an eery feeling like it is the set for some real world horror action. I am picturing deformed mutant, former Uranium mine workers, looking similar to the Toxic Avenger perhaps, running around after sunset here. Definately felt good to roll through and get back on the road! From Jeffry City we headed north via dirt.

Our next stop was a great little, mostly unvisited spot called Castle Garden. Picture a rolling high desert landscape, predominantly sage brush then BAM right out in the middle of it, randomly, there is this small area of very colorful and shapely rock formations. It was a photo taking dream spot.

 

[upcruiser]

There also was a large amount of petroglyphs in the area. Many depicted shields which were highly decorative. Again, its been really cool on this trip to see such diversit of rock art.

The rigs. Have I mentioned how slick KC's supercharged and camperfied T100 is? Slick.

We still had plenty of ground to cover this day. The route was smooth, not terribly dusty dirt. We had been threading the needle all day with weather on all sides of us but clear sailing where we were going. We had a narrow corridor of good weather with viscous rain and thunderstorms all about.


A little video sample of the sights, and some antelope too. We saw SO many antelope during the course of the day, these were the closest examples though...

Once we hit pavement we did a 20 mile jaunt east to connect with the next stretch of dirt.

Stopping to ponder the weather and talk about the merits of having enough fuel to complete the next 100 miles or so to go before reaching civilization. There were certainly no shortage of large storm cells popping up around us.

I do not recall the name of this valley, hopefully KC can chime in with it as it was an amazingly beautiful stretch of road that I would recomend highly. We started getting into sections of soggy road though, including some deep mud in places. Once in awhile I would have a LOL moment occasionally as KC, trying to snap a picture while driving, and blast through a huge mud hole at speeds that made it appear to swallow the whole truck in a vaporizing explosion of water, mud, and steam.... Man the trucks were getting dirty!

A good example of how variable the road surface could be. Not super confidence boosting when you are concerned over your remaining fuel range.

Crossing paths with some locals.

 

[upcruiser]

Well, after many miles of dirt, and some incredible vistas we finally popped out near the town of Kayce where we refueled and made a plan. It was late in the evening and again, we were surrounded by some big storms. So far we had pretty much lucked out all day and avoided all the weather. Sections of I90 were closed to flooding I was hearing on the radio. There was talk about how this was a 500 year event with regards to the amount of runoff places were experiencing and how the worst was yet to come. What a crazy spring I was witnessing pretty much everywhere I had been on this trip.

We decided to drive east towards the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, a place that neither of us knew anything about. The weather to the north was looking to be wicked. As we were driving east we drove along, then into an absolutely massive storm cell. The size of the thing was pretty impressive, and it had all sorts of unusual activity going on that made me nervous, even looked like some cyclic funnel clouds at one point.

Double Rainbow!! What does this mean??!!

Well, we got socked pretty hard by the storm. We ended up driving further east than originally planning to get clear out of the path of the weather. We ended up pulling out onto a rather featurless area of the grasslands between Wright and New Castle, near the South Dakota border. It was well after dark, we where both hungry and tired after a long day behind the wheel. KC prepared some warm food while I setup the RTT. We ended up eating and hanging out in the FWC for a bit. I am definately sold now, if you are living out of your vehicle day in and day out, there is no better compromise. A place to get out of the weather, sets up fast, and allows you a place to prepare food when the weather isn't cooperating. My next setup WILL be a slide in truck camper.

The next morning was grey. Thankfully it wasn't raining though. I was going to continue on east towards home and KC was going to double back and head through Casper on his way home.

The man and the machine.... Thanks so much for the tour of your state KC. It was perfect.

I have never been to the Black Hills so I cruised through on my way east after passing through Newcastle. The Black Hills are beautiful, it was nice seeing forests again and the rock formations were unique. There was a bit of traffic, with motorhomes, motorcycles and families doing the sightseeing thing in overburdened minivans. I decided to bypass the 4 toll entrance to Mount Rushmore's viewing area because it looked insanely busy and I just wasn't ready to be around a bunch of people yet.

I did manage to snap a shot of it though from the road despite the signs stating no stopping or parking.... I am national landmark renegade. haha

Well I wasted no time after hitting Rapid City. I needed to get across the Great Plains and back home. At first I was entertaining the idea of driving through some rural route and seeing the little farming towns, etc. But knowing my lawn was in need of mow badly back home, and that my neighbors were probably hating me right about now, I felt the need to press on and get there. I drove all day and till 2:30am when I pulled off at a rest area north of Minneapolis. I crawled into the back versus popping the tent (something weird about sleeping in an RTT at a freeway rest area, I have done it before but not a big fan). I got back on the road the next morning after a suprisingly good sleep and continued on.

While driving through Montana I had the internals of my rattly catalytic converter decide to spew into my exhaust and lodge themselves in my muffler. My once nice sounding Borla exhaust suddenly sounded like a wheezy pea shooter. This annoyed me to no end and actually had the effect of greatly reducing my power. Also the snorkel sheered all of its screws from its A pillar mount. I managed to fix that despite a bunch of stripped holes rather creatively but the exhaust I had no control over. Well, to my delight, the 18 hours of straight driving had managed to dislodge the junk out of the muffler so the Rover again had the ever important, proper snarl. Onward... Duluth, Lake Superior and its cobalt waters come into view. It was COLD. Temps that day never got above mid 40's. Not a very welcoming invite back. Ashland, then finally....

...I crossed the border into the UP at Ironwood. Almost there! Still had 3 hours of driving but it seems to go faster the closer you get to home. I saw a moose on one stretch. I stood on the brakes, whipped around and tried to get a shot of it but alas it was skirting the edge of a marsh and though I managed to watch it for awhile was completely unable to snap a shot of it with my iphone. Again, wish I had a real camera and a good lense.

At 4:30pm I arrived on the shore of Lake Superior in Marqette, where the trip started, a bit blurry eyed but feeling good. There were even a couple of surfers our there catching some waves. Granted the ice was gone off of the shoreline but it didn't feel much warmer! 7,002 miles, 12 states, and 2 months and 1 day later I was back home.

More thoughts along with statistics to come.....

 

[Pskhaat]

6,002 miles, 12 states, and 2 months and 1 day later I was back home.

Fantastic.

 

[Haggis]

That's another great tale to add to upcruiser's collection. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. Well done sir! Not to many trip threads make me envious but this is sure one of them.

 

[upcruiser]

That's another great tale to add to upcruiser's collection. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. Well done sir! Not to many trip threads make me envious but this is sure one of them.

Thanks Mark! Is the clan still planning on coming back this way again this summer?

 

[upcruiser]

So I am tabulating up my stats from the trip when I noticed a mistake I had made, I initially posted 6,002 miles on this trip when in fact, while logging mileage and fuel I revisted the 5,000's at one point. The fact is the total trip mileage was off by 1,000 miles, so it was actually 7,002 miles for the full trip. Just a small detail. haha

 

[upcruiser]

Ok, here are some numbers I came up with. After 7,002 miles of travelling with the Rover I averaged 13.08mpg. The best fuel economy I got was 15.33mpg and the worst was 11.19mpg. Ironically the worst numbers were all on the highway even despite me trying to keep it to 65mph or below. Occasionally I was running in the 75-80mpg zone but that was really just one particular tank of fuel, the rest I was trying to be conservative. The best economy was consitently when I was off pavement or putting around on rural two lane black top. This goes to show one disadvantage of my setup, the cumulative affects of drag. Speeds above 55mph and the economy takes a dive.

The cheapest fuel I saw was $3.59 in Rock Springs Wyoming and the most expensive, $4.88 in Mammoth Lakes, California. The grand total I spent on fuel was $1,605.28. The US Ski Team agreed to cover my mileage for my two work trips that were in the midst of this trip (as opposed to buying me two plane tickets). They paid me $.31 per mile. I mapquested the mileage from my house to CO for the first work stint then again from Colorado to CA for the second work stint. I doubled each mileage for my theoretical return trip mileage and figured any additional mileage off of this direct mapquested route would be on my own dime. So, with that said, the ski team covered $1,519 of my fuel leaving me with $86.28 out of my pocket. Not bad!

I had no lodging costs as I either camped, stayed with friends, or at paid lodging for my work days. I didn't track my food costs but it was reasonable. I ate fairly simply most of the time when travelling solo and I can be pretty thrifty in that respect. I did one oil change half way through the trip at a Jiffy Lube. Not having the resources to perform an oil change on the road, nor wanting to deal with the hassle, it was well worth it,despite them meddling with everything under the hood despite my implicit directions of "just oil and filter". They messed with my tire pressure, didn't properly close my airbox back up after checking my airfilter, god only knows what they put in my diffs.... ugh. Am I the only one bothered by folks monkeying with their vehicles?

Just for a refresher, for perspecitives sake my setup is a '95 Discovery with a manual tranny and 4.6 conversion. It runs stock gears with 235/85/16's (32") tires with a 2 inch OME heavy load lift. It was fully laden with tools, recovery gear, camping gear, and my miscellaneous gear for biking and skiing along with my clothes and at times, a passenger's stuff too. The roof had a Wilderness basket system modifed to accomodate a Camping Labs RTT, spare 5 gallon fuel can, highlift, shovel, and mountain bike.

Overall I was happy with the balance of comfortable ride, on and offroad performance, luggage space (when I needed to reneagade camp incognito I was able to just crawl on top of my gear in back and sleep), and general reliability of a rig with 170,000 miles on the clock. Yes it developed a front main seal leak that I abated somewhat with a switch to a high mileage Quaker State oil with additives. I think if I switch to a 10w-40 high mileage oil it would even be less. I also had the control arm bushing that I had to have professionally replaced in Colorado by MIT in Evergreen. The roof basket required some occasional bolt tightening as it had a decent load and was seeing some abuse from the offroad environment. I have found that every setup is a compromise in some way or another. This setup's compromise is that it gets poor economy, in part due to the gear on the roof. Also the aforementioned gear on the roof also contributes to a higher center of gravity for the rig. I run the stock sway bars and find on pavement that it rides decently with less sway than you would imagine but offroad, in off camber situations you have to be careful and can definately feel it when negotiating rough, rocky sections that produces body list back and forth. The advantages to me is being self contained in one vehicle with a rather small footprint with great manueverability (100" wheelbase) and great visibility out. To me, one of the hallmarks of a great overland vehicle is visibility. What is the point of experiencing some incredible horizon to horizon landscape if you are seeing it out of a tank slit opening? That is a personal pet peeve of mine in alot of modern vehicles. The Rover affords great views and makes it a snap to spot yourself when on the trail. I think my 80 series offers a better outward view, especially with the giant moonroof but is a bit tougher to see out and down at the trail at times. I am picking at details here though.

With that all being said I think I want to move in a new direction with a vehicle that combines affordable cost of entry, camper hauling abilities for that ever important getting out of the weather ability while being able to cook and relax, fuel economy which is a big one for me, along with reliability and durability. Impossible you say? Well, stay tuned....

It is good to be back home. I spend a crazy amount of time away from home every year, as I already mentioned, over 300 days away, its a bit excessive. I feel at home living out of a bag, it doesn't bother me, and I love the thrill of seeing new places and the lure of the open road. It is funny, there are all these big dreams and plans of folks wanting to go on expedition across this continent or that country, and yes, international travel is amazing and I recomend it to ANYONE. But when it all comes down to it, the US and North America in general offers more diversity than I think you can find anywhere else in the world. There is some of the most unique landscapes on this continent of ours and it is so easy to access. Just get into your car, doesn't matter what it is, and go travel. I find it ironic sometimes that so many people are making a big fuss to get out to some exotic country to explore when they haven't hardly left their home state back home. As this trip proves, even with the current gas prices I had as of this trip, I only spent $1,605 for fuel. My other costs weren't that much higher and I feel I saw alot of great stuff, and frankly wished I had more time to further spend at some of those places. I barely even knicked the surface of most of those places. I could do ten more trips through the southwest and still not see everything. There is plenty of amazing, truly world class things to experience right here in our own backyards. Diverse landscapes, cultures (yes, if you think about it, we have some fascinating cultural offerings in NA), and its all very accessible. We take this for granted at times I feel.

While travelling offers great perspective and experience, sometimes it comes down to being something as simple as realizing there is no place like home...

 

[Haggis]

Thanks Mark! Is the clan still planning on coming back this way again this summer?

Alas, no. With the extremely wet and cold spring (it rained 70 of the last 80 days here) I am horribly behind schedule making folks log homes pretty again. Most of what I do is undo-able in the rain. Our return trip to the U.P. will have to be put off for awhile. Michelle's going back to school in August so we'll be putting our overlanding activities in the "Hold" position til she's done. It wouldn't feel right to wander without her. But we are going to concentrate on local things we've put off while running towards the horizons the last few years. More paddling, more fishing, getting the '68 back on the road and hitting the dragstrips again, and bumming around with my ExPo buds here in PA, namely the Appalachian Ridgerunner Supreme Expedition Squad. For a bunch of A.R.S.E.S they're a great bunch of guys. :elkgrin: Of course we are known for catching a wild aire and just taking off sometime without any notice when we can't take the confinement of the daily drudge any longer, so this might all change.

If you find yourself wandering out this way drop on in. You'd be an honored guest.

 

[upcruiser]

I wondered how the weather was affecting those this spring in the construction trades. Bummer, but sometimes you gotta go with the flow. Ok, gotta ask, '68 what? Sounds fun. I do need to take an eastern trip sometime. Was thinking if visiting friends in upstate NY sometime this summer I don't get out that way much except winter. Would be great to meet up if I get down that way.