Another Epic Journey
 

Most of us have experienced life-changing epic journeys. For me Spring Break in FLA in my college years, a solo trip to Key West in a pick-up camper, a once in a life-time tour of Italy or a fly-in fishing expedition on Lake Missinabie, ON, Canada all qualify.

I'm getting a vibe that another is due.

Road trip throughout the West. Maybe a month or three. Small, self-contained camper capable of mild off-road use.

My life-time pass for National Parks just came in the mail!

Advice?

I would love to do just that. My son has two years of college, so funds are tight, but soon enough we will be rolling in cash when he moves out, and we stop paying out for both kids.

I have always wanted to get a truck camper, and pull a 6x12 enclosed trailer with a coupla dirtbikes, and kayaks to all the national parks while I can still paddle, and ride.
It's probably going to have to be after retirement.

Only one national park in Oregon. Crater lake. Don't go there now...wildfire has everything pretty much shut down.

In Sept and Oct, I'd do: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Canadian Rockies. Besides the National Parks, I'd hit: Badlands, Black Hills, Big Horns. In Canada, do the Arrow Lakes up to Banaff area, then Icefield Parkway to Jasper, over to BC and hit Cache Creek, Lillocet, to get in the back door of Whistler. Then Abbostfords, BC, Sumas border crossing and south on Hwy 9 to Hwy 20 to see North Cascades.......Just keep going east on 20 to Hwy 2 and return....

I went there once, when I was 15.
A worker in the kitchen at the restaurant exposed people who ate there to hepatitis.

Prolly all cleaned up by now.



and CB, if you did it right you could do a whole year just in Utah.

;)

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I am sure there is a map of the national parks. We have hit quite a few of them. Arizona , Colorado and Utah are hare to beat as far as national parks overall that make you say OMG. We spent a week in Flagstaff, AZ and just drove out and back to parks and did not have to pack and unpack. Utah is just covered in parks.

Dinosaur National Monument and the Dinosaur Quarry are great.

Concur.

What time of year?

The west is so full of out of the way places. We did some UAS testing at Delamar Dry Lake five years ago. Will be heading back next Spring. Light off road to get there, spectacular solitude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delamar_Dry_Lake

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The back roads from there to Cedar City, Utah are great.

Like the DQ ad says "go west young man". I have been in the west since about 1984 and even though we are in the Prairies we are a four drive from the mountains.
I am more familiar with the Canadian Rockies especially Jasper to the west and Banff to the south west. July and August are a little too busy with tourists. My favorite times are June and early September. June probably has too much snow for alpine hiking but early September is likely good.

Waterton Nat'l Park in the south of Alberta is spectacular too. Across the border to the south is Glacier National Park. The Hwy to the Sun is a great drive but you need to watch for early snow in the season(open when I forget).

This is just scratching the surface....

Have you thought about packing a backpack and riding a train like the Empire Builder passenger train through the Rockies and on up to Vancouver and Canada? That's a bucket list trip for me.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i12483-k6663844-Empire_Builder-Train_Travel.html

Man!

You guys have been everywhere! All my winters, every one of them, has been a Michigan winter. The most pleasurable of which has been an insult and an outrage unfit for man nor beast. So, most likely, a shake-down trip will be southward during some combo of Feb-Mar-Apr. Everglades, the Keys maybe. Stay relatively close to civilization.

Then, if I'm still inclined to roam, the Four Corners area seems to be percolating up as a primary destination in the fall. Time to spread out some maps to see what you guys are talking about. My passport has expired. Gotta renew it.

Just installed an auxiliary transmission cooler on the tow vehicle and will be upgrading the axle on the trailer. 100 watts of portable solar, 40# of propane on the tongue and I'm good for a month of boondocking even in cold weather if I could carry enough water. One gallon per person per day, they say. And food.

My cousin figures he spends $1k/wk when he travels, including fuel, for his big truck and big rig. My costs will be closer to $1K/mo. I have this desire to just sit in the desert where there ain't no one for to give me no pain.

Don't limit yourself to national parks. There are many great state parks out here too.

The four corners area is amazing. Don't miss Chaco Canyon.

A little farther away, but on a road I love is the Very Large Array. My uncle-in-laws son runs the place and I can set up a tour.

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Oh damn, that's cool!

There is nothing like the solitude of the desert to get one to ponder things greater than him/her self.

I've found Monument Valley to the prolly the best place to do just that. it's funny how you can completely loose all sense of scale there.


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I dunno Sammy. Looks like it might be all cluttered up with Hollyweird film crews...;)

Bring your fly rod. Between here and Michigan is a bunch of killer water. Sounds wonderful. If you really want the experience, drive up to Alaska. Everyone says it is spectacular.

It sure seems like that, doesn't it?

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Thank you, Paul.

Your kind offer duly noted, sir.

Serenity* is closer to sea-worthiness. 100w solar array, dual tanks up front. Honda Genny to be mounted on rear 2" receiver, somehow. Loadmaster says 100# hanging off the rear is a significant consideration. So no bikes.

Torsion axle is much like the trailing arm on a 911. The wheels do not go straight up and down. They travel in an arc. Upgraded axle will be mounted slightly forward to accommodate larger wheels and tougher tires. When fully compressed they should fit right inside the wheel wells. The axle is also adjustable. I'm starting at the usual start angle of 22 degrees down. Storm case will act as a step for ingress (not shown):http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1502304671.jpg

*Serenity is the RV

Fly Rod.

Check!

It's been hanging in the cave unused for 40 years!

I've got a poorly-lit and very mildly out-of-focus photo of a woman I met in a bar down there on Key West for the Sun-Down craziness, or whatever it's called, which they used to do at the west end of the Key.

Went deep-sea fishing on that trip, too. Had better luck.

So I'm out in the boonies of the Everglades taking pictures on one knee that are destined to redefine the art of photography when I look down and casually notice a coiled-up rattlesnake about two inches from said knee.

It ended up being an action shot of the horizon tilted at 35 degrees or so.

I think it was Ghirlandaio. He was Michelangelo's first mentor of frescoe in Florence. Early teens, I think.

There's a little sort of nondescript church in Florence that has his very first frescoes that Ghirlandaio let him do. They are faded and chipped and damaged by mold and such.

I have never before or since swooned. Not because those frescoes were so inspirational by themselves. But rather becaues I knew I was to soon behold stupendous greatness by a man's hands and mind.

Michelangelo aside, I pulled into the Kitty-Kat lounge in Jacksonville Florida once.

And only once.

I've told this story here before but I don't care.

Some babes from the northeast pulled up next to to our van situated on Daytona beach with their big-a$$ motor-home and climbed up on the roof in all their glorious milky bikini whiteness on their way to Key West.

By the look of their hues, three, four hours later they were in the ER. Guaranteed. They were fried in a different way than were we.

Keep em coming. I look forward to your Epic Journey

I'll try, bi.

Thanks.

Shake-down run appears successful.

Two things:

Shoes. What to do with and where to put them.

Housekeeping. There's lots of it.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1505403978.jpg

Do you remember what church/chapel? I think he was about 13 when he started under Ghirlandaio... would love to know. Thanks.

Overwinter when I reorganize the art history portion of my library I'll keep an eye out for the name in question, t. And as I think of it, it may have been a chapel of a monastery owned by a super-rich guy.

Considering his stature, there is remarkably little that survives from his life's work such that some have opined that everything he attempted was virtuoso. Very few sketches, crude drawings, etc. For an outright genius who created for the most part uninterruptedly from his toddler years to his death 90-something years later, Michelangelo never seems to have needed to practice anything.

His father was a stone mason from whom Michelangelo learned to love stone. The smart people around him immediately recognized his genius.

That is the primary difference between he and I.

Have you ever been to Joshua Tree NP? It's in the eastern Mojave, and just the place to have such a sit!

Dare I say it, and Death Valley (believe it or not), have a certain spiritual quality to them. And a unique beauty - if you seek it.

Trailer needs graphics....
Joe Bob?

Have fun with that little trailer this winter! I have had a few adventures in my old Starcraft pop up camper for the back of my truck.

I missed that camper so much that I bought another so my son and I could get out and do a few road trips and weekends.

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Here is the "new" camper.
2007 Adventurer 8'. About 1700 lbs wet.

Balloon fest in Albuquerque in the fall. Sedona and Santa Fe are great.

Personal favorite is Roswell and the Alien Museum

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In other news, my sudden concern is bears. Not rare but not quite common either, bear encounters here have suddenly spooked me.

The fridge is full of food. Do I need to go empty it out and hang the groceries from some tree limb or whatever?http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1506984759.jpg

Doubtful that a bear would get into your hard-sided trailer.

That's what I was thinking. About 10 years ago a coworker and his wife got trapped in their tent when a bear got between them and their brand new Subaru. The animal pulled out a rear window, climbed in and totally trashed the interior going after goldfish crackers.

Made the regional news.

Maybe it was 20 years ago. They were in the Smokies, though. I'm in Michigan and hoping that matters.

Bears get into cars and trailers all the time. If they're hungry, they're going to get in. In our town in Montana, we have bears breaking into cars and houses every summer.

Bears in the wild will typically not do this, though. If you're worried about it, stash the food in your vehicle every evening and sleep easy.

Thank you, sir.

I'm a risk it. They can't be that hungry hanging out at a campground. Yogi and BooBoo seemed to be though.

If something happens, I'll post it.