Calakmul photos

Here are a few photos from the Mayan city of Calakmul we visited.




Today was a light day - a short drive from the jungle to our current campsite. We did have a chance to look at some pretty awesome Land Rover Defenders. It's a shame you can't get one in the US. Tomorrow we cross into Guatemala for some intense jungle action.

Welcome to the Jungle

OK, my prior statement that “we are now camping in the jungle” was a lie. I didn’t mean to lie on purpose, it was mostly due to my own ignorance. We’re spending the night at 5 Blues National Park - in the real jungle. This quote I just overheard in a conversation right now between my father and James really communicates our surroundings: “We are so thoroughly in the jungle right now, it’s sickening.”

I posted earlier today from a coffee shop in Balmopan. Immediately after I finished writing that post, we hit the road. There really isn’t any particular place where one notices the transition from town to jungle. It just happens. Less then 15 minutes after finishing my iced coffee, the road was surrounded on both sides by thick jungle.

We finally got a taste of some real overlanding again. The road to our campsite was about 4.5 miles long and it was rocky, muddy, and had a lot of water sitting on it. Scott got some great footage of yours truly speeding through a mud puddle. We took what we later found out was a wrong turn and ended up at a river near an agricultural compound (basically an orange grove with a couple of small buildings).

I’m not really an aquarium type of guy but James was super thrilled at what we found in the river. James (and his spouse Stacey) has been in Central American many, many times on mission trips but this river was the first time he had seen freshwater tropical cichlids and fancy-tailed guppies in their natural habitat. The fish were beautiful and the enthusiasm was contagious. My description won’t do this image justice, but the river was right next to an exposed rock face covered in jungle vines. Disgustingly cool.

The road to our campsite was through a pretty thick jungle canopy. We’re down the path from a lake which we plan to explore in the morning. As I’m writing this, I’m hearing sounds that I can’t even identify. At least my tent is elevated.

Chuck

You better Belize it

Yesterday we left Mexico and entered Belize. The border crossing was cake and everything went smoothly. Belize is tiny, we drove about halfway through the country in just a couple of hours. It's nice to be speaking English again - Belize was under British control until 1983.

We stayed just outside Belize City last night at a resort called the Black Orchid. The original plan was to just pick a Best Western and crash there, as (sadly) my mother left our group this morning for colder climes. Things didn't quite work out that way and we were forced to stay at the number #1 rated resort on tripadvisor. Bummer.

As I mentioned above, Belize is tiny. That meant our drive today is short. We spent the morning at the Belize Zoo, which features rare animals found in the jungles of Belize. It was much cooler then we all expected. After that, we headed to Balmopan to stock up on groceries. We did manage to encounter an awesome coffee shop which is where I'm writing this from. Sometime sooner or later I need to grab all of the locations we've visited and post them.

Tonight we're staying near a hummingbird preserve which is supposed to be cool. Tomorrow, we have a chance to do some work on our trucks and tool around in some LR Defenders. The opportunity to get under our trucks is quite welcome, as we are heading into the Guatemalan jungle in the next couple of days. If something goes wrong in the jungle, it's going to throw a serious wrench in our trip.

That's all I have to report, I'll do my best to post the pictures from Calakmul soon. Enjoy a cold drink for me - I'll be sweltering in the humid jungle soon enough.

Charlie

Teotihuacan photos

Here are the Teotihuacan photos I promised - they're from a week or so ago during our time in Mexico City. Enjoy!

Pyramid of the Sun. We climbed this bad boy.

Some of the structures nearby. These look like the foundations to temple or residential buildings.

Me at the top. You can see the pyramid of the Moon in the background.

A better view of the Pyramid of the Moon, as well as the plazas and temples surrounding it.

Stay tuned for more updates!

R&R day

I’m currently writing this beach-side in Mexico with my feet in the Atlantic ocean. Life sure is hard right now.

Calakmul was an incredible site yesterday morning. Scott and I got up early and hiked into the site before it was open. We tried to do as much of the large route as possible - we didn’t complete it but we saw a lot of really cool new stuff. The first route we did really only took us to the money spots and so this was a cool opportunity to visit some of the residential areas. The rooms were actually decently spacious, with an elevated stone platform to sleep on. Life was probably still pretty rough for the rank-and-file Mayans.

Our drive was fairly easy yesterday. The worst part was a 60 kilometer drive on a two lane, narrow road from Calakmul to the main highway. We’re staying at Costa de Cocos which is near the town of Xcalak. The plan here is simple: relax. Our trip has been rockin’ so far, but it’s nice to have other people take care of everything for you.

We also met up with the last members of our crew - John and Tam. They’ve been in the Mexico/Guatemala region for the last six weeks. This now brings us up to 5 vehicles and 9 people.

Well, I’ve got to run. For some reason I’m exhausted even though I didn’t actually do anything all day. Tomorrow we cross our 2nd border and head to Belize. We will be staying the night in Belize City.

Camping in the jungle

I’m sure you guys are tired of reading this, but we had another great day. We didn’t have to hit the road until 9 AM so we slept in a bit. I had a real breakfast (eggs, sausage, and toast) and life was good.

Our drive was relatively short. We weren’t totally sure about the amount of time it would take because the road was only improved last year. It took us about 3 hours to get to the turn off and then about another hour and a half to get to the parking lot where I’m typing this from.

Calakmul is where the fun started. We arrived during the daylight so we had a couple hours to hike and explore the village. The pamphlet I picked up says it has over 140 monuments and is one of the largest Mayan cities ever uncovered - even larger then Tikal, which is probably the most famous.

Another interesting thing about Calakmul is the fact that it sits in a protected biosphere which is home to one of the largest wild cat (jaguars and lynx) populations in North America. We actually heard a small cat off in the distance during the typing of this post.

I’m not even going to try and begin to describe what we saw - I’ll let the photos do the communication. Unfortunately, the bandwidth on our satellite modem is so expensive I can’t upload them right now. Some of us are planning on doing a sunrise hike so I should have spectacular photos from that.

Stay tuned for a pyramid themed update - it will cover the stuff we saw outside of Mexico City and Talakmul.

Chuck

Son of a beach

It took a few days, but I’m finally writing this from the beach again. The last 24 hours have been a struggle to reach this point and it feels good to be back near the ocean. My last entry was posted from our campsite just north of Mexico City and we’ve hammered out a substantial amount of distance since then.

The group had a phenomenal Friday morning. Our deal with the Mexico City police on Thursday left a sour taste in mouth, so it was quite refreshing to deal with the RV park owner. She was a very nice lady who offered us no end of navigational advice. We were set on seeing the pyramids at Tahicuouan. It turned out that we were not more then a few minutes car ride from there. We piled into her pick-up (she was kind enough to drive us!) and soon arrived at the pyramid site.

None of us quite knew what to expect and we were all surprised at the size of the pyramid - which is said to be the largest pyramid outside of Egypt. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, they had reconstructed the entire religious center of the city which was centered around the Temple of the Sun. It was abandoned about 700 AD and was treated as a sacred site by the Toltecs and Aztecs who followed later.

By the time we finally hit the road after our enjoyable morning, it was about 11 AM. Our drive was quite pleasant until we hit an impenetrable traffic snarl. After three or so hours, the fog set in. After we left the fog, the rain set in. We lost about half a days worth of travel and didn’t make it to a hotel until 7 or 8 PM.

We found a beautiful hotel right off the highway. Each room was quite sizable and had a private garage stall. Another unique feature was a dumbwaiter that allowed the occupant to receive food without opening the door. Once we saw that the hotel offered rooms in 4-hour blocks, we began to understand why they offered so much privacy and discretion....

Which brings us to today. Today was our longest single driving today, in which we covered 400+ miles over 10 hours. Luckily, the roads were good and we managed to cover all of the planned distance. Tonight our campsite borders a lagoon on the Gulf of Mexico.

We got some travel advice from the owner of our campsite and we’re altering our route. Today was an intense travel day so we’re abandoning our plan of visiting Campeche and instead we’re driving to the Mayan ruins of Calakmul. Not only is this a shorter drive for us, but the road to Calakmul was only paved last year so it hasn’t been inundated with tourists yet.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,
Chuck

Mummy

Enjoy these photos from the mummy museum. It's pretty creepy in real life - they actually add bodies as families can't pay for their cemetary plots.

Guanajuato photos!

Mexican Prison Blog (just kidding)

Mexico City is not an enjoyable drive. It's huge, smelly, crowded, and has no traffic laws. Somehow I survived. The vehicles are all in good shape and we managed to stay together which is a feat in itself. The event of the day was our encounter with the police. They flagged down Scott under the pretense of helping him with directions and proceeded to try to ask for $900.00 US. Not good. Luckily, James is good at handling that stuff and we only ended up giving him about $200.00 US. Scott got the cop's information and we're going to report him to the proper authorities.

Tomorrow morning we're visiting a pyrmid and then driving to Veracruz. Look for the Guanajuato and mummy photos to be posted later tonight.

Guanajuato

Wow, after spending the last day and a half in Guanajuato, I can easily say it’s the best place we’ve stopped so far. It’s an incredibly beautiful city - in fact it could easily be any number of ancient European cities. Guanajuato was founded in the 1500’s by the Spaniards and flourished after the establishment of silver mines in the area. In the 1800’s, the city became one of the birthplaces of the Mexican Revolution. The Spanish colonial architecture has also been beautifully preserved. The Guanajuato river used to flow through the town, but it was diverted and the old underground channels were turned into roads. The feeling of driving underneath a city through a series of tunnels like this really has to be experienced. The strangest and perhaps most famous of the attractions in Guanajuato is the Mummy Museum. The local soil has a unique mineral composition which causes a number of the bodies buried to become naturally mummified. This was discovered in the 1860’s when bodies were exhumed because their surviving relatives couldn’t pay the fee on their grave-spots. Guanajuato decided to make capitalize on the situation by opening a museum where you can view the mummies! It’s really pretty strange. I’ll post some photos of Guanajuato and the mummy museum soon.

In other news, the latch holding the tire rack onto the back of my Jeep decided to sheer off. Luckily, Scott is handy (and clever) and managed to rig a temporary replacement.

Tequila photos

Here are a couple of photos from our brief stay in the town of Tequila. It was an interesting city, but we arrived late in the day and didn't have much time to explore. To be honest, a lot of us expected more. That's something I think we'll be dealing with quite frequently - spots that are hyped up will disappoint us and cities we know nothing about will knock our socks off.

Here are our vehicles parked in our "compound" of sorts. Hotel Delicias didn't have enough rooms for all of us so they let us rent the courtyard to park all of our vehicles in. Right behind me is a huge locking gate we closed gave an almost castle-like feel.

For some reason, an out of the way hotel in Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico had some pretty crazy hedges. I took this standing on one of the edges of the empty pool. On the other side of the rectangular hedge in the distance are our vehicles. On the left side of the photo, notice the incomplete wall.

Mexican haircut

My parents have been constantly harassing me about the length of my hair since we embarked on our trip. A few days ago (in Mazatlan), beers were consumed, the stars were aligned, and I decided to do something about it. Conveniently enough, a Mexican man was exchanging his haircutting services for pesos. Needless to say I took advantage of the situation.


Here's my before shot - I'm smiling because I've had a few beers.


The festivities begin:
My skepticism manages to get the best of me. "What have I gotten myself into?"

This guy was no amateur. You may think a Mexican man offering haircuts in RV parks would scream "rookie" but this guy was all business when he whipped out the massager:

The finished product:

In all honesty, it was a pretty good haircut. I've got something like a month and a half left on the road so I might try and go for the mohawk next time.

Last night after dinner we decided to head into the town of Tequila to sample some of the local spirits. Why? Scott phrased it best "Drinking tequila in Tequila is like driving to the end of the road. You do it because you have to." I don't remember what type of tequila we sampled (it was definetly Anejo) but it was good for the price - we bought the whole bottle for under $40.00. The whole group decided to go (except Anne, who abhors tequila) and the restaurant across the street even stayed open late for us gringos. The tequila was good, but it didn't compare to the Don Julio 1942 some of us sampled in Alamos. I'm not a tremendous tequila fan by any stretch of the term, but if you have the cash-flow, pick up some 1942.

When we entered yesterday, navigating the narrow cobblestone streets proved to be difficult. My dad's LT practically took up the entire road. This navigation difficulty, combined with the lack of secure parking at any of the hotels in town, led us to try to find an area outside of the town. It was looking rather bleak when we discovered Hotel Delicias. Once Scott managed to describe our vehicles to her, she decided to rent us a nice little courtyard big enough for all four of our trucks! We rented one room for bathroom access/shower access. It was one of those travel situations where things went from terrible to fantastic in about 30 seconds. The courtyard here is full of bizarre little hedges and an empty pool. There is also a basketball court where the baskets have no rims.

Today we head to Guanajuato, which is the capital of the Mexican state of Guanajuato and is actually the cradle of the Mexican revolution. Look for more photos soon!

Mas Tequila

Tonight we're camping in the town of Tequila, which is where tequila was invented nearly 500 years ago when the Spaniards ran out of brandy. It's a nice little town, although slightly disappointing. It was very cool to roll in and see huge tanks with the letters SAUZA on them.

Our drive today was beautiful. Every time we climbed a hill it seemed like we were in a different region with new vegetation. The highlight was driving through lava flows near a dormant volcano.

One thing I've noticed so far while driving is the butterflies that dart by while driving. Unfortunately, these tend to make a large splat when they hit your windshield. Oops, I hope they aren't endangered. Also, today a bird hit my windshield. It made more a "slap" noise and seemed to bounce off of my windshield. We pulled over after paying a toll and there were feathers stuck to the cab of my jeep. Messy!

Bluth family seen south of the border?

During my drive to Mazatlan yesterday, I saw something unusual. As I looked up from switching tracks on my iPod, I noticed a stair-car driving on the other side of the road. No hop-ons were spotted, but Annyong may have been behind the wheel. Does anyone have Gene Parmesan's contact info?

For those not familiar with a stair-car, it's a mobile set of stairs used to board a large private jet. Here's a photo of a typical stair-car:

Right down by the beach!

(this was originally written at 9:00 PM on Sunday the 15th)

Ahh, the beach. A wonderful place to spend a few days in February. El Fuerte was...interesting (our campground seemed to be the epicenter of all the local festivities) but it’s nice to be some where new. Today we abandoned (temporarily) the overland trails of yesterday and got back on the highways/toll roads. Of course, some of the toll roads are only marginally better then some of our overland trails - and they’re expensive! Some can be 5-10 dollars a pop. One other thing - the Federales drive very cool Dodge Chargers with a slick blue/white paint job.

Today our destination was Mazatlan, which is known as a hive of tourist activity. The drive went by relatively quickly as we left the deserts of Sonora and entered the agricultural region of Sinaloa. Unfortunately, we only are spending one night here on the beach but later in our trip we will make up for that.

We’re staying at an RV park which is quite nice but I’m getting anxious to really hit the jungle and hopefully get into some more remote territory. Our vehicles have been quite popular among the other tenants here and we’ve made some new friends.

Today we head to the town of Tequila. If you haven’t guessed, it’s a hub of tequila distillation.

V-day in a Mexican campground

After three days of Mexican highway, we finally had some overland action! After leaving the Hacienda de los Santos, we drove 74 miles to the town of El Fuerte. The drive was beautiful - we spent most of it in the high desert. Picturesque mountains were off in the distance while the road was surrounded small shrubs and trees. Our convoy passed through many small towns and ranching communities during our drive today and it was really interesting to see these small towns up close. Since today was Saturday, kids were running around all over. Our lunch spot was in a vibrant community where families were spending the afternoon relaxing out side. Scott bought a bunch of soccer balls to hand out to kids during our trip, so we gave away our first one.

About 3/4 through our drive, we came to a huge man-made lake and dam. What was particularly interesting was a huge stone statue. A local child informed us this was of the lake god - Lolak.

Tonight we’re camping in the town of El Fuerte. It’s an old Spanish city which was used as a base to wage war on the native tribes. Today, it features a beautiful main square and several old colonial buildings to see. No one is quite sure where the original fort was located, but the town has built a museum on one of the possible sites.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone viewing this blog. I had no idea, but apparently Mexican’s love to celebrate the holiday - we’ve encountered several folks enjoying the holiday to excess and there was a live band playing next to our campsite for several hours.

As I've typed this, we encountered Lupe. Lupe is an extremely intoxicated Mexican resident of our campground who decided to befriend us. Lupe has also served 3 to 4 years in a penitentiary in Minnesota.

Tomorrow, we head to Mazatlan!

On the road again!

Our stay in Alamos has come to an end. Today we embark our first overland route and are headed to the city of El Fuerte. It's located in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Yesterday was busy - Scott gave us our first photo lesson which was quite interesting (the subject was correct use of the aperture) and then we explored the city. We had some absolutely dynamite tacos from a little cart near the main square - they were incredible.

Photos!

Here is the main square of our beautiful hotel:

Here's the old colonial church in the center of town:

The incredible lunch mentioned above:

Here's a view of the city from a hill we hiked up:

And last but not least, we have a family photo:

Stay tuned. Remember, you can see exactly where we are using this link: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0GRNI8dEoTsmJMyHcgvfn6hCTYV4uWYET (it should update every 10 minutes and if our position hasn't changed, we haven't moved.)

Chuck

Alamos

Yesterday we arrived in the colonial city of Alamos. We're staying at a beautiful hotel and the owner is a big fan of Scott's magazine and it turns out the Mexican government is having an economic summit here at the same time. They must have decided they needed my input. It's time to explore the city, I'll post later!

First day in Mexico!

Well, we've finally left the USA. The border crossing was incredibly easy and none of our vehicles were stopped. Vehicle importation was another story. The process wasn't difficult, but it was time consuming. My dad was stopped and had to run to his truck several times in order to find the proper documents. Our group didn't make it was far as we would have liked due to the time spent at the vehicle importation center, but we did celebrate with some roadside tacos. They were delicious. The rest of the day was spent driving to an RV campground near the city of Hermosillo. Tomorrow we head to the town of Alamos!

Chuck

Rock crawlin'

Above is a picture of yours truly driving the Jeep through a stream during our rock crawling lesson. This basically taught us how to crawl over extremely rocky terrain.

In other news, I just drove away from the gas pump with the nozzle still inserted into my vehicle. Oops. Luckily I made it out of there without the cashier noticing me. On to the border!

Almost to Mexico!

2-9-09
Greetings from the Arizona desert. It’s been a busy 24 hours - we’ve packed the vehicles, met the group and driven to the desert outside of Tucson. We’re being hosted on the property of Jim & Roseanne, two friends of Scott (and contributors to his magazine). I enjoyed a delicious steak tonight and between the last two nights, I’m ready to eat something besides beef (delicious, delicious beef).

Much of today was spent behind the wheel - my dad and I enjoyed a delicious breakfast with my grandfather at the The Good Egg in Scottsdale, AZ. TGE prepares delicious biscuits and gravy by the way. The next two or so hours were spent working some kinks out of the air suspension in the Jeep and packing both of our vehicles. Soon enough, we drove out to Mesa, AZ to pick up my mother who arrived from Cedar Rapids. After a supermarket sweep at AJ’s Fine Foods with the rest of our group (James, Stacey, Scott, Stephanie and the Nordstrom clan) we drove to the fine homestead I am currently typing this from.

In the last update, I said I would provide a little bit more information about the training session we completed. Here it is. The program began fairly simply, with a safety lecture. We learned the importance of inspecting your vehicle before each trip and every day while on an expedition. After this we got to the good stuff: driving. The first activity involved pulling a vehicle as close to an orange cone as possible, this was designed to get us familiar with the dimensions of our vehicle. The group then spent time driving uphill on sand, airing down tires, and completing more elaborate driving maneuvers. Equipment is very important during an expedition like this so we familiarized ourselves with advanced four-wheeling options like rear and front lockers, disconnecting the sway bar, and climbing hills at an angle.

After we completed day one, it basically rained until the next morning. Day 2 was spent learning rescue techniques. Once we hit the muddy roads of Central America, this could be super important when one of our trucks gets stuck..

One quick note: this entry will probably be posted much earlier then I can post the photos of our training. The rural nature of my travels prevents me from having the necessary internet connection to upload a lot of my photos - but I will get them up when I can.

In more exciting news, you my up to date location at this link: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0GRNI8dEoTsmJMyHcgvfn6hCTYV4uWYET

My dad has a GPS transponder that transmits it’s location to the link posted above. It’s a great way to keep tabs on exactly where I am. The link will be added permanently to my blog.

That’s all for today, keep checking back for more updates and photos. Tomorrow we cross the border!

Reed - I hope the pillow industry is treating you well. Think of me when you're stuck in traffic on the LA freeway.

Mike & Gina - Good to see you're following the blog. I'll definitely take your advice!

Chuck

Rain in Arizona??

Wow, who knew it could rain so much in Arizona? Our whirlwind 4-wheel training course was a lot of fun even though it rained most of the time. It really helped me get comfortable with a lot of the advanced capabilities of the vehicle I'm driving - I was also put the waterproofing I applied to my tent to the test. I managed to stay mostly dry. I took some pretty interesting photos of the rest of our training group (there were three other "students" and two instructors in our group, of which only Scott will be heading to Panama with us) which I'll try to get posted soon since my internet connection has been pretty spotty.

My dad and I are currently in Phoenix, AZ. We're staying with my grandparents for the night and pick up my mother tomorrow after noon, after which we head to Tucson to finally rendezvous with the entire group.

Below are the photos I promised in my last entry.

The enormous 41-inch Continental tires on the big rig - these things can handle just about anything. To put it in perspective, I'm 7o inches tall. Do the math.

Here I am in the back of the jeep. It's a good shot of the interior with the tent fully inflated. You can't see where I sleep in this photo.
My rig is on the left and Scott's is on the right. Scott is the big guy in the middle and to the left of him is have Nathan and on the right of him is Jeremy. Many thanks to the two of them for helping us get prepared.
That's all for tonight. Keep checking back and feel free to leave comments.

P.S. AJ - the rig handles fairly well. The visibility isn't the best and it's a bit tall but it's fun as hell to drive on the trail.

Chuck

Prep day

After an 8 or so drive yesterday, we arrived in Prescott. The drive featured some incredible scenery but with I didn't have a chance to stop and snap any photos, unfortunately. Lunch consisted of a stop at Sonic. Our rather tasty dinner consisted of salmon, rice, and vegetables (thanks once again to Steve and Kathy for having us over for dinner). Steve and Kathy both spend significant amounts of time on a research station in Greenland and brought some ice back after their last stay. This type of ice is unique because it has a lot of gasses trapped and makes a very cool crackling noise when you put it in your drink.

Today was spent at Scott and Stephanie's (Scott is our trip mastermind - he's essentially put the whole thing together and Stephanie is his wife, who will also be our expedition) home putting the final touches on our vehicles. The primary task today was to finish waterproofing the roof tent on my Jeep, which proved to be a bit messy. Once that was finished, the rest of the day had a little bit slower pace as we took care of odds and ends. We met some more of our fellow expedition members and had an early dinner.

I've been trying to post some photos but blogger is giving me trouble - I'll try and throw some up in the morning. Tomorrow we head out bright and early for some 4-wheel drive instruction. Dave has completed the course but this should be new to me.

Cruisin' USA

Well, it's time to hit the road and head to Arizona. Here's a photo of the vehicle I'll be driving, in "street mode" (ie the roof folded up).


Also, check back soon. I plan on setting up an additional online photo gallery where I can post some hi-res images as well as a way to determine where I am in real time.

Pertinent Info

Here's some background info my dad typed up concerning our trip - hopefully this gives everyone a little better idea of what's going on:

"We leave the US on February 11th through Nogales, Mexico for a seven-week journey through Mexico and Central America via remote, unimproved roads, visiting amazing historical, cultural and natural destinations in each country. We plan to arrive in Panama City sometime around April 1st.
After placing our vehicles on a cargo ship, we head back to the states.

There will be a total of five vehicles on the trip; one other EarthRoamer JP, a Jeep Rubicon, and a Tacoma Double Cab. Scott Brady, owner of Expeditions West and Overland Journal is our Team Leader. Scott has extensive experience in overland travel and four-wheel driving skills. We have access to a vast network of friends and resources along the route."

Here's our route:
Pretty cool, eh? . I'm not sure what the mileage but I'll try and figure it out.

Elliot - I'll see what I can do about your request.

Snack attack

Anyone have any snack suggestions for the drive tomorrow? I'm thinking:

• Energy drinks
• Water (and/or Gatorade)
• Chips (and/or snacks such as Combos)
  
• Candy bar
• Cookies
• Main course: summer sausage and Ritz crackers

When the hunger strikes, it's best to be prepared.

Hittin' the road tomorrow

Well, the vehicles are packed and tomorrow we hit the road. We've got about an 8 hour drive from Pagosa Springs, CO to Prescott, AZ. The weather's been great here in south-western CO but apparently we could be in for a surprise or two along the way.

Here's the vehicles we'll be taking. I'm driving the Jeep (which has the roof unfolded and the tent inflated - it's inspired by similar vehicles used on safaris) and Dave is driving the big dog in the background. I'll throw up some photos of the individual vehicles later. Please forgive the cheesy father/son pose:



Pretty boss. This is the inaugural post and if anyone has any comments, please leave them and I'll try to address them in a later post.