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Mark's "quit my job now I'm traveling" thread

Discussion in 'Travel' started by IDtrucks, May 8, 2016.

  1. May 31, 2017 at 11:31 AM
    #161
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    Austria:

    The train ride was long and uneventful. We crossed the border into Poland, and I transfered trains so I could start using my rail pass. Around the border of poland there were some pretty run down looking towns with some awesome abandoned buildings and factories that I really wanted to go explore and creep around. I almost just got off the train and stayed in one of these town for a day or two but I was running low on time to get back to ski and then fly home. Next time...

    A night train from Krakow to Innsbruck landed me there at about 7:00 am, so i killed some time in this train station till I could go ask if the one affordable hostel in town had a bed. I was so used to just going on a whim, i left myself all day to find a place to stay. Luckily they did, and damn was this place cool. It was a 2 story hostel above this amazing bakery in this adorable back alley in Innsbruck. All the windows were decorated like a christmas calendar. With my room taken care of early in the morning i ditched my stuff and explored the town. I can't say enough about how awesome and beautiful this town is. Knowing what I know now its like the Austrian equivalent of Jackson. Resorts all over the place, trams going up right from town. Skiing int he winter, mtn biking in the summer...then you get the amazing architecture and great culture of central western europe all seeping in...god it was cool. After seeing the town and the olympic village and a sweet enclosed farmers market, I went and picked up a rental board and boots so I could go ride the next day. This set up was actually good quality and it rode pretty damn well. That night, like tradition I corralled some people from to hostel to go to the Christmas market, and we had drinks and enjoyed the city. Wanting to find some live music we end up at this regge rock concert in this basement bar. It was a cool scene, cool music, and there were even people crowd surfing!

    I found out the Stubai glacier was the only place with a good amount of rideable terrain (it wasnt a good winter for europe really at all this year) so with that I found my bus, walked through town with my ski stuff and hopped on the bus to the resort. The trams and chairlifts in europe are incredible. Huuuge lengths between towers, super comfy seats, buildings just slapped on the side of mountains. And the lift ticket ws only 55 bucks! a third of the best resorts in the US.

    While on a gondy ride up I run into these 3 americans who were there on a trip that are teaching english in spain. We get to chatting and I join up with them upon finding out one of their friends had never boarded before. This was a bad place to learn, without a lesson. So being a snowboard instructor i spend the first run teaching him the basics. He picked it up super fast and was doing a good job until the very bottom where he gets cocky, starts going too fast, and caches an edge slamming him into the ice and really messing up his shoulder. He was convinced he broke it so he went to the first aid place, got a sling and was out for the whole day. Me and the other two guys kept shredding till the last lift. Somwhere on the way down we see the sun going down over the alps and get drawn in by its beauty.

    We decide were going to sit at the top of the mountain, watch the sunset and smoke a joint. By the grace of god we got it lit, and shared one of the best sunsets ive seen throughout my travels. It was a surreal moment. Skiing down, with the sun set behind us, I was playing the sound of silence by disturbed and traversing accross the mountain looking into this endless valley beneath me as the snow receded...that was a mind blowing run and the perspective of how impressive these mountains are will stick with me forever.

    After getting on the last tram down the guys head back into town to check out their friend, and I try my hand at Austrian apre ski. It kicked american apre ski right in the nuts. Awesome out door patio, cheap tall beers, raging music we could hear from the top of the mountain, and people partying everywhere. I just went up and asked a group of italians if I could party with them and they said shit ya so we drank beer and danced in the neon lights.

    I wanted to go to check out another ski resort but it just got logistically harder and there was less snow so I opted to head back up to Stubai with my new friends for a second day and enjoy one of the best terrain parks in europe. We stopped at the store in the am and got iced coffee and baileys to pound on the bus ride up. We get to the resort, buy tickets (i bought mine in german and they were impressed, though that small interaction was about all the german I could squeeze out), and headed up to the hill. We took a few laps and I decided id catch up with them later. I wanted to ride the park and they werent that good. The park was sweet, had awesome rail and jump features, its own tow rope, and I was having run getting back into it. Everyone i rode the tow rope with was amazed there was an american in austria for the early season shredding. The cool part was the ski culture there was just like the us. just rad bums living out of their cars having fun skiing.

    About 2 or 3 hours into my park session bad luck struck again and I went for a trick i shouldnt have, got bucked off a rail and drilled my shoulder into the ice. It was sore, i yelled swear words and brushed it off. The adrenaline wore off at the top of the tow rope and i decided to head in to the lodge. The adrenaline wore off more as i strapped in and could feel things crunching and grinding in my shoulder. Now convinded i broke my shoulder (the same one as the guy from the previous day) i headed right into the first aid station, got a sling, and called my parents (2am in the us) and asked if they could make an appointment to see a doctor/surgeon for when im back because this thing was fucked.

    I got down the mtn, returned my board and boots and the shop manager offered to drive me to the hospital so I could see if I could even fly. So here I am, back at a german speaking hospital, but with no interpreter. Luckily its a resort town and theyre used to foreigners fucking themselves up. I fill out my paperwork and get to waiting. After a while and many x rays i couldnt believe the nuse told me nothing was broken. Might have ligament tears but i could at least fly home to have us insurance fix it. I got some pain meds and a real sling and made my way back, painfully to the hostel.

    I checked out, loaded up my pack with a new injury now and headed to frankfut for a day prior to catching my flight back to the us.

    BUT FIRST, not before stopping in Prague in the Czech Republic.

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  2. May 31, 2017 at 12:28 PM
    #162
    Kohan21n

    Kohan21n A caffeine dependent life form - IG @dizzy.trd

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    I gotta ask, how did you have enough money to do all this? That is so awesome. A dream of mine honestly.
     
  3. Jun 11, 2017 at 8:27 PM
    #163
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    I've always been frugal and had a little stash of money saved, through my last few years of college. I began planning this at least 6 months before I left, so I mapped out my budget and saved even more while working full time. Not having any loans (student debt or a car payment) also made it pretty easy.

    So many people have a dream of some sort like this, to break out of the traditional mound and really take an adventure. Still has been the best decision of my life. I mean how could you ever regret something like that if you learn so much from it.

    Though I was going for a total life style change at the very end (getting to that). If you don't make big changes after that kind of trip, imo it's just a vacation
     
  4. Jun 20, 2017 at 6:15 AM
    #164
    Hardscrabble

    Hardscrabble Well-Known Member

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    A little of this and a little of that.
    I just got caught up on your travels Mark. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your narrative and seeing the pictures from the places you visited.

    Thank you for sharing your adventures with TW!
     
    ChadsPride likes this.
  5. Jun 24, 2017 at 7:33 PM
    #165
    FuzzysTacos

    FuzzysTacos Well-Known Member

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    Do it and enjoy it while you can, that's the dream - retire early!
     
  6. Oct 5, 2017 at 7:28 PM
    #166
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    I havent posted in this thread in a LOOOOONG while, BUT, I aint done yet!!

    After skiing in austria and wrecking my shoulder I make another couple stops on my way to leave europe. Everyone talked up Prauge and the Czech republic as being one of the best places to go party and have a great city experience. At this point I was pretty done drinking and partying and dealing with that hostel scene. But i wanted to at least give it a try and see how it was.

    I really liked the city on first impressions and it got better from there. You could tell it was growing its own personality with modern traits like a very good public transport system and malls and downtown district but it was still full of energy and excitement, not like a city that feels trapped if that makes sense.

    Bryce, my copilot down to florida, his brother lived and worked at the mad house prague hostel, the best party hostel in the city and he said I should check it out. Even from my stick in the mud mentality at that point I could see why. Cool staff, great atmosphere, and the reputation of the place did a good job of keeping the right people there and the wrong people out. After a few rounds of drinking games, one of which involved a brit chugging beer from his shoe, I obliged and went one one of the pub crawls. I ended up staying longer than expected, and went to all the bars...it was a fun group of people and the drinks were fairly cheap. It was pretty cool checking out a glimpse of the night life, but in the end it was still just the same club scene i never liked in the first place. The next night I went to a music venue and watched some jazz/blues music which I obviously enjoyed way more.

    Ironically the first thing we did, the evening i got there was go see a movie. Which was awesome, super relaxing, and fun just hanging out with people doing a normal activity lol. I spent the following day touring the city with some people, checking out the parliment building above the city, checking out some great czech restaurants.

    I stumbled into a czech music store...and after thumbing through some cds i found a czech country music cd! I didnt know wtf it was like, but I thought it would be an awesome gift for this gal that I was really close to, that I met western swing dancing at the local boise bars. When I got back and gave it to her she thought it was hysterical and loved it by the way.

    My obsession with the happy aura and gluwine of Christmas markets was reaching critical levels, so I went the one in the town square and petted some goats, and ate a trdnlik. Basicially dough wrapped around a hot cylinder, covered in sugar. damn was it good!

    My last stop was a quick one day layover in Frankfurt where my plane would depart a week before christmas. Frankfurt was a pretty classic german city, rivers and historic buildings destroyed and rebuilt after ww2, along with a busling night life and a healthy amount of live music.

    After a short day in Frankfurt, I left "The Alchemist" book I got while in Spain on a shelf in the hostel with my name on it, hopefully for some other traveler to read, and it was off to the airport to return to the USA after 3 full months traveling all over europe.

    Going through the customs and security in the US I was pretty shocked how impatient and rude the agents were to people trying to get in that might not have spoken that good of english. Kind of upsetting.

    It took about 5 days to get over the jet lag coming back. I had none going there, But i was asleep at 7 at night at up at 4am for almost a week after wards. so annoying.

    Also things I noticed, about the second day getting back I was driving, and sitting at a light that I got stuck a few cycles in and started to get really mad...then it dawned on me I never got that mad on any train or bus I was on...because its so out of your control you just deal with it. But in a car you feel like you are in more control, so you get more pissed when you cant do whatever you want. It was a crazy realization that simply driving around in cars makes all of us just more stressed than we need to be. Breathe, lean back, and realize that extra red light or the dude cutting in front of you is not the worst thing to happen to.


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  7. Oct 5, 2017 at 7:41 PM
    #167
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    Mark "Buck"
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    At this point, its been a year since I was starting the european leg of me life changing adventure. October 5th 2016, one year ago, I was...

    In Aarhus Denmark with my exchange friend from college recovering from my broken ankle and riding a bike through the city.

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    Face book has already been showing me pics and memories from a year ago, at Oktoberfest in Munich, and seeing the disney castle Neuschwanstein when we hiked up with a bottle of wine and drank it under the sunset, only to then sprint down a mountain to catch our train.

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    I finally understand what "wanderlust" is. My good friend from college was totally right, that it "could take a year or more before the importance of what you did to sink in and understand it".

    Well i get it. When i see pictures of the places I went, and think back on the total spontaneity of the entire roller coaster ride of an adventure I took, or the come and go relationships I made there, and close calls and splic second decisions I made on a daily basis...I get sick to my stomach. Not in a bad way...in an anxious way. I know what it feels like to actually...wander. Without a care or a direction other than your own heart and desire. To totally care for yourself and be on your own in a new place. The whole feeling of going all of these places, and the unknown, and the new beauty you see every day, is indescribable and addicting. Thats the real travel bug, that's wanderlust. I cant imagine how much better I feel as a person after doing all this, and how pained I am to need to do it all over again.

    If I could do the exact same thing, and go the exact same places. The cross country road trip, sailing in the keys, Sangria in San Sebastian, Caving in italy, and hiking in Slovakia..I would do the exact same thing it was so amazing. I want to soak it in over and over. In 23 years of life, quitting my job to go on all these travels was the best decision i have ever had. And if anyone has any shred of a desire to take the leap for the first time...absolutely do it. There is no way you'll regret it, even if you break your ankle, blow all your money, blow up your shoulder and end up back at your parents...itll be all worth it!

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  8. Oct 5, 2017 at 8:01 PM
    #168
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    PART 4: JACKSON WYOMING


    That's right. I'm still not done. I didn't go on all that adventure to come back and settle into the same monotonous bull shit I was doing before. Hell no, I wanted to live somewhere else.

    I also wanted to keep my degree slightly relevant. So I set out for either Denver, or Jackson Wyoming. I drove down to Jackson to interview at a little local hill, Snow King Mountain, for an accounting gig, as well as check out a potential living situation. Snow King didnt have a full time accounting gig open at the time, but the cfo said that one might be opening by the end of winter. In the meantime the ski school needed pay roll and supervisory help. So I said why not, lets give it a whirl. It was a long shot and I could be jobless a couple months after getting there but I was ready for a risk.

    Speaking of risk, I didnt know how dire the housing situation in jackson actually was till after I moved here. But its impossible to find housing, in the middle of summer or winter. Even more impossible to find affordable housing. Luckily a member on here I had met 2 years prior in moab happened to be renting a 2 bed hotel room for his first winter in Jackson and said I had first dibs at the bed, and a 350 each a month for this motel room in the Virginian hotel...it was in my budget and Gavin liked me so i said fuck it lets do it.

    I told Vail Resorts in Denver (who also offered me an entry level job) that I found something else, im moving to Jackson. Holy cow if I knew what I was getting myself into...

    First off, living in a hotel has its own challenges. First off, we were in the basic rooms, so we had a microwave and that was it. I like cooking and not eating shit...gavin not as much. He had been surviving on a little ass crock pot and a microwave for a few months before i got there. I brought my 2 bruner camp stove and some pots and pans so we could at least cook meals outside. We did pretty good and got pretty creative with dinners for two in our hotel room. Always to the wandering noses of other bums living there and guest staying near us, who would poke their heads out and see what that smell was.

    Gavin was a ski instructor at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and I was a supervisor and snowboard instructor at the much less highly regarded Snow King Mountain. I told myself one day I would get a reall adult job at Jackson Hole. If I hated it there then I need to find a new career because if I cant enjoy accounting at a ski resort the accounting is the problem. Until then I would enjoy the ride at Snow King, which was a cluster fuck of an adventure, It was tiny ski school, with 60 instructors, vs Jackson hole's 700 instructors. It was also a tiny mountain, so rules and procedures just...didnt exist lol.

    My first day on the job, my other supervisor co worker at 5:01 when all the kids left from the lessons pulled some PBRs from the fridge and told me "We cant do data entry sober" and we cracked beers open and so began the trend of my winter.

    In the course of about the first week I rode a snowmobile around the resort carrying fire wood with, skiied every day, never missing a pow day, played bar tender and chef, and copious after work trips to the bar or the filing cabinet with various liquor bottles behind it. I didnt make much money, but damn was it fun. Every Friday night we would pound drinks, put more drinks in our jackets and head into the Ice rink 75 yards from the ski school and watch the local jackson hole moose hockey team kick ass, while we got kick ass drunk. After that we wander into downtown and keep the party going till 2am...we had to be back to teach lessons at 9am the next morning anyway.

    FYI: The chicken nugget is a perfect map of Italy and the ketchup dots are all the places I went.

    Frist pic: With my truck full loaded with as much as I could pack into half a hotel room, I cross teton pass into wilson at 10pm and stop for some swing dancing at the stage coach.

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    Last edited: Oct 5, 2017
  9. Oct 5, 2017 at 8:31 PM
    #169
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    Mark "Buck"
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    JVC Deck, 10" sub mountd in rear seat cubby, 2 LED off road lights mounted in grille, amber raptor style grille lights, LED rock lights, square led bed light, custom made fuse block tray, 12 blade Blue Sea fuse block, 100a marine circuit breaker, black plasti dipped full grille, tinted tail lights + third, Uniden 520 with 4' firestik, Bilstein 5100s with 620lb Eibach coils, Diff drop, Chevy 63 leaf swap, TG creeper joints, 14" triangulated biletein 5125s, 8" extended steel braided brake line, TG Rock Sliders, CBI Moab 1.0 front bumper, custom fabbed bed rack, full TRD E-Locker axle swap and matching re-gear with custom stand alone wiring circuit, 29 spline pinion flange from an 06 wishbone runner, tubbed for 35x12.5" general grabbers on Ultra type 181 wheels, crush sleeve eliminator, Mini ARB compressor, front ARB locker, garage fab aluminum front skid plate, custom built high clearence rear bumper, removable mothafuckin doors
    As the winter progressed, it just got better and better. Working full time at Snow King, I got free passes to JHMR and Grand Targhee. So on my days off from teaching boarding at the king I went and skiied free at jhmr, which is normally a 140 day pass. I also went out for teton pass back country hikes and even got back into grand teton national park for some ski tours. I did a lot of skiing at jhmr by myself and found friends every not and then on the mountain. Everyone was working different hours or teaching lessons. But I didnt care. This was one of the highest snow falls in the last 30 years, so every day was a pow day. I was in high heaven all the time.

    While living at the Virg, wednesdays were karaoke nights at the saloon which was about 30 feet from our door. So gavin and i would pregame, go to the virg, see our drunk singing friends, join them, and stumble back to our room. On multiple occasions one or two of us got locked out in the -20 temps. it sucksed. Gavin was known to sleep walk so occasinally hed walk out in some sweats and bang on doors. He even drunkenly pee'd on his pet snake one night. That was quite a sight to wake up to.

    One thing I will always lothe about jackson, is that the dance scene is so void compared to even boise. The first 2 weeks i went to blue grass tuesdays to swing dance, where all the locals go, I became one of the best swing dancers in jackson. Just because nobody had done it like I had in boise. And I was young and knew a host of dips and complicated moves.

    You become VERY popular when you are one of the best dancers in a bar with a band. I hepled a ton of people with 2 left feet get some confidence, and wooed a good number of girls in the course of one song.

    To say my winter turned into a routine is accurate and not accurate. Most days were the same in principal...wake up, eat some makeshift breakfast, get shitty hotel coffee, scrape snow off the truck go teach snowboarding, or just go snowboarding, come back make dinner, have a beer or two with gavin, talk about my out of coutrol ski hill or his rich ass clients or annoying ass kids, or dont...just go right to the bar, swing dance, listen to bands...what ever it may be. We snuck into resort hot tubs after skiing, or went to the river hot springs. One sunday afternoon after hiking teton pass and getting a lap in I saw some guys building some side country jumps, and I brought some beers and asked if I could join. They said of course and not long after were all sessioning these super fun jumps into pow landings. Come to find out they were all filmers or editors for Teton Gravity Research...pretty cool group to get to know!

    I of course began to meet some amazing people here, serious athletic, knowledgeable, and talented skiiers and general outdoors people. One such gal, sprout, who i had a short thing with and am still great friends with, was the first person to really take me into the Jackson Hole back country and show me the off piste stuff. She was also one of the best and most fun dancers in Jackson. Thats how we met in the first place. I saw her killing it on the dance floor, asked her for a spin and before long we were doing flips and really learning a lot together. Total bad ass mountain gal, been back country skiing for 10 years in jackson, was a hunting camp guide, sewed her own clothes...all around amazing person.

    The cool thing is I met so many people like this, the town was full of people as eccentric and different as the town itself was. The more bums and ski folk I met, the more adventures and fun ski trips I went on. Day in and out, skiing, dancing, cooking in the hotel room without getting caught..it was a good routine.

    Just like quitting my job and traveling the US and Europe, moving to a ski town on a whim is a big risk, I could have been with nothing and be back at my parents starting over a number of times. But I kept getting lucky and making it work, and the fairy tale just kept on rolling, in one of the best ski resort towns in the country. Never a bad day.

    IMG_5661.jpg IMG_5672.jpg IMG_5676.jpg IMG_5686.jpg IMG_5701.jpg IMG_5710.jpg IMG_5726.jpg IMG_5732.jpg IMG_5744.jpg IMG_5759.jpg IMG_5767.jpg IMG_5838.jpg
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2017
  10. Oct 7, 2017 at 10:55 PM
    #170
    Digiratus

    Digiratus Adventurer

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    So awesome. Thank you!
     
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  11. Oct 8, 2017 at 2:25 PM
    #171
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    No thank YOU mike :D

    I realized ALL of my links from the drive and florida broke, so im going through the painful process of actually uploading all of them back to the posts.
     
  12. Oct 8, 2017 at 2:52 PM
    #172
    gainman

    gainman Semper Fi

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    Stuff
    Do you think 10k will be enough for a backpacking trip from London to Russia?
     
  13. Oct 30, 2017 at 7:26 PM
    #173
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    Depends on A LOT. How long? What kind of lifestyle do you want to live while doing it? What things do you want to experience along the way?

    But ya 10g would be more than enough as long as you keep accommodations in check. The hostels that are about 20-25 a night (eastern europe excluding the major cities that wll be like 10-20)ive found are worth it due to having things like breakfast and showers and good accommodations in a convienent place. Cheaping out to go below that and save a few bucks i dont think is worth it. The quality goes down and its not as fun. Also, i would just avoid anything with over 150 beds. Its too commercialized and you lose the backpacking feel.


    Transportation wise: Its a fair bit slower, and unless you're making huge jumps from place to place (vs traveling in a linear order) busses will be cheaper than the trains provided you dont have a strict time table. Even doing the euro rail passes, with unlimited x number of days of travel, the jaunts from city to city via train hardly ever went over the break even when comparing what it would have cost for bus ticket. The exceptions being over night trains. If you know you need to whack a ton of KMs off those overnight trains can be nice...albeit uncomfortable if youre cheaping out and just getting a set and not a cheap bed.


    Whats your plan for russia? Have you started working on a visa to get in? I know a tourism visa can be hard to get there. Where all are you looking to go in russia? I wanted to get in there bad, but i didnt know about the extra steps for a visa so i just stopped at Ukriane.
     
  14. Oct 30, 2017 at 7:41 PM
    #174
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    In other news nobody cares about, I have fixed all of the pics from the road trip, and uploaded them so I wont have to deal with broken links. If there is a broken link that just says i missed deleting the old link when i uploaded the new pics.

    I now get to go through and fix all the pics from the summer. Which I don't mind at all, I get to go and relive each picture as i read my own posts and upload them. Its a good experience. Even seeing and revisiting the pics of sluggo down on the overseas highway and parked in downtown key west, even today I can't believe I did that. Like I look at the pictures and it almost still isnt real to me, like im seeing somone else's photos...but I took them, I drove my rock crawler down to Key West FL Crazy
     
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  15. Dec 4, 2017 at 4:30 PM
    #175
    ButtaYoBreadd

    ButtaYoBreadd Well-Known Member

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    Was just reading the 9th page alone and wow man, what a freaking journey! Awesome!
     
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  16. Apr 2, 2018 at 4:23 PM
    #176
    IDtrucks

    IDtrucks [OP] Unhinged and Fluid

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    updates as many pics as i could salvage from the summer in the keys without my laptop, which died on me. Summer in jackson still to come
     
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  17. Apr 3, 2018 at 5:25 AM
    #177
    Iamraiderpower

    Iamraiderpower Well-Known Member

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    Been watching this since the beginning, well done brother :thumbsup:
     
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