FL to WA and back! An “in progress” 6 week Camping and trails adventure with my wife.

After about two months of daily work on my Tacoma and camper we are finally ready to go.
I’d like to thank my son Jason for all the help with design and fabrication! Tim Murphy for sourcing all the metal and the aluminum fabrication, Tampa Spring in Ocala for the leaf addition, 4Wheel Parts Jacksonville on Atlantic (Mo!) for the last minute help with the bump stops, Town &Country Tire in Live Oak and Murray Tire in Lake City, service team at Rountree Moore Toyota in Lake City, and Southern Customs in Alachua for the help with tires, wheels, spares and necessary accessories, Drive Line Services of Jacksonville for installation of the new 4.56 gears, and Larry’s Trim for custom seat inserts. Lots of great professional help and service, thank you all!

First night out: looking out the camper window.



But then......



But it cleared out before morning and we were good to go for day 2!


Caught up with my wife’s family who are interned in the Vicksburg city cemetery:
Beautiful place and well maintained.

Nice National Forrest Camp Ground for night #2


Day 3 & 4 finds us in Athens Texas visiting family. We’re camping in a small campground inside their lakefront, gated sub division!

 

Super nice time with the kids and granddaughter! Here’s a pic of our camping spot, and a preview of what’s coming tomorrow. We’re finally doing some off-road travel, driving Rampart Road from Colorado Springs (Garden of the gods) to Denver!

Happy Independence Day!

 

Subbed

 

Successful trip on Rampart Range Road. Horrible washboard in several sections and some small fails in the camper as a result, but nothing we couldn’t clean up and repair easily. The stove top glass cover came off (didn’t break! It just came off). The heater cover also came off. We had some pretty heavy dust infiltration too. Flagstaff SE, not so Off Road as we had hoped.

Here’s some pics from the journey yesterday.









And at the campground after the car wash! No fireworks because of the burn ban.



More pics of some cool views from the drive yesterday to come when I can post them up.

 

Rampart Range Road

 

And finally....a “Real Trail”...Jones Pass earlier today!!

Airing down at the trailhead....good to share with other Taco’s.






Fantastic vistas, easy driving, great camping spots. Jones Pass, best part of the trip so far.

 

Pretty cool place to stay tonight too. Shadow Mountain Lake near Grand Lake CO.

 

Great pics man! I plan to do a cross country trip from west to east and back too next year!

 

Thanks Nick! More to come too, for sure. We are having a blast. Found some issues with the camper but nothing we can’t work out so far. Where do you plan on going in the East?

 

I'm shooting for Charleston, SC then maybe PA and Bangor, Me if I have time I plan to go the southern route then swing around through the northern routes and visit my home state Indiana, Yellowstone, the rockies, and swing down from Washington to Southern California I'm going to break in my new 4Runner Off Road in the process, the Tacoma stays at home

 

Sounds like a great trip. My wife’s been looking at the 4 Runners. She likes the new look. We stayed in a county park/campground outside of Chareleston last year.....James Island if I remember? It was nice and inexpensive really. They have a shuttle to downtown too.

 

RMNP! Never as great as you remember but always something cool or different enough to be worth the visit. Typical summer crowds and Bear Lake was closed by 10:30 due to full parking. We went to see the rock church/St. Mallo’s Chappel and I finally got some new boots from The Warming House. They have been selling hiking boots and camping gear for as long as I remember and really do a great job of fitting and matching based on your feet and your use. We did get to drive the old one way road, Old Fall River Road, back from Estes Park which was excellent. Not too crowded and we saw things we had never seen before. Also stopped at the old dude ranch spot in the Southern meadow and walked down to Lake Irene. Great day in Co. I’ll have to add the pics later as the internet is not cooperating...

 

Whew, many days without signal! Not too much cell service for ATT in Washington and Oregon.

After leaving RMNP we headed for Kremmling and had a great breakfast burrito and coffee at the Big Shooter. There’s not a lot between RMNP and Steamboat Springs so I definitely recommend this place. We passed through Steamboat and hit the Wally World for supplies and went straight for Buffalo Pass. Buffalo Pass was a great trail/drive/road and tops out at an intersection with lots of additional options. There was a beautiful lake and FS campground there too.

Still can’t load the pics ....so it looks like catching up will have to wait a little longer.

 

After Buffalo Pass we stayed in Craig (at the KOA) drove through Dinosaur National Monument but we didn’t drive down inside. Saved it for another day. Temps were in the high 90’s low 100’s. We drove through Flaming George but we didn’t do any off road trails. We stayed in another KOA, Flaming George KOA, very nice. Headed to Dubois WY the next day and really enjoyed the town. We ate at the Cowboy Cafe and had a great meal with fresh baked boysenberry pie for dessert. Lots of old timey mom and pop shops and some well stocked fly fishing and guiding shops too.




We met Monte Baker and his work is unreal. Probably the most beautiful antler or bone carving I’ve ever seen.

 

After Dubois, in the morning we drove to Oxbow Bend and through Grand Teton National Park. We got to drive a small trail about 2/3 of the way through down to a beautiful lake. It was great to know we can pull the trailer along with us over easy/medium difficulty trails.




The Tetons were fantastic. Not as crowded as RMNP and massive mountains.

 

Oh man, we have been out of touch and off the map for over two weeks but we’ve seen and done some crazy stuff!

We met some great folks outside of the Tetons in grandveiw campground with an a frame camper who had driven the Dempster Highway with their Honda Pilot pulling an A Liner!

The Caribou Targhee National Forest was great with lots of off road options and Forest Roads. We drove one through a young er stand of trees and open meadows that transitioned into an active cow pasture and then cut off to an old fish hatchery where you can rent a big cabin.....next to a huge spring that comes out of the side of a hill at a constant 50 degrees all year. It was amazing. Here are some pics of the area. I’ll get more posted soon from the many places we’ve been and I can’t wait to share the crazy Alpine Loop stories and pics. It’s all pretty epic.

 

Ok, on to YELLOWSTONE! Man the government has poorly managed the trees in this place!! Over 50% dead and the rest dying due to pest infestation. Still some great sights and surprisingly not as crowded as RMNP. West Yellowstone is always a great town with a real frontier vibe and all you need for adventure and food/fuel/supplies.

Here’s some pics from the park.

 

We stayed north of town outside the west entrance to Yellowstone in the National forest Rainbow Point campground. It was ok, lots of shade. After driving Yellowstone all day and then going back after dinner to see more wildlife we left the next morning headed through Missoula. We had a great meal at a “diner” and ate on the back porch looking out over the historic downtown area. Really good food and service. and camped at River Edge RV Park. Great place with cool folks and a great restaurant on site. Did some camper maintenance and washed our clothes. The owners had fixed up a really nice awd Mini Cooper that was set up for off road driving pretty nicely. I’m thinking about a second/spare car now as a result. They had good taste clearly as the Mini was parked beside a pyrite mica Tacoma they also owned.