bman

I just wanted to start a thread that chronicled my summer vacation this year. This year, 2018, I am celebrating 20 years at my place of employment. With the 20th year comes a special benefit, that is a bonus 4 weeks of vacation time! I have chosen to take most of those days off all at once and go on a grand tour of the western United States. I have spent the better part of 2 years preparing for this trip. Researching the places that I wanted to go and making sure that the old Jeep is in good working order to get me there. I don't think my research will be complete before I leave but I sure tried to do as much as I could to prepare. I will try to get in some trails, mostly Moab as that is the first stop on the trip, but this is a family vacation so I have other places to go as well. I will have my wife with me, as well as my 10 year old son and my 7 year old daughter. My major stops tentatively include:

Moab, Arches and Cayonlands National Parks
Grand Canyon
San Deigo via Interstate 8, I want to stop in Yuma for some unknown reason, always have.
Sequoia National Park
Yosemite National Park
Reno, NV
Yellowstone National Park
Mount Rushmore

We will spend more time in some places than others but these are going to be the high points. I am just winging my hotel reservations as of right now, maybe that's not the best idea but I want to have an open itinerary just in case we want to spend some extra time in one spot because we are having too much fun there. I also need to include a few pop up days of, "I don't want to spend all day in a car again" that comes from either the wife or kids. I will have 26 total days of travel time to try to get to as many places as we can.

More details to come. I think next I will go over what I have done to the Jeep to try to prepare for this journey.

I will welcome any and all comments, about Jeeps and road trips, what to do at destinations, traveling etc.. I'm a pretty experienced traveler but still have a lot to learn.

B

Mark Doiron

I look forward to seeing your posts. I've done a lot of traveling around the country, including pretty much everything you have outlined. And I'll just mention a few things:

1. There are some really great two lane and even dirt roads that can be used to make your driving experience more interesting.

2. Visit Grand Canyon before Canyonlands, lest you'll be disappointed in the Grand Canyon. Seriously. GC has nothing except a big, monotonous hole whereas Canyonlands is filled with geological marvels. And in Canyonlands there are four wheel drive trails that are like having an E-ticket at Disneyland. GC has some off-highway possibilities, but only if you're prepared to camp. Message me if you're interested in them. Or just check out my YouTube channel (DigitalByDoiron). But those possibilities pale in comparison to Canyonlands.

3. You are bypassing some amazing parks in order to add GC in there, BTW. These include Capitol Reef (more off-highway driving possible), Bryce and Zion. Bryce and Zion are very busy, but Capitol Reef (like Canyonlands) is an out-of-the-way gem. If you take in Capitol Reef after departing Moab area, then you can drive down Highway 12, which I consider the most dramatic stretch of paved road in the country. Or, if you prefer, you can head down to Bullfrog on Lake Powell and take the ferry across. A pretty cool experience, if you've never done it before.

4. Three parks in California you're skirting around include Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (at 700,000 acres or so, largest state park in the country), Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley. All of these include four wheel drive routes. Again, my YT channel has videos.

5. I applaud your not driving by a strict schedule. That's how I started my travels two decades ago. If you can camp, then much of the area has public lands that permit free camping wherever you can find a spot. You're just asked to travel lightly and leave no trace. And preferably camp where others have set up camp before you. Even in Death Valley National Park, camping is permitted on most of the four wheel drive roads within the park. Just pull up find a spot somewhere along the road. Anza-Borrego has similar rules. Joshua Tree does not permit such camping, but there are four wheel drive roads that lead out of the park onto BLM lands where it is permitted. Capitol Reef and Canyonlands are surrounded by public lands which permit such camping. And Capitol Reef has two campgrounds along the dirt roads that are first come, first serve.

bman

Thanks for the input. I've been busy the last week and have had no time to get back to this thread. Your post reminded me of it!! I'll definitely look into those spots.

Thanks again for taking the time to post that, great stuff.

jedg

Looking forward to your posts. When will you be leaving?

bman

I'm am leaving June 9th. I told the wife and kids I plan on driving for about 9-10 hrs max each day to give us time to relax and let the kids play in the hotel pool for a few minutes each night, there gonna have a lot of pent up energy to burn off. That's puts me at about Des Moines on the first night and Denver I the second night. Hopefully we can reach Moab on Monday.

I spent all evening working on the Jeep yesterday. I was a beautiful day and we don't get too many of those sometimes. I painted it up underneath and put on some new front calipers. The only time I have to post is here on my lunch hour at work!!

jedg

Holy cow... I assume the '20' in 9-20 hours is a typo... lol...

Safe travels and I look forward to reading your updates.

bman

Ha! Yeah it was supposed to be 9-10 hrs!!

resharp001

LOL.

Mark - great info up above! It's nice to have people add those kinds of suggestions. I try to do the same, but my experiences are based more in Texas and Colorado and traveling in between. I hope to one day get out and see the country as you have. I've never had much interest in going overseas to Europe and other countries like most people seem to....there's so much to see right here at home!

Bman - what a cool thing to do with the family, and what a nice like bonus to get from your company! Trips like that are the things memories are made of! Can't wait to see some pictures from along the way.

bman

I am trying to carry enough tools to get me by in case of a needed repair. I have already had to replace a front caliper in an auto parts store parking lot once and the tools and the Hi Lift jack came in handy for that. I also have a number of tools/items not pictured in that green bag on the left.

I also had a few minutes today to do some packing!! Well, not really, just a dry run with some of my duffel bags filled with pillows and comforters. I ended up removing the sub-woofer to give me a little more space and to help things stack up a little bit. It seemed to help. I bought the duffel bags to fit the space and they can conform a little better then the suitcases that do not conform as well as those wheels seems to waste some extra space. It won't be as easy to haul the luggage around but space is at a premium and I don't want to add a roof rack or a hitch carrier.

I added that net over the rear seat to store a few more added items and the seat back organizer, although they are just inexpensive amazon items they seem to be pretty decent quality. I'll see how they hold up.

Official_EAG

Looking forward to your posts! Keep us updated and safe travels!