Jeeping Across America - Western Follies

NFRs2000NYC

NFRs2000NYC

Caught the Bug
So it's that time of year again, time for an annual Jeep trip thread, only this time, I'll do it a little differently. This time, in addition to a bunch of photo gear, I also brought along quite a bit of video gear as well, so I'll post up a short trailer of the trip, and then post up the full shabang on the whole thing, including the many MANY changes to the plans, locations, and general misadventures. This one was a pretty good one, hope you guys enjoy. I just uploaded the trailer a few minutes ago, so it's only playing at 720P right now, until YouTube decodes it, then it will be available up to 4K. Also forgive the slightly corny end text, needed it for some side projects.


P.S. Also want to throw a big shoutout to Eddie and Cindy, while I always enjoyed the outdoors, I was never really into the big SUVs and such, always had sports cars, fast sedans, etc. Then one day, I came across two things....the first was their truly amazing "Keep It Tight" series, and the second was a meme that had a Jeep on the top of a mountain or something and it read "Because no one remembers the time you got 66mpg." Something clicked in my head and I really got into the thought of having a capable vehicle that can take me to all the coolest sights this great country has to offer, so after watching that series a few dozen times, I bought my first Jeep, and am now on my 2nd, and with the diesel JL, will be on my 3rd shortly. I can truly say that it was their videos that opened my eyes and inspired me to give up the stupid high end hotels, and really get out there and see things most never get to see. So in the words of Joe Dirt, "keep on keepin on" you two, hopefully I won't be the last person you inspire.
 
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Yea it definitely lets you get footage and shots that you simply couldn't get any other way....and to think, only a few years ago, these shots would cost 10 million dollars+ and require a massive crew, including helicopters, massive gimbals, etc.
 
So unlike the last trips, my wife and I really had no idea where we wanted to go. My parents took both of our daughters down to the Dominican Republic, so we had the opportunity to go anywhere we wanted. Since my wife picked the last trip (Hawaii,) it was my turn to pick, and naturally I pick a Jeep trip...something she actually enjoys save for the drive out. So I knew two things, the amount of time we had, and the fact that I would have to drive home. As always, I usually drop my wife off at an airport so she can fly back and I drive back myself (maximizes her vacation time.) After price shopping plane tickets as far west as I thought reasonable, not to mention, half decent prices of tickets, the choices were a 1 way ticket from Denver for $550, or a 1 way ticket from Omaha for $160. Denver is along i70, Omaha is along i80, both are on my way home...so Omaha it is. So now that she has a return flight, the question arose where do we go? She threw out California, but it was a bit too far with the amount of time we had. I didn't really want to go south because it was still dead summer and I kind of wanted to escape the heat. Out of nowhere, I threw out Wyoming...she knows nothing about it, and I haven't been there since I was a kid. Exploring the vast mountain ranges, the small towns, trying my luck at fly fishing for the first time in the best location on earth to do it, and to explore the vast forest trails sounded like a good idea. I had to sell her on some of the spas and hot springs available in Wyoming as well, showed her a few nice hotels around Jackson that we could stay at, and curiousity got the better of her, so she agreed. With the trip being a few weeks out, I started planning a route of sorts, coming in through i90 through South Dakota through the black hills, doing a full circle and coming out through i80 and head on home. Here's a quick route that I first planned. While at each location, we would enjoy hiking, rafting, 4 wheeling, etc.

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After I spent quite a bit of time researching the locations, I get home, and she says to me "what about Montana?" I said that I don't know much about it, but can look into it....after a quick look on the map, I realized that going up through western Wyoming would drop us off in mid-western Montana. She also wanted to visit Glacier National Park. At that point I said, well, if you want to visit Glacier National Park, I would love do 4 wheel in the Alberta/Banff area, as I've been there before and it's a stunning place during the summer. She was excited at the prospect of this new possible route, so we decided we would wing it, and this would be our rough plan of travel. The beauty with this type of travel is you are not tied to any itinerary, weather, or anything else...sometime not going well? Just turn the steering wheel and head elsewhere.
 
So packing commenced, and with every trip, I've been getting more efficient in packing, taking less and less space for more and more stuff. This time, I also bought a little mattress to make the sleeping much more pleasurable. So the setup looked like this (pardon the pic quality, these are still grabs from gopro footage)

So you can see, the sub makes it so I have to slant the mattress out a bit (I later found out a company makes a mattress specifically for the JK, but such is life...for those interested, here it is https://www.amazon.com/Xprite-1-5-i...om-20&linkId=15b221910aa67576e6b609c8c3540020 )

So the big bin on the top right has all the food cookware, foils, plates, napkins, propane tanks, forks/knives, etc the one on the left lower bin has tools, batteries, ties, wire, tape, extension cords, etc, and the top bin has spices, some more cooking/food related products, and finally top right is the coleman grill/stove. If you look carefully, you can see a flyrod secured to the top crossmember of the rollcage.
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After more packing, middle bin has all the books and maps, another bin that looks the same that you can't see has all survival/medication/first aid/etc stuff in it, red thing on the left is an arctic rated sleeping bag, then in the middle allen and torx sockets, various spare fluids and at the very top, two camping chairs.
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Packing all the camera gear :D

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Here you can see from the other side (my wife's hips and legs for scale) that there is plenty of room to lay down, Im 6' and can fully extend my legs which makes for a very comfortable night of sleep. A product I highly recommend for JK owners is the Dirty Dog trench cover, it fills the gap when the rear seats are folded down making for a MUCH more pleasant place to sleep, otherwise, you need to stuff a bunch of towels or something in there, which isn't as good of a solution. https://store.dirtydog4x4.com/Trench_Cover_JK_4Door/jk_unlimited_trench_cover.html
This has been the most comfortable setup I've done to date, although still not quite perfect. The suitcase on the far right inside had all our clothing, and the camera bag and laptop/drone bag was on top of the cooler that you can see in the prior photo....my next purchase will DEFINITELY be the ARB fridge/freezer though.

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All packed up, gassed up, and ready to go.

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So as usual, we depart the house at 10pm, as this ensures that we drive without any traffic and we can make great time. As expected, even with one lane in the interstate for many miles, I was alone and make quick progress through Pennsylvania.

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By the time the sun came up, my wife has been asleep for about 7 hours, and it was time to pull over and switch up, so we pulled over at the next rest stop, took in the sunrise, had a quick bathroom break, and onwards!

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During the day, clear skies and the miles tumbled one by one. Unfortunately, a box with big tires and sloppy steering requires a bit of knowledge to drive quickly, so the wife was comfortable at 65mph, above that she was tensing up grabbing the steering wheel too tightly and tiring herself out. I didn't mind as we weren't in any sort of rush.

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Saw an interesting Nike ad that caught my attention....

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After a few more state lines, the skies stopped being so friendly....

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...and opened up like I haven't seen in quite some time.

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Visibility was probably 1-2 carlengths at the worst of it, and we did drive past two interstate closing accidents.....

The first one was a semi that lost control and hit the ditch, causing the tractor and the trailer to separate and dump his cargo all over the highway...

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The second was more grim looking....a semi rear ended a sedan (this is another screen grab from gopro footage, look through the driver's side window.)

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After probably another 30 minutes of rain that seemingly kept following up, the skies finally started to clear up

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wow, what state was that in?

why is your steering so sloppy! you're lucky to have an understanding wife, my ex would've been done within the 1st hour and all the driving would be up to me. ..huh, it's all up to me now LOL

nice trip, I'm itching to get away for a couple of weeks before winter sets in.
 
jeeeep said:
wow, what state was that in?

why is your steering so sloppy! you're lucky to have an understanding wife, my ex would've been done within the 1st hour and all the driving would be up to me. ..huh, it's all up to me now LOL

nice trip, I'm itching to get away for a couple of weeks before winter sets in.
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My steering isn't sloppy at all, it's actually perfect, just like OEM, but compared to her car, it's not as communicative and direct. Furthermore, on wide open roads, the jeep is susceptible to wind and the faster you go the worse it is. I've driven in wind where I actually had to counter steer continuously. Everything is "slower" on a wrangler, the steering, the braking, etc, and driving it 75mph+ isn't as easy as something like say, her 2017 RDX, which at 100mph feels like 50 lol.
 
Driving through Iowa reminded me a lot of driving through Tuscany, a lot of green rolling hills and farmland, only it was more corn than grapes :D

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During our dinner stop, my wife mentioned to me that if we are planning to possibly head up to Canada/Montana, we dont have the time to see everything I had marked up on the above map. A quick evaluation of my timeline made me quickly realize that she was right, I was over ambitious with the planning and I wouldn't have enough time to make it home before I needed to head back to work, so after some deliberation, we decided to cut off the northern part of the state, and stay on i80, then head UP to Jackson, Tetons, Yellowstone, etc.
So I finally settled in for the last night shift, because when the sun comes up, we will have crossed the Wyoming state line. It was a tiring night shift, but listening to good podcasts made it tolerable, but the backside was starting to get sore. Luckily, I saw the sun peeking through the horizon....(notice the bug/guts covered windshield :) )

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Sadly it was dark out prior to this and I missed the Wyoming state line sign, oh well, next time. While I was excited to be in Wyoming (which meant the long drive is over,) I was not prepared to be greeted with one of the best sunrises I have ever seen. Not even Hawaii gave us a sunrise with so many colors and with such intensity. I even had to break out the big boy camera for it.

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The temps were nice and cool, just what I wanted, to escape the NJ heat....so much so that the cool temps actually set off the TPMS with a drop in PSI.

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Hustling through the eastern part of the state, we were about to make it to our first stop...

(luckily I can't really go much faster than that :D )

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NFRs2000NYC said:
My steering isn't sloppy at all, it's actually perfect, just like OEM, but compared to her car, it's not as communicative and direct. Furthermore, on wide open roads, the jeep is susceptible to wind and the faster you go the worse it is. I've driven in wind where I actually had to counter steer continuously. Everything is "slower" on a wrangler, the steering, the braking, etc, and driving it 75mph+ isn't as easy as something like say, her 2017 RDX, which at 100mph feels like 50 lol.
Click to expand...

ahh yeah, that's all true. I've forgotten how driving a "car" feels in comparison!

trip looks fun and it's making my wild hair itch to hit the road! :thumb:

I just realized...have you been taking shifts to drive non-stop??
 
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