He’s adopted a sedentary lifestyle for the past year and made an asphalt driveway his home. He’s hauled lumber, rocks, mulch, and our sorry asses around town, but Bruno the 4Runner hasn’t gone more than 450 miles from home in over a year. He was proud to roll us over to the Women’s March on Washington back in January, but we didn’t even camp! All Bruno’s dreams are about to come true, as we pack up to leave NorCar for the summer.
Well, it took us all of four days to complete the horizontal leg of our trip. We reached the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico and set out to follow it northbound. Since our trip to Central America, we’ve significantly improved our camping arsenal. We added a secondhand tent, propane fuel burner, and killer Klymet Static V air mattresses. Swapping our 12V refrigerator for a plastic cooler alleviates auxiliary battery headaches, but requires constant monitoring of the ice situation. After a few days, our food tends to float like a raft on Tennessee’s Ocoee River…
Off-roading is one of Bruno’s great loves and something I had been looking forward to on this trip. Southeastern Utah is where we let it all hang loose! And speaking of, we’ve been seeing a lot of Smokey Bear signs along the road. If there’s one thing we’re learning, it’s that Smokey doesn’t like shirts. He only likes pants. Dislikes shoes and absolutely no socks.
Bryce Canyon National Park is smaller and more subtle than its Park neighbors. What grabs you is the varying shades of rust color and how fragile it all seems. Over in Zion Canyon, we experienced our first taste of Disneyland – National Park style. Most memorable was hiking 4 miles up a river through a narrow canyon. We then finished off our tour of Utah by gettin’ down with The Book of Mormon. We’re impressed!
“That’s so Yellowstone” could be heard several times inside Bruno over the last few days in Wyoming. We had a marvelous time in the Jackson Hole Valley: beautiful free campsites and snow hikes in Grand Teton National Park. Further north we encountered a buncha crazy Yellowstoners in Los Angeles-level gridlock. Technically not gridlock. It was Bison-lock.
As with any travel adventure, you often see the best and the worst of people. We heard strangers giving words of encouragement on a difficult hike in the snow. People picking up litter out of the goodness of their hearts (this was usually Travis) or giving a jump to someone on the side of the road. On the flip side, we witnessed road rage (sometimes Amanda’s) and pure unkindness towards fellow man (to which Travis left a note asking to “help make America great again” by not stealing other people’s parking spots). Bruno had an unfortunate run-in with a bozo, but remains optimistic about the future.
