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My epic roadtrip:

zluster

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Colorado Baby!
Let me preface this, its not Jeep related, I left the Jeep at home for this one and I am happy with that call.

I graduated with my ME degree back in august. For my graduation gift I got to take a road trip with my dad and our dogs to the top of the world. The following is a limited pictorial of what we went through on the trip.

Total time traveling was 19 days:

Route traveled:
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Stopped at custers last stand:
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Northern CAN:
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Crossing some big river:
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We found another unfortunate soul in a VW in northern CAN:
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My turn to drive, and my co-pilot:
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Then my co-copilot came up to help too:
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Then my co-pilot crashed, leaving me on my own, so I kicked back and took off my shoes:
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Looks like a great time! I won't be doing anything that extreme, but looking forward to my road trip up to Spokane, WA this summer. Trying to convince the lady to let me just cruise on up to the Canadia border while we're so close (simply because I've never been that far north before. :) )

P.s. Congrats on the semi-recent graduation! :)
 
What the heck!? You can't tell us about this epic road trip and post just a few photos, one of which is of your socks!!?!?!?!! I for one want more photos! And if I don't get them I will go on strike and not post anything on this thread anymore!
 
damn man.... looks like a great time.
i wish i would have gotten to do something like that with my dad!

we need more pics for sure!!! and a pic of the VW you were in! lol
 
More more more more! Loved the photos... except the ones of your socks :D
 
Looks like a great time! I won't be doing anything that extreme, but looking forward to my road trip up to Spokane, WA this summer. Trying to convince the lady to let me just cruise on up to the Canadia border while we're so close (simply because I've never been that far north before. :) )

P.s. Congrats on the semi-recent graduation! :)

Thanks! Ya you should run up there, heck even go into Canada if you have your ID's for getting back into the US(we don't want you to have to cross the border illegally ala Born in East LA).


More more more more! Loved the photos... except the ones of your socks :D

Ok, from now on I will only post photos of my feet WITHOUT socks on.



I went through about 500 photos last night picking them out to post, came up against the image limit, and was trying to post in sections when I guess I screwed up the preview option and lost all my selected photos and comments. It was late and I was tired(been up since 3:30am and was rousted by the denver police for sleeping in my Jeep yesterday am).

So I'm gonna start going back through them now.
 
So my co-pilot crashed out leaving me on my own(dad sleeping in the back):
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Road construction and traffic in the middle of nowhere(makes west texas seem populous):
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But it was nice and clear and pretty:
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But then it started to rain:
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Saw some Meese:
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And Canadian Buffalo:
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The dogs were quite interested in the Buffalo:
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Stopping to make some tea:
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Partway there:(the 3462 km is how far we have traveled, and the 2200 km is how far we have to go, an impressive GPS display, about 6 of those stopped hours were sleeping in WYO the first night out, we left at like 9pm from fort collins after working on the van all day)
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Getting some expensive gas in Northern Canada:
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Another van that didn't fair as well:
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The dogs like to watch us:
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Signpost forest and an old Air cooled van:
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Someone commemorated their trip(s):
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Stopped to cook some eggs from my chickens back home:
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Dogs are always ready to help:
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Back on the road:
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Another massive river:(lots of big freshwater rivers, makes you realize how dry Colorado is in comparison)
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Children, a stupid risk:
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Some wierd RHD diesel thing that was imported(in Canada if something is 15 years old you can import it easily, so there are all sorts of RHD japanese super cars running around like supras, 300zx, skylines, but there are also toyota solid axle rigs with diesels and such around too that made me drool. Jeep didn't sell diesels in Japan so you can forget about getting a 97 cherokee with ~50-100k miles on it for $500-$1500 USD. I had a friend in Japan who used to have old vehicles given to him because people didn't want to sell them. I think he paid a guy $200 for a ten year old XJ in perfect shape, but i digress)
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Another van hiding out in whitehorse yukon territory(not even a province, its still a territory).
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We forgot to fold up the seat to keep the dogs off the sleeping bags in the back, so Sandy got real comfortable back there.
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These next photos will be out of order with my next post since I switched from my dads camera to mine for most photos:

Our camping site for the night after visiting the arctic ocean:
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going down the Ice cut later the next morning:
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Stopped for a photo op:
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Me taking a photo:
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Posing for another photo:
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Caribou hunters in Coldfoot:
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When you see it, you'll $h!t bricks:
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They asked nicely, so I didn't climb it.
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We stopped to take a photo under the pipeline here, and of course my dad stopped with the mud puddle right out the door, and my dog defied my orders and jumped out into the mud, so this is him being punished(the worst thing for him is to not be near me):
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Wrangell St Elias National park, biggest park in the United States(google it, its cool)
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Outside of Valdez AK, you may recognize the waterfall from a recent chevy ad where a guy loads up a big boat from the docks and then drives through the mountains.
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Big Glacier outside of Hyder AK(google it)
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Dog looking:
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Nice Westy. Does it still have the 2.1 motor?

This needs to be merged with the Vanagon love thread.
 
Ah ok. I was afraid that it was too obvious!

Nah, I didn't want it to be hard, plus I liked the pun.

Nice Westy. Does it still have the 2.1 motor?

Thanks. It has a 2.1 motor, runs good for a 2.1, it has to have been replaced at some point because it is relatively leak free and has good power.

I'll take a minute to post some about the van:

The van started life as a tin top, ended up picking it up in the summer of 09 with the money left over from the insurance company after I hit a deer in my XJ(2700 in damage to the XJ, cost me $500 to fit it myself, and after the $500 detectible I had $1700 sitting around, which is exactly what the van cost to purchase).

The van came from avon, and before that it came from fort collins, and on the way back we picked up a nice fiberglass top from a nice fellow in frisco.

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I got lucky and scored subaru conversion stuff from an AC van that had been converted to a WC subi. Got the exhaust, adapter plate, flywheel and clutch for $100
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So then I got freerider to come down and give me a hand at the junkyard and I cut the westy roof off of a van at the yard for $100:
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I also grabbed the westy interior out of the junkyard van for $100:
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So after lots of spot weld cutting the roof skin was off:

Old roof support:
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New roof skin:
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Cleaning up the weld surface:
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Prepping for weld:
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copper weld through primer:
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Beer/sealant:
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