A Guy A Girl and a Trail: Adventures in a 4Runner Limited

Thank you! Kings would certainly help. I'm looking at upgrading from Bilstein in a year or 2, and Kings are definitely in the running.

It can certainly be hectic taking trips like that. It's nice to take a day off from setting up and taking down now and again.

 

The best vacations are the ones you come home from feeling like you need a vacation, but balance is good.

We’ve talked about doing a week in the 4Runner right into a 3-4 day all include trip to the Caribbean or Mexico or something.

 

Convenience is nice too! I live in a outer suburb about an hour from downtown Washington, DC - I have no need or desire to go there anymore. The inner suburbs around here are really built up and you cannot tell where one city ends and the next one starts. Plenty of places to get away from it all here, but on a much smaller scale, nowhere near the scope of what you have at your disposal. Very dense population centers here in mid-Atlantic region.

The east cannot match the magnitude and majesty of the west, but the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachian Mountains and green forests are special too! A beautiful country we have!

 

Well said, and I agree! I have a tendency to be very active on vacations, but it's nice to just sit and take it in once in awhile.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my car camping experience! But, I was spoiled in that my buddy was driving along in his Revel sprinter van (the mothership). I liked the ease in which I could roll in and out of the camp sites. A minimalist experience for me, but it wasn't a backcountry trip. Driving from trailhead to town, to campsite and repeat - it was great not knowing what day it was!

 

I updated the first page mod list to bring everything up to date.

 

This thread is inspiring. Thanks for sharing your adventures.

 

sounds like you’re describing AZ.
I moved there 10 years ago and it’s insane how crowded it got and how much it has changed in just a decade and mainly for the past 3 years

 

i was in denver this past september. stayed downtown which was cool, it was my first time there. very easy to get around and it was eerily empty during the week. huge plus that we did get out to st marys glacier and it was about an hour drive and saw a show at red rocks. it is a very well positioned city in that regard. we are definitely going back! had dinner at el five the one night...holy moly that was awesome.

 

I’ve lived in AZ for thirty-eight years in a rural area and it’s incredibly crowded now. We don’t have the infrastructure down here for this many people and I don’t know how they can solve the water issues, but they keep building houses.

 

I find it mind boggling that they continue to build in a desert with declining water sources! I learned to become grateful for the rain and no longer complain about it!

 

Yes! It’s scary. But the municipalities choose to ignore the long-term effects of this growth, for money up front for permits and taxes.

 

I have read that the water usage for agriculture is a bigger problem than the water usage for the population growth.

 

I did read some of that. I think I’m just tired of so many people here where it used to be pleasantly rural.

 

I can see how water would be such an issue, I cannot imagine. We are blessed here in Michigan with the Great Lakes and inland lakes abound all over the place. I used to travel to AZ all the time when I was younger for work and loved it especially in winter and considered moving but the thought of giving up the lakes and recreation here was too much. Hopefully someday I'll become one of those snowbirds.

 

Great thread!

 

Same here! I like that we have four seasons, plenty of water and greenery here in Maryland. I too am looking forward to retiring, downsizing and being a snowbird. We have had a very mild winter here this season with no snow.

Definitely no lack of water in your neck of the woods. I have often wondered if and when the Great Lakes would be tapped for water. If they can do it for oil, why not water! Don't need oil to live, you do need water to live! Canada will be able to export water!

 

Hit me up when you come back. We have a reservation coming up at El Five.

 

I definitely will. Make sure you get the paella!

 

I recently shared some of the pictures of our big trip around Colorado from last summer, but we have finally compiled a detailed account of the 9 days and 1,200 miles. It’s a 2-part post containing destinations, descriptions, and routes with hundreds of pictures. The end of part 1 links to part 2 buts here's both.

https://aguyagirlandatrail.com/2023/03/21/tour-of-colorado-2022-part-1/

https://aguyagirlandatrail.com/2023/03/21/tour-of-colorado-2022-part-2/

 

A pothole made my dash cam trigger an incident, and it announced the incident storage was full. Instead of formatting the card, I pulled it and looked at the stored incidents - it stores 20 second clips when there's a quick spike in g-force that could have potentially been a crash, offroad it tends to trigger a lot but sometimes I don't unplug it. Here's a quick compilation of some of the stuff stored.

 

It’s taken a while but we finally got it all documented.

Standing in a wedding turned into an 8-state 2,800-mile overlanding trip that included state parks, national parks, hiking, mountain biking, weaponized nukes, caves, mountains, national forests, a palace, an epic campsite along a river bank, ghost towns, the craziest store we’ve ever happened across and even a Transformer.

https://aguyagirlandatrail.com/2023/05/11/2800-mile-wedding-road-trip/

 

Nice write up and pictures.

 

I finally put this into a legit post with details.

https://aguyagirlandatrail.com/2023/06/26/no-time-for-sleep/

 

As a former Wildlife Biologist who has extensive experience analyzing Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) projects, ag projects, etc., here in the far west, I'd like to point out a few "facts" I have learned over the past 20+ years:
1. Farmers waste enormous amounts of water through spillage (10%), evaporation (3-5%) and run-off. Vineyards are especially bad as are golf courses (not farmers but you get the picture). Farmers are NOT the stewards of the land as they proclaim. Monoculture reduces diversity. Ever notice the increase and spread of crows over the last 50 years? Same with ranchers! Loss of sage grouse, redtail hawks, etc. due to loss of forage. Small, family-owned farms (not many of those left in the far west) left edges of unharvested grain and cover; big corporations do not!
2. Urbanization and other infrastructure impact water supplies beyond mere use (polluted run-off, etc.).
3. BOR seems to have the desire to channelize and concrete every waterbed west of the Rockies.
4. Many watersheds have over-allocated water rights. The Yakima Basin has allocated over 125% of available water in an average year!
5. Ground water sources are similarly affected. In the Columbia Basin farmers have drilled so deep that the increases in salinity and temperature have rendered the water no longer useable for crops or livestock. We are pumping water that landed as rain over 10,00 years ago. Many underground "streams" (underground flows) have dried up rendering areas such as the lower Yakima River no longer useable by many salmonids.
6. Fortunately, many municipalities have switched from chemical (chlorine, etc.) treatment of sewage to ultraviolet treatment.

I am NOT preaching=I have given up on that!

ps: Dems and GOP are equally offensive. They all want their pet projects and to appease their constituents!

 

I very much enjoy your website with your experiences. I appreciate that you share that.

 

Sorry for the detour!!

 

Preaching and then saying it's not preaching because it is "facts". As a 58 year old who grew up on an irrigated farm, farmed for 16 years, pioneered processes to manage feedlot waste and turn it to properly applied fertilizer, has seen the advances used for stewardship, I'm sadly not surprised at this post. It's staggering how things have changed for the better with GPS technology alone. Unfortunately, these conversations are not about building on success. They are about driving a negative narrative as shown above. The only thing that doesn't compute for me is that this topic comes up on a 4runner forum instead of a Prius forum. lmao.

 

I was strictly speaking about having too many people trying to migrate here on our meager water supply and limited infrastructure. We can’t handle the influx of California people in our rural area. Local farmers have been here for generations and I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen wasted water out in the farm areas or canals overflowing.

 

Thanks for sharing. I go to snowboard every winter in Colorado and am about to retire and go there in the summer as well!