Trip report, part one: 2013 Overland Expo and the TC flood
The last folks are leaving the Mormon Lake Lodge property as I write this. It's difficult to call it a T.R. since we all went on a different trip together to get here. You may have to squint, but there are a LOT of Overlanders around Mormon Lake.
Going into the front portico:
What an interesting event!
And what a winner aggregation of TC people we have here! I use that term purposely as no two TC types had the same life's story or came from the same place.
There was, literally something for everyone. Overlanding takes a lot of different means to accomplish its end. Besides TC's, there were:
Hiking Overlanders
Bicycle Overlanders
Motor Cycle overlanders
Tent camping Overlanders
RTT (roof-top-tent) Overlanders
Jeep/LandRover/LandCruiser/pickup truck/and a myriad of exotic machine Overlanders
Class AOverlanders
Class B Overlanders
Class C Overlanders
All manner of pintel pull trailer Overlanders, who on the whole, I thought were the most creative of the bunch.
and this year a cadre of class XTC Overlanders (that would be us)
You can't really say that one means is better than another since it depends on so many diverging factors, like where are you going to overland, what time of year/season, and what is your tolerance for pain. All of the presentations I attended pushed the edge of the envelope in this regard. Since the TC-er's were located at the far expanse of the Mormon Lake grounds Jean-my-queen and i hoofed it back and forth to the event venues.
I thought this an interesting height comparo between a small hardside (my Dodge on L.), a large pop up (Whazoo's GM in center) and a small pop up (JD's Ford on R.)
Our Overlanding TC friend Steve (of SAB Consulting in G.B.) and Sally, bade a few of us TC types to attend this year, whether you had a hard-core rig or not. I'm not sure how many stalwarts from the TC Forum actually showed up, but there were a lot of TC's in attendance. For a change I took a lot of Beauty Contest pix of the TC's in attendance, so I will give you a link to my Photobucket page to view the lot of them.
http://s194.photobucket.com/user/jefe4x4/library/?sort=3&page=1
The ever effervescent Steve and Sally came the farthest, flying from England to Denver to pick up their faux TC before trekking to Arizona:
This was the first time Jeanie and I got to meet many of the 'famous' or is that 'infamous' charaters on the TC forum. Rumor had it that the incomparable Whazoo was going to make a cameo appearance and sure enough he and Lynn rolled in on Friday afternoon. It was just so great to put names with faces and rigs. The stealth champion of the event was Brian Appleby who is on the road full-time now and arrived a couple days before the event to get our area nailed down and pink ribboned out. He has plenty of wallerin room in his rig:
Jeanie and I left Nevada City late Wednesday morning for an 800 mile drive and Thursday afternoon arrival at Mormon Lake Lodge. We stopped for the evening in the middle of the Nevada desert south of Goldfield: It was not far off of Hwy. 95 but could be in the middle of the Moroccan desert: Lonely comes to mind. We never saw anyone.
I've never posted a pic of our cuisine-du-camp which invariably starts with jefe's fav, tacos-de-Queen:
I'm not going to list all the names of our people who attended for fear of leaving someone out. However, these were more than the usual suspects. Here are a few random people pix. first, JD, who needs a new lower back but in true Semper Fi style will not complain of the pain:
Brian, Sally, Steve, and JD at sundown on Thursday:
Friday night campers gathering after supper on Friday: This is about half of the TC group:
A medium time, a long time, and a brand-spanking-new Truck Camper owner:
Virgil and Maria from Martinez, CA They came with their Jeep on a trailer.
Everyone here had a unique story to tell. We went round robin and introduced ourselves. It was instant band of brothers and sisters.
And finally the one-and-only Whazoo in his patented pose; (no, i didn't say he was a poseur) who has had some major hard part replacement of late:
So with people pix out of the way, I will close, since I now realize this report will need to be in more than one part. Some coming highlights will be;
what i learned
TC rig voyeur-ing in spades
Different strokes
regards, as always, jefe
Going into the front portico:
What an interesting event!
And what a winner aggregation of TC people we have here! I use that term purposely as no two TC types had the same life's story or came from the same place.
There was, literally something for everyone. Overlanding takes a lot of different means to accomplish its end. Besides TC's, there were:
Hiking Overlanders
Bicycle Overlanders
Motor Cycle overlanders
Tent camping Overlanders
RTT (roof-top-tent) Overlanders
Jeep/LandRover/LandCruiser/pickup truck/and a myriad of exotic machine Overlanders
Class AOverlanders
Class B Overlanders
Class C Overlanders
All manner of pintel pull trailer Overlanders, who on the whole, I thought were the most creative of the bunch.
and this year a cadre of class XTC Overlanders (that would be us)
You can't really say that one means is better than another since it depends on so many diverging factors, like where are you going to overland, what time of year/season, and what is your tolerance for pain. All of the presentations I attended pushed the edge of the envelope in this regard. Since the TC-er's were located at the far expanse of the Mormon Lake grounds Jean-my-queen and i hoofed it back and forth to the event venues.
I thought this an interesting height comparo between a small hardside (my Dodge on L.), a large pop up (Whazoo's GM in center) and a small pop up (JD's Ford on R.)
Our Overlanding TC friend Steve (of SAB Consulting in G.B.) and Sally, bade a few of us TC types to attend this year, whether you had a hard-core rig or not. I'm not sure how many stalwarts from the TC Forum actually showed up, but there were a lot of TC's in attendance. For a change I took a lot of Beauty Contest pix of the TC's in attendance, so I will give you a link to my Photobucket page to view the lot of them.
http://s194.photobucket.com/user/jefe4x4/library/?sort=3&page=1
The ever effervescent Steve and Sally came the farthest, flying from England to Denver to pick up their faux TC before trekking to Arizona:
This was the first time Jeanie and I got to meet many of the 'famous' or is that 'infamous' charaters on the TC forum. Rumor had it that the incomparable Whazoo was going to make a cameo appearance and sure enough he and Lynn rolled in on Friday afternoon. It was just so great to put names with faces and rigs. The stealth champion of the event was Brian Appleby who is on the road full-time now and arrived a couple days before the event to get our area nailed down and pink ribboned out. He has plenty of wallerin room in his rig:
Jeanie and I left Nevada City late Wednesday morning for an 800 mile drive and Thursday afternoon arrival at Mormon Lake Lodge. We stopped for the evening in the middle of the Nevada desert south of Goldfield: It was not far off of Hwy. 95 but could be in the middle of the Moroccan desert: Lonely comes to mind. We never saw anyone.
I've never posted a pic of our cuisine-du-camp which invariably starts with jefe's fav, tacos-de-Queen:
I'm not going to list all the names of our people who attended for fear of leaving someone out. However, these were more than the usual suspects. Here are a few random people pix. first, JD, who needs a new lower back but in true Semper Fi style will not complain of the pain:
Brian, Sally, Steve, and JD at sundown on Thursday:
Friday night campers gathering after supper on Friday: This is about half of the TC group:
A medium time, a long time, and a brand-spanking-new Truck Camper owner:
Virgil and Maria from Martinez, CA They came with their Jeep on a trailer.
Everyone here had a unique story to tell. We went round robin and introduced ourselves. It was instant band of brothers and sisters.
And finally the one-and-only Whazoo in his patented pose; (no, i didn't say he was a poseur) who has had some major hard part replacement of late:
So with people pix out of the way, I will close, since I now realize this report will need to be in more than one part. Some coming highlights will be;
what i learned
TC rig voyeur-ing in spades
Different strokes
regards, as always, jefe
