U500 Training and Western US Expedition

Exploring the remote western US in Thor, our 4x4 expedition camper

20140519 - 20140908

Last update: 20140908 from San Diego, CA

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Slickrock domes on the White Rim Trail outside of Moab, UT
All photos copyright, Bill Caid 2014. All rights reserved.

The Trip

Time marches on and the scope of your personal experiences does not expand unless you plan to expand them.  After returning from 3 weeks in Costa Rica, we were getting antsy and starting to "set-up", not unlike concrete.  So I went to Alaska for some snowmobiling and we both went to Baja the following week.  A real "freeze to fry" transition.  Both were fun, but now spring is here and we need a follow-on trip.

Our plan for this trip starts with travel to Tucson to visit relatives, then a fast sprint north to meet our Unimog U500 friends for some back-country travel training in southwestern Utah near Blanding.  The group will consist of several U500 expedition campers, a U2450L camper and Thor our 1017 camper. Then when the training is complete, we will head toward La Junta, CO to do some mechanical enhancements to Thor.  From there, we will visit friends we have on the eastern slope of the Rockies.  Then off into the wild..

Tracking Our Location Via The SPOT

Some years ago, after a scary mechanical failure in the canyons and mesas of southern Utah, we decided that we need a better way to advertise our position and call for assistance if needed.  Kathleen found out about the SPOT which is a GPS locator that transmits your coordinates via satellite so that others can see your location.  The location is plotted on Google maps and a "bread crumb" feature is available for an additional fee.  We have the enhanced service, so you can see our historical path back 50 updates or so.  See our current location plotted on Google Maps in Real-Time via SPOT satellite geo-locator device.  This page is "book-markable" and is updated approximately every 15 minutes, but may miss updates due to inability of our transmitter to reach the satellite.  The communication is "open loop" so the device never knows if it's messages are actually going anywhere, it just keeps trying until the next update is available.  If we are in a congested urban area with high buildings (like Manhattan) or in deep canyons, the position may not update.  We try to send an "OK" message once a day just to let everyone know that we are, in fact, OK.

Connecting and Contacting Us While on the Trip

Because of internet connectivity issues on a previous trip, we purchased a MiFi cell phone modem that allows us to connect nearly anywhere there is 3G+ service via cell phone (which is most of the cell phone service area available today).  But, as we all know, cell phones are useful many places, but not everywhere has coverage, particularly in the remote areas of the western U.S.  Our phones and the modem are enabled daily so you may contact us, although it may take a few days for us to respond.  But, we will respond.  My email, spelled out, is "bcaid at yahoo dot com".

Trip Details

The link table below contains links to the photos and dialog for each of the days of the expedition.  This table will be updated as the trip progresses.


Links to Daily Adventures
Part Dates Adventure Locations
1
20140519-22
San Diego, CA to Blanding, UT
2
20140523
Blanding, UT to Comb Wash, UT
3
20140524
Comb Wash Tire Training, UT
4
20140524
Comb Wash to Mule Canyon, UT
5
20140525
Mule Canyon to Elk Ridge, UT
6
20140526
Elk Ridge to Beef Basin, UT
7
20140527
Beef Basin to Salt Canyon Overlook, UT
8
20140528
Salt Canyon to Newspaper Rock, UT
9
201405329-30
Dead Horse Point and White Rim Trail, UT Part A
10
20140531
White Rim Trail Part B
11
20140531
White Rim Trail Part C
12
20150601
White Rim Trail Part D
13
20140603-06
Moab, UT to Mesa Verde, CO
14
20140607
Mesa Verde National Park: Balcony House
15
20140608-11
Durango, CO to Alamosa, CO
16
20140612-20
Alamosa, CO to La Junta, CO
17
20140621
Bent's Old Fort National Historical Site
18
20140622-30
Turbocharger Upgrade and Albuquerque Excursion
19
20140701-06
Turbocharger and Intercooler Enhancements and Brake Failure
20
20140707-11
Brake Repair in Golden, CO
21
20140712-15
Jackson Lake, CO to Ten Sleep, WY
22
20140716-20
Cody and Kirwin Side Trip
23
20140721-23
Cody, WY to Billings, MT
24
20140724-28
Billings, MT to Rock Creek, MT
25
20140729-0801
Rock Creek, MT to Elk River, ID
26
20140802-05
Elk River, ID to Salmon River Mountains, ID
27
20140805-06
Salmon River Mountain, ID to Grande Ronde, OR
28
20140807-12
Grande Ronde, OR to Champoeg, OR
29
20140813-15
Champoeg, OR to Northwest MogFest-1
30
20140816-17
Northwest MogFest-2
31
20140817-20
Sheridan, OR to Hobuck Beach, WA
32
20140821-27
Hobuck Beach, WA to Wenatchee, WA
33
20140828-29
Wenatchee, WA to Mount Rainier, WA
34
20140830-31
Mount Rainier, WA to White Salmon, WA
35
20140901-08
White Salmon, WA to San Diego, CA

 

This was one of our best trips ever.  In addition to seeing some of the most scenic territory in North America, we got a chance to reconnect with our friends.

On this trip we logged about 14,600 kilometers over the course of almost 4 months.

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Copyright Bill Caid 2014