Enthusiast I
Took our '00 wj out to McCroskey Park in Idaho and then along the Skyline Drive we veered off into St. Joes National. Here's the run down and what we learned with 2 dogs and 2 kids.
3 miles out of Colfax the harmonic balancer dislodged and came off. Had to get a tow to my parent's house. Had a hell of a time fixing it. It was towed at 4pm on Friday and finished up Saturday at 5pm. We just couldn't get it to seat right. We finally left.
We didn't bring enough water. Apparently never under-estimate how much a 7 and 10 year will drink. We forgot our cooking grate. No table to set our little propane grill on either. On top of that we somehow ended up not repacking some of our food from the fridge at home. We also forgot one of the heavy blankets for the wife and I so we froze all night. Kids luckily slept in the jeep and were nice and toasty.
The Good- We went. My youngest saw a Moose. I was able to de-compress from my high stress job. I now know I can go almost 72 hours with very little sleep. My kids enjoyed playing in the trees ( we live in an apartment). We were able to add sticker number 4 to our jeep ( every "adventure" we go on we add a sticker). My kids learned how to start a fire in the rain.
Here's what we learned and what we remedied: 1- Check lists for days and two people checking inventory. 2- We bought more water containers as well as talked to our kids about wasting water and rationing on trips. 3- the cooking grate now has a permanent home in the back of the jeep. 4- We bought a big 2 person sleeping bag rated for 20 degrees. 5- Cases for everything that are labeled. 6- and most importantly I bought an insulated coffee cup so my coffee doesn't get cold.
In all it was a disaster. BUT we learned from it and my family enjoyed it.
3 miles out of Colfax the harmonic balancer dislodged and came off. Had to get a tow to my parent's house. Had a hell of a time fixing it. It was towed at 4pm on Friday and finished up Saturday at 5pm. We just couldn't get it to seat right. We finally left.
We didn't bring enough water. Apparently never under-estimate how much a 7 and 10 year will drink. We forgot our cooking grate. No table to set our little propane grill on either. On top of that we somehow ended up not repacking some of our food from the fridge at home. We also forgot one of the heavy blankets for the wife and I so we froze all night. Kids luckily slept in the jeep and were nice and toasty.
The Good- We went. My youngest saw a Moose. I was able to de-compress from my high stress job. I now know I can go almost 72 hours with very little sleep. My kids enjoyed playing in the trees ( we live in an apartment). We were able to add sticker number 4 to our jeep ( every "adventure" we go on we add a sticker). My kids learned how to start a fire in the rain.
Here's what we learned and what we remedied: 1- Check lists for days and two people checking inventory. 2- We bought more water containers as well as talked to our kids about wasting water and rationing on trips. 3- the cooking grate now has a permanent home in the back of the jeep. 4- We bought a big 2 person sleeping bag rated for 20 degrees. 5- Cases for everything that are labeled. 6- and most importantly I bought an insulated coffee cup so my coffee doesn't get cold.
In all it was a disaster. BUT we learned from it and my family enjoyed it.
