Hello everybody, long time lurker her. I first came across Michael and his Overland Bound youtube channel years ago. I first came across it looking up videos about off roading. Well one thing led to another down the youtube rabbit hole and I came across some overlanding videos. A short while later I came across a new post by Michael and it was of him giving a tour of his rig and set up in a parking lot. That was about 5years ago, I have been following him and all of their adventures since then. (looking back I should have just joined right away, my number would have been much much much lower lol)
I grew up loving the outdoors and all of the adventures that came along with it. I also grew up loving vehicles, of all sorts, and once I found those first videos of his, all those years ago, I knew point that I had to get into overlanding and vehicle based exploration.
Well life happens and as often happens things take longer to come together than you would like them too, sometimes much longer haha. Well about a year and a half ago I got my wife to start watching some of the various overlandding youtube channels and she became interested in it and what it would allow us to do as a family. Then almost exactly one year ago, we took our 1st overland trip out to SW Colorado. We rented a lightly built trail premium 4Runner from Adventure Travel Sport Rentals based near Denver. Well that did it, my wife and 4yr old son were hooked. So when we got back we started the process of finding something for us and our adventures. We looked at the usual players, 4Runner, Jeeps, Tacoma's, the ZR2 Colorado, older Land Cruisers, and the Power Wagon. Well for a variety of reasons we changed it up and went with a childhood dream of mine, a Ram 2500 with the 6.7 Cummins. We found a great deal on a lightly used one in my favorite color, green. Obviously not the 1st choice for many and it is obviously a compromise in several big areas, but it will also be used as a DD and heavy hauler when not in exploration mode. It also will fit our growing family better than some of the others choices, at least while they are in car and booster seats. (man those things take up a ton of room lol. we were set on a diesel zr2 until we stuck just one car seat in there, with two it would have been extremely tight. ironically as they get bigger and don't need the seats they would fit better in the smaller vehicle lol)
After the purchase it was time to start getting it up fitted for getting out there and having fun. Even before we purchased the truck I had a pretty good idea of what all was out there for aftermarket support and what direction we wanted to take it. Doing the math of what our setup would be and considering that it would still get loaded up with firewood, dirt, gravel etc I wanted to maintain the payload capacity. That didn't leave many options out there, mainly just AEV. After going back and forth between a slow home build and having it fully converted at their facility we decided to drop it off and let them have at it. (there was less than a 900$ difference between ordering the various parts in and having a local shop do it, vs letting them do, plus the warranty went from 12/12000 to 36/36000).
So we dropped the truck off the week of Memorial Day and got picked it up last week. It is a Prospector on 37s, not the XL on 40s. We didn't do any of the extra add on at this time (the house needed some new windows and a new sliding patio door. I wanted to add a few extra parts to the truck, my wife wanted windows and the door, so we compromised and went with the windows and doors hahahaha, just teasing we really did them lol.) Our plan for the remainder of this year is just to get out there and use the truck and the equipment that we have and over the next year or two or three add the other stuff we would like. Long term goals include, White Knuckle Sliders, Warn 16.5 winch, ARB Air Lockers, LED lights, Thuren Fab rear bumper with dual swing outs, custom skids plates (because apparently no one make them for the non Power Wagon models...), and an AT Habitat with a built interior.
As for getting out there and having fun with that, we are scrambling to get something together for this weekend, probably down near the smokies or maybe something in central PA. The reason for the scramble is the truck got done earlier than expected plus a last second change to my schedule for next month. Normally its great it got done early but our original plan was to go back out to Colorado and do the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route. Well due to the above average snowfall and the fact that they got 2ft of it in a few places just last week, most of the trails are closed. So now we are working on plan B and C and probably D lol. Im not a big fan of rushing the planning but it will help me to step outside of my comfort zone a little when it comes to over planning; which will be a constant battle for me, occupational hazard and its just my nature.
Well thats a bit of a background of where we are today. We look forward to "officially" getting going here on the forums and meeting you all. We also look forward to getting out there and exploring this beautiful creation all around us.
Sorry it was so long!! Ill do my best to get some pics of the truck up here in the next day or so.
TL/DR: Hey from Ohio!
Runner
#xcovlnd #borntoseekadventure
I grew up loving the outdoors and all of the adventures that came along with it. I also grew up loving vehicles, of all sorts, and once I found those first videos of his, all those years ago, I knew point that I had to get into overlanding and vehicle based exploration.
Well life happens and as often happens things take longer to come together than you would like them too, sometimes much longer haha. Well about a year and a half ago I got my wife to start watching some of the various overlandding youtube channels and she became interested in it and what it would allow us to do as a family. Then almost exactly one year ago, we took our 1st overland trip out to SW Colorado. We rented a lightly built trail premium 4Runner from Adventure Travel Sport Rentals based near Denver. Well that did it, my wife and 4yr old son were hooked. So when we got back we started the process of finding something for us and our adventures. We looked at the usual players, 4Runner, Jeeps, Tacoma's, the ZR2 Colorado, older Land Cruisers, and the Power Wagon. Well for a variety of reasons we changed it up and went with a childhood dream of mine, a Ram 2500 with the 6.7 Cummins. We found a great deal on a lightly used one in my favorite color, green. Obviously not the 1st choice for many and it is obviously a compromise in several big areas, but it will also be used as a DD and heavy hauler when not in exploration mode. It also will fit our growing family better than some of the others choices, at least while they are in car and booster seats. (man those things take up a ton of room lol. we were set on a diesel zr2 until we stuck just one car seat in there, with two it would have been extremely tight. ironically as they get bigger and don't need the seats they would fit better in the smaller vehicle lol)
After the purchase it was time to start getting it up fitted for getting out there and having fun. Even before we purchased the truck I had a pretty good idea of what all was out there for aftermarket support and what direction we wanted to take it. Doing the math of what our setup would be and considering that it would still get loaded up with firewood, dirt, gravel etc I wanted to maintain the payload capacity. That didn't leave many options out there, mainly just AEV. After going back and forth between a slow home build and having it fully converted at their facility we decided to drop it off and let them have at it. (there was less than a 900$ difference between ordering the various parts in and having a local shop do it, vs letting them do, plus the warranty went from 12/12000 to 36/36000).
So we dropped the truck off the week of Memorial Day and got picked it up last week. It is a Prospector on 37s, not the XL on 40s. We didn't do any of the extra add on at this time (the house needed some new windows and a new sliding patio door. I wanted to add a few extra parts to the truck, my wife wanted windows and the door, so we compromised and went with the windows and doors hahahaha, just teasing we really did them lol.) Our plan for the remainder of this year is just to get out there and use the truck and the equipment that we have and over the next year or two or three add the other stuff we would like. Long term goals include, White Knuckle Sliders, Warn 16.5 winch, ARB Air Lockers, LED lights, Thuren Fab rear bumper with dual swing outs, custom skids plates (because apparently no one make them for the non Power Wagon models...), and an AT Habitat with a built interior.
As for getting out there and having fun with that, we are scrambling to get something together for this weekend, probably down near the smokies or maybe something in central PA. The reason for the scramble is the truck got done earlier than expected plus a last second change to my schedule for next month. Normally its great it got done early but our original plan was to go back out to Colorado and do the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route. Well due to the above average snowfall and the fact that they got 2ft of it in a few places just last week, most of the trails are closed. So now we are working on plan B and C and probably D lol. Im not a big fan of rushing the planning but it will help me to step outside of my comfort zone a little when it comes to over planning; which will be a constant battle for me, occupational hazard and its just my nature.
Well thats a bit of a background of where we are today. We look forward to "officially" getting going here on the forums and meeting you all. We also look forward to getting out there and exploring this beautiful creation all around us.
Sorry it was so long!! Ill do my best to get some pics of the truck up here in the next day or so.
TL/DR: Hey from Ohio!
Runner
#xcovlnd #borntoseekadventure
