Enthusiast III
I needed a break. It was that simple. I hadn’t taken any time off since January of 2020, and I was fraying at the edges. So I booked a week off from work and settled in to plan...something. (Here’s the video of the trip: )
The Mojave Road felt like a good idea. So I planned for 4 days on the trail. Bought supplies, made sure the Jeep was fully outfitted, added a fridge, built a secondary battery system to help keep it powered, loaded waaay too much gear inside our JLUR and felt ready. 8 extra gallons of gas, 13 gallons of water (for 2 people), extra battery packs, flashlights, knives, a couple shovels, a fire permit, 3 radios (CB, Ham and GRMS), tools, the new Speedflate system, an air compressor, tent-cots, mattresses, sleeping bags and all the other sundry bits we add for cooking, cleaning and generally living well on the trail.
You know...I was OVERLANDING! So yes, I had a sink, too!
At this point, you might be thinking “noob”...and you’d be wrong. Done all this before. But if you were thinking “idiot”, I might have to raise my hand sheepishly.
To say I over-prepared is an understatement. I mean, tough to be too careful when scrambling around the desert, but there’s a line and I navigated waaay over it here! LOL
Truth is, I really only needed 4 gallons of water and none of the extra fuel. Truth is, I didn’t need the 4 days I had planned. Truth is, the guide book everyone says to read IS worth every penny and WILL vastly increase the enjoyment of the experience. Truth is, for the last almost 20 miles, you’ll be flying kinda blind if you don’t have gpx tracks in your GPS. LOL. That said, when one is IN a large wash, following it, it’s really, really hard to go wrong. I mean a 200 foot canyon wall is a pretty obvious indication the route lies elsewhere. And the wash naturally funnels you...downstream.
But I digress...I’m starting at the end. Lemme reverse this Cannonball Run for y’all!
Monday morning, 8am in Camarillo, CA. A middle aged guy looks at his wife and says, “F**k it. It’s not like we’re going to Siberia. We can buy it if we forgot it!”
But really, what could we have possibly forgotten? Proof was the “leveling” happening at the rear end of our 2020 JLUR. So we left. We hit the highway feeling the way we always do when starting every adventure in SoCal: underwhelmed. Welcome to traveling the 101 to get anywhere! LOL
With every mile from home, and every mile towards Needles, our nominal “starting point” (because we’ve never seen the joint, THAT’s why... !), we felt better. My wife and I love exploring and adventure. Costa Rica, Greece, Iceland, England, Germany, Italy, France, Canada (born there), Bahamas, Cuba (thank you CDN passport!), Japan, Australia - been to those places and there is still so much more to see! And for this week, it was to be the historic Mojave Road.
Soon enough, Needles was in our rear view and Laughlin beckoned. We’d do a final fuel up in Bullhead City so my wife could “collect” stepping foot for her first time in Arizona (gas was, ahem, almost $2/gallon cheaper!), then head to mile zero along the River, zero the trip odo and start The Road!
With the obligatory mile zero photo done, my wife started navigating from the excellent Mojave Road Guide, while I regressed to a younger version of myself intent on creating the largest dust cloud behind the Jeep possible! #speed
That was pretty much the last time the Jeep saw the high side of 15 mph the rest of the day, too! We hit the trail right around 1:30 pm, planning to roll into a camp spot around 4 pm.
Out came the Speedflate (buy one, 100% worth it!), down went the tire pressures - we ran 22 psi for the whole trip. And damn, son, was that more comfy! Ahhh...we were all set to cruise the Road Snoop-Dog style: low and slow!
Ima gonna skip mile-by-mile tales of which wash was steep and which cholla stuck a spike in my Wrangler MT/Rs. I highly encourage you to get out there and experience these details in living color for yourself. Suffice it to say...progress was slow. And almost immediately I caught wind of, the merest whiff, of screwed-pooch. See, the guide book lists mileage as XX.X increments. It’s very easy to follow once you realize what the flow is. But about 2 hours in (so 20 miles or so), we realized the odo and book were drifting apart. This was to continue until the end of the trip, damnit...forcing me to DO ... MATH! Arghhh!!! Oh sure, I can hear y’all now, “But really, Mr. Sportsguy, how hard is it to calculate the difference of 7 miles between sources as needed?”
I mentioned I was on vacation, right? LOL
Now, kidding aside, the distance-drift was happening but it was entirely managable and to be expected. The book written a lot of years ago and only updated infrequently. Paths change, so distances vary slightly. It’s really nothing to worry about as you do the trip. Follow the book’s guidance, keep the dot on your GPS on the red line. You’ll be just fine.
By now, I’m sure you’re on edge wondering if we’ll make camp on time for Day 1! Of course we didn’t! We rolled in 30 minutes later than planned. But since the plan was a highly calculated “we’ll stop somewhere”, we couldn’t really be upset as we rolled to a stop at the location where the old bus used to be. Great open space with fire rings, a lone tree and a cranky little desert mouse I’d meet at 4:45 am the next morning as I negotiated his leaving my engine compartment while he chewed on the felt cover over the battery...but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Camp was set up quickly, the stove lit, dinner prepped and we watched a magnificent sunset behind the mountains (do I need to say “to our West” here? Hint: if you say YES, stay home. If you say NO, go explore. )
After cleaning up the dishes, we settled in to let darkness and solitude engulf us. Both flooded the plain we were on, filling the valley completely and permeating every nook and cranny with a new perspective. The stars dutifully arrived to remind us how puny we are. The Milky Way mocking all my planning and packing as insignificant. The meteors arrived, bringing back childhood memories and the faint hope aliens would just come visit us - I’m down for anything this side of anal probing, so let’s DO THIS, aliens!!!
Despite mentally shouting at the Universe to “prove life exist out there” to me, after several hours, the only thing we got was the faintest galactic fart as the moon slipped beyond the mountains, chasing the sun around our rock. In fairness, it may have just been me cutting wind with exquisite timing.
Sleep beckoned, so we crashed in our KampRite tent/cots, elevated above the earth to ensure nothing came to visit in the night. We could hear coyotes several miles away, the wind was calm and we eventually drifted off.
Only to be woken at 4:38 am by some damn noise coming from the general vacinity of our Jeep. We now catch up with my negotiating with the mouse to leave the engine compartment.
After he DID finally leave (I explained he’d likely lose his tail when I started the motor and either the accessory belt or fan blade snagged it), we cranked the beast (2020 JLUR) to life. Within seconds the heater was pouring out BTUs, flooding us with enough flexibility to move ourselves rationally. Breakfast was had, the sunrise was witnessed (breathtaking!), souls were fulfilled, camp was broken and we were underway before 9am. We still had about 100 miles to go.
Signs of civilization came and went. At one highway crossing, a couple in another Jeep watched, agog, as we simply rolled across the pavement they were on and kept going down the dirt track that trailed into the distance and met the horizon across that valley.
There wasn’t a lot of technical off-roading to be had, but we were fine with that. What little there was the Rubicon gamely ate up and set aside. By lunch, we’d covered a LOT more ground than we’d planned. See, we were planning for 2 nights on the trail, getting back home (Camarillo) on Wednesday evening. Even with the long, 10 mile section of whoops were were smack in the middle of, we had doubled the previous day’s average and were hitting a moving average closer to 20 mph now. After some quick math (voluntary, this time), we realized...we could Cannonball Run the trail and be back in our own bed on Tuesday night! Huzzah!!!
Now, quick side note here - I don’t really recommend this approach, unless you like the driving aspect a LOT. I do, so the idea formed in my head that it would be worth knowing if I could, for example, do the Mojave Road again as a 2 day run. At that point my brain said “challenge accepted” and began setting up rules of engagement.
I wasn’t going to stop everywhere.
I wasn’t going to see everything.
I wasn’t going to raise the pace and increase risk.
I was going to stop if darkness came before the final 5 miles of the trip.
#gameon
From lunch onward, it was a steady cruise West. We stopped at Government Wells, the Smith House, the other house, Traveller’s Monument, the Penny Tree, the train Bridge, the water crossing and Afton Campground. So by no means did we skip stuff. We had no real interest in hiking multi-mile trails in canyons in 92-degree heat, either, and felt our balance was good. We were enjoying the pace.
So for mile after mile, we feasted on sand, on gravel, on dirt, on rocks. We pinstriped the Jeep, slowly crawled down a steep, rutted incline. We created HUGE dust clouds, marveled at Dry Soda Lake and laughed out loud at the 4 INCHES of water we needed to crawl through at the final water crossing. Suffice it to say - it’s ALL dry out there right now!
We rolled into Afton Campground, with about 20 miles to go and about 40 minutes of daylight left. I looked inward. Deep into my soul, and I reached out to the Universe. The Universe asked me, “So you think you can make it?” And I said, “...this campground is overrun by f-ing ants! Here, hold my drink!” And we went for it.
And for the last 20 miles or so, the guidebook is Damn near useless. Stay on the course it says, making limp apologies for the lack of guiding cairns (your companion for the trip for the first 120 miles or so) because, you know, you’re in the Mojave River basin and piles of rocks just get washed away. But just keep going it says. So we did. Old skills honed as a teenage driver back in Canada’s legit snowy winters came flooding back and proved worthy in the deepest of sands we encountered.
During that last 20 miles I channeled both Burt Reynolds (The Bandit) and Tim Taylor (more power!!!). The Jeep did its thing and cut through the desert terrain like an expensive, brick-shaped scalpel. Sure footed as the roadrunners we’d seen all day. Quick as a greased penguin. Flexible as a politician.
As the last of the sun’s rays hit our grill, we high-fived, skidded to a stop and marveled at the I-15 mere feet away from us. It was hideous seeing that civilization after 2 days in the desert. Sigh. I almost went back.
Within seconds, one of those gonzo-long trains came sweeping by, making a racket that cleared my cobwebs and focused me on...home. 2.5 hours away. A shower, a comfy bed, a day of chilling when we awoke.
Out came the Smittybilt compressor, on went the Speedflate and in less than 10 minutes were were back up to 37 psi and ready to meet the world again.
From Yermo RD, the biggest challenges we faced on the trip home were the insane drivers on the 210 and 101. Don’t see THAT on the Mojave Road.
Here’s the video from the trip:
The Mojave Road felt like a good idea. So I planned for 4 days on the trail. Bought supplies, made sure the Jeep was fully outfitted, added a fridge, built a secondary battery system to help keep it powered, loaded waaay too much gear inside our JLUR and felt ready. 8 extra gallons of gas, 13 gallons of water (for 2 people), extra battery packs, flashlights, knives, a couple shovels, a fire permit, 3 radios (CB, Ham and GRMS), tools, the new Speedflate system, an air compressor, tent-cots, mattresses, sleeping bags and all the other sundry bits we add for cooking, cleaning and generally living well on the trail.
You know...I was OVERLANDING! So yes, I had a sink, too!
At this point, you might be thinking “noob”...and you’d be wrong. Done all this before. But if you were thinking “idiot”, I might have to raise my hand sheepishly.
To say I over-prepared is an understatement. I mean, tough to be too careful when scrambling around the desert, but there’s a line and I navigated waaay over it here! LOL
Truth is, I really only needed 4 gallons of water and none of the extra fuel. Truth is, I didn’t need the 4 days I had planned. Truth is, the guide book everyone says to read IS worth every penny and WILL vastly increase the enjoyment of the experience. Truth is, for the last almost 20 miles, you’ll be flying kinda blind if you don’t have gpx tracks in your GPS. LOL. That said, when one is IN a large wash, following it, it’s really, really hard to go wrong. I mean a 200 foot canyon wall is a pretty obvious indication the route lies elsewhere. And the wash naturally funnels you...downstream.
But I digress...I’m starting at the end. Lemme reverse this Cannonball Run for y’all!
Monday morning, 8am in Camarillo, CA. A middle aged guy looks at his wife and says, “F**k it. It’s not like we’re going to Siberia. We can buy it if we forgot it!”
But really, what could we have possibly forgotten? Proof was the “leveling” happening at the rear end of our 2020 JLUR. So we left. We hit the highway feeling the way we always do when starting every adventure in SoCal: underwhelmed. Welcome to traveling the 101 to get anywhere! LOL
With every mile from home, and every mile towards Needles, our nominal “starting point” (because we’ve never seen the joint, THAT’s why... !), we felt better. My wife and I love exploring and adventure. Costa Rica, Greece, Iceland, England, Germany, Italy, France, Canada (born there), Bahamas, Cuba (thank you CDN passport!), Japan, Australia - been to those places and there is still so much more to see! And for this week, it was to be the historic Mojave Road.
Soon enough, Needles was in our rear view and Laughlin beckoned. We’d do a final fuel up in Bullhead City so my wife could “collect” stepping foot for her first time in Arizona (gas was, ahem, almost $2/gallon cheaper!), then head to mile zero along the River, zero the trip odo and start The Road!
With the obligatory mile zero photo done, my wife started navigating from the excellent Mojave Road Guide, while I regressed to a younger version of myself intent on creating the largest dust cloud behind the Jeep possible! #speed
That was pretty much the last time the Jeep saw the high side of 15 mph the rest of the day, too! We hit the trail right around 1:30 pm, planning to roll into a camp spot around 4 pm.
Out came the Speedflate (buy one, 100% worth it!), down went the tire pressures - we ran 22 psi for the whole trip. And damn, son, was that more comfy! Ahhh...we were all set to cruise the Road Snoop-Dog style: low and slow!
Ima gonna skip mile-by-mile tales of which wash was steep and which cholla stuck a spike in my Wrangler MT/Rs. I highly encourage you to get out there and experience these details in living color for yourself. Suffice it to say...progress was slow. And almost immediately I caught wind of, the merest whiff, of screwed-pooch. See, the guide book lists mileage as XX.X increments. It’s very easy to follow once you realize what the flow is. But about 2 hours in (so 20 miles or so), we realized the odo and book were drifting apart. This was to continue until the end of the trip, damnit...forcing me to DO ... MATH! Arghhh!!! Oh sure, I can hear y’all now, “But really, Mr. Sportsguy, how hard is it to calculate the difference of 7 miles between sources as needed?”
I mentioned I was on vacation, right? LOL
Now, kidding aside, the distance-drift was happening but it was entirely managable and to be expected. The book written a lot of years ago and only updated infrequently. Paths change, so distances vary slightly. It’s really nothing to worry about as you do the trip. Follow the book’s guidance, keep the dot on your GPS on the red line. You’ll be just fine.
By now, I’m sure you’re on edge wondering if we’ll make camp on time for Day 1! Of course we didn’t! We rolled in 30 minutes later than planned. But since the plan was a highly calculated “we’ll stop somewhere”, we couldn’t really be upset as we rolled to a stop at the location where the old bus used to be. Great open space with fire rings, a lone tree and a cranky little desert mouse I’d meet at 4:45 am the next morning as I negotiated his leaving my engine compartment while he chewed on the felt cover over the battery...but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Camp was set up quickly, the stove lit, dinner prepped and we watched a magnificent sunset behind the mountains (do I need to say “to our West” here? Hint: if you say YES, stay home. If you say NO, go explore. )
After cleaning up the dishes, we settled in to let darkness and solitude engulf us. Both flooded the plain we were on, filling the valley completely and permeating every nook and cranny with a new perspective. The stars dutifully arrived to remind us how puny we are. The Milky Way mocking all my planning and packing as insignificant. The meteors arrived, bringing back childhood memories and the faint hope aliens would just come visit us - I’m down for anything this side of anal probing, so let’s DO THIS, aliens!!!
Despite mentally shouting at the Universe to “prove life exist out there” to me, after several hours, the only thing we got was the faintest galactic fart as the moon slipped beyond the mountains, chasing the sun around our rock. In fairness, it may have just been me cutting wind with exquisite timing.
Sleep beckoned, so we crashed in our KampRite tent/cots, elevated above the earth to ensure nothing came to visit in the night. We could hear coyotes several miles away, the wind was calm and we eventually drifted off.
Only to be woken at 4:38 am by some damn noise coming from the general vacinity of our Jeep. We now catch up with my negotiating with the mouse to leave the engine compartment.
After he DID finally leave (I explained he’d likely lose his tail when I started the motor and either the accessory belt or fan blade snagged it), we cranked the beast (2020 JLUR) to life. Within seconds the heater was pouring out BTUs, flooding us with enough flexibility to move ourselves rationally. Breakfast was had, the sunrise was witnessed (breathtaking!), souls were fulfilled, camp was broken and we were underway before 9am. We still had about 100 miles to go.
Signs of civilization came and went. At one highway crossing, a couple in another Jeep watched, agog, as we simply rolled across the pavement they were on and kept going down the dirt track that trailed into the distance and met the horizon across that valley.
There wasn’t a lot of technical off-roading to be had, but we were fine with that. What little there was the Rubicon gamely ate up and set aside. By lunch, we’d covered a LOT more ground than we’d planned. See, we were planning for 2 nights on the trail, getting back home (Camarillo) on Wednesday evening. Even with the long, 10 mile section of whoops were were smack in the middle of, we had doubled the previous day’s average and were hitting a moving average closer to 20 mph now. After some quick math (voluntary, this time), we realized...we could Cannonball Run the trail and be back in our own bed on Tuesday night! Huzzah!!!
Now, quick side note here - I don’t really recommend this approach, unless you like the driving aspect a LOT. I do, so the idea formed in my head that it would be worth knowing if I could, for example, do the Mojave Road again as a 2 day run. At that point my brain said “challenge accepted” and began setting up rules of engagement.
I wasn’t going to stop everywhere.
I wasn’t going to see everything.
I wasn’t going to raise the pace and increase risk.
I was going to stop if darkness came before the final 5 miles of the trip.
#gameon
From lunch onward, it was a steady cruise West. We stopped at Government Wells, the Smith House, the other house, Traveller’s Monument, the Penny Tree, the train Bridge, the water crossing and Afton Campground. So by no means did we skip stuff. We had no real interest in hiking multi-mile trails in canyons in 92-degree heat, either, and felt our balance was good. We were enjoying the pace.
So for mile after mile, we feasted on sand, on gravel, on dirt, on rocks. We pinstriped the Jeep, slowly crawled down a steep, rutted incline. We created HUGE dust clouds, marveled at Dry Soda Lake and laughed out loud at the 4 INCHES of water we needed to crawl through at the final water crossing. Suffice it to say - it’s ALL dry out there right now!
We rolled into Afton Campground, with about 20 miles to go and about 40 minutes of daylight left. I looked inward. Deep into my soul, and I reached out to the Universe. The Universe asked me, “So you think you can make it?” And I said, “...this campground is overrun by f-ing ants! Here, hold my drink!” And we went for it.
And for the last 20 miles or so, the guidebook is Damn near useless. Stay on the course it says, making limp apologies for the lack of guiding cairns (your companion for the trip for the first 120 miles or so) because, you know, you’re in the Mojave River basin and piles of rocks just get washed away. But just keep going it says. So we did. Old skills honed as a teenage driver back in Canada’s legit snowy winters came flooding back and proved worthy in the deepest of sands we encountered.
During that last 20 miles I channeled both Burt Reynolds (The Bandit) and Tim Taylor (more power!!!). The Jeep did its thing and cut through the desert terrain like an expensive, brick-shaped scalpel. Sure footed as the roadrunners we’d seen all day. Quick as a greased penguin. Flexible as a politician.
As the last of the sun’s rays hit our grill, we high-fived, skidded to a stop and marveled at the I-15 mere feet away from us. It was hideous seeing that civilization after 2 days in the desert. Sigh. I almost went back.
Within seconds, one of those gonzo-long trains came sweeping by, making a racket that cleared my cobwebs and focused me on...home. 2.5 hours away. A shower, a comfy bed, a day of chilling when we awoke.
Out came the Smittybilt compressor, on went the Speedflate and in less than 10 minutes were were back up to 37 psi and ready to meet the world again.
From Yermo RD, the biggest challenges we faced on the trip home were the insane drivers on the 210 and 101. Don’t see THAT on the Mojave Road.
Here’s the video from the trip:
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