Hey NoCo folks! My name is CD, 31, and I live in Fort Collins up by Horsetooth Resevoir. I grew up in Wisconsin, but many summers came out to the Rockies with my folks and grandparents for a few weeks to explore different national parks, mainly Yellowstone, Glacier and Rocky Mountain. I think those trips are what planted the seed for my love of the outdoors. I didn’t really know that overlanding was a thing, or even possible until I moved to Fort Collins the summer of 2012. That’s when I learned about the amazing freedoms that one can enjoy in national forest. Really just started exploring forest roads in Red Feather and off the Poudre Canyon with my lady Jaz, driving my Suburu Forester and tent camping. But quickly felt the desire to see more, and stay out longer. So ended up upsizing to a F-150 with Decked storage system and Snugtop cap and steel skid plates. This worked great for the 15 ish nights a year that we got out... as long as we had good weather. But after a couple years and two different two week trips, one through Oregon and California and the second with a good chunk in the San Juan mountains. I started feeling limited in a stock, full size rig in tight terrain. Our focus in exploring was always pretty leisurely, really just sticking to wide forest roads, with the occasional tight rocky offshoot to a campsite. But the more built Toyotas and Jeeps I saw, the more I started to wonder what I missing out on. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and started looking at Tacoma’s, and my desire only got stronger after seeing my good friends 2nd gen Taco w/ GFC. It was more comfortable than our f150 and more cabable. So I convinced a salesmen at the dealership to let me borrow a Tacoma over 4th of July weekend, and instantly fell in love when I brought it on old flowers road... for the first time on a trail I could pick a line, get passed oncoming traffic without backing up, and wasn’t dragging my belly over whoops. Had a little too much fun and ended up returning the truck with a flat tire :). So I started planning my build, using forums and IG for inspiration. Had my truck all planned, and got a quote from Bullhide 4x4 to do the build. Ironically the day I was gonna put the down payment on a quicksand Trd offroad, I saw a listing on Expediiton Portal with my dream truck for sale in Kennewick WA. It saved me a handful of cash and at least a month of shop time, and allowed me to sell my f150 to help fund it. So I got on a plane to Washington Sep 25 2018, and I like to think that was the first day of the rest of my life :). When I returned home I quickly outfitted the Taco with a Fourwheel camper I found on Craigslist, and that’s really when Sandy was born. Since then it’s been my goal to get out 36 nights a year (10%), and I have stuck to it! My lady Jaz and our two dogs also love getting out, and are with me on 90% of the adventures. We have done most of our exploring solo in one vehicle, and have taken more of a touring approach to overlanding rather than hardcore rock crawling. With the weight of the camper I have limited the performance of the Taco a bit, but was very happy with the balance between comfort and performance that was struck. If you have seen a Sand Taco and matching camper around town that’s me! Now after my very long winded description I’ll end it by saying the pursuit for the perfect vehicle isn’t over, but I have realized it maybe doesn’t exist. So I’m building another Taco, and will have two different purpose built rigs, a more comfortable flatbed Taco tourer, and then a more capable slightly lighter rig (by overlanding standards haha) to tackle tougher terrain with more confidence. Looking forward to going out with more vehicles and pushing my skills a bit more with the added confidence of having some trail buddies to assist in a recovery. Lol and now that you know my life story, looking forward to getting out there with you all! Also, so much of this was rig focused... but I want to stress that the while the rigs are fun, it’s really all about the freedom and adventure that they help provide. My IG is @cd_in_3d , would be great if folks shared that too. Wow I really got a roll there !
