Hey everyone,
I am very excited to be joining this very active community! A little about myself. I grew up on the east coast. Predominately in the Washington D.C area. I did not have many oppurtunities to do camping and exploring growing up but when I did, it was the best. I am very fortunate and grateful that my wife loves to go explore as much as I do. One of our most favorite things to do was to just go drive on the backroads of Maryland and try to get lost. Getting lost was hard to do as we knew the area quite well.
Moving to the west coast totally awakened our adventure lust. Both my wife and I really feel like there is so much more to do and see out here. I left my Mazda 3 behind in Maryland and immediantly bought a 2008 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. That thing was sweet, it was already rather built with a 3" lift, 35s, front and rear bumpers and winch. I miss it very much. It was a great vehicle.
At this point I should mention that I have 4 kids, currently ranging from 6 to 9. In order to shoe horn everyone into the Jeep, I had installed a third row. On top of this we also were able to squeeze in our 100lb lab. It was like a clown car. It was awesome. Two things that led me to sell it. First the kids kept disobeying me and would not stop growing like I demanded them to, so it was getting uncomfortably tight. Also I only had a soft top and half doors with soft uppers, this made any trip on the highway increadibly loud. We practically had to pull over just to hear the kids in the back row. 3 hour trips to Big Bear felt like forever.
To replace it I bought a 96 FZJ80, fully locked, already somewhat built up. I actually flew to Oregan to buy it. This was a huge improvement over the Jeep. It had a third row and was way way more comfortable on the road. All this time we have been tent campers, setting up and breaking down camp for a one night stand someplace was getting very tiresome. So we looked into getting a travel trailer. We found a very nice one that was well below the 80's towing capacity. Well the 80 was able to pull the trailer, it just wasn't happy about it. We needed a better tow vehicle. So I posted my thoughts about selling the 80 on my local chapters land cruiser club and it sold within hours, for more than I bought it for, no joke.
This brings us to now. We traded in the mini van and I got my wife an 06 Sequoia with 4wd. So far this thing has been really great. It tows our trailer very nicely and it still gives us the oppurtunity to go and explore that trails once we setup basecamp.
Despite it being my wife's daily driver, she is totally ok with me building it up. She's the best.
I also enjoy rock climbing and technical trails. So does my wife, as a result I needed to find a vehicle that I could build up for that reason, but also fit all of us. After months and months of searching in comes my Jeep CJ-8.
And thats my story. I am really looking forward to getting to know you all!
I am very excited to be joining this very active community! A little about myself. I grew up on the east coast. Predominately in the Washington D.C area. I did not have many oppurtunities to do camping and exploring growing up but when I did, it was the best. I am very fortunate and grateful that my wife loves to go explore as much as I do. One of our most favorite things to do was to just go drive on the backroads of Maryland and try to get lost. Getting lost was hard to do as we knew the area quite well.
Moving to the west coast totally awakened our adventure lust. Both my wife and I really feel like there is so much more to do and see out here. I left my Mazda 3 behind in Maryland and immediantly bought a 2008 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. That thing was sweet, it was already rather built with a 3" lift, 35s, front and rear bumpers and winch. I miss it very much. It was a great vehicle.
At this point I should mention that I have 4 kids, currently ranging from 6 to 9. In order to shoe horn everyone into the Jeep, I had installed a third row. On top of this we also were able to squeeze in our 100lb lab. It was like a clown car. It was awesome. Two things that led me to sell it. First the kids kept disobeying me and would not stop growing like I demanded them to, so it was getting uncomfortably tight. Also I only had a soft top and half doors with soft uppers, this made any trip on the highway increadibly loud. We practically had to pull over just to hear the kids in the back row. 3 hour trips to Big Bear felt like forever.
To replace it I bought a 96 FZJ80, fully locked, already somewhat built up. I actually flew to Oregan to buy it. This was a huge improvement over the Jeep. It had a third row and was way way more comfortable on the road. All this time we have been tent campers, setting up and breaking down camp for a one night stand someplace was getting very tiresome. So we looked into getting a travel trailer. We found a very nice one that was well below the 80's towing capacity. Well the 80 was able to pull the trailer, it just wasn't happy about it. We needed a better tow vehicle. So I posted my thoughts about selling the 80 on my local chapters land cruiser club and it sold within hours, for more than I bought it for, no joke.
This brings us to now. We traded in the mini van and I got my wife an 06 Sequoia with 4wd. So far this thing has been really great. It tows our trailer very nicely and it still gives us the oppurtunity to go and explore that trails once we setup basecamp.
Despite it being my wife's daily driver, she is totally ok with me building it up. She's the best.
I also enjoy rock climbing and technical trails. So does my wife, as a result I needed to find a vehicle that I could build up for that reason, but also fit all of us. After months and months of searching in comes my Jeep CJ-8.
And thats my story. I am really looking forward to getting to know you all!
Last edited:
![[DO]Ron](/forums/data/avatars/m/5/5154.jpg?1711577950){kind=avatar}
