Home on the Highway - San Francisco to Ushuaia, Argentina in an 87 4Runner (1 Viewer)

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Howdy folks! Figured it was about time to get this thread going. After saving and planning this trip for the past 3 years, Lauren and I are set to leave TODAY for the first leg of our Pan-American journey.

We are leaving from San Francisco to travel back to our home-state of Florida to say adios to our family and friends, from there we will trek back to Texas and cross the border into Mexico. DESTINATION: USHUAIA, ARGENTINA

We have no set plans, No real set destination other than getting to the bottom. Our timeline for the trip is at least 1 year. We are planning to extend the trip by hooking up with volunteer organizations, couchsurfing, and house-sitting when possible. We have modified my 87 4Runner into a quasi-camper with most of the luxuries of home. ie: Bed, Stove, Shower, 110v etc.

The truck is fitted to tackle some serious off-roading, we look forward to exploring tons of backroads and trails all up and down Central/South America. Any suggestions on places to go, people to see, beers to drink will be appreciated!

I am still waiting to pick up our truck from the 4x4 shop today where they are mounting a rear-swingout for 2 jerry cans, Our lease is up and my last day of work was yesterday so we are OUTTA HERE as soon as we get the truck.

We are going to take about 2 weeks or so to drive from Northern California to Florida. Lauren has never seen much of Utah, Nevada, Colorado so I believe we will be journeying that way. We plan to just look at the atlas and pick out national/state parks/monuments/forests to camp at along the way. Again we are open to ANYTHING so throw up your suggestions.

SO EXCITED!!!


Here is our blog with more information, feel free to subscribe and follow us on the facebook

Home on the Highway | Our adventures driving the Pan-Am.

Thanks,
James

 

[Combat Chuck]

Sounds great!
I look forward to reading your progress.

 

[RubiRed]

What an adventure! Look forward to your trip updates!

 

[93yotasr5]

dude your lady is hot. hopefully she doesnt hit her head o na rock and realize she been with you this whole time lol

just kidding man.

keep the pics and updates coming!!!!

 

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November 1st came and went, we were antsy to get going but the world had other plans. Luckily we only ended up two days behind “schedule”, which I am now declaring as a dirty word. Schedules are for people who have someplace to be.

Darren and Marc at Any7 got the truck all finished up, they did a great job putting our ideas for the truck into action. We picked it up and headed home to cram all worldly possessions into the back.

Thanks guys!

Luckily this process only took about 30 minutes. Impressive! We bid our landlords and our cabin farewell and headed out the door. It was too late to actually make it anywhere and the truck was too full of crap to camp in the back. Darren let us crash on his couch for the night, the first of many couch surfing experience to come I am sure.

Re-arranged the back of the truck in the morning and hit the road. Our destination for the night was the Sierra mountains.

Excitedly we headed off into the rolling foothills of the Sierras.

The clouds looming overhead did not look very inviting, and as we approached the mountain range we saw signs stating the most of the mountain passes were closed. I thought this was odd since I was just up here last weekend and there wasn't any snow on the ground. Cranked up the weather report on the radio…

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY – SNOW STORM APPROACHING EASTERN SIERRAS AT 730PM – 8 INCHES OF SNOW AND 75 MPH WINDS EXPECTED AT 8000FT.

Perfect, so pretty much exactly where we were heading? Looks like our “schedule” is about to change again. A quick look at the map and we decide we are going to go up and over the Sierra range and camp at a ghost town called Bodie on the eastern-side foothills. The storm was not scheduled to hit until 730, was only 430 at the time. We were about 2 hours from the other side. No problemo. We press on determined to beat the storm.

Not much time for pictures this visit to the Sierras.

Approaching 8000FT

Making good time, should make it easily before the storm hits. …until

What the hell!? Construction delays on the Carson pass! A bunch of bozos trying to build a road as the storm approaches, A long line of trucks idling waiting for the road to clear. The white flakes starting to fall and winds picking up!

Eventually we make it over and haul *** down to Bodie as the storm picks up gusto. We find a side-road up in the hills and setup camp for the night as the storm set in. It’s going to be a cold one…

DAMN! 11F at 830AM, Had to have got down to 5F or so overnight

We awake to all the windows completely iced over, rear window and side windows frozen up, only way out of the truck is to move all the crap piled in the front back onto our bed and then climb out the front seats.

Iced over

She still started on first crank!

Froze our *** off trying to repack the truck in 11F weather, headed into town to grab a coffee then headed south. We wanted to check out the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Home to the oldest living things in the world.

Weather was still crappy but we knew if we waited any longer they would shut the road down (We have tried 3 times to get up here, every time it has been closed due to inclement weather/snowed out roads)

Road to nowhere?

The ancient bristlecone pines are only found in the highest elevations of the Inyo forest, from 8000-12000ft these beasts have lived for over 4000 years. Older than the next oldest living thing by over 1000 years! I had to see them!

Conditions worsening, 4Runner can take it. My buddy Jimbo gave me my first 4x4 lessons driving in a damn Sierra blizzard, I think I can handle a little powdering.

Made it!

Quick poses! too cold to hang around

Back to the truck and crank the damn heater up!

Drove back out of the park and camped on another backroad near the back entrance to Death Valley

 

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Not a bad sight to wake up too.

Headed up the backroad into Saline Valley, Death Valley National Park

blech, cooties!

DV has some of the most breathtaking scenery in the U.S, the weather/light was crap most of the day so I couldn't get very good pics.

Abandoned homestead

Stopped for some lunch, you can somewhat see our current “organization” system. Still a work in progress.

Saline Valley Rd.

Part of the old trolley system that carted salt from the Saline valley up and over the mountains to Bishop, CA. quite a feat in its day.

Driving down Saline Valleys dirt roads was a blast. The new OME suspension ate it up! I could haul *** now over every type of rock, pothole, dip, whatever. The suspension ate it up and asked for more. I am really happy with it, Thanks again to Any7 Offroad for putting it all together for us.

Riding down the road we came across a Toyota FJ60 broken down on the side of the road. Not being one to leave a fellow Toyota behind we pulled over to see what was up.

Hmmm… 20 year old spare didn't cut the mustard in Death Valley?

Turns out these guys were from LA and were out here cruising for the weekend headed to the Hot springs. They caught a flat the day before and the spare blew out them just a mile down the road. They had been stuck there for about 24 hours now.

At least they had a nice view…

10 minutes with the plug kit and the punctured tire was repaired, took about another 3 hours wrestling with the jack and the stock sagged out springs to get the blown out spare off. Luckily they had beer, which is about all it takes to keep me around for 3 hours.

Stock spare off, not enough clearance to mount the fixed tire though.

Gotta air it down! Ladies… We need your butts.

With the tire aired down we were able to clear the lugs, get it bolted on and air it back up. Back on the road!

We set our separate ways and setup camp somewhere down in the valley.

Woke up in the morning, pack the truck up and headed out. Destination Las Vegas.

Joshua Trees in DV.

Lauren says this is where Dr. Seuss came to write his books, the truffala tree looks oddly similar to the Joshua Tree

Off out the valley, into Nevada.

Reason #1 why Nevada rocks! Was paying ~$4/gal in CA.

We are now lying in bed in a hotel in Las Vegas, couldn't pass up the cheap deal and a hot shower! The adventure continues…

 

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For better pics of the Sierras and Death Valley, check out some of our older trips here.

Death Valley | Home on the Highway

Rae Lakes Loop | Home on the Highway

 

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I am having some issues with the truck though, looks like when the motor got rebuilt they put a O'Reillys thermostat in there instead of the dual-spring OEM one so I am getting tempature overshoot constantly, espciailly in this cold weather, the block cools down instantly and the thermostat slams shut until the truck is practically overheating, then it drops back down to normal temp, i gotta keep the RPMs up the keep the temp up to prevent the thermo from slamming. Calling the Las Vegas Toyota dealer in the AM, hopefully the have the thermo in stock, if not Ill call ahead to my next town and have them order it for me.

Also looks like I am seeping oil from the oil pan gasket and possibly someplace else, I thought I saw some red ATF fluid under the truck at one gas station but have not seen it since.

Going to give everything a scrubdown tomorrow and evaluate, anyone know know a spot in Las Vegas that I could get some work done if need be?

 

[e9999]

impressive trip you're planning there. Great opportunity and undoubtedly a life-changing experience. Enjoy the time out there!

Also impressive -and humbling- to see you don't seem to have had the need for the excruciating prep work that some other travellers seem to have felt compelled to go through. Can't plan for everything and too much of that will also result in lost opportunities. Carpe Diem and all that! Then again, watch your fluids and hardware. Easier to fix it in the US than somewhere in South America...

Good luck to you!

 

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impressive trip you're planning there. Great opportunity and undoubtedly a life-changing experience. Enjoy the time out there!

Also impressive -and humbling- to see you don't seem to have had the need for the excruciating prep work that some other travellers seem to have felt compelled to go through. Can't plan for everything and too much of that will also result in lost opportunities. Carpe Diem and all that! Then again, watch your fluids and hardware. Easier to fix it in the US than somewhere in South America...

Good luck to you!

thanks bud, were keeping an eye on things and doing this cross-country "prep-trip" to dial everything in before we head south.

 

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dual-stage thermostat from toyota fixed up the overheat issue,, temp is solid now

not losing any diff fluid from the axle shaft oil seal, keeping on top of my oil pan leak for now.

90-miles of backroads yesterday down to Toroweap overlook on the north rim of the grand canyon, not a soul around for miles, was EPIC

in zion national park now, got here at night, should be quite a sight to wake up too

 

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The Colorado Plateau is a geographic region of the U.S which covers over 130,000 sq miles of land shared between Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. This area has the greatest concentration of National Parks in the U.S and it is easy to see why. Developed over billions of years and uplifted and modified by faults and receding oceans this area is chock full of geological, ecological, and historical splendor. We had a blast.

Leaving Las Vegas!

Our night in Vegas was spent mostly holed up in our room enjoying the HEAT! and updating the blog. We did make it down for a few drinks and some midway games at Circus Circus

Lauren won a Rhino, He got some free drinks

Headed up to St. George, Utah and camped off some forest road.

Our first taste of red dirt

Snow Canyon State Park, St. George Utah

Since leaving the Bay, we have been having overheating issues, the thermostat on the truck has been malfunctioning. I had read about this issue in the past happening with your standard Autozone thermostats and knew it was fixed by getting the expensive Toyota OEM dual-stage thermostat.

$45 later and 1/2 gallon of coolant onto the NAPA parking lot and we were fixed up, issue solved, no more overheating.

Off to the Grand Canyon! We read about a 90-mile backroad from St. George to a remote area of the Grand Canyon National Park called the “Toroweap Overlook”. Talked to a few people in town who said that it would be snowed and we would not be able to make it up and over the Mount Trumball pass. We’re used to naysayers and of course headed off anyway, the 4runner could make it.

Sunset on the Toroweap Rd.

Nightfall hit by the time we made up to the mountain pass, It was covered in snow and mud, I had a blast mashing through it all in 2 wheel drive, slipping and sliding all over the place and making a big ol’ mess of the truck.

Eventually made it to the campground, setup shop and went to sleep. Awoke in the morning completely alone and surrounded by the majesty of the red rocks and Grand Canyon.

Headed out on a hike to the Toroweap Overlook, no one around for miles but us and the canyon. No guardrails, no tourists, just the way we like it.

Played around in the Canyon for a while, then headed off again back to Utah. Headed to Zion National Park.

 

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Spotted some Coyotes

We arrived in Zion in the middle of the night, awoke surrounded by huge canyon walls and beautiful CLEAR weather! Something we have been lacking most of the trip.

Spent most of the day hiking around Zion, then headed off to explore more of Southern Utah.

Headed to Bryce Canyon. Amazing Scenery of course.

Bryce Canyon was pretty well snowed out when we got there, Still checked it out.

Spent most of the time running out the overlook then back to the car, was about 30F outside at the time! Too cold for this Florida boy.

From Bryce we headed down another backroad towards Capitol Reef National Park, sun went down and we setup another freezing camp. Awoke in the morning to frost covering the truck once again and dreary cloud cover.

 

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The beautiful dirt road through Capitol Reef made up for the weather. This is a great drive and there was no one out here but us. We enjoyed taking our time cruising through this beautiful place.

Eventually the dirt road led us to Glen Canyon National Recreation area, which is home to most of Lake Powell. Similar to Hetch Hetchy in the Sierras, a environmental tragedy took place here where we dammed up the Colorado River and flooded the majestic Glen Canyon to increase water supply to the surrounding area. The created reservoir was named Lake Powell after one of my heroes.

We hit the highway once again and headed towards the 4x4’er mecca. AKA MOAB, UTAH!

Got to Moab in the middle of the night, shacked up in a cheap motel. I thought I had heard some strange noises coming from our trash bag we had been carrying since Grand Canyon. Messed around for a bit with it and didn’t see anything, figured I was just crazy. Next morning Lauren is doing Yoga and hears the same noises coming from the bag. We snatched it up and dumped it into the bathtub to investigate.

HITCHHIKER!

Screaming like little girls and dancing around the room in our underwear trying to catch him but he ended up escaping somewhere in the motel room. Sorry Motel6!

 

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ow that our adrenaline was pumping it was time to go beat on the truck some. We headed to the “Poison Spider 4x4 Trail” to try our luck and see how far we could make it. Lauren has never been 4wheeling before and was pretty much peeing her pants the entire time as we drove all over this place. The 4Runner with little 31 inch tires and open differentials is still a pretty capable machine.

http://youtu.be/yzfzb9Tzjcs

http://youtu.be/f_T6A-4aWdQ

http://youtu.be/sJFLebowm0s

http://youtu.be/nPaj3VB_0rg

After mashing around in Moab for most of the day we were headed up to Grand Junction, CO. An awesome guy from MarlinCrawler forums had offered to help us fix up a few issues with the truck that we did not have the tools or knowledge to tackle ourselves.

Drove around Colorado National Monument looking for a campspot, eventually found some dirt road that we took, kept getting higher and higher into the mountain. Eventually we were driving through deep snow in the middle of no where, figured we should turn around. Well the rear wheels dropped into a icy rut and we were stuck. 30 minutes of winching later we were turned around and headed back down the road. The Smittybuilt winch is no longer a virgin and it worked like a champ!

 

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Next morning headed over to Phillip’s shop in Grand Junction. The shops name is Karnage Fabrication, Phillip knows Toyota’s like the back of his hand. He has owned over 50 of them and had ours torn apart and fixed back up in no time. This guy was a lifesaver, The Toyota community is an great group and I feel honored to have met such an awesome guy and his beautiful family. We replaced the oil pan cork gasket with the proper sealant, fixed up a leaky inner shat oil seal, and replaced the failing AUTO hubs with some beefy AISIN manual hubs. Thanks again Phil, you are our hero! And Thanks to Sean and Ace for grabbing some much needed parts. It was great to meet all of you!

Lauren and Phil’s daughter became bestest of friends.

4x4 Fabrication/Arts and Crafts. Karnage Fabrication has it all!

Headed off today for Vail to meet up with one of my dad’s old friends. Speaking of which… I should probably get on the horn and let him know were coming!

 

[Combat Chuck]

That's some amazing sightseeing!
Thank you for sharing your journey thus far with us all!



Quick question:
Do you have any idea what brand that front bumper is? I've seen a few here-and-there, but I have no idea who makes 'em.

 

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not sure, I thought it was a homebrew, some guy on MarlinCrawler recognized it and said he sold it to the guy I bought it from ages ago.

 

[Combat Chuck]

Okay, thanks.
I saw one on a first-gen the other day at pick-n-pull, and just about jumped for joy, but found it was booger-welded to the frame of the truck.
I couldn't find a name brand on it, but it was a nice one.

 

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Heading out from Moab towards Colorado. We stopped off in Beaver Creek, CO to visit an old friend. Tommy is one of my dads best friends and basically an uncle to me and my brothers. It was great catching up with him and nice to get out of the cold for a bit. Tommy is a wild man, loves deep-sea diving, heli-skiing, dragracing, and basically raising hell. When I was younger he gave me my first job, let me get away with all my shenanigans, and was there to kick my ass when I needed it. A good guy indeed.

Beaver Creek, Nice little ski town. Still needs more snow to get pumping.

Fellow hellraisers

A little further up the mountain, Vail, CO had runs open and people skiing.

From Beaver Creek we stopped in Denver to see another old friend. We all call him Howie, I think his real name is Chris. But he has always been Howie to us. I met Howie back during my brief-stint with college. A lifetime friend and accomplice, how we got away with 1/2 the stuff we pulled I will never know. We stopped in unexpectedly and they were planning to go to a concert that night.

We tagged along planning to buy tickets and join them.

BOO! Sold out!

Oh well, old friends can still party down together; show or no show. We easily scalped his tickets. Howie and his girlfriend Courtney made a $50 profit! Headed across the street to imbibe for a bit….

Came back later to at least try to get a poster… and discovered the box office selling some last minute tickets for $20 a pop! SCORE!

Had a blast at the show, made some new friends at Howie’s local watering hole, had a Taylor Swift karaoke contest (Don’t ask!), and hit the hay.

Woke up hazy the next morning, headed over to the Red Rocks. Red Rocks is a naturally occurring amphitheater in the huge boulders/cliffs outside Denver. It is a beautiful place to see a concert, unfortunately they were closed for the season but you can still mill around the place and check it out.

Scooted down from Denver towards Texas. Stopped for the night and camped on some BLM land just outside of Great Sand Dunes National Park. Courtney had mentioned that we should come here and see the dunes.

Woke up in the AM and checked out the park. If I have not mentioned this yet, if you plan on visiting more than 2 or 3 National Parks a year it is definitely worth picking up an America: The Beautiful” Annual Access pass. I have used this thing at least 20+ times this year, it is a one-time fee of $80 but it gets you into all National/Federal Parks/Monuments/Recreation/Seashore areas. I have saved around $300 in park fees so far this year by getting this pass. You can pick it up at any national park or order it online. It is a painless and quick process. Definitely worth it if you love our nations parks as much as we do.

Great Sand Dunes National Park contains the tallest sand dunes in North America. They have been swept down from the mountains across the San Luis Valley and pushed up against the edge of the Sangre De Cristo mountain range where they have grown and grown for ages.