OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
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For this month’s gear review, I’m testing out the: Guardian 12v Solar Recharging Kit from Goal Zero! If there’s one issue with remote travel by vehicle, it is energy consumption and management. Whether you’re exploring the desert, kicking back at a mountain lake, or camped out for the week at a remote beach in Baja, you need to be concerned…
When we last left #teamASTRID on the Maya Rally 2012, we were in Palenque after successfully singing with mariachis, ziplining across Cañon del Sumidero and taking part in a unique fishing excursion! What will our road warriors be up to today? Day 8: White Guy Dreadlocks and Mayan Temples! After a quick breakfast of chorizo, eggs, cheese and tortillas, we…
In the last Maya Rally 2012 post, we just finished up in Oaxaca eating grasshoppers, doing mezcal shots in the middle of the day and wrestling with luchadores, but to finish this rally, we needed to get on the road as quickly as possible. With 1314 km (816 miles) and 3 days left, we needed to put in some miles!…
When we last left our intrepid Maya Rally 2012 adventurers, we were in Senguio viewing the Monarch butterfly migration in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. We had over 650 km (403 miles) to get to Oaxaca that night, and we had two options to get there, one was to drive straight through Mexico City (Distrito Federal or D.F.) or drive…
In the last installment we started the Maya Rally 2012 and had a blast racking up points in Guanajuato. As much as we would have loved to stay in this awesome city a little while longer, we knew we had to lay down some miles if we ever hoped to cross the finish line by December 20th. We packed up…
The last two weeks of travel and volunteering were all leading up to the start of the Maya Rally 2012 in Guanajuato. We knew very little about the rally before agreeing to compete and the weeks leading up to the start of the rally didn’t exactly shed any light on the subject. We were left intentionally in the dark by…
When we registered for the Maya Rally 2012, we had the choice of paying upwards of $400.00 in entrance fees or alternatively, sign up to volunteer for a week with the Muskoka Foundation, an organization that pairs overland travelers with projects on their route- all around the world. I first learned of the Muskoka Foundation when I was doing research…
Day 6: Pyramids and Tequila! We hit the road on day six of the Maya Rally 2012 journey looking for pyramids! Not those overdone square or rectangular pyramids, mind you, but ROUND pyramids. Our camp host in Ezatlan told us of Guachimontones an area representative of the Teuchitlan architectural tradition. This pre-Columbian society came to power sometime between 200 BC…
Day 3: Los Mochis On day three of the journey to the start of the Maya Rally 2012, we got in touch with a friend of our good buddy Luis to stay in Topolobampo for the evening before moving on further south. We rolled out of our hotel/ campground around 11:00 a.m. after a quick run through the neighborhood. After…
Day 1: We left Santa Cruz at zero dark thirty on Tuesday morning and even though we’ve been looking forward to this trip for months, we knew that this was going to be one of the hardest days on the itinerary. THE SLOG. You see, we needed to get to Tucson, AZ from Santa Cruz, CA- a distance of approximately…
If you know us or have followed this blog for a while, you know that we love adventure travel. Just this year, we’ve done the Mojave Road, California’s Lost Coast, and a three-day trek into the Northern California backcountry. I’ve been itching to get out and devour more adventure and we’ve been kicking around some ideas about the best way…
First off, let me say that there are tons of options for overland vehicle water storage and I’m not going to review all of them here. How you end up storing your water depends on a few different factors including; vehicle weight restrictions, storage capabilities either inside or outside your rig, and the cost of storage systems. Access to clean…
On day three of our Northeastern California Backroads trip we awoke to an empty campground. Ed & Mary took off early, but they left us a great note to wish us well on our adventures. We typically wouldn’t do ANYTHING without at least having a cup of coffee and some breakfast, but we decided that we were going to head…
It was a fantastic day as we began our descent out of Lassen National Forest, across Lake Almanor, and toward Susanville. At Susanville we caught US Hwy 395 north about 50 miles to the very small town of Ravendale. After coming out of the mountains, we were now in high desert landscapes as we headed north to the trailhead. Just…
It had been way too long between trips and we needed a little mountain getaway. We did the Lost Coast in August and SoCal Mountain Rendezvous wasn’t until the beginning of October. I had to get away, STAT! I’d always wanted to drive the extreme northeast corner of California, an area I’ve never had the opportunity to explore before. In…
After the 2012 SoCal Mountain Rendezvous, we weren’t quite ready to go home, so we left the San Bernardino National Forest and set our GPS for Highway 395, a long stretch of highway that runs on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The plan was to drive up to the Mammoth Lakes area and stay at Laurel Lakes,…
What would cause an otherwise sane person to drive 430 miles for a weekend in the woods? Well, if your idea of fun includes camping with like-minded adventurers, checking out people’s overland builds, drinking large amounts of adult beverages, sitting around a bonfire, eating tons of food prepped by Zach at Overland Gourmet, and getting some free gear, then I…
We couldn’t decide if we wanted to leave AW Way County Park the next day, so we did what all good adventurers would do, we decided over a swim in the river! It felt so good to be stationary for a bit that we just wanted it to last a little bit longer. After our swim and a quick blunch…
Our campsite at Usal Beach was quiet like it only can be in the fog. The only sounds that morning were the faint calls of sea birds and the roar of crashing waves. We started stirring as the filtered light began to make its way into the tent. Then, the elk show began for the day as the four, huge…
The Lost Coast…even the name conjures up impressions of high-adventure, drama and romance. In our book, it sounded like the perfect place to explore. The mythical Lost Coast is an 80-mile stretch of rugged, unspoiled Northern California coastline that runs from roughly Westport, CA in the south to Ferndale, CA in the north. This journey by car will take you…
Imagine…you’re sleeping away soundly in your rooftop tent, nestled snugly in your mummy bag, dreaming of dirt roads in all directions that never touch pavement, the temperature is just right to get some good rest…SCREECH, RATTLE, RATTLE, VROOOOOM! What the fu*k? I sat upright in the tent, trying to get to the zipper on my sleeping bag/ straight jacket so…
As it happens so often in the desert, the gale force winds settled down sometime in the night and gave way to sounds of coyotes yipping in the hills nearby and the low groan of desert tortoises in the Mojave River right next to the campsite. As dawn broke, the sun filled the rooftop tent with warmth and I decided…
In devising the plan for Overland Expo in Flagstaff, Arizona this year, the last thing I wanted to do was tick off hundreds of miles of on-pavement driving. To me, that’s not adventure. That’s painful. So my thought was to get together with some good friends and drive the Mojave Road, a 140 mile (139.8 miles to be exact) dirt…
There are things one hears when going through a Bone Marrow Transplant, and one of the lines is “well, this is the new normal.” What does that mean? The new normal? Well, I suppose I am finding out…and I don’t know if I like it. Astrid walking at Berkeley Marina 4/13/2012 I really struggled with the decision to have the…
ren·dez·vous (Noun) A meeting at an agreed upon time and place. con·spir·a·cy (Noun) The action of plotting or conspiring. The Rendezvous Conspiracy is the Southern California cabal that is behind two large overlanding events each year, the Desert Rendezvous and the Mountain Rendezvous. Headed up by Dave Bennett, (aka Tacodoc on Expedition Portal) the group’s sole purpose is to plot…
I had the good fortune of receiving an email from my friend Tim a few months ago tipping me off to a free HAM radio class sponsored and presented by the Rubicon Trail Foundation in El Dorado Hills, CA. Since I was already planning to get my amateur radio license, this was a perfect opportunity for me to get moving…
Day 4 (read about Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3) brought bright sun and warm morning temperatures to Fish Creek Campground. After a light breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee, we started to break down camp for a bit of vehicle-based exploration in the canyons. Our plan was to spend an hour or two driving through the…
What a difference a day makes! (Read about Day 1, and Day 2) Overnight temperatures were in the mid-50s with strong winds that brought a light weather front through Southern California. The rooftop tent, though a bit noisy, held up well in the winds as did our new ARB Awning that we staked out well the night before. Waking up…
If you’ve ever wondered how Han Solo must have felt being suspended in carbonite, ask someone who spent a night in sub-zero temperatures without the correct gear. It’s flippin’ cold. As the sun rose over the Mojave National Preserve, I could feel the fluid in my joints unfreezing. My elbow creaked as I opened the windows to the tent to…
With only two weeks between Astrid’s last round of consolidation chemotherapy and her bone marrow transplant, there was one thing she wanted to do. Get the f*ck out of Dodge! So we hatched a plan to pick up our friend Bryce and hit the Southern California deserts, do some remote camping, shakedown Hank the Tank, and most importantly get a…