Overland Expo West

* Catching up on posts*

We have been camped around the Sedona/Cottonwood area for about a month now and have only gotten about a handful of nice weather days. We have woken up to rain, hail, wind, cloudy skies and Winter-like coolness almost the entire time we've been here and are definitely ready for a change.
Our "plans" were (there's that P word!) to spend a few weeks in Sedona then move up to Flagstaff when the weather got better/warmer, then we would be in the area for the Overland Expo...but warmer weather is definitely NOT happening for us right now in Sedona and since Flagstaff is higher in elevation their rain is turning into feet of snow! Crazy weather, it's almost June!!!

We decided to carpool up to Mormon Lake, near Flagstaff where the Expo is being held, with some friends that we are camping with. We are in a great spot with privacy so our stuff would be safe and all of the dogs would be able to come with us, so really it was a win-win.

We drove up Sunday morning, getting there at about 10:30 a.m. or so. The "gatekeeper" charged us only $15 for all four of us, which was cool because we read that it would cost us $15 per family, so it would have been $30 instead, but not today! We received our wristbands and rolled in instantly seeing a ton of Jeeps, Land Rovers, Adventure bikes, etc. 

We found a parking spot and was given a 15 minute scope out session while our friend made everyone burgers.
Burgers were great! 

After lunch we all set out on foot to see all of the different rigs people had on display. Since it had been raining and snowing for a good week and a half leading up to the Expo it was muddy muddy muddy, there were even points where the walkways totally disappeared due to the water and mud...making it to some of the porta potties was quite a challenge!

We walked around and talked to a bunch of different builders, owners, drivers, and salesmen/women. Due to it being Sunday, some of the rigs we wanted to peek into were being packed up and people were leaving, so we weren't able to get inside views on most of them...bummer.

We did get to walk into a few of them, well up the stairs (due to the mud, the living areas were roped off). There were some really cool exteriors as well as interiors of these rigs. We fell in love with a couple of them, unfortunately these vehicles/campers are well out of our price range, ranging anywhere from $80,000- $500,000. But they sure are fun to look at!

A short list of what we saw:

(I'm sure I'm missing several others)
Unimog, PHX-FG with Fuso Chassis, XP Camper, Sports Mobile; with and without pop tops/pop-ups, Bengal Tiger 4x4, The Global Expedition vehicles: Patagonia, Turtle & Perky Mog, Maggiolina Grand Tour Pop up tents, Rev'it #95 adventure bike, BMW adventure bikes, Jeeps, Land Rovers, and of course a ton of self-made rigs. Most of the bigger campers are custom built for your needs and desires which I think is pretty cool, especially with the money you're spending on these suckers!

 There was a driving course that was open that we thought would be cool to see the bigger rigs on, to see what they could do but we learned that the course was for Land Rover testing and Jeeps. We did a small tour of the course in our friends' van,  that turned out to be interestingly amusing and funny... to us! 

In talking to the owners and/or makers of the campers, a lot of them spend time in other countries than the U.S., I'm guessing that's why we never see them on the roads or camped anywhere. I know a couple of people who would like to see what rigs like these can do at some of the places we camp!! I'm sure they'd be just perfect. It was fun to be able to see these rigs closer, but for us, for now, Joon van Spirit does her job and gets us where we want to be at a much lower cost of...well everything, from tires to maintenance to fuel. 

Here's to dreamin' dreams!
 

PEACE