Muddyland Expo

Overland Expo is a big deal to people who adventure this way but unfortunately it is held in remote locations and whether rain or shine.  It was a very wet fall in mountainous western North Carolina for the 2018 EAST gathering of Toyotas, Jeeps and 4WDs of all kinds.  They played and camped in the mud.  

We brought a bigger tent, plenty of rainy weather gear and had a reservation for a campsite along the river.  We enjoyed ourselves despite the cold wet rainy day.  We visited vendor's tents, looking at lots of cool stuff for the 4Runner and gathering lots of valuable intel.

We came to the agreement that we would car camp on our big cross country trip with a traditional tent (a 4-man size at least) and not invest in anything too extravagant until we were certain we needed it.  Campers are nice but we weren't sure we needed that comfort level versus saving some $$ and taking more or longer trips.

Now we will spend the next few months doing lots of online research and watching many many many You Tube videos about overloading adventures.  

There was Fire in the Dragon's Eye

Living in North Georgia means lots of GREEN most of the year.  It also means a lot of gorgeous fall colors for just a few short weeks in late October and early November.  The farther north you go - the better the views.  I've always wanted to take long drives during this time of year to see more of the beauty Georgia Appalachia has to offer.   This year we checked it off the wish list and made a first overland trip out of the eyes of the dragon.  Twisted winding roads through the mountains that make one of the best scenic drives EVER.  We had visited and even camped in the area before but never with such beauty at each and ever hair pin turn.

This trip we visited at least three state parks, stood on "top of the world" at the highest point in Georgia, crossed the Appalachian Trail in a several places, and saw beautiful vistas in scenic overlook after overlook.  We learned that the smaller two man tent was not nearly big enough or comfortable enough for the two of us - despite how much weight we were losing lately.  So we started thinking about what we might want to camp in our out of on future trips.

Did we want a camper, big or small?  Roof top tent?  Just a bigger tent?  Were we backpacking on these trips?  Did we need to keep it light or could we just day hike and  "car camp" and weight not be such an issue?
These are the questions we pondered as we made plans to attend the Overland Expo EAST in the next few days...

What in the world are we doing?

O ver land ing : vehicle-supported, self-reliant adventure travel to remote destinations where the journey is the primary goal.  Basically a camping road trip with the journey as the destination - stopping whether planned or spontaneously at sights along the way for the scenery, the history or just for fun.

You have been invited to join us on a cross country adventure through this blog. 

The first few posts will be of overland trips past... last fall to be exact is when the two of us went on our first adventure followed by a fact finding trip to Expo.  These trips were a test to see if we would enjoy this type of traveling together and what kind of overlanding we would choose for the future.  We went first on a weekend fall foliage winding dragon ride through North Georgia and then up to the North Carolina mountains to the very muddy Overland Expo EAST.

These first trips told us that we really DO enjoy this kind of togetherness.  There was plenty for both of us- hiking, camping and photography in the great outdoors,.  This type of adventure would be our new vacation norm.  We made some decisions on the type of "camping" we would try for our next big adventure - a two week cross country trip.  We are now working out the final details for that trip and with this blog,  hope to bring you along for the virtual ride.