Western USA 2003

Introduction to The Trip

--Click below for an Introduction and the daily travel log to the right.

SUMMARY
On the spur of the moment I drove from Maryland to Nevada and Oregon to South Carolina back to Maryland over 5 weeks and 9500 miles. For the majority of the time I lived in a Toyota 4Runner SUV camping in the outdoors. Except for the first week the trip was on back roads and off the highways, the less direct and more difficult the road the better. I had a laptop and GPS and real-time navigation software as a guide in finding off-beat routes.

ROUTE
There was no set plan other than getting to Nevada, and back in time for my fathers wedding in South Carolina.

--Christmas, 2003

ABOUT ME
My name is Stephen Balbach I am 36 years old (2003) and decided to do this trip after my brother John invited me to join his camp at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. I also wanted to test the idea of living out of a SUV for an extended period of time. And my fathers wedding in South Carolina would be the end point celebration of the trip. All a good excuse to go wander about exploreing new places which I love to do.

VEHICLE
The vehicle is a 2001 Toyota 4Runner with stock everything. The only modifications are a removed front seat, a mount for a laptop where the front seat used to be and a few removable storage bins to keep stuff organized.

--Little House on the Prairie, Kansas

DAILY ROUTINE
Each day followed a predictable pattern: waking up, cooking, cleaning, packing, driving, finding the nights campsite, cooking, writing the journal and sleeping. Although the first 10 days of the trip were rough, I did learn and adjust and by trips end I was in excellent health, clean, felt strong and ready for a new challenge. Being a vagabond doesn't mean living rough! I followed no set travel plan each day was a new adventure.

TRUCK LIFE
Living out of a SUV turns out to be easy so long as everything has a place, it's like living in a small boat organization is the key to survival. The truck has 5 doors and each door is a portal to a room where different things are stored and organized, in this way I could move in circles around the vehicle from room to room while doing the daily chores. This is further made possible by camping in areas where privacy and safety are not a concern, which with a reliable 4x4 vehicle like a Toyota it is easy to get to remote camp sites and was a big part of the fun of the trip.

Here is how the SUV house was laid out:

--The Bedroom (rear hatch) with the bed made up and ready for sleeping. Head facing the rear (red pillow) simply crawl in and close the rear door. There is a foam sleeping mat underneath and I had extra blankets. It is very comfortable and plenty of room to stretch out with the front seat gone.

--The Kitchen (left rear passenger door). The box is a DC powered Coleman cooler for about $100 at Wallmart. At night it was off but the food always kept cool. Between the cooler and the front drivers seat is a storage container with all the kitchen tools, as well as other storage items. I used normal full-size kitchen pots and pans and had a portable gas stove, very little different from cooking at home, except the fresh air and sunshine and beautiful campsites of living outdoors.

--The Living Room (outside the truck). A fold-able table and chair allowed for cooking and eating and journal writing. I left the furniture outside at night. The white box next to the red pillow is a tent I bought and never used which took a lot of space, it runs about 3 feet long forming the edge of my bedding space. You can also see a black bag to the left for clothing (closet), a water jug and a walking stick.

--Pantry, dry packaged goods storage (rear right passenger) and exit from truck in the morning (the rear can not be opened from the inside).

--Communications and Electronics (front passenger). GPS, battery charger, laptop, stuff I need access to while driving (snacks, water, napkins, ect..) also the trash (see brown paper bag) which is smart to empty on a daily basis. It looks a mess but everything worked. Amazingly the laptop survived without a problem but the computer stand collapsed from too many hard knocks so the black leather case is supporting it in this picture.

--Captains Seat. Here you can see the laptop view for the real-time navigation which made the trip so much more fun, and possible. The entire journey is logged on the computer down to a few meters resolution, future projects may include this data in some interactive way.

CAMERA
Pictures on this trip were taken with a FujiFilm point and shoot digital camera at about 325k jpg resolution and scaled down on this site to about 320x240, a %25 crop or about 1/10 file size. Some pictures link to the uncroped full size original. About 1/3 of the pictures were lost so some days have no pictures.

SAFETY
A lot of people ask me about safety. Bears in the western mountains scared me more than anything although I only saw one black bear in Oregon near Hells Canyon who ran away faster than I did, but sitting in the woods alone at night with food cooking and hearing the noises of the forest and seeing the reflections of creatures eyes starring back from the darkness is a primitive experience. There was almost always some creature around at night such as deer and raccoons. I believe the truck is enough to scare most bears or provide a quick shelter/getaway if needed and the truth is driving is more dangerous to ones safety, but the fear of being eaten is an experience I have yet to get used to!

Posted by stbalbach at September 25, 2003 12:21 AM