Wednesday Weekly update Blog - What's Next! After Overland Expo West 2023!

Good beautiful morning y'all!

Candy Shenan (@chicksdoit2) and I hosted the final Community Conversation at one of the Bivys (shade/water / and phone charging station) at Overland Expo West in Flagstaff on Sunday afternoon. At that moment in time I didn't know where I was going next.. and yet here I am! 

I often say that plans in world travel, overland and nomadic lifestyles are written in jello! They are ever changing!

I spent the extra night that instructors, diyers and presenters of the event are offered and moved over to camp with the "stragglers". That last night is often a get together and hangout together of the Overland Expo "Family" - people who have been coming and traveling for years. At times, often depending on the weather, it can be a stress relief from days of a people-y event and sometimes a little bit of an after party. Often we discuss where we will spend the next few days or what direction we will be traveling forward. Sometimes a "group" will form and go somewhere together for a night or two. 

This year a group formed and decided to go to The Top of the World AZ. This is a camping area in the Cocinino National Forest. In this area, the campsites overlook Sedona. The views are incredible and epic and awesome 😎!

As often happens in groups, the exact location was not shared 😕 well. You can imagine communication breakdowns between the people involved.... and the understanding of the titles of a location can be different between people. Yup maps and campsite pins when available are a great idea! 

Anyway, Michael of @DriveTheGlobe, had recently sold his truck - he's beginning a new build project. As the new owner was arriving to take possession of the truck soon, Michael needed to get a U-Haul truck and move out of the big Orange Stevenson based truck that had been part of the Expo. Being me,  I jumped in to help with packing as others were reorganizing rigs after the show, installing new equipment - purchased or gifted by vendors (remember many of us are YouTubers and our advertising is helpful for vendors!) Phil, @waypointoverland, took end of show photos. A few friends stopped by to say hello and see-ya-later! It's good to end an Expo this way.

As I was finishing up helping Michael, the main camp together group left for showery, laundry and resupply before making camp together for the night. Brad and his senior fur baby Lily agreed to let me travel with them to the campsite. You see I didn't need a resupply and mapping directions were sketchy even with apps or Google maps. I only needed gasoline so we made the approximately 15 mile drive on pretty good dirt roads together. We never found the group 😔. Later we learned that they went to a totally different location - which actually has a different name and was a pretty wet, muddy and technical road. Now neither Brad or the others really know my Tracker well and I understand that they might have thought I could not manage that route... probably it would have been fine... I think that Brad didn't realize that I have 4 wheel drive until we were in camp at this location for a while! All my travels will be improved with a future air compressor and more experience airing up and down my tires. 

Now also, Brad owns a McLean hitch mounted hammock stand from @AdventureHammockSystems. He brought it over to my Tracker yesterday afternoon to see how it fit iny new front reciever hitch. Oh my I 💕 love that hammock stand. I knew that I loved it the first time I saw it years ago at my first Overland Expo West in 2019! To experience it on my Tracker, with my own hammock has been wonderful - thank you Brad! This item , along with it's tarp extension assesory is definitely still on my Wish List. Now it's a very well made product. Very stout and strong and it's not inexpensive. So unless Adventure Hammock Systems sponsors me I don't know when I can afford to purchase this. 

Where am I headed next? Well I might visit a friend nearby for a day. Then I have the Zukipalooza event. Zukies or Zuks are what all the Suzuki manufactured vehicles are called. My Chevy Tracker is a Suzuki product as are Samurai's like @Orozuk has and Vitaras and Sidekicks. Check out LilTrucks.com as well.

After Zukipalooza I need to check on my mail and UPS packages then head for either Utah or Oregon! 

That's all I have for this week!

Y'all think about what other people need when you go through your days. Travel Light and Often!

Keep Living Simply!

Simply,

Lesa