5700 Miles in 12 days in 1994 FZJ80

FJ80ROMER

New member
This was our familiy road trip for the year. We wanted to see how manyNational Parks we could visit in 12 days. Me and my wife spent about a month planning a route that would get us from our home in Wisconsin to the Pacific coast and back. the goal was to visit the Black Hills Yellowstone Glacier MT.Rainer and the Redwoods. We made the trip in out 1994 Land Cruiser it is equip with a 2" Ironman lift 315/75 Falken tires a roof top tent and other out back travel basics.

DAY 1:
we left wisconsin and traveled to Hill City SD where we spent the night in a KOA that had been having issues with flash floods due to some extremely high rainfall. We did all the basic tourist stops along the way the first day like Wall Drug and The Cron Palace.
IMG_0510.jpg
This was our first stop along the way at Wall Drug.
ATTACH=CONFIG]115838[/ATTACH]
Here we are all setup for our first night camping in the KOA near Mt.Rushmore.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0511.jpg
    IMG_0511.jpg
    418.3 KB · Views: 9

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 2

DAY 2

on the second day of our trip we visited the Crazy Horse Monument and Custer State Park. We got stuck for about an hour in a buffalo traffic jam. After we left Custer we began to travel towards Yellowstone making a stop in Sturgis SD to see how much was setup for the Rally the next week. We end out day in Buffalo WY. We stayed the night in a KOA where they had a 40+ MPH wind storm all night and the roof top tent held up great.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 3

DAY 3

The third day of the trip we traveled from Buffalo WY to Yellowstone National Park. There is some great sites alon the way and a great view of the mountains coming in to the park. We once again were stuck in traffic due to a large herb of buffalo crossing the road. Along with the buffalo we ran in to the first road construction of the trip and it was major there was not even a road left and there was a bunch of heavy equipment traveling hauling rocks.
IMG_0532.jpgIMG_0525.jpg

We traveled two hours across the park to our camp site in the Madison River campground in Yellowstone.IMG_0533.jpg

The weather was great and nice an cool made for a great camp fire.
 

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
I see that you are a group of four.

May I ask how your sleeping setup works? You and your wife up top and kids in Annex, etc?
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
Me my wife and my oldest son sleep one way and my youngest sleeps side ways. The tent is really meant for 3 people but it works well with four since my boys are still younger.

I see that you are a group of four.

May I ask how your sleeping setup works? You and your wife up top and kids in Annex, etc?
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 4 Yellowstone to Glacier

Day 4
This was mostly a driving day we made our way from Yellowstone after checking out some hot spirngs and my sons attended a JR Ranger program. We took only state highways between the two and saw some very nice country on the road. We arrived at Glacier and made our way up the road to the sun. The pass is very beautiful and offers great fews of the snow caps. There was a lot of road work going on but that just made the trip over the top more exciting. We camped in Glacier national Park in the fish creek campground.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 5 Leaving Glacier and heading to MT. Rainer

DAY 5
We started our day with touring around Mt. Rainer some more and visited Lake McDonald. The boys spent some time skipping rocks across the lake and trying to see how long they could stand in the water.

We then headed to Whitefish to see the resort town. We then decided to take a logging road towards Idaho we drove some great trails for about 100 miles before hitting the pavement on forest road 36 were we saw a bunch of free range cattle.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 6

DAY 6

After spending the night in a KOA in ellensburg WA we drove thr final two hours to MT. Rainer. It was a very nice drive. We had a good view of Mt. Hood while heading out. We spent the day driving around the park and drove up towards the summit and had a lunch on the grill in the snow.
IMG_0550.jpg
IMG_0569.jpg
We spent the night in Mt.Rainer National park.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 7

We drove from Mt.Rainer to Walkdport OR. We drove through Portland which has to be one of the nicest looking citys to drive down the freeway in. Lots of shipyards and bridges to check out. We arrived at the KOA of Waldport which is about a block from the ocean on the west side of the 101. We spent the night walking the beach and checking out the tidal pools. The boys were able to catch a few hard shell crabs. They also caught some hermit crabs and they had a blast looking at star fish.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 8

We woke early to go out on the beach while the tide was out to go looking for crabs and more star fish. We found 4 or 5 large crabs and hundreds of star fish. We then headed south on the 101 again to the South Jetty Dunes where we blasted around the dunes and drove down to the water. The boys did some board riding and ran around in the water a bit.
IMG_0620.jpg
I was amazed how well my 6500 lbs truck did in the sand and I really didnt even air my tires down. We drove around in the dunes for a couple hours and then headed to our next stop the KOA in the Redwoodsin Crescent City CA. WE checked in and headed to our site which was right on the edge of some of these amazing trees. It is hard to even imagine how these trees get so big.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 9

We got up and enjoyed a 3 dollar all you can eat pancake breakfast at the campground and while waiting in line for some cakes the guy making said the best place to view Redwoods was Howland Hill Rd. We found a park map and headed out. We found the road which to my suprise was a one lane gravel road throught the trees. It wqas a great place to view Redwoods and there was only a hand full of other cars.
IMG_0588.jpg
From there we headed to the Avenue of the Giants so we could find the road heading to USAL road and USAL beach. We drove from the AVE of the giants down a winding road along a river. After about 2 hours we hit a small town called Honeyew CA were we stopped for some food and gas at 4:90 a gallon. We then continued toward USAL RD. We made one final stop in Shelter Cove CA. After some great pizza and some seal viewing we made it to the trail head. We took USAL RD toward HWY 1. There is some great views along the way numerous broken down cars that looked like they had been there for ever. We came across a small school called Whale Gulch school that looked like ti had no power and no running water. It was very cool and neat to see it was like taking a step back in time.
 

FJ80ROMER

New member
DAY 10

For the first time on the trip we woke up in a hotel. We ended up staying in a hotel because it was 11 PM when we got to the end of USAL. We got loaded up and started to head east. We drove on a state HWY from the 101 through some beautiful wine country around clear lake. We then headed toward Reno Nevada. We wanted to stop at the Rubicon but we did not have time on this trip. We did make a stop in Virgina City it was very exciting to see the old mining town and all the original buildings. We took a steam train ride through a couple tunnels and to a mine. We then decided to get a hotel in Carson City Nevada.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,539
Messages
2,875,661
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top