I couldn’t think of a better way to end 2018 and start 2019 than spending a weekend camping with some fellow overland adventure enthusiasts.
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| As soon as I saw this I thought, “WHERE DO I SIGN?!?” |
Adam from Overland History put together another “Expedition to the New Year” event this year and I was lucky enough to get invited along. Read on for my report of the trip as well as some teasers for 2019…
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| The trip started with a jaunt down I81 from PA into central VA |
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| We split into two groups with Adam guiding one group in his Jeep Cherokee and John Fury guiding the other group in his Toyota Tacoma |
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| The best sites along both routes were the countless waterfalls. |
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| While nothing technical, it’s roads like these that make exploring the national forests fun. |
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| When the sun goes down the christmas lights come out. We call this “party mode.” |
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| Coming down off a rather technical section which took us to the top of the mountain. While the view is normally rather scenic, all we saw was the inside of a rain cloud. |
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| Our group on day 2 opted to take a hike to Panther Falls. |
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| On the way back there and back we decided to pick up some trash. |
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| I can’t think of a better way to ring in the New Year. I can’t think of a better group to hang out with either. |
All in all it was a fun trip. The two days of trail-riding in the mountains was scenic and relaxing. Especially since I wasn’t doing any driving. I opted to play navigator and do some mapping while riding with Chad from First State Overland. Logged a lot of trails on Gaia as well as marked a lot of potential campsites I’d like to visit this summer.
I’d like to thank Adam of Overland History for organizing another fun event as well as John Fury for helping host the event at James River State Park. Both guys were great guides and I cannot wait to get back to central Virginia to do some more exploring and camping.
Looking ahead to 2019
I won’t go into too many details, but 2018 sucked. It started off with a lot of potential but quickly went down hill. I ended up making a lot of sacrifices I’ll regret for a long time. I also found out some unpleasant news regarding my health. All of those things coupled together mean I will be resigning from my job at the off-road shop effective the end of March. I will be going back to pursing the overland adventure lifestyle full-time starting in April.
So, here are a few things you will see from ECOA this year:
- More blog articles
- New video series
- Motor swap in the LJ
- ECOA hosted events
