We really avoided organized camping on our whole trip. Finding wild camp spots in the northern wilderness was quite easy and we consistently found beautiful places to camp with no one around for miles and miles. For the middle 4 months of our trip, we didn’t stay at a single organized campground. We really came to enjoy our privacy in wild camp spots. It was a bit of a shock to us to get back to the lower 48 and remember how densely populated everything is and how many more people there are.
This was exacerbated by the fact that we chose to drive 101/1 right along the coast to avoid traveling through the warmer areas inland. Campgrounds really aren’t our thing (we prefer fresh air to breathing other people’s campfire smoke), and we feel a little bit ridiculous in our rugged off-road truck in a campground, but it just seems to be the reality of the west coast these days. That being said, we actually ended up staying at some nice campgrounds along the Oregon and California coast.
Our driver side front wheel bearing had been making a little growling noise periodically for a while. As we headed south into California, it became obvious that we needed to do something about it. Luckily for us, Expedition Imports in Vallejo had all the parts we needed and we decided to get new front brake pads and discs while we were at it. We also picked up two new tires at Expedition Imports to replace two tires that were pretty used up from all the rough roads we have been on. The truck is in awesome shape now, and the ride home was super smooth and the truck did great.
We definitely had mixed feelings about our trip coming to an end, but we always love driving the Pacific coast, so it was a nice way to finish up our trip. As an added bonus, we were able to meet up with quite a few friends and former co-workers along the California coast in our last few days.
We are home now and it is a very interesting feeling after being out in the wilderness for so long. We definitely got used to living in a cozy, small space. Our house seems too big now, and we already miss the fresh air and wildlife.
The truck was the ideal vehicle for our trip, and the trip was everything we had hoped it would be. We really don’t think we could have gone to many of the places we went in a lesser vehicle, so we are glad that we chose a Unimog as our base vehicle.
Wabi-sabi Overland 