Our trip west (Big Bend, White Sands, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon)

What can I say? This trip was one for the ages and I’ll never forget the time my daughter and I spent together over these 4,300+ miles.

I’m going to tell you about this trip from the very beginning. You can read it all or just enjoy the photos (I am by no means, a photographer or writer, but I did my best).

Friday 02/12
I had just gotten my Jeep back from the ex the day before (finally). I knew it needed an oil change badly. We got that done, but when we tried to pull it off the rack, it wouldn’t start.

I ordered a battery and replaced it. We hooked it up to the computer because it was throwing codes. The “auto start/stop” was the main code. Come to find out, the new Jeep’s have two batteries. The secondary battery which is located under the main battery, is a six volt that its only purpose is to run the “auto start/stop”, and it’s kind of a bitch to change.




By the time O’reilly’s delivered the new battery and we got it all reinstalled, it was 2:30 PM. We were already thirty minutes behind schedule and this had my daughter (alauw) stressing already.

We threw our bags in the truck, went through her checklist and hit the road.

Something happened on the interstate in front of us and we got in major traffic before the Texas line.



Traffic took about a half hour to get through which put us even later getting to our first stop, San Antonio.

When traffic finally opened up and the speed limit was 75, I floored it. This is the point that I found out the tires on the Jeep were out of balance bad. In 38,000 miles, the ex had never rotated them or complained that the truck shook like a motherfricker at speeds over 69mph. 69 it would be for the entire trip.


We ended up in five o’clock Friday traffic in Houston. We finally arrived in San Antonio around 10:00pm. Our plans all along had been to camp for me and car camp for alauw at various KOA’s.

We checked in and I got set up quickly.



Saturday 02/13

Sometime around 5:00am, my phone starts ringing. I missed the first call because I didn’t know where my phone was and I was still half asleep. The second time it rang, I found underneath my back in the hammock.

Alauw was calling in a frantic state for me to come help. I jumped, very un-gracefully from my hammock, slipped on my boots and ran over to the truck. She was in tears and frantic because her new puppy just shite all over the backseat of my truck, her sleeping bag and her.

She headed for the showers and I started stripping down all the shite stained accessories. There was dog shite down the interior door panel. I grabbed the only cup I had (the one I use to soak my teeth at night), dumped it out and filled it with water to start cleaning it up.

Because of all the excitement, I didn’t realize the temps had dropped well below freezing. When we done cleaning and packing up, I went to get my teeth from the picnic table and found they were frozen to it.



All packed up, thawed out and glued in, we got on the road. Conditions had deteriorated over night and there was a ton of ice on the road and 18-wheelers in the ditches and median.

We were tracking at speeds no higher than 40mph and as low as 20mph when it got really bad. At this point, I considered cancelling everything and heading back. I knew we wouldn't reach Big Bend until super late.

But! We pushed on.