Overland Expo Road Trip: Day Four

Day Four of the road trip was an odd day. We’d completed the Mojave Road, and arrived at Mormon Lake ahead of the opening of Overland Expo 2012. Registration for OX12 didn’t open until 1pm. Since we’d blasted through Flagstaff to beat the setting sun on the previous evening, we now planned to head into town to stock up on supplies.

Since we had all day free, we also decided to go and see Meteor Crater, something I’d initially planned to do as part of a maniacal post-Expo dash on the way home. This would make that Monday drive a little more sane and allow us to spend more than two minutes at the Grand Canyon, the other scheduled side trip.

We got up early as usual and slowly got our stuff together after breakfast. We arranged things at our campsite to reserve our space, plus hopefully room for Bryon when he arrived later that day. Then we both climbed into Toyotie and made the 90-minute drive to Meteor Crater. As the crow flies, the crater was only about 27 miles from our location on the southwest side of Mormon Lake as the crow, but the highway route takes you back to Flagstaff (30 minutes) before heading east again on the highway and finally south to the crater, nearly 75 miles in total.

The drive to the crater was uneventful, and I always enjoy the scenery around Flagstaff. As we got further east, the pines and other trees slowly gave way to scrub brush and mostly bare desert. We passed the large Purina factory, which I recalled from my last drive through the area about twenty years ago.

We arrived at Meteor Crater, paid the exorbitant admission fee of sixteen bucks each, and stepped inside the visitor center. I wasn’t too interested in most of the exhibits but did find some of them interesting. Once outside I finally could see the enormous crater with my own eyes. We had to try and time our photos so that the other tourists weren’t blocking our shots, often after we’d just taken care to avoid being in their shots. The particular sub-species of tourist that is discharged from tour buses at popular locations is not my favorite, as they are mostly unencumbered by manners or courtesy.

We concluded our visit at the large gift shop, which had trinkets and tidbits of every imaginable kind. Some were laughably tacky, but they did have a lot of unique rocks and minerals for sale. I picked up a few stickers as usual, and a chunk of pyrite for the kid, and then we fled back to Flagstaff for lunch.

We ate at the Lumberyard Brewing Company, one of three breweries in downtown Flagstaff that were marked by waypoints in my GPS. We were looking forward to finally indulging in our first restaurant meal of the trip, and it felt amazingly luxurious! Perhaps it was the rediscovered novelty of basic dining out, but the beer was great, the food was great, and the waitresses were both attentive and uniformly attractive. We left happy and full, and I was carrying a case of Lumberyard’s fine IPA in cans. After that we stopped at a knockoff Whole Foods and stocked up for the next several days. On the drive back to Mormon Lake, we passed the 1,000-mile milestone of our road trip.

Arriving around 3pm, we checked in at the event registration and received our paperwork, credentials, and bags – pretty nice and genuinely useful cloth satchels – and got back to camp. The camping area was now packed with vehicles and tents, and “our” space had been encroached on two sides. As soon as I parked I was further accosted by a new neighbor who was trying to hold my parking space for a friend! We got that sorted pretty quickly, and thankfully with a minimum of additional drama. We also met some of our new neighbors who we immediately liked, including CC and Clay.

After wandering through the newly-populated event grounds, we wrapped up the day at J. Brandon’s campsite with Katie Boué, Dave Creech and others. This was the first of many social events at the Expo and they were all pure pleasure. We exchanged stories, beer, booze and cigars, and generally laughed our butts off the whole time. These gatherings really took the event to the next level for me and I’ll be forever grateful to my friends – old and new – for their participation. These folks alone were worth the expenditure in vacation time, long drives, and registration fees for the event. My hat is off to them.

That night the wind decided to go into remission, but it was pretty cold by the the time we finally turned in. The next morning Overland Expo would officially kick off and their was already an buzz of anticipation in the air.

• Day FourMiles: 147
• Day Four Miles offroad: 0
• Trip Miles: 1,007
• Trip Miles offroad: 163.8
• Days without a shower: 4

Overland Expo Road Trip: Day Four photo gallery