I’ve only got a week until I embark for the 50th Easter Jeep Safari in Utah, and I’ve still got tons of work to do on my junky $600 Jeep. But there’s no turning back now; I’m going for it. Here’s the route I’m taking. If you live anywhere along it, I might need your help.
I bought a $600 Jeep Cherokee off Craigslist to show the world that you don’t have to be rich to go off-roading with the big-boys. While I have faith in my old Cherokee, I realize that something will inevitably go wrong, and I’ll break down along my 1,747 mile route to off-road Mecca.
That’s why I’m posting the map of my route so you, the great readers of this fine website, can keep your loved ones off the roads as I drive through. And also to see if I can build a Jalopnik reader support system.
My copilot and I start our journey on Friday the 18th — eight days from now — at around 7am and drive through Chicago. We then head down across Missouri to the Kansas City area, where we’ll spend the night at my favorite fishing lake.
On Saturday, we’ll make the trek along I-70 across Kansas, perhaps the most boring drive in America. We’ll overnight near Denver, and head to Moab on Sunday morning.
That’s the ideal (read: unlikely) schedule, but reality will likely bite me in the butt, and I’ll be stranded somewhere unfortunate trying to replace a bad sensor that’s impossible to reach without a million extensions and a u-joint socket.
With my luck, this will happen in the middle of Kansas—and I’ll end up actually arriving days after I anticipated. Or not at all.
So if I do break down, and you live nearby, feel free to give me a hand (by which I really mean “please help me!”). Follow me on Twitter to get updates on my location and on the status of my junker (which I’ve dubbed #projectswisscheese due to its “hole-y” nature).
This whole thing is probably a very bad idea, but I’m going for it. With your help, who knows, maybe I can pull it off.
Expect to see build updates very soon.
If you’d like to help, or if you just want to send hate mail, my email address is: david.tracy@jalopnik.com