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 This
years route will take us through the Western
States starting in Arizona. From there we
will go through; California, Utah, Nevada,
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Our theme
this year is "the 7 wonders of the West" which
means that we are going to visit and report on
the 7 most popular and unique tourist
destinations in the West as follows: 1. Grand Canyon
2. Redwood Forest 3. Yellowstone
National Park 4. Pacific Coast Highway
5. Lake Tahoe 6. Oregon Coast 7.
Moab |
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About our old Willys Jeep, and how this all started...
March 10, 2007...As soon as I read
the
ad that was posted for the 1948 Jeep Willy's, I immediately knew that I had to
have it. Big deal right? I mean I feel that way
about most of the the Jeeps we advertise on our website (my wife
will vouch for that). This one was different though.
It wasn't just the Jeep itself that I wanted, it was the story
behind it....Nick Fallier (the 85 year old original owner) bought the
Jeep when he returned to America after his tour of duty in WWII
(where he was a fighter pilot). Then, the jeep was featured
in a TV series and cherished by Nick for 59 years. For the
last 10 years the Jeep has basically been
stored in a shed and
driven occasionally by Nicks (surrogate) grandson Josey.
I
promptly called Will Morgan (JeepBrokers Jeep guru) and told him about the Jeep. He
instantly agreed with me that this is an opportunity of a life
time, and that we had to go get the Jeep. Not only that,
for the past 9 years Will and I have been trying to find an
occasion to actually meet each other. Yup, we have worked
together for nine years on JeepBrokers and have only
communicated via the phone and email. We didn't just
want the Jeep, we wanted the opportunity to meet with an honored
and decorated WWII Vet and listen to him tell
59 years worth of Jeep
stories...talk about the ultimate Jeep junky. Taking
possession of the Jeep was just the icing on the cake.
So, here
was our plan....Will (who resides in
Arizona) and myself (residing in Alberta Canada) flew to Florida
(Will ended up driving there from AZ) to meet with Nick and take possession of
our shiny new (new to us anyway) 1948 Willy's. We then
drove it
the 2,200 miles back to Arizona. Considering the
fact that the Jeep tops out at 35-40 mph, we figured
it would be a good 55-65 hour trip...with a good tailwind and
hopefully not too many long hills to climb. To make it
even better, we took good old Route 66 for as much of it as we
could. After
that, who knows and who cares....we were in it for the journey
itself. As you
know, we had the time of our lives and loved every minute
and every mile of the trip.
When
we finally got back to Arizona, we were both disappointed that we
were done and immediately began thinking of things that we could do
for 2008. We tossed around the idea of finding an old Willys
pick-up and driving it home from wherever we bought it. We
even toyed with the idea of driving each of our (built for off-road)
Jeeps up to Alaska and back. Each time we discussed a new idea
we would compare it to the Willys trip that we had just finished,
and none of them had the same level of adventure, history and
excitement that attracted us to our 1948 Willys in the first place.
Then, Will came up with what should have been the obvious....why not
take our Willys on another trip? He followed that
with..."hell, why don't we take it through all 50 states over the
next few summers and end up back in Tallahassee where it all
started". I thought that it was a brilliant idea and we then
decided on doing the "West Coast" in 2008....and, here we are!
We both agree that Hawaii will be the most logistically challenging
for obvious reasons but we also both agree that it could be the best
of them all, but that is to worry about in a few years...for now we
are focusing on 2008!
Please
send us your suggestions, or forward any questions to us
here and check back soon....we will
be adding to this page regularly.
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