[Rockhounds] Vehicles

[Tom Bowers]

Well, I couldn't get along with just one vehicle, so I have two.  My ol' faithful is a 2001 Ford F150 4x4 supercab.  I love this for getting around most every place I need to go and having lots of hauling capacity to fill up.  But, this last year I bought a 1996 Jeep Wrangler 4 cyl. to get me to the totally off-road locations in the mountainous W. Tx. desert areas (Brewster County).  I really bought it more for deer hunting, but it makes one heck of an off-road rock hunting vehicle as well.  I have a trailer hitch so that I can haul a trailer to the point where I need to proceed off-road.  I unload the trailer at that spot and fill it up with the goodies when I return from a given leg of my exploration.  Almost all of Texas land is private, but I hunt on the land that I hunt deer on.  I can't wait to try it out this coming year on some BLM lands in other nearby (or far away) states.
   
  Tom Bowers

Alan Silverstein <ajs at frii.com> wrote:
  > If I would have known 7 years ago that I was going to move out here, I
> would have opted for the Subaru Forester.

Not a bad choice, but check the cargo capacity... After wearing out a
1991 Subaru Loyale wagon (original owner, it had 100 CF if I recall
right), and shopping around, 1.5 years ago I ended up buying a nearly
new Subaru Outback wagon (97 CF I think). Both of them go almost
everywhere. Fine ground clearance and cargo space for the size and
MPGs. Too bad no granny gear in the 4WD or they could climb a lot
steeper. Too bad they rounded all the sides and edges to give up more
cargo capacity.

Now, the new Outback is a lot plusher, quieter, and feature-rich, but it
gets lower MPGs (only 25-27 not 29-30).

Long ago I bought an old 2-ton 360 V8 Jeep Wagoneer, green beast, I
called it Triceratops. It could go anywhere, except deep snow, so long
as the tranny shift linkage didn't bounce disconnected...

Now my spare vehicle is an older Toyota pickup truck, "power nothing",
but oh man can it handle serious 4WD. However, while I use it
occasionally for hauling "stuff" around, I don't really NEED it for
rockhounding!

Cheers,
Alan Silverstein
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