Traveling To New Beginnings Debbie and I have spent the last 20+ years working in public safety. In 2012, I retired after a 22-year career in law enforcement, and Debbie has been a working firefighter/paramedic for the last 32 years. Deb and I grew up with a love of outdoor activities, such as camping, hunting, fishing and off-road driving. With this being said, life took over and we couldn’t be in the outdoors as much as we would have liked to be. After my retirement I struggled with post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI). I had problems with hyper-vigilance, I couldn’t sleep at night due to nightmares and I was unable to go places where there were large crowds of people. This became so severe that I even considered suicide several times. I went to counseling, was prescribed medications and did everything I could to overcome these issues. These things helped me find a somewhat normal life again, but not the peace I searched for. In 2017 I was invited to my first overland trip, seven days in the Death
58
Valley National Park. About midway through the trip, we were camped at an old talc mine located near Hunter Mountain. As I sat behind my rig watching the sun set, I had a feeling of calmness come over me. It sounds kind of corny, but it felt almost spiritual. For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t watching everything and everyone around me, I was just there in the moment. This time in the desert inspired me to go farther and stay out longer, chasing the sense of peace I had found. We chose our 2015 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4X4 because of Toyota’s inherent reliability and I have always loved the 4Runner platform. I’ve had Toyota vehicles all my adult life and to be honest I’m a Toyota guy!! Our rig is my daily driver, but she has been built for a specific purpose and this purpose is when Debbie retires, we will be transitioning to a full-time overland lifestyle. We officially started building our rig in November of 2017 and it is still ongoing. When I began thinking about what modifications I wanted to do, the list seemed extremely daunting, to
say the least. I decided to let our trips tell me what was needed, not just what I wanted. It is very easy to go out and buy thousands of dollars of needless parts and accessories. This process has served us well, because there has been very little that we have changed out on our build. Luckily for 4Runner owners there is a very robust aftermarket support network out there. This abundance of aftermarket support is a double-edged sword, so whenever I decided on a new modification, I would research the different products and absolutely would not purchase something because it had a cheaper price tag. What I’ve learned throughout my life is generally, you get what you pay for. “Buy once and cry once” for a lack of a better term. On about 99 percent of this build, Debbie and I have taken the built, not bought approach. We have made the decision to save money by doing all the installations ourselves. Our vehicle is regularly maintained by Deb and I as
