By DT Carmichael II
When we set out to cross the country, we were anything but unprepared. Trip preparation began a year prior to leaving, though it had always been in the works in some capacity. Grant Blackwell and I have known each other since we were in kindergarten at Mountain Brook Elementary and have been planning adventures together since we were in high school.
Our early days were spent on campouts with the Boy Scouts and exploring up and down the Cahaba River. When we showed up to Auburn University, we had over 150 nights of camping experience, an array of gear and an insatiable appetite to explore. In college we began to crew sail trips, organize medium-size expeditions and eventually tested our knowledge as a team in South America.
In the first week of our senior year, gathering what we knew and what we loved, we began to prepare for a transcontinental road trip. We chose to drive an Isuzu Trooper. This car, known only to a few, has been an obsession of ours since high school. We’ve owned five between the two of us (so far) and have used them to mobilize our adventures for years. And though immediately on board with taking a Trooper, we had never driven one out of the state, and neither one of us had a Trooper that we could confidently rely on to get us across an entire continent.
We gathered support from the Trooper community and were able to purchase a 1986 Isuzu Trooper for under $3,000 and $1,000 of spare parts. We overhauled main components during the spring, added accessories such as a roof rack, extra lights and a new stereo. While prepping the car, we pulled together a team that would rendezvous with us in Montana. The plan was that Grant and I would travel for three weeks solo and then meet our support team just south of the Canadian border. We would start at the southernmost tip of the United States and head west.
Once the team was assembled, it was me, Grant Blackwell, Colby Blackwell, Parker Balzli, Brett Randolph, our ‘86 Trooper named “The Camel” and our support vehicle known as “Waterbuffalo.” While waiting to meet up with the support team, Grant and I would travel with everything to support ourselves, including all the parts to fix the car if necessary. We’d cross forest, desert and mountains and camp next to the car and cook our own meals.
The odd part? Everything went according to plan. After traveling solo across the lower 48, we rendezvoused with the team in Montana. The five of us, all Mountain Brook natives, came together knowing this would be an adventure of a lifetime. We traveled in a convoy at the Trooper’s top speed of 55 miles per hour. To conquer Canada’s massive expanse of land took six days.
Colby and Brett were always looking for the next best fishing spot, Grant and I were watching the passing scenery as if it were TV, and Parker was diligently along for the ride. When we finally came to the Alaskan border, it felt like we’d taken a stroll through a large park.
We drove onwards to Tok, Fairbanks and then to Denali. Along the way we stopped along rivers and lakes to fish and bathe. When we’d make camp, we would lay out our cots and sleeping bags, make dinner and do dishes. There was a strange monotony to it all that kept us occupied. In years past, adventures had presented intense moments of misfortune, leading to a shift in perspective, but Alaska did not do that for us. The sum of all its ordinary parts is what made the journey so extraordinary. We were not young men experiencing a novelty, rather we were young explorers conducting ourselves in the manner in which we had trained.
We fished, we hiked and we mapped our routes and kept ourselves wonderfully fed. The Trooper did not have a working AC, so we wore coats and pants to keep ourselves warm. It’s a fishbowl on wheels, and you felt every bump. The aesthetic of traveling in a 40-year-old car never wears thin. On occasion I flicked the ashtrays open and then flicked them closed. There were six of them in total, but not a single cup holder. Grant made it his second nature to “pre-flight check” oil, air pressure, engine bay inspection and fuel pump. To put it lightly, the car exceeded expectations.
By the time we made it to the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage, we were conducting life as usual. We rented a raft and floated the famous Kenai River for two days. I took the time on the water to reflect on our journey: What compels a young man to explore? Is it possible that he wakes up one day amidst the monotony of life and resolves to set out on an impulsive adventure? The idea makes for a fun novel but is seldom found in reality. A young man may contemplate adventure, convincing himself that “one day” he will go for it. He can live it out vicariously through movies or videogames, and if he is lucky, he will find himself wrapped up into an adventure by accident.
But as with most things in life, things that are not actively pursued rarely happen naturally. When we all stood around the sign that welcomed us to Alaska, we knew it was not an accident, happenstance or an impulsive drive that had brought us there. The passion for the pursuit of adventure had also brought us to a place like the Kenai River. In one view, we saw thousands of sockeye salmon swimming, flying eagles and towering mountains. The beauty was self-evident, and the unanimous agreement is that a young man must explore as his life depends on it.
