The Xterra
Ready for the Pan American
The Mods:
The idea was to beef the truck up for rougher roads without turning it into a tank that would draw the attention of every passerby on the sidewalk. I plan for some beach side sunsets, so there is a need to get off the road, however, I’ll leave the mountain climbing for walking…
The inside storage can be moved around and the inside in combination with an air mattress over the supplies will serve for sleeping when camping. I’ve heard there are smaller apartments than this in Japan, so I should be able to take it!
I did start with a monstrous overhead storage box that would have carried everything I owned, and then some. It was realized quickly the effect on diminishing MPG, so unfortunately the box was re-purposed into a rear storage shelf. As I am still realizing, there is an inherent tendency I think to over-prepare. Space is a premium, and packing and re-repacking can become tiresome quickly.
Rocinante II
The name derives from classic literature that long ago awakened my curiosity for road travel. Like Steinbecks’ longing for road travel that would allow him to personally live the actual experience of those people he could not normally reach, I long to connect the same way with other individuals that I normally would never have the opportunity to happen across through extended road travel.
** Taken From the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies:
Travels With Charley In Search of America
A fully restored “Rocinante” is well cared-for at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.
Overview:
In Travels with Charley In Search of America, John Steinbeck sets out to personally discover the defining features of America with his French gentlemen poodle Charley. Embarking from New York after the end of Hurricane Donna on September 23, 1960, Steinbeck loaded up his beloved truck “Rocinante,” named for Don Quixotes horse, and left his home and family behind for nearly three months to search out an answer to his question: What are Americans like today? Driving over 10,000 miles from the east to the west coast and back, Steinbeck garnered a candid view of the United States and its inhabitants. His discoveries both gladdened and distressed him. While he witnessed many improvements in the lives of Americans everywhere, he also estimated the high price Americans would eventually pay for lives filled with ease and convenience. Proclaiming that he would not trade quality for quantity, part of Steinbeck’s purpose in Travels with Charley is to observe and decide if Americans will use technology and increasing convenience for good or destroy themselves and their environment for the sake of material prosperity (18).
Travels with Charley in Search of America was first published by Viking Penguin in 1962.
** http://as.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/teaching_steinbeck/index.jsp?val=teaching_travels_with_charley_homepage
