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James Baroud ambassador David Gonzalez shares the details of his camping setup for a trip to Central Oregon hunting for his next rally vehicle.

The hunt for our next rally vehicle

I am a car guy. So is my oldest son. For a year now we have shared a car-themed storage condo we call “Alpha”, the first version of our grand plan. This grand plan includes sourcing a 2002 to 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX 5-door as the starting point for a rally build, our passion for rally a direct byproduct of sharing a much-anticipated 2020 experience at DirtFish Rally School. In our world, there is no more compelling type of driving than rally. At speed, a rally driver and navigator must negotiate all manner of harrowing corners and straights with ever-changing surfaces and without ever driving the stage before. It is sheer chaos. The car’s dominant orientation is sideways. The driver, through instinct and a highly tuned intuition, must keep the shiny side of the car up throughout.

James Baroud Barbecue — “Alpha” – David Gonzalez’ and his son’s shared garage

A trip to Central Oregon

Together, my car guy and my outdoor adventure personalities have combined to send me on another car hunt. This latest hunt took me to Bend, OR to touch, taste, and drive a candidate WRX 5-door while simultaneously taking in the boundless outdoor beauty Central Oregon has to offer. Tumalo State Park – a traditional structured campground with water, electricity, and real bathrooms – was chosen for its proximity to the candidate WRX. The climate in Bend favors Ponderosa Pine, of which there were many, interspersed with prominent boulders everywhere. The colors and shadows screamed “Fall”. All that was missing was the proverbial campfire, but an extreme fire warning precluded any such extravagance. Also precluded was any escape from the sounds of a bustling city.

Pro Tip

Though I didn’t pick up on this detail during my research, a heavily traveled bypass road ran downhill, right alongside Tumalo State Park. Turns out, lots of semitrucks use this bypass, and because it’s just far enough out of town, compression brake usage is allowed. My late-night conclusion? Semitruck drivers are night creatures and compression brakes are like lighthouse fog horns to ships – they draw other semitrucks their way. Sleep was intermittent.

Camping gear and setup

A cornerstone of my setup is the James Baroud Odyssey (Size M) rooftop tent, which includes the following:

A comfortable mattress.
Pouches that Velcro around the interior of the tent’s hard shell hold critical items that never leave – an LED headlamp, a case for my glasses, a multi-tool, a set of thermals.
And the extendable ladder, with its hooks facing upward so as not to disrupt the bedding while stowing, has its precise placement to ensure unobstructed closing of the rooftop tent when breaking camp.

Under the Odyssey, my latest iteration of gear tubs is nearly perfect. It’s everything I need in just the right size and shape and location in the truck bed:

The kitchen tub is large and heavy but has a big handle and wheels that ease movement out onto the tailgate for easy access.
The gear tub, with foldable chairs, a rubber mallet, a hatchet, a couple of lighters, and more LED headlamps, is lightweight and easily moved to where it’s needed.
The repurposed sideline awning from years of watching my children’s soccer matches slides in perfectly between these tubs.

David Gonzalez’s Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Camping Setup

Still hunting…

The candidate WRX was disappointing. On the outside, there were numerous dents and dings and blemishes, which by themselves are not a deal breaker. Whereas, the interior looked like the day it was manufactured. This contrast still baffles me. More baffling, however, was the drive. A preponderance of little things built up to a big “no”. Alignment was way off, especially under load. The clutch and possibly the transmission were well worn and behaved mysteriously. Then while accelerating hard, the engine would cut out and not catch up until I let off – maybe timing or top end issues. It was another frog kissed without the promised prince.

Breathtaking views

With the car crossed off and the intermittent night behind me, the early morning drive to Smith Rocks State Park, just 24 miles North of Bend, was not disappointing. I actually gasped at my first expansive sighting. The ruggedness of the ridgelines, the reflections on the serene Crooked River, and the long shadows of sunrise combined to deliver a palpable panorama and the perfect backdrop for rock climbers. The sunrise vibe was outdoor chic. Fit young men and women were rolling in, gathering up their high-tech climbing gear, finishing their coffees, and excitedly pointing across the river while finalizing their routes for the day. To get to the plethora of bolted routes, they must first hike down to the valley floor, cross a bridge, then climb up the other side to a point quite a bit higher than where they parked. I suppose these passionate climbers viewed the hike as little more than dynamic stretching before a game-starting whistle. I was enthralled by the spectacle. Obligations kept me from deploying my Odyssey at nearby Skull Hallow Campground for another night’s stay, the closest vehicle campground with the best of names, but I did hike down to the bridge and pretend I was one of the cool kids there to climb. Nobody fell for it.

Driving the nearly 340 miles back to Boise offered plenty of time for contemplation. I contemplated the WRX and its unfortunate accumulation of warts and woes. I contemplated the tradeoffs of a densely packed structured campground versus an isolated dispersed campsite, concluding the latter is more to my liking. I contemplated the staggering beauty of the Smith Rocks geology. But mostly, I contemplated my incredibly good fortune to be able to pair my rally-lovin’ car passion with my outdoor adventure passion into a single fulfilling experience. And since our rally car starting point remains elusive, more opportunities lie ahead.

Author

David Gonzalez is a tech veteran with 30+ years of experience applying his physics, computer science, and business prowess to helping early-stage companies innovate and accelerate across numerous industries including handwriting and voice recognition, mortgages, renewable energy, storm water management and mental health.

Intermingled amongst these professional endeavors, David is also a family man. While devoted to his wife of 30+ years and his three uniquely insightful and grown children, he remains an avid athlete, favoring soccer, cycling, skiing, tennis, hiking and any opportunity to get the family into the wild.

David’s ideal evening? That’d be sitting around a campfire with his family, eating from rehydrated food pouches and regaling each other with tales of greatness from the day.