Hi everyone. I realize the newsletter has been absent for a couple of months. This has been a busy spring! Of course there is always the standard frenzy related to getting ready for Cruise Moab and other spring events, but this year we compounded that busyness by committing ourselves for nine shows in an effort to support all of the awesome partners that we have that helped with Taco Tuesday. (If you don’t know, Taco Tuesday is a Toyota Land Cruiser that we built for SEMA last year) When you get so much support, it’s good to try to pay it back, so we are taking Taco Tuesday on the road for exhibition in cooperation with our partners. It’s been fun. It is always good to get out and see old friends and make new relationships.
We started the spring with a visit to the Easter Jeep Safari vendor show. Here we helped with Tread Lightly, which if you don’t know is an amazing nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping our trails open. One of my favorite things about Tread Lightly is that they work proactively, hand-in-hand with the BLM and the Forrest Service on projects that are designed to keep trails open before they actually close.
After Jeep Safari was Cruise Moab. A staple event at PRLC, Cruise Moab is a Toyota Land Cruiser Association event that has been held by the Rising Sun 4WD Club for the last 26 years. We’ve been to all of them but one! Cruise Moab has always been one of my favorite events. Not only is it super well organized and fun, it’s one of the only times we actually get to hit the trail.
The weekend after Cruise Moab, we drove all the way to East Texas, where the Toyota Jamboree is held. This was a new event for us and we were honored to be a part of it in the booth with the title sponsor Magnuson Superchargers. This event is held at a private off road park and was an eye-opener for us. They actually wheel hard in the south! We met and became friends with lots of Texans and also folks from Mexico, Venezuela, and the Caribbean islands who all come to that area of the country to wheel.
Driving to Texas is always fun. We got to stop in at one of my favorite restaurants the coyote Bluff Café in Amarillo, where you can get one of the best burgers you’ve ever had in your life with fries for under $11. We also got to stop at Buc-ee’s, twice.
Last weekend was OverlandExpo in Flagstaff Arizona. OverlandExpo is the premier event to gather with other vehicle based camping enthusiasts and see what new gadgets the industry has to offer. Taco Tuesday got a great spot in the Toyo tires booth and I felt like we talked to hundreds of people curious about the build.
The show is not over yet. We have four more events scheduled in the next month. Next, is Toyotafest in Long Beach and OverlandExpo, Pacific Northwest in Redmond Oregon, after that is our local car show in Gunnison Colorado and OverlandExpo in Loveland. If you’re going to be at any of these shows, please come say hi.