Just a pic dump from the weekend. For those wondering, I clearly took the GX, which got most of its issues sorted out before the trip. Turns out the lower control arm bolts were loose on both sides. That would do it, and it was totally missed by several inspections. It worked though. I also needed new rear brakes and rotors BADLY. Got it taken care of. It was good we didn’t take the Cruiser since we had a strong headwind both ways and while I can normally use 5th gear a lot on the highway I couldn’t use it at all. As a result, the best towing mpg I got was 10.8 and the worst was 8.5. In the Cruiser, it would have been hard to keep 70...and loud...and it would have been harder to keep in a straight line.
The downside is that one of the hikes we really wanted to do, we were told over and over not to try it in the GX and so we didn’t. It was the right call as I nearly got stuck in the sand later. The GX has the power, but the tires would have killed me. I’m still not sure I would have tried in the Cruiser given we had 6 people in the car and we’d be on our own. I guess because it’s been so dry the sand has gone from its normal “sugar” sand to “flour” sand and its been sinking cars day in, day out.
Still had good times. lots of butt time though, the timer in the GX (why?) got reset when we left and it showed 16+ hours of driving time over 4 days.