The first time I met Roger Moody, he was kicking around a paradisiacal grassy bluff with an arial view above the Provo River in Utah's Uinta Mountains.  It was a sunny June day and I was meeting him and his family for the first time at this far-off campsite, and we'd planned it all via the internet. For all I knew, he could have been an ax murderer with a goatee . . .

She's all smiles and laughs
Brooke's essay dives into the world of off-highway driving.  As she's seen, and as she's dealt with first-hand, it's a macho world that's not very inviting to women.  Off-road trips with the local club are usually long, tiring, and really just not quite the same as a day out with the girlfriends.

She's found a way that it can be fun, though, and she wants other women to experience the fun, too.  "As great as our off-highway drives and camping trips are now," Brooke says, "one point I can't overlook is that fellow women adventurers can be sparse out here. So, hello? Where are my girls at?"

The rocks, sand, and wild desert vegetation of the Baja pensinsula made up the backdrop for our family road adventure this summer. Greg and I can take partial credit for this successful vacation, having hatched out the whole plan out around a campfire last November. "We've got to get the cousins out on a really cool trip this summer," I implored. "Are you up for something?"

We settled on Baja, pleaded with Mark to go along with it (he quickly agreed), and 6 months later, with fresh passports in hand, we made the trek down. While the trip was Greg's and my idea, Mark was definitely the driving force behind the success of our 2 weeks. He planned a great route and was our group's main Spanish speaker. Baja gave our family the perfect balance of adventure on and off the beaten path. We enjoyed the food, the culture, and the views from every mountain and beach we explored on the way.

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I believe we can sum it up thus: "We're all here because we're not all there."

Family meals while camping
Drive-thru cheeseburgers with french fries and milkshakes shouldn't be the norm when you're on a road trip with the kids.  In this article, Brooke shows four easy things to do to make tasty, healthy, and simple meals for the whole family when it comes to camping or picnicking along the way.

Put these tips to use so that you can be guilt free when you finally stop for pizza and beer on the way home form your next family road trip.

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So.  Yeah.

My old friends Russ and Andy dictate the Annual Adults Only Weekend in April.  They force us all to pass our spawns to the nearest grandparent willing to take them for a whole weekend, then we go drive some long, bumpy dirt road to a campsite.  We build a fire, fill the glasses, and talk about the old days and tell aggrandizingly sentimental stories about our children.

It might get loud.  It might get cold. We love it.  These are the pictures from our last outing in April 2009 that are suitable for the public.

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Reader question: "How often do you find the actual need for 4x4?  Would a 2wd with a rear locker get us most places? I ask this because of the cost of the 4x4 is way more in most cases than that of a locker."Mini van that ran off the road on a dirt road - no 4WD

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Watch out boys, them ladies are taking over.
Seriously, have you ever seen a group of women rigging winch cable together?  It's like better than a swimsuit calendar.
Brooke gives an overview of her experience with Overland Training's Woman's Course.

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We could have just driven down to any one of six or seven strip malls and found a Bed Bath and Beyond or something. But we wanted to buy something handcrafted and imperfect.  So we loaded the bikes and headed down the road for a two-day-and-three-night back road adventure through Tucson, Sonoita, Patagonia, and Nogales . . . just to buy a set of colorful mexican glasses and margarita pitcher south of the border. Chloe was learning to walk.  Labor Day 2008.

Our camp right on the edge of the beach north of town - Bahia de Los Angeles
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In search of the beautiful beaches enjoyed with the finest margaritas and the greasiest tacos that the Thousand-Mile-Peninsula has to offer.  And with a 6-months pregnant chick along for the ride, too.

Brooke and Chloe hanging out at the campfire
We know what all of our friends and family thought before Chloe came along. "Good thing you're getting all your travels out of the way before you have kids, because once you do it'll all come to a stop."  Well, with all love back to them, they were wrong. Brooke covers the essentials that have helped us out in the first two years of parenthood and outdoor family adventures.