With Friday being the official start of Overland Expo, the vendors, and people attending the show out were out in full force. There's no other way to put it than to say that the show was massive this year, with record numbers achieved each day. Whether you travel by 4WD, 2WD, or 1WD - there was something for you this year. Check out out photo heavy update below.

via West County Explorers Club: Check out this Land Rover 110. It has a sequential 5-speed transmission, 2-speed transfer case, working disc brakes, selectable 4-wheel-drive, and is made entirely out of Legos. Amazing! What's more, every one of those features and more are actuated by remote control. Quite a project.

This model is currently listed on a site called Cuusoo, which is a kind of farm league for Lego models. If it gets 10,000 votes, Lego will produce it as a kit.

Read more for more photos and a video of it in action.

Here’s a link to the builder's site.

Thanks for the tip, Mas!

via West County Explorers Club: I found this on Cool Tools the other day. It's a Fenix headband mount for your favorite 18–22mm-diameter flashlight. If you pair it with a Fenix E11 flashlight, you’ll have a 105 lumen, side-mounted headlamp that runs on a single AA battery for about $50. The waterproof container on the other side of the headband holds two spare batteries (CR123, AA, or AAA), which will come in handy as the E11 has a max run time of 8 hours and 23 minutes on low power and 1 hour 50 minutes on high power.

If you carry your spare batteries somewhere else, you can install the other included flashlight holder in place of the battery container, and run two flashlights simultaneously. Using a pair of 4Sevens MiniX 123 lights, for example, will give you a whopping 420 lumens of light. If you do, carry a few spare CR123 batteries. Each light will burn through one an hour pumping out that much light. Run them at the low 1.2 lumen setting and they'll last for 100 hours or 6.5 hours on 45-lumen, medium setting.

 Even though Overland Expo officially runs Friday through Sunday, if you were here on Thursday you'd have thought the event was already taking place. A fantastic amount of overlanders showed up one, even two days early for the event, and there was exitement in the air for things to come. If you have the chance to show up a bit early for next years event I'd strongly suggest it, it's a fantastic chance to really catch up with people, and see the entire machine come to life. From Land Rover testing and refining their test track, to getting a little behind the scenes look at everything, it's deffinetly worth it.

For those of you who don't already know, the biggest single event of the year for the overland community is upon us, officially starting Friday, the Overland Expo  is being held just outside Flagstaff, Arizona, at Mormon Lake. With record-breaking numbers of participants coming to learn, explore, and be trained, it's sure to be a fantastic weekend. We'll be posting live updates from the field daily for those of you who couldn't make it this year. From the moment we arrived (and even weeks before), the entire Overland International team has been running around like mad and working incredibly hard on fulfilling Stephanie's vision for our booth this year, we're going to have to let you guess what the theme is for the booth this year—it's a bit too early to tell.

Awnings are cool. No seriously, they really are, anyone who has been camping for a few days in the middle of sunny no-where can tell you the importance of keeping cool and getting a break from the sun when you set up camp. Eezi-Awn has just launched what could be the coolest (or maybe hottest) awning I've seen in a while—It's called the Bat ($1200), and it provides 270 degrees of coverage over your vehicle and deploys in less than a minute. The Bat's frame is made completely of quality aluminum, with a waterproof rip stop canvas to ensure a long life in the field. Equipt Expedition Outfitters is currently taking pre-orders on this seriously cool piece of kit. 

Come join Equipt Expedition Outfitters, The Maya Rally, and Overland Gourmet at booth #20 at Overland ExPo on Saturday, May 19th!

By Paul Archer

Twitter @Paul_K_Archer

Whether you’re off to climb Everest, walk backwards across the Antarctic or heading to South East Asia for a few months with your greatest friend in the world, one of the toughest aspects of any kind of trip is the group dynamics.  Very rarely in life will you spend such extended periods of time with people other than when you travel together.  You will find yourself doing everything together, having little or no privacy and relying on them as they rely on you.  You might spend more time with these people than you’ve ever spent with anybody ever before.