Maiden voyage for an AWD Astro

arlon

Adventurer
Left Midland Tx in the morning and drove to Alpine and topped off the fuel tank. Big Bend area is pretty remote and gas can be scarce down there. No problem for a vehicle with about 400 miles of range. Got down to Big Bend Ranch State Park and drove through a bunch of the camp sites and back roads. Finally went to our site and took about 30 seconds to set up camp (doesn't take long to unfold a chair). I love the setting up part, maybe one of my favorite parts of the van thing, dry bed when it was raining didn't hurt my feelings either.

First night in the park, it rained almost all night. I slept very well and didn't have a tent to dry out in the morning, big plus for van camping. Breaking camp the next morning took even less time since I'd already folded the chair and put it away the night before. It was refreshing to simply get up and drive away and not worry about leaving gear behind. Come back in the evening and took another few minutes to set up (had to get a drink out of the cooler and open the camp stove). No rock crawler but it should be able to get to 90% of the remote camp sites in the parks around here. I think a few little additions and I'll be on my way to having a lot more areas to explore and photograph.

Looking down on the Aranosa camping area at sunrise (my van is just left of the pavilion):
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Stars really popped out Saturday night
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And the van..
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Few more pics from the weekend HERE
 

arlon

Adventurer
Got the Camping Labs awning up and running today. Made curtains for all around yesterday... Little every weekend..

New tires (AT3s) are supposed to be here by Tuesday. Trimmed all the edges and such in the wheel wells in anticipation.


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Fisheye view with one of the curtains up.
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Been waiting on some tires for a month. Finally arrived and installed..
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Last edited:

T.Low

Expedition Leader
Got the Camping Labs awning up and running today. Made curtains for all around yesterday... Little every weekend..

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Awnings are great. Must be priceless in Texas. Astros ride great on dirt roads.
 

Stroverlander

Adventurer
I like the awning too, trying to figure out how I'm going to mount one on the factory rack with RTT up there. Probably rotate the RTT 180° to flip out over the driver's side with it offset enough to clear the awning on the passenger side, similar to your setup Arlen.

Do you have any photos of how you mounted the awning to the rail on the inside? Thanks!
 

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