Day 7, Friday: Road Trip to Army Surplus Warehouse, near Idaho Falls
We awoke for one more time in our tents Friday morning and regretfully packed our camping gear. Living out of the back of your 4x4 has got to be one of the best things in the world. This was to be our last road trip day, and after a week of wheeling, the idea of more asphalt was anything but appealing. Luckily Team Captain Rick Pw had a surprise for us. Where usually there would be eight or more hours of counting telephone poles and listening to Krawlers get shorter beside double yellow lines, we were instead going treasure hunting. You see, Pw, along with many of our constituency have a thing for the crazy cast-away stuff our government has painted green. What better place to go find all this stuff than the giant Army Surplus Warehouse (www.armysurpluswarehouse.com) outside of Idaho Falls?
This is where we were camping outside of Idaho Falls. The private Cox Family Farm was way better than any five-star hotel (at least we would assume so since they never let our type stay in five-star hotels). Plus we somehow convinced the drivers of the BFGoodrich Tires tractor trailer to squeeze down the tight loose dirt trail to get to the campsite so fireside repairs were that much more enjoyable. | 
Our short road trip day found us at the Army Surplus Warehouse where we spent the better portion of the day sorting through all types of military trinkets. Isn't it funny how wives and girlfriends can't drag us with wild horses to go shopping for beads and bangles, but paint everything olive drab and we'll be there in seconds buying stuff we never knew we needed? | 
Of course, being 4x4 guys we all wanted to talk about the rumored WWII Jeeps in a crate legend that has been circulating for ages. Though the Army Surplus Warehouse does have some old project Jeeps, most are not for sale, but you still have to check out the Detroit Diesel-powered M37 driven by the owner Dana Collins. |
Then in addition to his normal store, Dana took us to another huge warehouse stacked to the ceiling with crates of fatigues, surplus camping gear, and other random military stuff. In fact, there was even a pile of helmets 20,000 deep. | 
Of course, again we were looking for project trucks, military Dana 60s, and anything else to make our 4x4s more tanklike. In the end we mostly came home with some great camo spare-tire covers. | |