Sunday morning was perfect for the drive through Canyonlands and for pics. Ann, me and Karson. I’m not sure how my son got so tall?? Must be a camera angle thing? Sigh.

On Sunday morning we left for the White Rim trail in Canyonlands National Park. Driving out of Moab, we had a cloudless morning with perfect temperatures in the 60s. As we left, we drove past a jeep hoisted onto a sign for the Expedition Lodge motel in downtown Moab, something that must have been added in the last two years. It’s missing the drive train, but otherwise still has quite a few parts.

In contrast to the yellow jeep, our rental jeep was a white newer 4-door Wrangler. Karson rented it through Canyonlandsjeep, which he said provided the least expensive jeep rentals (the folks there were great). It was slightly lifted and had oversize tires. The one downside of the rental jeep was that we were not allowed to drop the tire pressure. As a result (and as you can imagine) the ride proved to be rougher than it otherwise had to be.

Our Rental Jeep

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Dave Naylor (kaisercj71 @ yahoo.com) is hoping to locate his Dad’s old 1947 CJ-2A. His story is below:

So, just a long shot here but, please play along. In Grangeville, ID (pretty sure it was Grangeville) around 1951, my dad traded his ’47 2A on a ’51 4×4 Willys truck. I’ve lost all hope of ever finding that old 2A, having no VIN number to work from but, I’m kind of interested if obtaining some old pictures or other artifacts from that dealership, circa late 40’s or early 50’s.

The dealership was Gort Smith Motors or maybe Gortsema Motors, AFAIK, and was still in business several years ago. I called them wondering if any old sales records were still in existence. No luck, as I had imagined.

If anyone stumbles across any period items related to this dealership, I’d be interested in obtaining them. Not sure what all brands they sold as many dealers sold other stuff besides just Willys. I’d be interested in Willys/Jeep items only, of course.

Thanks folks.

It’s late and I’m bushed, so no updates today (and I’m behind on emails). We had a great time jeeping with Karson on Sunday. We drive home from SLC on Monday morning. So, updates will happen on Tuesday.

Today will be driving part of the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park, at least to the point where the river is currently blocking the trail (the rivers are higher than normal here in Canyonlands right now. We are driving a jeep rented through #Canyonlandsjeep

I’ll report on our adventure on Monday. We’ll be on the road most of Monday, so regular updates will likely not appear until Tuesday morning.

Below are some pics of our test-drive on Saturday night.

Ann & Karson peeking over the windshield outside of Moab.