Caelan
New member
Part 1: Living Space
It was pretty much a given that we’d end up in a Wrangler. My 6’8″ frame doesn’t fit in Land Rovers or Toyotas and Sophia grew up riding around in Jeeps with dreams of having one of her own. And then there was this prophetic wooden sign, proudly featuring a Jeep, that hung in the gasthaus where we planned out our future while hiking through the Black Forest. When we found a 2016 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon with Mojave Sand paint on a used lot in Bend, OR, we knew something special had fallen into our laps. It had 833 miles on the odometer. A bit of paperwork and some nervous waiting later, it was a done deal. We named it Arrakis then drove it from the dealership straight out into the Willamette National Forest for a bit of fun on the trails and a night out under the stars.
First night out with Arrakis
We wanted a mobile base camp setup that would allow us to be stationary and self sustaining for a week or more at a time, regardless of the weather. So our build started with the idea of maximizing the amount of “indoor” space available. The main frame for that would be a roof rack. Gobs of research narrowed our choices to Gobi and Front Runner: Front Runner makes a great rack with an entire catalog of neat things you can bolt to it (table storage under the rack?!) but the Gobi racks wouldn’t require drilling through the hard top. That was the deciding factor; we went with a Gobi Stealth rack. Since we would be in Colorado for my brother’s wedding around that time, we took a detour to Gobi’s shop outside Denver to have them install the rack for us.
We took the long way back from getting the roof rack installed
We took a couple trips like that, gear strapped to the top and sleeping either in Arrakis or in a sleeping bag under the stars when weather allowed. But our real dream was a roof top tent. Soon enough, we found ourselves the proud owner of a Tepui Ruggedized Autana Sky (now called a Ruggedized Series Autana 3). It came bundled with a lower awning room, used a heavier canvas than most of the other tents we looked at in our price range, and was one of the very first roof top tents we saw that could open up two panels in the roof for an unobstructed view of the sky. Their shop was also just down the way from us, so it was easy to pop down for a chat and pick up our tent. Arrakis had finally become a home. We now had three usable rooms (upstairs, downstairs, and inside the Jeep itself).
The final step in creating our living space was to pick up an awning. Sophia has a dislike of mosquitoes that somehow mixes phobia with fury, so we knew we had to find an awning with a fully sealed room attachment. Fortunately, ARB makes a Touring Room to pair with their 2500mm awning. We bought them both. Since then, ARB has released the Deluxe Awning Room and I’ve found myself looking for ways to disparage it to make me feel better about our much more standard awning room. With that, our living quarters were complete. Until it all became obnoxious and we scrapped the whole plan. But I'll get to that later.
Somewhere under all that is a Jeep
It was pretty much a given that we’d end up in a Wrangler. My 6’8″ frame doesn’t fit in Land Rovers or Toyotas and Sophia grew up riding around in Jeeps with dreams of having one of her own. And then there was this prophetic wooden sign, proudly featuring a Jeep, that hung in the gasthaus where we planned out our future while hiking through the Black Forest. When we found a 2016 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon with Mojave Sand paint on a used lot in Bend, OR, we knew something special had fallen into our laps. It had 833 miles on the odometer. A bit of paperwork and some nervous waiting later, it was a done deal. We named it Arrakis then drove it from the dealership straight out into the Willamette National Forest for a bit of fun on the trails and a night out under the stars.
First night out with Arrakis
We wanted a mobile base camp setup that would allow us to be stationary and self sustaining for a week or more at a time, regardless of the weather. So our build started with the idea of maximizing the amount of “indoor” space available. The main frame for that would be a roof rack. Gobs of research narrowed our choices to Gobi and Front Runner: Front Runner makes a great rack with an entire catalog of neat things you can bolt to it (table storage under the rack?!) but the Gobi racks wouldn’t require drilling through the hard top. That was the deciding factor; we went with a Gobi Stealth rack. Since we would be in Colorado for my brother’s wedding around that time, we took a detour to Gobi’s shop outside Denver to have them install the rack for us.
We took the long way back from getting the roof rack installed
We took a couple trips like that, gear strapped to the top and sleeping either in Arrakis or in a sleeping bag under the stars when weather allowed. But our real dream was a roof top tent. Soon enough, we found ourselves the proud owner of a Tepui Ruggedized Autana Sky (now called a Ruggedized Series Autana 3). It came bundled with a lower awning room, used a heavier canvas than most of the other tents we looked at in our price range, and was one of the very first roof top tents we saw that could open up two panels in the roof for an unobstructed view of the sky. Their shop was also just down the way from us, so it was easy to pop down for a chat and pick up our tent. Arrakis had finally become a home. We now had three usable rooms (upstairs, downstairs, and inside the Jeep itself).
The final step in creating our living space was to pick up an awning. Sophia has a dislike of mosquitoes that somehow mixes phobia with fury, so we knew we had to find an awning with a fully sealed room attachment. Fortunately, ARB makes a Touring Room to pair with their 2500mm awning. We bought them both. Since then, ARB has released the Deluxe Awning Room and I’ve found myself looking for ways to disparage it to make me feel better about our much more standard awning room. With that, our living quarters were complete. Until it all became obnoxious and we scrapped the whole plan. But I'll get to that later.
Somewhere under all that is a Jeep