Many thanks to Dave of OAUSA for setting this up, the Navajo and our guides for their hospitality, and everyone else who participated in making this a wonderful trip. I would have to say the highlights for me were a 3-way tie between the Poncho House ruins on day 6, the snow/rain in Monument Valley on day 8, and Tom’s peach cobbler… all of these would be hard to beat.

All of the pictures from this trip can be found in the Flickr set.

Note: the geo-locations for many of the pictured sites have been changed to the local jail, since that is where you will be staying if you try to go out on your own and find these places without a local guide and permission from the Navajo Nation. If you would like to visit some of these places for yourself I suggest heading over to OAUSA to find out when the next trip will be.

The LifeHammer as purchased does not come with any mounting hardware, a puzzle they leave you to figure out. After several bad experiences with all manner of adhesives on other equipment, I strongly suggest you disregard the manufacturers claim that any sort of adhesive tape will do. For going into plastic interior panels, I’ve found wood screws self-tap easily and hold well. A 5/8-ths inch #6 screw works well in most cases, and is short enough it won’t damage anything the auto maker might have hidden under the panel.

For those of us with a Discovery, the factory-installed overhead shelf/console has a large void in the center rear. This area is too far back to be a useful location for a display or gauge cluster, has no available OEM accessories to fill it, and is an awkward place for auxiliary switches. Ultimately it is empty, sturdy mounting space, easily accessible from by both driver and passenger, serving little other purpose. Once the LifeHammer is installed, all of the original access panels, switches, and lighting remain unaffected.

Once installed, this location is easily accessible while strapped into either the driver or front passenger seats. The bracket itself is tight enough the hammer isn’t going anywhere (the roof is actually a suggested location by the manufacturer), and the entire assembly sits high enough it does not block access to the sunroof controls.

Down the road, the LifeHammer bracket will help shield the glare of some custom-fabricated map lights I will be installing (for some reason, the Discovery does not come with any from the factory).

I’ve also moved my washer fluid reservoir in anticipation of a new aftermarket bumper. It doesn’t hang down below the remaining bumper area though, so if you want to keep it there it can just be painted black (in stock form it is white).

Since moving to the middle of nowhere, I’ve also been doing quite a bit of maintenance and modification to my Discovery on my own so I added a section called Land Rover for any useful tidbits I find working on that project, and any post-worthy off road trips.

fotikus is also up and running now, though still under construction. I’ve only had time to put a hundred or so photos up there, but I expect to have the rest done before the end of the month. Pictures on fotikus are free for non-commercial use, or $25 each for commercial customers.