The Ineos Grenadier: Adventure Awaits

We pulled the trigger. It wasn’t easy and took a lot of mental effort, but we had to. We traded in our Jeep and bought a new vehicle: an Ineos Grenadier. We’re a one car (or vehicle) family and have been for years, so this is a big decision for us. The Grenadier is the perfect new companion for our upcoming year, shifting from heavy work and labor to traveling, camping, and exploring. Adventure living for the next few months, an exciting and exhilarating experience thanks to Netflix and What’s in the Box?!

She's a beauty! Her last moments on the lot before we took her to her new home

We’ve been eyeballing the Grenadier for months now, ever since we won the game show, but haven’t really been all that motivated to make any changes until now. As we’ve gotten deeper into our planning for the summer, we’ve tossed around ideas for what we’d be traveling in.

We'll have a set up like this

While our journey won’t be just a camping trip, we’ve guessed that maybe 1/3 of our nights would be, with the rest staying in cabins, Airbnb homes, or hotels when in the bigger cities. But we will be camping at a couple of these festivals and parks, and after looking at options to rent campers or RV’s, we began thinking about that cost being offset by just buying our own vehicle and outfitting it for the trip. Outfitting the Grenadier looks like it will cost about half of what renting a similar RV would be, so we are saving a bit plus, once this trip is done, we still have the truck and all the gear for future adventures.

So here we are, looking through roof tent options, storage options, and modifications to get this new lady ready for her first journey. It’s exciting to think of where she’ll take us, the days ahead chasing the horizon, trekking across mountains, plains, deserts, and urban landscapes.

We loved our Jeep. She was with us for 5 years and, literally, pulled us through COVID and Hurricane Helene.

During COVID, we converted our bar / lounge in the NoDa neighborhood into a grocery store for our neighborhood - so she took on the duties of daily runs to food and supply warehouses to stock up for the day.

After Hurricane Helene devastated our place in Black Mountain, she served as our workhorse. First, getting us out the day before the storm, 4-wheeling over a washed-out culvert at the end of our road. In the days after the storm, before we could get back in to our place, we hitched a trailer and ran supplies back-and-forth from Charlotte to shelters and food pantries.

The months that followed were consumed with digging out, hauling fallen trees and other debris, moving rocks and stones around the property for retaining walls and stream beds, and bringing in all sorts of supplies and tools.

After all of this work, she was a bit bruised and dinged, and had racked up 104,000 miles. In September, we had to have major engine work done, and she was out of warranty. With our plans and needs for this upcoming year, we would need a vehicle with more interior storage and something dependable.

Along comes the Ineos, which we first saw displayed at SouthPark Mall. For years, we’ve loved the Land Rover Defender, and the design and styling intentionally mimic the same, the safari-ready truck that makes me feel like I’m in one of the wildlife or adventure shows I’ve watched my whole life.

In the upcoming months, we are taking a couple of smaller road trips, then one big one from early June until the first week of August. Our “Year of a Lifetime,” funded and inspired by our winnings on “What’s in the Box,”. This is what we need our new overland ready Ineos for.

Our travels will take us from Charlotte to Nashville for the Bonnaroo music festival, then northwest across the U.S., visiting national parks along the way. We’ll hit up the Beyond Wonderland festival in Washington State at The Gorge Ampitheatre. Then through Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Denver. In between there will be many more park stops: Grand Canyon, Arches, Mesa Verde, Devil’s Backbone, Bryce Canyon, etc.

We’ll end the journey with a trip to our favorite big city, Chicago, for a Guns N’ Roses show followed by Lollapalooza.

From Chicago, we’ll head home. I can imagine how tired we’ll be, how ready we’ll be to get there, thousands of miles behind us. I can also imagine after a few days, or weeks, we’ll be ready to hit the road again, and all we’ll need for another epic road trip will be right out in the driveway.