Twenty-two years ago, we rolled a brand-new 2003 Jeep off a Southern California lot and vanished into the desert. That moment marked our transformation from city dwellers to full-blown desert rats. The Southwest is a maze of dirt trails, and we wanted to explore every last one. Along the way, we fell hard for rockhounding and scavenging old scrap-rusted metal, sun-bleached wood—and turning it into art.
Less than a year later, we left the beach behind and settled in the Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona, where we still live. The old Jeep’s still kicking, but it’s tired. It needs a full restoration before we’d trust it deep in the backcountry. And while I’m a decent mechanic and we always carry tools, we’re not out there to wrench in the sand. That’s not the mission.
So we bought a new Jeep.
Over the years, we heavily modified our original Jeep—lifted suspension, oversized tires, the works—to make it desert-capable. This time, we skipped the build sheet. We knew exactly what we needed, and Jeep’s current Wrangler lineup gave us many options. Oddly, the one that ticked every box was black. Just like the first one, a total Jeep reboot.
We plan to wheel this one for the next 20 years.
