Exploration - page 3

Tom Holm is the founder of EcoTrek Foundation, a nonprofit with the goal of preserving cultural and natural resources through renewable power, products and practices. A major part of EcoTrek’s business involves converting and modifying vehicles to be more environmentally friendly for demanding expeditions.

Warning: This story contains some very real experiences and some very unreal imagery.

This story is a permission slip. Later this summer, this year, or this lifetime, you have hereby been granted permission to fail. We encourage it. Go forth and break things. Get stuck. Paddle out and bail. Eat dirt. Finish last. Whatever it is you want to do, go. Get out there, and fail at it. 

Or perhaps we should say, fail into it.

You could call John Rathwell a lot of things. A photographer, a former pro kayaker, an amateur mechanic, a volunteer firefighter, a coffee roaster, an adventurer...the list goes on. But no matter his job title, he’s an unwavering optimist with an uncanny ability to make the most out of life, no matter what obstacles it throws his way.

There is, perhaps, no car manufacturer more committed to growing motorsports than Mazda; and no car more responsible for that than the MX-5 (Miata). On any given weekend, there are more Mazda’s raced than all other manufacturers combined, with much of this volume attributed to the MX-5 at both the professional and grassroots levels.

At final bell, the doors of Haileybury Girls College erupt in a blinding sea of magenta and gold. Pigtail braids and white straw hats bob on top of crisp polo shirts, breezy pinstripe dresses, and nylon backpacks that look as big as their carriers.

Establishing the National Park system was one of America’s greatest ideas. Preserving wilderness areas and making them accessible to all Americans is a noble cause. But over the past few years, the nation’s parks have seen an explosion in interest. This is a good thing! Visiting one of these areas is a monumental experience. But let’s be honest, sitting in a line of RVs for hours trying to get into one of these parks is a monumental pain.

As history would have it, the day the STS-1 Columbia Shuttle took off was the “dawn of a new era in space flight.” But before it was a new era, it was a test. A proving ground to show that the reusable, shuttle-based flight system could work. The mission was to launch, get to orbit, perform some tests, and then, just 54 hours later, come back in for a landing. 

A landing built on BFGoodrichⓇ Tires.

Plenty of parents drop their kids off at college in August. Few do it Marty Lawrence style—cross country and over the course of the entire summer.

Believe it or not, this story starts in late 1970s — the first years that a team from BFGoodrich® Tires went down to Baja to participate in the most ruthless racing event on the planet.

South of Moab on Highway 191, just as the last branches of civilization fade into total desert, Grandpa’s Garage perches on the rim of Spanish Valley, Utah. Part clubhouse, part tool library, part off-road summer camp for adults, it’s a place of many contradictions. It’s not an auto shop, but you can come by to work on your car. It’s not a campground, but you can park your RV and stay awhile. It’s a local landmark, present in tourist guides and on travel blogs. But also, it’s a private residence.