Taking the Jeep Renegade on an educational road trip
Road trips are all about learning some new things. For instance, did you know that General George Armstrong Custer, the orchestrator of one of biggest blunders in the history of the United States military, wasn’t really a general?
He was given the rank briefly when he led volunteer Union soldiers in the Civil War, but by the time he led his 7th Cavalry to annihilation against the Lakota at the Battle of Little Bighorn, he was just a lieutenant colonel.
I learned that tidbit at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument near Garryowen, Mont.
Here’s another fun fact: In Ashland, Wis., a AAA card is just about worthless. None of the towing companies accept the service.
That one I learned after an unfortunate keys-locked-inside-of-car incident at a Shell station.
Road trips are nothing if not educational. That’s what I wanted for my 5-year-old son when, in July, my wife and I took him on an 18-day, cross-country trip.
It was a tour of Griswoldian proportions. Instead of an Antarctic blue Super Sports Wagon with C.B. and optional Rally Fun Pack, we drove a red Jeep Renegade Trailhawk.
Instead of Wally World, our destination was Glacier National Park. Our route was a loop that started and ended north of Detroit and took us through parts of Indiana; Illinois; Wisconsin; Minnesota; South Dakota; Wyoming; Alberta, Canada; North Dakota; and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
My parents took me on a similar journey when I was in grade school. It was an experience I never forgot.
So less than two months before his first day of kindergarten, we took my son on this 5,200-mile field trip where the classrooms are made up of hiking trails, camp sites and national parks.
As we prepared to embark, I wondered if it was too early for him. Five is a great age for a lot of things—I’m still not sure memory retention is one of them. Would it be worth it to take this kind of once-in-a-lifetime trip with someone who might not even remember it in 10 years?
In the end, my reservations didn’t matter. We packed that Renegade until we needed a shoehorn for the last fishing pole. Then we put a carrier on top with the rest of our stuff. Packing light isn’t one of my family’s strong suits.
On the first day, we made it to Madison, Wis., before sunset. We checked into a hotel just steps away from the state capitol building.
My son’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the rotunda and my wife explained the work the elected men and women did inside.
From there we headed west, putting miles behind us and searching for spots to stop that provided some kind of enrichment (we also hit up tourist traps like the Corn Palace and Wall Drug, because if you don’t, the Road Trip Police will track you down and confiscate your driver’s license).
At Badlands National Park, we learned about ancient mammals that roamed the land centuries before erosion turned the prairie into a vast plain of rocky outcroppings. At Mount Rushmore, we talked about the four featured presidents and the American sculptor who turned a mountain into a memorial.
Devils Tower National Monument was a crash course in geology; Little Bighorn sparked a conversation about American history. And at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, we witnessed a herd of bison, a sight so amazing that it actually warrants the overused descriptor “awesome.”
Glacier National Park was more about natural beauty, and the area surrounding the park proved to be the perfect playground for the Renegade and its Trail Rated chops.
Despite its cutesy looks, the Renegade is a tough little nut, with an agile chassis and a surefootedness that certainly feels as authentically Jeep as anything. And its compact size, though posing a bit of a challenge for chronic overpackers like us, proved invaluable in reaching more remote areas, where narrow lanes, rocky overhangs and tight turns make it difficult for larger, un-Renegade-like vehicles to maneuver easily.
At the end of all this, I may have the only incoming kindergartener in the country who can hold his own in a conversation about Crazy Horse, glacial lakes and Abraham Lincoln’s role in ending the Civil War.
Road trips are all about learning new things. And my son wasn’t the only beneficiary.
It’s impossible to spend any serious amount of time on the road and not learn a little bit about yourself. Our country is a huge and sprawling place, and even though it’s easy to get stuck in spending the majority of your time in the same 20 square miles, sometimes you just have to get out and drive. And is there anything more American than doing so in a Jeep?
On our trip, we camped, hiked, fished and swam. But mostly, we drove.
We pointed the Renegade in a direction we’d never been together and put it into gear. We drove in search of an experience unlike any other, and we found it.
