My Wife and I purchased our Jeep Patriot last September, I had no idea we would see ourselves in so many different environments with this machine.  The first place was pretty funny.  We took Sarah’s cheap “woot.com special” GPS with us to Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes.  We were leaving Mammoth Lakes to head to Bodie, CA and then home from there.  We left the Hotel and plugged in the address to Bodie from Mammoth Lakes.  We had set it for the “quickest route”, who would have known the GPS would take us to a fire road that bipassed all of the highways and placed us in the middle of the woods with barely an inch to spare at times!

About 3 weeks ago I had to go to Reno, NV for work.  The wifey mentioned I should bring the Jeep just in case it snowed.  While it is not 4 or even all wheel drive, it is much more “beefy” than my little go-cart Scion xD.  I agreed with her and on my way I went.  The drive there was an amazing 65 degrees with not an ounce of snow in sight.  After day 3 in Reno… the snow started.  I was on my way home from the trip and all the signs on I-80 said “Chains Required”.  Never having driven with chains, I jumped to the adventure.  Little did I know it would take me 9 and a half hours to make the normal 3 and a half hour drive home!  If you look to the left of the vehicle you can see yellow snow!

Last weekend, Sarah and I went on a “Baby Moon”, you know the last vacation you will ever take in the next 18 years!  We went to Pismo Beach the long way, Highway One of course.  We found ourselves amidst the greatest sights in California.  I love that drive!  Monterey to Pismo is absolutely gorgeous beach scenery.

While in Pismo we found a beach that only costs $5.00 a day to drive on!  We decided to take a morning stroll on the beach and then adventure all over the area and head back there after dinner for the sunset.  Yep, watching the sunset from your car with the heat on avoiding the wind, it is a great time!

Just barely over 8 months with this vehicle and we have been just about everywhere with it.  I can’t wait to see where we will find ourselves in it next!

Blake Rudis
f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
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