Sarge and Me
Our First Date
Part 1
A girl and her adventures
An introduction to Sarge and Me.
I have always loved going on adventures. It all started when I was 12 and the second session of the all-girls sailing camp I would attend every year did not have an opening. Instead, I was sent to an off-the-grid wilderness camp in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. I have been on all sorts of trips, from backpacking, overlanding, hiking, ultralight, canoeing, and even experienced van life. The longest I have spent in the lakes chain over Minnesota was 27 seven days picking up trash. Only to later in life spend 21 days in the Black Rock Desert doing almost the same thing with a bit more flare. Over the last 24 years, I have had the pleasure to live it all. My bucket list is still long and Sarge is a milestone.
“One life, Live it.”
A girl on an adventure wouldn’t be without a mascot and Eva really loves her job.
Eva has been my loyal companion since 2013. She is a black Shiba Inu. I found her on Facebook after my 13-year-old Min-Pin was hit by a car. Maybe a year after I got her, she and I started to venture out on trips. As a pastry chef, I didn’t have many days off, but each and every one of them was an adventure. In April of 2019, we made it from San Louis Obisbo through Carmel and Monterey, all the way downtown San Francisco and ended up in Fort Brag for the night. She has kept me safe outside a bear sanctuary, in dark dense forests, and always in the ski resort parking lot while it softly dumps snow. Eva loves adventure almost as much as I do and she will go way out on a limb to explore something. The exception, the Ocean, she will only get in the water in Bolinas, California.
I finally had the truck of my dreams. A Defender named Sarge.
Sarge is a 1994 5 Door Landrover Defender 110 with a 300TDI four-cylinder engine. He has a two-inch lift, 35-inch tires, and is Eastnor green with a pop tent and rack. I brought Sargeyboy home in September of 2020. However, I have always wanted a Land Rover Defender since a desert trip in a Defender 90 in 2011. Not a G-wagon, not a LandCruiser, but a Defender.
Sarge is a preservation project.
He will never look different.
Like humans obtaining scars, dings, and stories along the way.
In 2018, I met Mike (the owner) at Bishop and Rook and we became friends over Defenders. Bishop and Rook is Mike’s labor of love to the universe. His childhood dream manifested as a business with lots of diaper changes like a child. At brunch, the day we met, I told him what type of truck I wanted. It would be two years and a move to California and back before he called about Sarge. Sarge and I went on a four-hour jaunt about Minneapolis for a first date. Picking up parts and paint, he told me so many stories and managed to keep up in the sprints.
With Sarge finally on the board, we had to bring him home and this small trip was all about it.
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@mynameismonaya
Sarge and Me
Sarge and Me is a project years in the making with Monaya’s first Defender experience in 2010. Later teaming up with Bishop and Rook in 2018. A celebration of legacy, independence, and eccentricity, Sarge and Me is going on the road. Follow along @mynameismonaya