Any story begins somewhere. Ours is a combination of circumstances. Further to a year with too few all road outings and many surfs on the Internet, one of the Stéphane, “Z”, discovers a video of a Hummer in the Rubicon Trail. “Oh it’s not bad what they do over there,” he said to himself, and then nothing more. It was not until much later, during a discussion with the other two Stéphane - L and B - (yes three Stéphane in a same story) that the word “Rubicon” comes out again in connection with the Jeep Wrangler. And then, Stéphane Z explains what he saw on the Internet – the monstrous stones, the huge 4×4 preparations, well, America ! - and that it would be good to do the same. The idea is launched. We have to carry it out.

Imagine, three Swiss people assaulting the Rubicon Trail! Our idea pleases us. Some details are yet to be settled: how can we go there? What must we do about vehicles? Only simple questions. We decide to organize a dinner to clarify minds. At that very moment, there are four of us. Stéphane Z presents, during this first dinner (yes, there will be others), a complete file containing the route, the costs, the research for vehicles on the spot, and so on. There are four people, so two vehicles, two persons per vehicle and, at the end of our journey, we come back to Switzerland with the two vehicles, Jeep of course. October 2006, our project is officially launched. Everything is fine. Until our fourth crew withdraws without warning. We evaluate the situation at a dinner.

Swiss of his word, we decided to do the Rubicon, we will do the Rubicon, the three of us. Discussions, budget, setting up a savings on a joint account before leaving and months elapse gently. June 2007: we buy tickets to San Francisco. The point of no return. We just can no longer go back. We are caught in the downward spiral leading to the Rubicon Trail The days go by quickly and here we are, at the Geneva airport on the 1 September 2007, with, in our luggage, a few straps and other accessories for this vacation like no other. Flying is alright, but an eighteen hours journey, it is a long enough time to have further discussions about the choice of vehicles.

First, our idea is to choose Wrangler YJ because of their fair prices - Stéphane Z has printed out several pages of ads for Wrangler YJ which help us in our investigation - and as the trip progresses, we change to TJ, indeed more expensive to purchase, but also more interesting to resale in Switzerland. We set foot on American soil at 17:00 local time. Look, we leave Geneva on 1 September at 6:00 in the morning, we travel during 18 hours and we arrive on 1 September at 17.00. You still get it ! San Francisco, here we come! First thing: to rent a car. The process is a little different from home, in Switzerland. Here, we first choose the category and style, then we pay, and afterwards we go to the park and select, in the corresponding row, the car that suits us. The keys are on, we switch the ignition on and the search for a hotel for our first night in the USA begins. After a good night sleep, we wake up, quite motivated to look for our special vehicles.