ROADTRIP ADVENTURE! From LA to Park City, UT ~ we drove from the beach, across the city, offroading through the desert, up into the mountains to find the snow and back ~ truly testing the Audi 2014 Q7 TDI. featured post *NOTCOT

ROADTRIP ADVENTURE! From LA to Park City, UT ~ we drove from the beach, across the city, offroading through the desert, up into the mountains to find the snow and back ~ truly testing the Audi 2014 Q7 TDI.

December 30th, 2013

Roadripping from Los Angeles to Park City, UT for Shawn's family ski trip, to make it a bit more fun, Audi kindly loaned us an Audi 2014 Q7 TDI with quattro for the adventure!  While I knew we'd be heading from the beach through the desert and into the snowy mountains and back, the unexpected definitely emerged! You never really get to know a car until you've properly roadtripped (and gotten lost) in it - spending 20+ hours exploring the world and every button and setting it has to offer while encountering things you can't even plan for is the ultimate test ~ and honestly? I'm impressed. Tempted even! So take a peek below at time lapse videos of our drives, stunning scenery from the Jordenelle Reservoir to the Utah Olympic Park, offroading in Nevada, and more!

First leg of the journey was driving from Beachy LA to Cedar City, UT! Here's a sped up video of the drive.
Stunning to watch the landscapes change around us ~ and the panoramic sunroof made it extra fun to look back at it all mid-drive!
We crossed state lines into Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California a few times!
We spent the night in Cedar City and found the delicious and adorable Centro Woodfired Pizza - they use coffee cans to hold your pizza and love elaborate chalkboard art!
Woke up to ice on the roof rack!
Here's the high speed video of our drive from Cedar City to Park City!
At the base of Deer Valley!
While skiing Deer Valley, Shawn found Bucky's Back Yard! If only we could have brought him with us!
Upon exploring ~ found the stunning Jordanelle Reservoir...
... and went exploring! Beautiful, peaceful, and the Nav thought we were out in the water. We also got to test out a bit of the traction control and offroading on snow and ice - which worked so well it was quite uneventful.
Wandering out on to the boat launch ramp and pier...
Breathtaking views! (And yes, that's the Q7 looking tiny at the bottom of the ramp.)
We also found ourselves over at Utah Olympic Park where "Road to Sochi" Olympic Trials were taking place for the Nordic Combined and Ski Jumping. Coincidentally, we also ran into the Official Vehicles of the U.S. Ski Team - which are also Audi Q7s!
And before we knew it, it was already time to head home!
On the road trip back to LA, it was far foggier, with low clouds forming in the snowy canyons.
Mesmerizing silhouettes of the mountains along the drive back.
As far as unexpected adventures - Shawn joked we would explore Jean, NV... and when we noticed stopped traffic for 20 miles between Jean and Primm, NV, we tried to let google maps lead us on a surface street detour. Well, following the map instructions lead us to miles of unpaved road in the desert paralleling the 15 as we chased the sunset west! (And a side note ~ my favorite details of their navigation system, that list on the left of the 3 upcoming parts of the route!)
Let's test that quattro!
Here's the time lapse of our unexpected off road detour!
Creating dust clouds in the desert, encountering some muddy, clay filled areas, and crossing railroad tracks, we probably would have turned around when starting the unpaved sections, but in the Q7 TDI, it auto switched into offroad mode, and drove as smoothly as when we were on the freshly paved roads...
It got dusty back there fast!
... though that could also be because we couldn't resist turning traction control off, turning the wheel, and flooring it to do some donuts...
Funny enough ~ it wasn't till the very end of our ~20 miles of off road adventures where they warned us about the 'rough road'.
By the time we got home ~ the car reflected our LA to Park City to LA, beach to city to desert to mountains to snow and back ~ and handled it all amazingly. Thank you, Audi! The Audi 2014 Q7 TDI really took the road trip adventure to another level!

P.S.
All the pics are iPhone 5S/Instagram and videos from the GoPro Hero 3 Black. Only problem we ran into was the GoPro overheated and needed to get cooled (super fast in the a/c glovebox!) on the drive back...
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