✨ Queen of the Week: Lisa Pratt & Clifford the TRD Pro 👑

This week’s Lady Yotas Queen is the definition of unstoppable, a Toyota enthusiast, off-road explorer, and self-taught builder who proves that when life shifts gears, you can grab the wheel and keep going. 💪🏾

After falling in love with off-roading, she built her dream rig, a Terra 2024 4Runner TRD Pro named Clifford, and learned to wrench, mod, and drive some of the most breathtaking trails across the West. From the Oregon BDR to Moab’s Top of the World, she’s shown what it means to go places fearlessly.

Her story is about strength, learning new skills, and finding community through adventure. She’s not just building rigs, she’s building memories and inspiring women everywhere to get behind the wheel and go.

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I’m a bit of a Toyota gal. I’ve owned more Toyotas than any other vehicle, and I currently have a 1966 Landcruiser fj40 and a 2024 4runner trd pro.

In late 202, my husband of 20 years was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. My entire world changed from being focused on career advancement and the future, to being focused on quality time with my family and building bucketlist memories with him. In 2024, when the oncologist told us he’d likely have “months, not years” we decided to fulfill his dream of building an overlanding vehicle and hitting the road. He chose a Jeep gladiator and we outfitted it with a bed rack, rooftop tent, and pretty much every creature comfort an overlanding rig could have.

  I’d never done any off-road driving, but I fell in love with it immediately. We spent over 30 nights in the roof top tent in 2024, hitting the road as often as we could, returning for chemotherapy in between. It wasn’t long before two things happened. 1. We realized having a second vehicle with a winch would allow us to safely go on tougher and more remote trails, and 2. I wanted to get to do more driving.

  I purchased “Clifford” in November of 2024. He’s a terra TRD Pro and I’m in love. My family jokes that the way I talk about him (and to him) makes it sound like he’s a pet.  Because of my husband’s illness, he feels pretty crappy a lot of the time, so I’ve learned how to do a lot of the mods myself. Clifford has cali-raised rock rails, Prinsu roof rack, drawer system from Colfax Campers, Westcott lift, full set of Cali-raised skid plates, CBI covert bumper, and warn winch, 33” Falken Wildpeak AT4 tires, chase lights on the rear and ditch lights/flood lights on the front, and bulletpoint mounting system. The most recent mod was the OTT tune, which makes an incredible difference in how Clifford handles.

  In 2025, we’ve driven the Oregon BDR, many trips into the Olympic National  park and forest, the Alvord desert and the Owyhees, and most recently we went to Moab where I drove the top of the world trail and then to the San Juan mountains of Colorado to do the alpine loop, Imogene pass, Yankee boy and black bear pass (which was intense to say the least). We are hoping to do the Northern California BDR before it closes for the winter.

  We film our adventures and have a small and kind of crappy YouTube channel (bucketlist overland). My husband puts the videos together  after chemo to keep himself distracted, and I do the music.  I feel incredibly lucky to have the ability to go on these adventures with my husband. He has already made it longer than expected, but we both know that one day soon things will change for the worse. I’ve learned to live week by week, scan by scan, and day by day.  I cherish every moment we have together and am grateful that I’ve been fortunate enough to have the resources to build these rigs and have these adventures with my best friend and life partner.

  I’ve learned that it’s possible to work on my own vehicles. I had zero experience with this sort of thing, but YouTube has a video for everything. I’ve learned to drive off road trails, and have found Clifford to be incredible capable. Unfortunately, I won’t have my husband forever. I’ve learned to make every day count. My world changed completely after his diagnosis, and in many ways it got very small. I’m trying to build community through groups like Lady Yotas, and I really hope to join other women on some off road and overlanding adventures. 

  My next mod for Clifford will be a high clearance bumper with swing out for the spare, and my future goal is to compete in the Rebelle Rally!