Help! Telescope for Road Tripping (mostly)

So, I've read the sticky fully and watched all the vids & much more (even made a spreadsheet), but could still use some help finding/picking a scope:

Budget: MAX $500 (including mount & eyepieces)

I live in CA (all over the state really) so viewing most of the time will not be super dark, but I've got an upcoming road trip to the southwest middle-of-nowhere as well as many future camping and road trip plans for dark-viewing opportunities

I want to see everything... well as much as possible given the constraints

Must be on equatorial mount (for photographing time lapses and little things like that)

Needs to be reasonably transportable and compact to fit in with all the camping gear, I don't plan on trying to go far from the car with it though

I tried to be thorough to narrow it down as much as possible, any advice would be much appreciated!