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Month: July 2019

Stuck in the Snow! Washington Basin

July 5, 2019. For most of us, the night passed peacefully. It was reasonably warm and calm, the creek flowing through the meadow gurgling rather than rushing by. I mean, there was that one UTV that revved its way by camp around 1:00am, but what can you expect on the 4th of July, really? Unfortunately for Mikey @pizzaviolence however, the action in his tent more than made up for the rest of us. Riggs, who'd been feeling a bit under the weather the previous day had an accident around 2:00am. Luckily, according to Mikey, it was mostly contained to the…

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Tundra Brake Calipers Don't Work Well with Banjo Bolt Brake Lines

TL;DR - One of my 13WL brake calipers seized on the trail and had to be replaced. The issue was that Napa no longer carries a workable caliper, and the 13WL caliper really wants a hard brake line connection, which Tacoma banjo bolts don't offer. I'll be switching out my lines.

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Exploring Central Idaho (Crowdaho) in July

July 4, 2019. We always seem to get our trucks reasonably level when we're out in the woods, but something about the level driveway we'd parked in made for an extremely easy night sleep. Or maybe we were just tired from our previous three days - gallivanting around the southeast parts of Idaho. At any rate, we were up late (for us) when Ben @m3bassman opened the garage door at 8:00am - our planned departure time giving us plenty of time to get dressed, eat breakfast, and get the tent put away. In fact, it was still a few minutes…

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From City of Rocks to Craters of the Moon

July 3, 2019. Hoping for a colorful sunrise framed by City of Rocks' formations, I was up early - right around 5:00am - greeted by clouds on the horizon and a showing that was at best, "meh." You can't win them all, and I was quickly back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. Still, we were up earlier than we'd been the previous mornings - because we had no idea how long today's adventures into the Sawtooth National Forest would take - and we figured it would be a good idea to evacuate our adopted camp site…

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We Take Up Residence in Idaho's City of Rocks

There's nothing better than a night with temps in the high 40's a light breeze, and a river gurgling along below camp. Coupled with our position at the bottom of a valley, there was no reason to get up for sunrise, and it was nearly 8:00am before we finally poked our heads out of the tent to take in our beautiful surroundings - the creek below, the hot springs to the west, and pinnacles to the east. And, we did it mostly because we knew that it wasn't going to be long before it got even hotter than the previous…

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Double Dose of Indian Hot Springs

The day started out just like any other. Well, any other where the previous included a 12-hour drive from home to the starting point of our next adventure. So let's back up for a moment... We'd arrived at Bruneau Canyon Overlook just after 10:00pm the day before - our drive from home behind us, capped off by dinner with Ben @m3bassman, Kirsten, Mikey @pizzaviolence, and Amber at their local taco joint - Enrique's - a place they'd recommended a year before when we spent Two-and-a-Half Days in Idaho. Having grown up in California and with a few great taco trucks at…

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Colchuck, Cherries, and Chainsaws

Having wrapped up the dual battery install approximately 12 hours before departure time, we were off the next morning for a couple relaxed days of camping and hiking in one of our favorite areas of the Cascades, near Leavenworth, WA. Not only would this be the first trip with the redundant power - a good thing since we didn't plan on much driving, it would also be the first time we'd see the newly painted wheels in the great outdoors. Well, those look great, I think. We arrived at camp just after 1:30pm - on a Wednesday. This is key,…

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Frame Rust! (and Slider Maintenance)

Every now and then, there's some un-sexy, mundane, stuff that we do to our trucks just to keep them in good working order. These don't usually get a lot of publicity since they do little to increase the cool factor, and don't have the high-profile pizzazz worthy of the 'gram. So today, I did a bit of maintenance. Since getting the @RelentlessFab sliders installed a couple of years ago, they've done everything I've asked of them and have required essentially no maintenance. But, as time has passed, I've noticed that the area where they were welded to the frame has…

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