We slept soundly through the night - it was the perfect night really - quiet, a bit of a breeze, and chilly but not too cold. I'd set my alarm for 6:30am, since I wanted to catch the sunrise. The atmosphere over Death Valley makes for stunning shots and though I knew I wouldn't get anything like @DVExile, or even Ben (@m3bassman) had a few weeks earlier, I really wanted to try to get something! I wasn't disappointed. Sunrise seemed to pick up just where sunset left off - amazing pinks and purples, mixed with a cool blue sky and…
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Get out, go big, an explore. This is the stuff we live for!
The alarm woke us at 6:00am. We were cozy under the covers but it was cold. It hadn't rained or snowed overnight, but dew had covered the tent and frozen, so the tent went away wet - not ideal, but we had places to be and weren't about to wait a few hours for the sun to come up and dry things out. We decided to forego breakfast for the time being, and were on the road by 6:38am, heading south. After a quick breakfast stop in Luning, NV - a town of nothing except the Wild Kat brothel, and…
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Death Valley: Intro and Day 1 - A Day of Driving Winters in the Pacific Northwest, (but perhaps especially this one) are tough to swallow when you like to get outdoors to explore and experience new adventures. The weather gets cool and wet, and it often takes a multi-state trip south to escape the gray. No different from a weather perspective, this year is different for @mrs.turbodb and I from a availability perspective. And, because of that, when we heard that Ben (@m3bassman) and Zane (@Speedytech7) headed to Death Valley for New Years, we were immediately jealous. We'd been wanting…
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With a long trip ahead of us, we were up early - everyone climbing down ladders around 8:00am, and ready to head down the mountain by 8:30am. We'd survived the night without getting hit by lightning, and even the rain had stopped sometime in the wee hours of the morning, making it easier to put everything away (still wet, but at least not in the rain). As we headed down Rimrock Road towards Fruita where we'd refuel and part ways, there was only one more obstacle for us to maneuver - the ticket station at the entrance to Colorado National…
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We slept soundly through the night, but when I woke up in the morning, I was immediately out of bed to take advantage of what I knew would be some very cool light before the sun got too high in the sky. As it turned out, I'd be extra glad to have gotten up, because the early morning light was soon going to be a torrential lightning storm. But, for now, it was purples. And oranges. I don't know what we did to deserve this, but whatever it was, I'm sure we'd all sign up again. And then, as the…
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Parked at the head of Gemini Bridges, we expected to be woken early by Jeepers, but we weren't. The first set headed up around 9:00am, moving slowly. For good reason too - they were Jeeps, and so a bit fragile. As usual, we'd ended up in a beautiful spot. Out on a ledge, it was hard to spot even from the trail, but was flat with great views and morning sun. Having gotten in late the night before, we hadn't aired down yet, so in addition to putting away the tents, we took a few minutes to complete a task…
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During the night, the rain stopped, and by morning, though the ground was still wet, the sun was doing it's best to paint the landscape a brilliant orange. In combination with some straggling dark clouds, it made for cool light - perfect for adventure. Our camp site really was amazing - as was my view out my tent door. I'd won the tent-positioning jackpot! With motivation like that, I was out of the tent in a hurry. It's not often that you can climb up, directly above your rigs to get a view from above, which is what we had…
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It was a wonderful night. There was no rain, no snow, and no ice on our tents as the sun rose into the sky. Having seen our campsite the night before, this morning was more about getting new perspectives and enjoying the sounds of the world waking up around us. I headed up onto the rock outcropping south east of our camp and waited for Mike, Monte, and Devin to get up and meet the day. Mike was first out to make his hearty breakfast - two cups of coffee, followed shortly by Monte and Devin who munched on a…
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Derp would never see the sand dunes, even though it turned out we were camped at the base of one nearly 200-feet high. Having set three sequential alarms "just in case," when his first alarm went off at 4:00am, he bucked his usual trend and got up and out of camp relatively quickly. It was still dark, but we could hear him reving along the muddy roads for a good 20-30 minutes, so we were pretty sure he made it out alright. Back to sleep for a few hours, when I woke again at 7:00am, it was cold. 24-degrees cold.…
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The rain we'd known was coming did in fact come, but it passed by 7:00am the next morning as the sun and blue sky revealed themselves through the clouds. In what was becoming a ritual, I got up and explored the area around our camp before the rest of the crew got out of bed. It was always exciting to see where we'd ended up the night before! In the distance, some abandoned structures dotted the badlands - not part of the ghost town of Gebo, but likely mines abandoned long ago. Closer to camp, evidence of the high winds…
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We woke up in Monte's driveway without having been rained on at all the previous night. Glorious. Ben and Kirsten had taken off early - around 7 - since they had a long drive in front of them before work the next day, and we got word from Glenn (who'd stayed at a Super8) that he too was taking off, and that Derp could keep those gas cans…but not more excuses for showing up without extra fuel. Ready for some downtime, the rest of us took it easy, happy for both the break in the weather and the mud-free ground.…
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Amazingly, Ben wasn't the first one up. Glenn was, to clean off his tent. Snow had continued through the night, and we had a good 3-4 inches covering everything. It was pretty, but cold. As we got up and took stock of the situation, Ben made an off-the-cuff remark that it was too bad it wasn't sunny, because he and Kirsten had been planning on making breakfast for everyone if it had been. And then, like magic, the sun started to peek through. We all smiled and turned to Ben. He mumbled something under his breath and went to talk…
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It was 5:22am when Mark rolled in, and curled up in his passenger seat for a couple hours of sleep - that is, until Ben found him around 8 and he headed back into town for coffee and some crazy energy drink - the breakfast of 25-year-olds! The rest of us stirred late - again, hoping the rain would stop, and then accepting our muddy fate - exiting our tents to perhaps our least beautiful camp site yet. And smallest - separated into the green team and red team the night before. As we were getting ready to go, Mark…
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For those of us that awoke to the pitter-patter of rain at 1:30am, our weather-contentment from the night before was short-lived. For everyone else…ok, there was no one else. We waited for the rain to slow before getting up the next morning - even Ben and I getting up a couple hours later than usual, at 9:30. But, eventually we realized that it wasn't going to stop, so we tumbled down our ladders and got to breaking camp. Oh, and Mike started the only real "breakfast" of the morning, …which was warm by lunch. It was at this point that…
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September 20, 2017. Most of us were awoken at 2:00am by Mike's radio blasting when Ben calling over the ham radio to see if anyone was around. I say "most" because Mike slept right through it! Of course, no one was getting out of their tent and into the snow to reply so Ben had to make do with the description of the camp site that Monte had communicated the evening before. Oh, and there was that "sign" that he'd written in the snow on the road. Hours ago, as it continued to come down. So when Ben and Kirsten…
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September 19, 2017. Hoping the rain would stop, we all stayed in bed until 8:30am. Or at least, that's why I stayed in bed - I'd later realize that 9am was the general wake-up time. Once again, morning provided a clearer view of our campsite as the rain let up slightly I headed out to take a look and get started on breakfast. Next to the creek, everyone was dry in their tent - but Zane was clearly in need of a new rain fly. Once again breakfast was sausage, eggs, and strawberries but on this morning I had the…
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September 18, 2017 Close to the gravel road, we were awoken at first light by traffic, including 18-wheelers. And as we climbed out of our tents, we got our first look at the site we'd called camp the night before. It was glorious. In that "it worked" kind of way. We each investigated in our own way, discovering the second site (occupied) next to us, the source of the daddy-long-leg spiders (the fire ring where we'd setup, not the trees), and of course the warnings to be careful. 18-wheelers or not, we were in bear country. (Note that we never…
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September 17, 2017 The morning was an early one. I'd spent the last couple days wrapping up things as work and getting ready to go. By 10pm Saturday, my checklist was complete: CB radio installed Warm clothes and extra sleeping bag (just in case) packed Two weeks of breakfast, lunch, and dinner gathered (and pre-cooked in the case of dinner) Truck fueled, loaded, and waiting in the garage for an early morning start My target go-time was 4am, and with an actual on-the-road time of 4:30, I wasn't doing too bad. I pressed the skinny pedal as I got onto…
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September 17 - October 1, 2017 As @mrs.turbodb and I returned from the OBDR, we were already wondering what our next adventure would be. And, at least I assumed that it would be next year. Boy, was I wrong. You see, 10 days before we'd left for Oregon, an unassuming post had been made on TacomaWorld. The Tour was going to be a two-week long trip through Montana and Wyoming, with a group of guys who seemed to have a similar approach to exploring and taking in the sights as we do. But we weren't even considering it - we'd…
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August 4, 2017. Somehow, we were ahead of schedule. Having made it 15 or so miles past Kamela the evening before, that meant we had only about 85 miles to the end of the OBDR for our final day. That was fine with us because we woke up to pea-soup levels of smoke - enough to completely obscure Summerville in the valley below our middle-of-the-road camp. We rolled out of camp early, heading down our ridge on our way through the last of the Blue Mountains on our way to Walla Walla. Travel today would be on the easy side…
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