escape the ordinary
Adding blueberries to breakfast is a huge win. They aren't cheap, but they are worth it.
TL;DR - we're always looking for ways to speed up meal time. Storing spoons, bowls, cereal, and paper towels separate from the rest of the kitchen stuff - and within easy reach - makes breakfast a snap.
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Cheap and convenient.
TL;DR - I love this simple modification and it's made cooking with the propane stove much more enjoyable.
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An avocado a day...is better than an apple a day.
TL;DR - if you're a fan of avocados, a little care can keep them safe and unbruised for up to 10 days.
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You've served me well, but I'm still a little disappointed in you.
TL;DR - The top, military wrap half-leaf on the driver side broke in two places. I'm not sure what I'm going to do as far as replacement goes, but I have two options.
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Nearly a full tank of gas.
TL;DR - I recently added a third jerry can to my pack-out for certain trips, and it's been great.
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I've already picked up the replacement transfer case I'll be swapping in.
TL;DR - I need a new transfer case.
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It's amazing what a little metal glue can accomplish. This fix was a huge success.
TL;DR - I've put 10K miles on my reinforced axle housing and it's working great. I'm really in no rush for my new one to arrive.
Leave a CommentThe 20-hour drive home - that concluded our Lowest Peak in the Park - aka Into the Owlsheads trip - gave me a lot of time to think. The trip had been brilliant, with some predictable highlights, and some unexpected surprises. And I have to admit that joking around as we climbed Owl Peak - that it was the lowest in the park, perfect for the serial underachiever - had been a lot of fun. But it also got me thinking. In the nearly four years that I've been visiting Death Valley, Owl Peak is the only summit I've ever climbed. And,…
2 CommentsWe arrived at Alabama Hills and started looking for somewhere to call home at 8:30pm on a Saturday night - surely not an ideal time to show up at such a popular location. Tired from our hike to - and through - Military Canyon earlier in the day, the first several spots we checked were occupied, but eventually we found a secluded-enough spot nestled in the rocks and leveled the truck. Fifteen minutes later, we were brushing our teeth and climbing into bed - each of us ready for some well-deserved shut-eye. The catch - there's always a catch -…
11 CommentsOne of the things that surprised us when we climbed into the tent just after 6:30pm, was that there wasn't much wind up on the top of the platform. Not that we were complaining. But it wouldn't last. By midnight, it was windy and we'd both put in our ear plugs to quiet the flapping of the tent fabric, as larger gusts rocked us in and out of sleep. Still, by sunrise - some 12 hours later - we'd both gotten enough sleep to feel reasonably well rested, and certainly more energized than we'd been after our hikes the day…
3 CommentsThankfully, the wind tunnel that can occur through the Lost Lake valley didn't materialize overnight, and we slept reasonably well, with the entire place to ourselves. I was up - as usual - just before sunrise, and the light was fantastic. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that I'd changed the settings on the camera to capture the Milky Way the previous evening - plus I failed to notice anything in the little viewfinder on the back as I reviewed them in the moment - and so I ended up with some very soft, very noisy shots that I've done my best to…
5 CommentsI have no better way to describe the impetus for this trip than Michel Digonnet has so expertly done in Hiking Death Valley. One read of this, and I was sold - it was time to visit the Owlshead Mountains. At the south end of Death Valley, between the imposing Panamints and the mysterious Avawatz Mountains, the land gathers up into a colorful aggregate of low ranges collectively known as the Owlshead Mountains. Believed to be the eroded and partly collapsed remnant of a once much taller range, they consist of a roughly circular arrangement of hills surrounding two dry…
5 CommentsAfter two nights of restless sleep, I slept well at the Chemung Mine. Legend has it that a ghost haunts the property, but luckily for me it was a Friday night - one of the six nights each week that the poltergeist is a peacefully content. Apparently if I'd been there on a Saturday evening, things could have gotten interesting. I awoke only once during the night - right around 2:00am - when a flurry of snow was passing overhead, the tick, tick, tick of ice on the rain fly, rousing me from my sleep. I'm never happy about the…
12 CommentsHaving not gotten much sleep the night before, I thought I'd conk out and sleep through the night here on my ridge in the Pine Grove Hills. No such luck, however - instead I wandered in and out of sleep, a little worried that the wind and rain would pick up during the night. Neither of those things happened, and a few minutes before my alarm went off, I decided I'd read a bit as I waited for color to spill across the sky. With views to both the east and west, I knew that this could be a primo…
10 CommentsIt was a little before 2:00pm when I rejoined the main road through Mason Valley and headed north. I wasn't sure how far I'd get, but the views were great and though I wished for a little more blue sky, I really had no complaints as I crested a hill near the southern end of the valley, a grove of cottonwoods following the creek, below. Into the mountains. Always fun to zoom in and compress the background a little bit in situations like this. Apparently, I took a lot of photos here. A few minutes later I was driving into…
3 CommentsFor the last eight months or so, I've been trying to get us down to the area along the Nevada-California border to explore the area west of Walker Lake (Nevada) and northeast of Mono Lake (California). One of the highlights - I hoped - would be summiting Mt. Patterson. For some reason, it seems that each time I made a plan, something would come up - another trip, bad weather, all the National Forests in California closing - that kind of thing. And, as it got later in the year, I'd pretty much written off the trip - after-all, by…
7 CommentsOctober 16, 2021. It's been nearly three years since I installed my ADS suspension on all four corners of the Tacoma. I did the rears first - twice, actually - relocating them for more travel. The fronts were installed not long after, and of course I've been battling the spherical bearings ever since. In that time, I've put 88,000 miles on the truck and I've known for a while that it was time to service the shocks. For anyone who just wants a step-by-step guide on rebuilding shocks - as opposed to reading the story of my experience - I've…
2 CommentsIt seems like it's been a lot longer, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that I noticed my rear axle housing was leaking at the passenger side leaf spring perch. On my way home from surveying the Aftermath of the Creek and Dixie Fires, I knew that this was not some maintenance item that I could just put off until there were no trips on the horizon. Nope, this is something that I needed to deal with right away. After several fruitful discussions with my buddies on TacomaWorld, I immediately set about lining up the long-term fix…
6 CommentsSeptember 26, 2021. For the last few months, my steering rack has had a slow leak. I first noticed it when we were exploring New Mexico on the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route (NMBDR), but it hasn't taken much to keep it topped off so I mostly ignored it, except for buying a new steering rack and letting it sit in the box. This is the story of my replacement. I'll gloss over a lot of details, and share the nuances of my install. Think of it as entertainment, really. If you're looking for how to do it, I've written…
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