I was going to title this story Our Snowy Adventures in the Cascades, but our last day in the mountains changed all that. So, let's get right down to it. Day 1 Our adventures started out early one morning - probably way too early - as we packed into the car at 5:00am and headed north. Our objective for the day - at least for us - was unusual. There was to be no off-road driving, no hiking to splendiferous overlooks. No, today was to be about sitting and then sliding, then sitting... and sliding again. We'd do it for…
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If you missed the first part of this story, you may want to read 4Runner Accident, and the Saga of Repair when you're done reading this. It was a Monday morning when we showed up at Jim's Body Shop in Seattle. Arriving a few minutes after they opened, they were in the process of assessing where they were on their various projects and one of the guys made an off-hand remark that they might be "overbooked." I wasn't worried though - in my dealings with Humberto, he'd seemed genuinely interested in working on the 4Runner - and a few minutes…
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Over the last couple years, I've learned - mostly from others experience - that it's a good idea to keep an eye on 1st gen Tacoma lower ball joints (LBJs). If you do lots of bumpy, off-road style driving, every 30-50,000 miles is a reasonable interval to change this part of your truck, in order to prevent a catastrophic failure. So, today I headed out to the shop to check my LBJs, and here's what I found. This time, it's been 15 months, and it's definitely time for replacement. Before you do this test, you want to jack up the…
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TL;DR - It's time to get a new 1lb propane bottle; the current one has a slow leak through the valve.
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TL;DR - Even with relatively cool days and nights, something was wrong with my house battery. Need to investigate.
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TL;DR - I think I need to replace the spherical bearings again. Already. They are squeaky and I've only put 14K miles on the new set.
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If you own vehicles long enough, it's a safe bet that one will be in an accident. Luckily for us, when the 4Runner was hit, no one was in it. This is the story of what happened, and the saga that followed. So, it was the first Friday in December when @mrs.turbodb drove the 4Runner a few miles to a school where she volunteers as a tutor, around 10:00am. I'd gone to help a buddy with some landscaping at his place. He and I were eating lunch when @mrs.turbodb called to let me know that a 17-year old girl had…
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Anyone who owns a 4WD Toyota and has dealt with the drain and fill plugs on the IFS front diff knows that they generally suck. They use either a 10mm or 12mm hex key, and that can be a problem for many reasons: The recess that the key fits into can easily get filled up with crud. If the recess isn't cleaned and the hex key doesn't fully seat, it's easy to round over. Hex key's aren't generally all that long, so it's hard to get the leverage needed to loosen the plugs. The plugs can get extremely tight, making…
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It had been 9:00pm or so by the time I'd finally climbed up into the tent to head to bed, and I'd hoped that my second connection of the trip would show up as I slept - the plan, to spend the following day (today) together exploring a few interesting areas around Eureka Valley. Hoping to make that connection easier, I'd left my APRS on in the truck, and I'd also left a couple paper plates attached to creosote bushes along the road in hopes that they'd be spotted by the amazingly bright lights that I knew this fellow explorer…
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Previously, you may recall... It was just before 1:00pm when I arrived back at the truck, and I had a decision to make: the day's plan called for another ~8.5 mile loop hike high into the Last Chance Mountains, but I wasn't sure I'd have enough time before the sun went down. My options - perhaps obviously - were to try for the full hike, skip it altogether, or cut the hike in half by making it an out-and-back rather than a loop. Ultimately I knew there was no way I'd be happy with myself if I skipped it altogether, and…
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From the get-go, I'd known that my second day in Death Valley would be my fullest. As such, I'd done my best to set myself up for success by camping at the trailhead for my first hike of the day - though "trailhead" might be giving significantly more credit than is due. Camped in Eureka Valley, I knew that the Last Chance Range would block any sort of early-morning sunrise, but that didn't mean I was up any later. Rather, even as the sun was still behind the mountains, I was up and prepping for my first hike - eating…
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Prologue It was 4:04am on a Wednesday morning when I pulled out of the driveway and pointed the Tacoma south towards Death Valley. I was looking forward to the warmer weather - the forecast in the mid-70°F's - but even more than that, I was looking forward to the company. Because - while I was all alone for this leg of the trip - I planned on making two connections in the next several days that were long overdue. But first I had to make it south. At 20 hours - with refueling and food - it would be a…
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So after having my Exped MegaMat 10 Duo LXW for a little over a year - during which time I've spent about 90 nights on it - I figured it was time to share my long-term impressions as well as a few things I've learned. "Pro tips" as it were... or at least, "tips." I should also note here that I'm not sponsored by Exped in any way, and I paid full price for my mattress. I'm just a fanboi, and want to help others get a great night sleep. TL;DR - I really like the Exped. Of everything I've…
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January 4, 2020 Another year of wheeling and camping is in the books. I find myself here writing a rig review as one of 2020's first posts, for the last couple of trips that we took in 2019. By and large, the truck performed well on those trips In Search of Overlooks in Death Valley and though an unexpectedly snowy trip to the Mojave Preserve. There were - as always - a couple things worth calling out - so without further ado, let's get to it! Seemingly solved from previous Rig Reviews Front ADS Coilover Spherical Bearings Squeaking Unchanged /…
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When we arrived at Zzyzx the previous evening, we’d expected to drive right into the town of the old Mineral Springs and Health Spa - so you can imagine our surprise when we encountered a locked gate across the road. It didn't matter all that much since it was dark and we weren't planning on exploring until the next morning anyway, so we found a campsite that was reasonably private near the base of the Soda Mountains. After our normal routine, found ourselves snoozing through our warmest night of the trip - understandable give our elevation of only 951 feet…
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When I'd marked the spot we camped in Valley Wells, I hadn't really done any research on it. I knew it was on a road that would take us to the Copper World Mine, and I'd seen what looked like some ruins during my route planning in Google Earth, but that was the extent of my research. Shoot, I didn't even know that it was called Valley Wells! What I did know when we went to bed though was that we were well positioned for a colorful sunrise - if some clouds showed up overnight. Lucky for us, they did,…
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We had mostly clear skies and a it of breeze when we awoke in the morning. Our spot on the alluvial fan had worked out great, though not quite as remote as it appeared - the Morning Star Mine Road below us was significantly busier than we'd expected. The sun out, nothing about the morning seemed out of the ordinary as we got breakfast underway and broke down the tent. It was only when we went to latch the swing-outs closed that we discovered something was amiss. The u-bolt on the latch had broken, and no longer secured the swing-outs.…
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It seems that after several very cold nights, we were both starting to get used to the temperature and though it was cold, we were both cozy under the covers for the duration of the night. And, having gone to bed with a few clouds in the sky, I set my alarm early in hopes that a few would stick around until morning when they'd once again be illuminated by a sun that seemed to hug the horizon through the entirety of the day. And sure enough, the long rays of the winter put on quite the show - even…
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Our location at the Kelso Dunes was the first where I thought there'd be a chance of a nice sunrise, so I'd set my alarm for 6:00am to try and catch the orange on the horizon. It was of course quite chilly at 6:00am, and so I had the bright idea to just take a photo with my phone out the door of the tent, rather than climbing down the ladder to fetch the Canon 80D - that I shoot with - from the truck. Well, the photo came out so poorly - compared to what I'm now used to - that…
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