escape the ordinary
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.
Leave a CommentJuly 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…
Leave a CommentJuly 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…
Leave a CommentThere'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…
Leave a CommentThe 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…
11 CommentsHaving 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,…
6 CommentsEvery 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…
2 CommentsWell, this post is a long time in the making. In fact, I assumed this was a project I'd get taken care of in the dead of winter, since much of it would be done in the wood shop, and none of it required the truck to be outside in the rain and cold. But like many well-laid plans, mine got comfortable and took a six-month nap. So let's start at the beginning... My Battery History To date, I've only had to replace the battery in the truck once. I did that back in 2011 after owning the truck for…
28 CommentsJune 12, 2019. (and really, the preceding two weeks) It's no secret that over the last few years, I've been through quite a few sets of wheels. I started with my stock 15" aluminum alloys, which "had to go" as part of the most expensive brake upgrade ever and resulted in the Tacoma wearing a set of steel wheels for a couple of months. I knew these were temporary - and the long-term solution was yet to come. I knew when I bought them that the SCS Steath6s were the last wheel I'd ever purchase for the Tacoma. I mean, what more could…
35 CommentsMay 27, 2019. That sure didn't take long. It's been two years that we've been upping our adventure quotient, and the odometer is a stark reminder of what living in the northwest corner of the country can do. Still, it's a nice gig if you can get it! And while we're reminiscing - let's take a look at the truck a mere 3 years ago and today. Definitely a different beast! Looked good stock. Looks better now. As always, stay tuned for more .
2 CommentsMay 26, 2019. Parked in the wrong spot to catch sunrise, I slept in until the oh-so-late hour of 6:15am. But then, as I looked out the tent door, I noticed the fog over the valley and couldn't help myself but to get up and take a closer look. And then, it was back to bed. Not because it wasn't a beautiful morning - in fact, the clouds had mostly vanished and the blue sky was spectacular - but because it was cold! 34°F according to my phone - not something I wanted to hang around in for a couple hours…
1 CommentAn astute reader may recall that we'd headed east a few days before Memorial Day - not just to explore Hells Canyon, but to meet up with Mike @Digiratus, Monte @Blackdawg, and Devin @MissBlackdawg. At least, those were the folks we knew; we were also rendezvousing with @BabyTaco Gage and his wife, and a couple of their friends - long overdue if you ask me. From our current location at Hells Canyon Dam, it was some 5 hours north to Lewiston, ID, where we'd all planned to meet for lunch, so we were up early - for sunrise if it'd…
1 CommentMay 24, 2019. We once again slept well - the rushing river providing a nice white noise through the dry night. In a canyon, I knew there was no rush to get up for the sunrise, and it was late (for us) before we even considered pulling ourselves out of bed. One of the great things about this particular camp site was that it happened to be across the Imnaha River from a trailhead that had the potential to be quite amazing - a trail that followed the river downstream to its confluence with the Snake - the same confluence…
Leave a CommentMay 23, 2019. (still) Had we blinked as we passed through Imnaha, we might have missed it as we set out down Lower Imnaha Road. The first six miles of this road are paved, but we'd been warned by 100 Hikes / Travel Guide: Eastern Oregon that beyond that point we were in for a whole different experience... At this point the Lower Imnaha Road suddenly becomes a rutted, steep one-lane dirt road strewn with rocks. Turn back if you don’t like the first 100 yards, because this typifies the 25.4 miles ahead. Vehicles must be driven so slowly on this rugged…
7 CommentsIt was a chilly night at 5300', but our strategic position behind the ridge line meant that we were unaffected by the bulk of the wind - a knit cap enough to keep me cozy, and @mrs.turbodb wanting only for her earplugs in the morning when the birds started singing. And it was early when they did - sunrise was at 5:07am, and the first light on the horizon started well before 4:30am, spreading across the sky in its glorious trek. Eventually, there was enough light to illuminate Imnaha Canyon below us - the hills and valleys unfolding into the…
Leave a CommentSummer in the Pacific Northwest is hard to beat. So, I wouldn't blame you for wondering why - with a week of sun and 75°F in store before Memorial Day - we were headed for the inclement weather of the Oregon-Idaho border and Hells Canyon. So let's start there. In what I believe to be a tradition that I've stumbled into, Monte @Blackdawg and Mike @Digiratus generally get together for a trip every Memorial Day, and this year the plan was go meet up in Lewiston, ID for a few days of puttering around and enjoying ourselves in the outdoors.…
Leave a CommentWith all the recent work on the 4Runner, I wasn't the only one who wanted to put it all to the test. Upon seeing the storage/sleeping platform, @mini.turbodb had declared, "We need to go camping right away!" I don't know if she's been well-trained or it was just a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, but it was music to my ears. So, we found the first weekend that we possibly could and scheduled a single night camping trip to one of our favorite "quick getaway" spots outside Leavenworth, WA. And then we watched the weather. As the weekend drew near,…
2 CommentsMay 10, 2019. When I originally built my bed rack back in 2016, I was sure that the rack was going to be something that was only installed when we were out on an adventure. The rest of the time, I'd remove it using the pulley system in the garage so that the Tacoma could be it's natural self. Oh how naive I was. Turns out, there's no reason to stop adventuring in the winter, and quite frankly, the rear suspension on the truck is much more comfortable with the couple hundred extra pounds from the tent. Plus, I don't really…
4 CommentsMay 7, 2019. Roof rack built, we now had a place for @mrs.turbodb and I to sleep, but what about the whole reason we decided to get the 4Runner in the first place? We wanted to have something more comfortable for @mini.turbodb! The idea was for her to sleep in the back of the 4Runner - "downstairs" as she likes to call it - but for that to work, I needed to make the back storage area just a little higher so that it would be level with the folded down back seat. Not only that, but I knew that…
3 CommentsMay 3-5, 2019. If you're going to turn a 4Runner into a family adventure vehicle to replace the Tacoma, one thing is for sure - it's going to need a way to carry the CVT @Cascadia Tents Mt. Shasta that we sleep in every night. With an Exped Megamat 10 Duo, it's some of the most comfortable sleep I've had, really. So with most of the mechanical work done for now, I figured the next bit of work was to figure out the roof rack situation. I generally start with a mid-level design for these kinds of projects, but this…
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