May 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 .
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May 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…
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An 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…
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May 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…
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May 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…
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It 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…
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Summer 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.…
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With 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,…
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May 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…
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May 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…
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May 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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April 29, 2019. The trip to the Alvord Desert and Hart Mountain Antelope National Wildlife Refuge was one that we threw together relatively quickly and without much work on the truck after the previous trip. The only work really was maintenance - an oil change, tire rotation, and re-booting the passenger CV axle. That said, as the trip progressed, there were still several items worth noting. Unchanged / Still an issue from previous Rig Reviews There are some things that have been featured in Rig Reviews that are - as yet - unchanged from when I originally reviewed them. Rather…
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The wind that had been relentless the day before died down over the next several hours, resulting in the most pleasant night of the trip. Oriented just so, there was no need to get up in the morning to enjoy the sunrise either - something I'm sure I'll forget by the next time we go out. A full day ahead, we didn't linger long under the covers, both of us out of the tent by 6:30am - our long shadows playing across the playa, Steens Mountain towering to our west - so we could get breakfast eaten and the tent…
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April 26, 2019. I don't know what the deal is exactly, but it seems that last year was a year of trips with rain and snow, and this year - at least so far - it's all about the wind. It was so windy through the night that at some point I closed the door to the tent just to give us a bit of a reprieve from the insidious cold that kept pushing it's way under our comforters. As the sun rose, so did the wind speeds - clouds zooming across the sky, Earth's natural kaleidoscope. I popped out…
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April 25, 2019. It'd been several weeks since my last trip and as usual that meant I had a bad case of the shakes. Spring is such a frustrating time from an adventure perspective - the weather seems so nice, and yet everywhere interesting is still covered in snow. And, the winter staple - the desert - is getting hot. You can imagine my delight when a check of the weather showed that the Alvord Desert - a place we'd visited for the first time last October - was going to have weather in the mid-70's. From my perspective, we hadn't…
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April 23, 2019. It's been a busy few weeks getting the 4Runner whipped into shape mechanically. As I've said before - I knew there were a few things to do when I bought it, and I felt like it was easily accounted for in the purchase price of the vehicle. The last of those mechanical things was one that I wanted to do out of an abundance of caution - preemptively replace the lower ball joints (LBJs). These are a part that's known to fail - and catastrophically - on 3rd gen 4Runners, and since I had no idea when…
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Just to set expectations - there are no amazing photos in this post. Actually, there are no photos at all - it's just a story. A story of how my day started off one way, and ended another. Come laugh at with me, and enjoy! So, today I was going to work on the 4Runner. I've been getting it into shape so that it can become our family adventure vehicle and daily driver. As such, it's getting a lot of love in the "let's make sure that key parts are in known condition" department - today's work was going to be…
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April 10, 2019. I'm not really sure how to start this post. I mean, what can I say except that it was inevitable that I'd eventually drive something besides a 1st gen Tacoma. We all will - that's the harsh reality of life, the harsh reality that we and our trucks are getting older, the reality that eventually, we'll all have to make a change. This trip started out unlike most others. We didn't climb into the truck, instead we climbed onto a plane. And at this point, @mrs.turbodb didn't know anything about the surprise waiting for us in California.…
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January 9, 2019. With winter here and therefore the weather a bit crappier, it's a generally a good time to take stock of the truck and perform the maintenance and modifications that will keep it going strong for another year. This year however is a little different - there's not just one vehicle that needs attention - there are two! In fact, the still relatively new-to-us 4Runner might even be the more important vehicle to get right, since it'll be the one we take when we venture out with @mini.turbodb. There are only a few things on tap for the 4Runner…
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April 2, 2019. I like to think that I live and learn. I'm also a creature of habit, and I wonder if I'm starting down the same road I've been down before. See, with the Tacoma, I thought long and hard about the first set of aftermarket suspension that I put on it. Originally I wanted to spend a couple hundred dollars. Luckily - and before I spent any money - I realized that I didn't want a block lift, I wanted a suspension lift. So then I did a bunch of research and came up with Toytec BOSS coilovers as…
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