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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August 3, 2017. Mornings were becoming routine. Beautiful sunrise, tasty breakfast. Such a tough life. Of course, we suffered through it as we talked about the day ahead. While the previous day had been one of our longest (distance-wise at 180+ miles), today was going to be one of our shortest - only 110 miles or so, since we'd tackled 20 already after hitting Granite early - ending near a small town that even the locals (when we stopped for gas) - had never heard of: Kamela, Oregon. There's a spicy sausage in that breakfast sandwich. Yum yum! And then…
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August 2, 2017. Having gotten in late, we woke up a little later - you know, 6:30am - the morning of Day 5. The day was full of anticipation for us, since this was the leg that had bested us in May, so we were immediately out of bed and exploring Frazier Lookout. Turns out that it's been closed (too dangerous) since 2007, but that didn't stop me from climbing up a couple of levels to check out the view. We also explored the super-sketchy lookout house, which was still in reasonable condition on the outside (save some broken windows)…
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August 1, 2017. We slept soundly through the calm night and woke up just as the sun was painting the sky the next morning. Well rested, we were excited for the coming day of travel - the plan was to reach Seneca, the town where we'd set off on what turned out to be Mission Impossible: OBDR, back in May. Once again, we enjoyed a hot breakfast before packing up and heading out; we were on the road by 7:45am. The OBDR wasn't far from our camp site, and by 8:00am we were through the first gate and making our…
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July 31, 2017. The wind having woken us up a few times throughout the night, we were up at sunrise above Summer Lake. The smoke was still light as we rolled out of bed and made breakfast - just cereal and blueberries this morning - and packed up camp for an early start - our goal was to make it from Summer Lake to Riley by 7pm. After a few final pictures, we were on our way. As we traversed the northern half of Winter Ridge, a small detour took us to the top of a peak to some of…
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July 30, 2017. After a long day, we'd fallen asleep quickly and slept soundly by Moonlight Mine at the top of Crane Mountain. Morning light brought a bit more time to explore the mine and make breakfast out of the fridge - scrambled eggs, spicy sausage, toast and strawberries - delicious, and ready for @mrs.turbodb when she climbed down from the tent at 7:45am. The anti-condensation mat worked fantastimagically, and there was very little condensation under the mattress - the only morning we'd have any. Even with the condensation, it was on the floor of the tent, away from the…
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Back in May, we'd attempted to run the northern 40% of the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, from Seneca to the Washington border. A day in, we chose a more reasonable goal: Seneca to Unity. And at day three, we called it quits - less than 50 miles from our start point. So you can imagine that we were excited for a second chance. Redemption as it were. In the month leading up to the trip, we got ready. Alcan leaf springs, a new HAM radio, and an ARB fridge were going to make us more capable, safer, and well fed.…
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June 30 - July 7, 2017. June 29, 11pm: we finally decided to head to Canada for a week of camping. We’d leave the next morning at 7am sharp. It was going to be awesome! But let’s rewind… We’ve been wanting to go to some of Canada’s National Parks for a while. So, in late 2016 when we discovered that Canada was celebrating their 150th anniversary by giving away free access to their national parks for 2017, we jumped on the opportunity to get a pass, and we started working out plans to hit Banff and Jasper during the summer.…
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Oregon-bound Chapter 3: Mission Impossible: Oregon's Backcountry Discovery Route May 11-15, 2017. Day 1: Thursday, May 11. Parting ways with Pops and my Uncle, our plan was to run the OBDR from Seneca, OR to Walla Walla, WA, and then the WABDR from the border up to Cle Elum - approximately 1000 miles of remote back roads in four days. We knew it'd be a lot of driving, but we've driven a lot for other trips. We were sure we could do it - it's not like we'd be going 10 mph the whole time. At least we were right…
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May 8-10, 2017. Day 1: Monday, May 8. Acquisition and installation of the CVT successful, we were off for a week of desert and back country exploration - so awesome. The first few days would be exploring the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge area with Dad and uncle, followed by four days on the Oregon and Washington Backcountry Discovery Route (OBDR and WABDR) to get from central Oregon back to I-90 around Cle Elum and then ultimately back to the Seattle area. A couple hours driving from Bend to Hines/Burns and we met up with the rest of the gang. My…
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September 16-18, 2016. Belly protection on, it was time for some dirt roads. Back from India a Friday morning at 6:30am (again), we packed up the truck and headed to Crater Lake National Park in central Oregon. The idea was to get in some great sites, but also spend a day or so exploring the back roads, finding camp sites, and putting the truck through some paces. The drive down was long but easy. Waze and a podcast running on the JOYING, and a mid-day stop for Jimmy John's, we arrived at Crater Lake at 5pm, an experience not unlike…
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The trip started out on the iffy side. We wanted a beautiful weekend for a stunning hike, and instead it was raining, there was a faint hiss coming from the back left tire, and 20 miles up a Forest Service road I had no tire patch kit. But, a spare tire can be installed, and weather can change in 24 hours. And when that happens, you can end up with great camping - 25 miles up a Forrest Service road - and perhaps the most beautiful hike you've ever encountered...if you have a truck. (This is the North Cascades Pass…
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July 2, 2016. It's been close for a while, and it's been a long time coming, but on our way out of town for a what would become an off-road adventure to a brand new site - the truck hit 60K miles. That's an average of 3,600 miles each year, or a whopping 300 miles per month. Except that I'd driven it 10K miles in the first two months, so it's really more like 200 miles per month over the life of the truck. This truck is going to last me forever. I hope. So we arrived at our super-secret-undisclosed-location-that-you-have-to-rush-to-or-someone-else-will-get-there-first,…
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