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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May 29-30, 2016 With a new lease on life (no check engine light), the trip through Jordan Valley (again) and to our final destination was fun. We saw a ring-necked pheasant and of course 1 million billion cows just grazing wherever they wanted on the BLM land. The highlight however was a cattle grate crossing on the top of a rise where, at 50 MPH, the Tacoma played "Dakar rally truck" and we caught air, much to our surprise (and enjoyment). As we continued to drive, we entered a whole new landscape - green valleys between rolling hills covered in…
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May 28 - 29, 2016 A few miles outside of Jordan Valley, it was back onto dirt roads for 30 miles to Three Forks. Mostly uneventful, we saw many more cows than cars, and we arrived at our destination around 7:00pm. Once again, we were deceived right up until we got there, as the canyon opened up below us, rather than being something we drove into. Coming over the edge, we were greeted by this sight, and it was just the beginning. We continued down, and found ourselves in the most populated place we'd see all weekend - 7 or…
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May 2016 The whole of Owyhee Canyonlands are composed of various volcanic activity. Jordan Craters is the most recent of that activity (parts of which are only ~100 years old) and are a crazy sight to see. Looking at the area when approaching via car, and even more when viewing it via satellite, it looks like a huge lake. In reality, it's a huge (~25 square mile) lava flow, with basically nothing growing in the area at all. At the very northwest corner is the place we were heading - Coffeepot Crater. We made great time, passing a slow moving…
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May 27, 2016. It was just like any other work week. Or at least, any other week where you go to work for half a day Monday; take a 24-hour flight to India at 6pm; work in India for 34 hours; and then arrive back in Seattle at 7am Friday morning after 24 more hours in the air. Except it wasn't. Memorial Day the following Monday meant a four-day weekend, and that meant that this was the perfect week for an extended camping trip. Where would we go? Being May, our normal haunts in the Pacific Northwest were still largely…
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Summer's here and we decided to go camping at our super-secret-undisclosed-location-that-you-have-to-rush-to-or-someone-else-will-get-there-first. While there, we had a great time, including an epic fire that was bigger than our daughter. But being four years old, and sitting in the back seat for three hours each direction, @mini.turbodb understandably got bored and started playing around (unbeknownst to us) with the back window in the truck, ultimately leaving it unlatched/unlocked. No biggie, except that when we got back, I parked the truck in the alley behind the house and left it overnight, where some young hooligan randomly happened to try the back window and…
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July 2012. Without a tent, camping in the truck has always been a fair-weather affair. Which in Washington limits options. So I decided to change that. With products that contained the letter Z. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. You'll see. The way I've always seen it, tent camping is reasonable if you have more than two people, but it's also very limiting. You can just roll up to a great spot, and be ready to go. You have to find some flat ground, setup a tarp, setup the tent, etc. etc. etc. Plus, everything gets dirty on the…
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It was early days with the truck, and of course it was fun to drive. There were a couple things that were annoying - the clutch pedal was creaky, there was a shimmy at ~63MPH - but nothing major. The Toyota dealer took care of the clutch pedal pretty quickly, but the shimmy stuck around and I put up with it (usually by going a little faster). Having a truck meant that camping was more "in the cards," and Washington was a cool new place to explore. Highlights were the Olympic Peninsula, Mt. Rainier, and the North and Middle Cascades.
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