With Christmas vacation in full swing, we've been having a great time. There are lots of new toys to play with around the house, there are activities to keep us busy during the day, and the newly introduced household chores - and associated weekly allowance - have @mini.turbodb in high spirits. Oh, to be eight years old. But, when @mrs.turbodb suggested that we get bundled up and head up into the mountains to get in some sledding and enjoy the snow, the child was having none of it. "I hate the snow, it's too cold." - The words spilled out…
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First post of a trip, good place to start reading.
Excited to test out the rear shock relocation I'd just completed with the help of Zane @Speedytech7, I headed north toward Las Vegas to pick up @mrs.turbodb who was flying in for a two-ish day trip along the Old Mojave Road - a historically significant trail through the Mojave National Preserve in southern California. Passenger acquired, we made a quick dinner pit stop at The Habit Burger - a place we'd never been before but had heard had amazing burgers at drastically low prices ($3.50). The burgers were actually quite good - I'd recommend them over any other fast-food burger -…
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"Let's go somewhere." said @mrs.turbodb after I'd been home just a short time from my previous trip. That was of course fine with me, and so we set about finding a place to go. It was going to be cold and rainy on the Washington coast, so we set out looking for somewhere warm. Now, we only had a few days, so that limited our options - essentially to adjacent states. Oregon was our best bet for warmth, so we started looking for options there - and it didn't take long to fill out the itinerary. Ever since visiting the…
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I'd returned from The Re-Tour a mere three weeks before our departure date, but that didn't mean there were only a few short days to plan for our next epic adventure. In fact, quite the contrary - we'd been planning our trip south to Arizona and Utah for nearly a year - knowing that there was way more ground than we could cover in the two weeks we had allocated for the excursion. Our plan was simple, if long. Start in St. George, Utah, and work our way east - first along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then…
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August 24, 2018. How does that saying go? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, ..." If you've been a reader of previous trip reports, you may recall one of the craziest trips to date - The De-Tour - which occurred almost exactly one year ago. That trip was a great one for many reasons, but it had gone nothing like we'd expected - snowing or raining every day - eventually forcing us to abandon our Tour of Montana and Wyoming for what we hoped were clearer skies, in Utah. ...where it also rained on us. Even so,…
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Part 1: We Arrive, and It's Amazing Note: For anyone reading this "not in the family," it should be noted that this is a different type of trip report. Headed out with my Pops and his Jeep, there is libel to be more family ribbing than usual through parts of the report. It's all in good fun. 🙂turbodb Our awesome trip to Idaho ended like no other trip we'd taken to date - in more ways than one. Of course, we'd found the Overland Trail, but more importantly we'd ended the trip in another state, with no pit stop at…
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July 1-2, 2018. The previous 17 hours had been a whirlwind, but we were on our way. Headed east this time, towards Idaho - to a ridge above Garden Valley, where we were set to meet up with Ben @m3bassman, Kirsten, and their pups as well as @pizzaviolence and his family (at this point unknown to us). But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. What about those 17 hours? You see, 17 hours earlier we'd pulled into the driveway after completing the WABDR - a week of adventure that would not normally be quickly forgotten. But things were not…
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Day 1: Joe and Daisy's First Big Dirt Adventure June 24, 2018. It's not often that we end up on a trip in our own backyard. There are many reasons for that - there are amazing sights far and wide, adventurous friends are located states away, and of course the weather in Washington makes snow-free exploration tough much of the year. But when Joe got a 4Runner and mentioned that he and his wife (Daisy) wanted us to get them (and their 16-month old) out on their first trip, it seemed like a great opportunity to do something a bit…
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With spring upon us and the snow starting to melt in some of the lower elevations, we got word that the road to one of our favorite camp areas east of the Cascades had opened up for the season. Hoping to beat the crowds, @mrs.turbodb and I loaded up @mini.turbodb and the truck and headed east. Naturally, from the get-go, the main question was, "how long until we get there?" which we've realized must be answered with "about an hour," until we're less than an hour away, at which point we can use actual times. Seems to work for now.…
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May 24, 2018. Eastward to Adventure! We were packed and ready to go by 8:00am Thursday, having been looking forward to a Memorial Day trip with Mike (@Digiratus), Monte (@Blackdawg) and Devin (@MissBlackdawg) for the better part of a month. Still early in the season, we weren't sure what we'd find from a snow perspective, but we had a couple extra days to explore before everyone else showed up, and we had plenty of routes and re-routes to keep us busy! The drive east was mostly uneventful and one of our easiest to date - get on I-90 and keep driving.…
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"You should get a 4Runner." is what I tell just about anyone with kids who asks what kind of car they should get. Of course, nothing generally comes of that - people opt for something more racy - a Tesla, or an Audi, those kinds of things. So, you can imagine my surprise when Dave and Joe - a couple guys I worked with - each came home with a 4Runner and reached out to go "offroading"! Now that's cool. Naturally, I wanted their first dirt in their new trucks to be fun - how else would I get them…
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A Struggle from the Start If our first trip to Death Valley taught us anything, it was that our adventures there were far from complete. The three days of exploration had just scratched the surface of the vast wilderness before us. So, when I found out that @mrs.turbodb was headed out of town for a week, I was quick to make plans for a return trip. Going solo, my route did include a few of our favorite spots (Butte Valley and Goler Wash), but focused on several new areas as well - most outside of Death Valley proper (West Side…
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March 15, 2018. Day 0. As we pulled out of the parking lot in Idaho Falls, we were already late. See, the plan had been to show up at @cbi offroad fab when they opened at 8:00am, and have the new bumper install done by 10:00am so we'd have our choice of routes down to Hanksville, UT where we were meeting Ben @m3bassman and Zane @Speedytech7 for a three-day adventure into The Maze District in Canyonlands National Park. My hope was that we'd choose the scenic route, down 191 through Wyoming to get to our meet-up and first nights camp…
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Death Valley: Intro and Day 1 - A Day of Driving Winters in the Pacific Northwest, (but perhaps especially this one) are tough to swallow when you like to get outdoors to explore and experience new adventures. The weather gets cool and wet, and it often takes a multi-state trip south to escape the gray. No different from a weather perspective, this year is different for @mrs.turbodb and I from a availability perspective. And, because of that, when we heard that Ben (@m3bassman) and Zane (@Speedytech7) headed to Death Valley for New Years, we were immediately jealous. We'd been wanting…
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Before leaving JT's Parts & Accessories, I'd gotten the rundown from Jared and Chris on how to best break in the gears they'd just installed. Essentially, it boiled down to what gear manufacturers recommended as well... Break in Procedure New gear sets MUST be broken in correctly to prevent damage. Not following proper break-in procedures will lead to overloading and overheating the ring and pinion as well as breaking down and ruining the gear oil. Not following proper break-in procedures can be determined during inspection and will void the warranty. Please follow the below guidelines to ensure a proper break-in…
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Last year's hunt for a Christmas tree hunt went nothing like we planned it, so this year we were itching to get out and see what the adventure would bring. It turns out, everything went exactly as planned, perhaps making up for last year. We headed out around 10am, with three goals in mind: Test out the APRS setup. Check the clearance of the new tires as the rear of the truck flexed. Get a Christmas tree. Of course, there was a fourth goal as well - try to do all the above without @mini.turbodb asking "are we there yet?"…
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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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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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May 8, 2017. The day is here, and it's a big one. It was over half a year ago that I decided I wanted a CVT, and in that time I'd purchased one and fabricated a bed rack that I hoped would work to hold it behind the cab of the truck. Naturally I'd gotten a good deal on the CVT, and had spent 10x more fabricating the rack (buying tools, etc.) than if I'd just purchased a pre-fabricated one. This day was also a big day because it was the start of a week-long camping trip where we'd meet…
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