South Florida B.S. Thread

Went out to the humps in homestead for $h*ts and giggles. Still pretty flooded trying to get in but was able to get a nice mud car wash. Thank tac1 for the info.
Kia I'm loving the fact that gas is 2.95!!!!! I've finally had to use my reserve lol

 

I have a better spot out there that's more open and has mud, it's right near the spot you were at. We might be heading out there this weekend, so if anyone else wants to go let me know

 

I work weekends. Unless it's a day thing I maybe down pit I'm washing the truck already! Lol

 

You are welcome tacomacrazy. I'm glad you had fun & damage free.

Yes, devil1 is definiitely the go-to person for this. I never realized how big this place is until the 1st meet when we followed devil1 in there. He knows that place like the back of his hand and he goes frequently.

 

When it's only a 15 minute dive away, how can I resist not going all the time? lol


I have been waiting a month for my Icon coil overs, they are telling me that it's taking long because of SEMA. Anyone else wait this long?

 

Yeah. 15 minutes away is too cinvenient to resist!

Can't blame you at all. Hahaha

 

I wish I lived 15 min away from the humps...might actually have time to go then. Lol.

 

I just returned from the Smoky Mountains. I drove from Asheville to Gatlinburg & Banner Elk along with Beech Mountain & didn't even hear one car horn & I wasn't cut off by anyone.

There is a huge lack of respect & considetation for others down here.
BTW, check out the Snowbound thread or my Facebook Petros N Mercy Haldoupis if you want to see some pics/vids.

Thanks man! It was a great trip! Just needed my wife & boys there but God willing our next visit will be us 4 & in December, January or February (of which ever year we go) so we can see some real snow.

These are the total miles that I drove from midnight, Sunday morning to 6:45am, Friday.


931 of those were on the first day alone.

I even had time to drive the Tail of the Dragon which is 3 hours from where I was staying. I ordered my pics from killboy.com & US129photos.com.

I left the Inn in North Carolina at 1:00pm. It's a 13 hour drive from there to my house. I then checked on my phone & saw that snow was forecasted for Banner Elk (2 hours from where I was at the time) & I drove to Banner Elk & Beech Mountain. The weather report was accurate. Not a big snowfall by any means but still snow dammit , From there I drove home.

17:45 minutes on the road. And I was able to take my son to school & my wifes truck in for service so it worked out perfectly. Thank God!

 

Hello again,

My main stops on my trip were:

Goose Creek, SC (SOS SOS Offroad Concepts) Eddy Tengan
Grandfather Mountain, NC
Banner Elk, NC
Beech Mountain, NC
Laurel Falls, TN
Gatlinburg, TN

And a very remote place for about an hour because my GPS went hay-wire. Telling me to make left turns where there were no roads. Probably trying to kill me. HAHA!

I walked so many trails. If I can do this for 6 months I may lose some weight!

Down side. No wifey & boys with me.

On Thursday I left Alberts Inn (Burnsville, NC) at 1:00pm,
drove to Banner Elk & Beech Mountain again,
then made it home by 6:45am Friday.
Just in time to take my youngest son to school & my wifes SUV to the dealership. No sleep!

Leaving my house on Saturday night 11:45pm


SOS Concept (Eddy Tengans shop) in Goose Creek, SC


My Sliders. He made these at "0" degrees (flat) so they act as a step also. My wife is 5'0" so it's STILL too high for her. HAHA






Eddy's Trail-Ready truck!


On Grandfather Mountain


Somewhere between I-40 & Laurel Falls, TN. I finally put my machete to good use. HAHAHA




Weather in the mountains can really be fickle


Tail of the Dragon. I drove this road. It was fun. I guess these trucks have a body roll-over sensor because it kept going off on hard turns. Check out the vid.




Tail of the Dragon is popular among bikers & sports car enthusiasts but any vehicle can drive it. That's me on the left, just posing. HAHA


Where I stayed, Alberts Inn. No food or phone available but they have WIFI so you can Face Time & my wife prepared food for me. I was always the only one parked there. It was empty.


These people advertise Fall-off-the-bone ribs & damn it, they are! I ate lunch here twice. I wish they were in Miami also. They are a 40 minute drive from where I was staying.






One of my 2 trips to Mt. Mitchell's summit






No snow chains necessary HAHAHA


Banner Elk, NC




Beech Mountain, NC


Finally made it home. I usually do not like to return to Miami but I missed my family so I was looking forward to returning.



These pics were taken by killboy.com & US129photos.com on the Tail of the Dragon. They take pics of every vehicle that drives this road. They then post them on line for you to purchase if you like.
US129 PICS












killboy.com pics

 

VIDEOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvLMj7rkASA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbqBk-o2s6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Na-PR5SEs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BotxO6iSTE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVQwchTKRTQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcDZQeOAHFQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=warHZtm18Zw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhMWltJgVsc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKSHeyZ_qnE

Always be ready
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdMYitrsHY8

Putting my $5 windshield ice scraper to use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PwUQHPF6XI

Walking a wobbly bridge. HAHA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSPWfIhA80g

Tail of the Dragon. Watch at :57 & 1:51 to see the photographers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhcrJ3hBZZI

Laurel Falls, TN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq7Wu7vYVjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_KhTRrLtc

Mt. Mitchel summit, NC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU0AnxdpUCs

Beech Mountain, NC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GYNab3t290

 

TAC1, very cool and no doubt cold.

There are certainly some twisty roads up that way.

Years ago, when my daughter was younger, we spent several Thanksgivings at Fontana Village.

We have also cycled there many times and like you, no fun to return home except on account of family.

I doubt the Tacoma would handle the twisty paved roads as well as my previous Nissan. It was a 1990 Nissan King Cab I bought new, it was lowered and had sport suspension on it. Previous to that I had a 1984 Dodge D50 Turbo Diesel. It too was lowered and had serious sport suspension on it. Both of those trucks carved the corners as well as a mini truck could. Even getting the brakes quite warm and a little squishy.

Was that your first time in snow?

Sliders look good, why no rear kickout? My BAMF's make great steps both getting in and for cleaning. Also, when parking they have been saving door dings. I have noticed a few times, the cars beside me have a pipe shaped dent in the edge of their door. The sliders shrug it off unscathed.

Sliders also give some confidence on local off road stuff that you are less apt to crush a door. We'll never really use them on rocks like others, but they are pretty cool and way better than "steps".

PK

 

P

 

P

 

Looks like you had some serious fun on your little vacation there buddy. I am actually thinking about making a trip to Virginia around the end of January beginning of February depending on how work is going. Your pictures and videos just make me want to go more… LOL.

 

Hello PK,

I want to visit Fontana Dam on my next visit. I will look into Fontana Village. My wife/kids like NC more than TN anyways. To me, they all look good.

I'm sure your vehicles with their lowered, sports suspension would have been sweet out there. That's really the kind of road where you want to be close to the ground. The only advantage that I have over a stock Tacoma is the trac width due to my Spindles & SpiderTrax adapters (rear wheels). Your truck has similar width to mine but a better suspension so it may do even better. My brakes felt great the whole time BUT my power steering sometimes felt as if my belt were slipping on the pulley but there was no belt noise. It was very minor but it happened under heavy steering. Never an issue that affected my safety (I think) but very odd. I wonder if the fluid got hot? When I was taking the pics with the bikers, we saw 2 Ferraris and a Porsche 911 heading up there. THAT must've been fun.

SNOW:
I was born in Jersey but came to Miami when I was 5 so I remember a couple of snow storms. Then in April 2010 my wife, boys & I were staying at Pigeon Forge, TN and we saw snow on Newfound Gap Rd. It was on the side of the road right on the TN/NC state line. We pulled over and started having snow fights! Soon after, 3 more cars pulled over to do the same. All had Florida plates. It couldn't be more obvious that we were tourists. HAHAHA!

On this trip I saw some light snow/flurries falling but nothing significant to say that I drove in the snow. In the pic where I was putting gas, an older gentleman told me to be careful on Beech Mountain Parkway because he slid coming down the road and later gained control. The 1st thing I did was look at his tires. They looked new. Being that I was alone, I drove to Beech Mountain Parkway after putting gas to see how bad it was. I did not have that problem but in my rearview mirror I saw a pair of headlights that suddenly disappeared. It was an F-150 trying to come up the road behind me and he ended up doing a 1/4 turn to the left in a small spin-out. He was 2WD also. I stopped to see if he was OK. He was. He ended up turning back down the mountain. I drove the whole road BUT if it was a significant amount of snow I would have had to pull out my tire chains. I can definitely say that 2WD will get you by with good tires and chains but 4WD is the way to go up there.

SLIDERS:
These things are definitely more than I need. As you said, we don't rock crawl. I do like to go to Lazy Springs and they do have some steep hills. I've been there 2 times both times I banged up my OEM steps. I'm talking support brackets and all. I didn't get the kick-out because (having them flat, instead of angled) I was worried that they would stick out too much. I laughed when I read what you wrote regarding door dings.I was sitting in my truck at the Publix parking lot soon after my return. An Altima parked next to me. When the driver carelessly opened his door he then quickly grabbed the door and stared at my sliders. He pulled his car out of the parking space and re-entered it with more space between us. HAHAHA!

 

Hahaha! NICE!
Are you going with your wife?

 

TAC1, Fontana is pretty close to the NC / Tenn border. We enjoyed it as a great getaway for Thanksgiving.

Sometimes light snow, other years warm, always fun.

I'm sure my Tacoma and current setup would navigate corners OK, things is though, good suspension or not, I removed the front sway bar and those roads would be better with the bar on.

PK

 

Up here in Ft Walton and seen so many tacomas. Only had time to take pictures of one. Pretty sure it has an Allpro bumper.

 

Happy early Thanksgiving everyone.

If I can make it happen when I want it to, it will be the both of us.

 

I didn't remember that you removed your sway bar but I do remember thinking that my ride would have been "interesting" without one.

BTW, That place looks beautiful. I didn't realize that I was pretty close to Fontana Dam. Next time though.

AWESOME! Our trucks are good 2-people road trip trucks but I think they would be uncomfortable for 4 grown people. My wife & I drove my truck to Atlanta & Stone Mountain last year & we were fine.

I do have the SR5 though. TRD may be more comfortable (looks to be at least) but are the back seats the same on both models?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!