Tundy, house and beetle build thread...and exploring.

Yeah, I'd like to keep it as low profile and light as possible. The hard shell ones obviously taper from smaller to the 11" at the rear... but thats still pretty dang big to go on top of the truck IMO. So we'll see.

 

Yeah they are more aerodynamic, but never looked that big to me. What's your plan with the trail up there? Gonna pass?

 

What's that? The Morrison trail? I'm hoping it'll open on the 15th, but the wyoming guys doubt it'll be open in July last time i checked.

 

@Star-Lord @Squeaky Penguin @Reh5108 @Night Eagle

And everyone else.

Got a return email from the forest service. For those that weren't there, there was a group of atv/utv/dirt bike that decided to intentionally drive off trail on alpine tundra. We told them not to, they smiled, waved and continued on. I got pictures of them including their registration stickers (2 of 4 had stickers, only one was current).

I sent them to the forest service, they emailed back thanking me for them. They are going to be passed onto the law enforcement to take action. The utv with current registration was a rental company who the FS will contact.

So play it by ear when you see people like this, but getting a picture with the registration sticker as well as a picture of the location (coordinates on a cell phone or even a picture of your location on a map app) is enough for them to take appropriate action after the fact... And hopefully help them learn to not be stupid.

They can only be in one place at a time, if we want trails to stay open, we need to do what we can to help.

 

It's hot today in Wyoming!

I found it quite interesting when the radio started playing personal classified ads for a bumper pull horse trailer, fly fishing rod setup, etc.

Woke up in the middle of a field this morning.

 

oh, you must follow the yellow brick road while wearing ruby slippers now.

 

My slippers are brown.

 

and fur lined too.

 

Yes.


I was heading for the sand dunes, took a power line trail since it was a straight shot and ended up turning onto THE Oregon Trail.

I slept at the Pacific Springs Station stop along the Pony Express route... Built in 1861 I'm guessing from the post that was there.

Ended up doing nearly 200 miles of the Oregon Trail. No issues fording rivers, and I don't have a fever so I think I'm safe from dysentery. The poor Kings got a workout though... A lot of it's very smooth (cruising speed of 35+), then out of nowhere, a whoop section or random washouts. Quite a few off camber areas as well.

Mapped a good section of it so I'm still chilling in the south, Tetons tomorrow.

 

Keep a sharp look out for Indians and don't forget to circle the wagons and bring the livestock in.

 

Just some updates...

The Sparco seat remains comfy. I thought about it yesterday and realized my back wasn't in pain like it would've been after so much driving. The side bolsters are rigid and it took some getting used to when getting into the truck but i don't notice it anymore.

The King extended travel shocks work wonders on dirt. While blasting across the Oregon Trail, most was smooth then there'd be a dip. I started out by trying to scrub speed at the last second... Letting off the brakes before hitting the dip, but just staying at speed takes away any impact, it just glides over.

On a related note.. the front and mid skid by RCI are doing great... They bashed through some raised middle areas on the two track... Thankfully it's all sand and dirt.

The sleeping area in the cab is great, no setup, and comfortable. I am contemplating adding the RTT just to free up interior space to organize a little better. Looks like I'm stuck with a soft shell at the moment though since hard shell ends up being too long for just one of the roof racks. I'd like to find that smallest rtt that's under 100 pounds and under 8" tall.

At the start of the trip i noticed that the tech deck had cracked my dash where you have to screw into the trim. I've had it on a while but only had the baofeng mounted other than trail runs where i would put the 7or8" tablet on there. Now it's on there all the time.

The shower setup is finicky... Or i should say the heater is. Today it worked then i shut off the shower head to lather up and when i turned it back on, no hot water. So I'm just learning to suck it up with cold showers.

Using Gaia on the tablet is hit or miss. If I have service it does upload other maps sickly. But even though i have all these areas downloaded it'll commonly leave the square of map that I'm in not loaded while everything around it loads. If I zoom out and back in i can usually get it to fill in.

The mavic gets some good pictures and video but she's finicky as well. It whines all the time. Yesterday i couldn't get it to focus on what would've been a sweet shot. Lens was clear, i took the nd8 filter off, restarted it.. No luck. I used it later and the battery was getting low and beeping like crazy. O aborted it from trying to get back home, since i was far from there. It was coming to me then at the last second made a ditch effort to head home again. It landed in a field of sage... I saw roughly where it landed and after about 20 mom of looking for it i realized i could zoom in on the map on my phone to locate it. You can change what it does when the battery is low but there are so many settings i forgot to change it. The obstacle avoidance did save me later when i had it following me at a low elevation. It avoided flying into a tree that i was guiding it right into.

Time to find some Tetons!

 

Sounds like your navigator has dysentery, probably should consider putting it down.

Oh

 

No pictures right now... but heres a video to hold you over. Maybe I'll work on another one. Dipper Lake, my private learning center for the paddleboard.

 

Ok one more quick video...

At the end is where it would've flown into that tree since I kept going but it detected it and stopped and went up. It was also windy as all hell during the video. Probably 30mph sustained winds going against the drone.

This is the end of the Oregon Trail section that I mapped. It pops out on a county road, and I am guessing it gets lost in the farms. But it does pick up on the other side of the little town.

 

How much does one of these fancy do dads run? It would make the mild trails for TOR a little more bearable to watch having that view.

 

Not cheap....

$1k ish. But you can get other models that are used and bigger for half that.

 

What fell over behind you at the end of the video? haha

 

Haha my chair blew over.