The Wild Crow - Flight Preparations

She'd been having episodes where her heart would race. 1 time last year it went up into the mid 200's for about 2 hours before they could get it to slow down and she had a couple more bad ones along with some minor episodes. Her cardioogist tried oral meds but they didn't do much so he reffered her to another Dr. who took her in and did an oblasion (idk how to spell it) so far so good it appears to have fixed it. She was hurting for a few days so I got to play nurse.

 

Holy shit! Glad she's better! That would indeed be scary. Give her our best wishes. Nurse Casper....

 

Will do we need to get together again here sometime

 

Cardiac ablation is a procedure that is used to scar small areas in your heart that may be involved in your heart rhythm problems. This can prevent the abnormal electrical signals or rhythms from moving through the heart.

(My family has a long history of heart disease so I read up on this shit).

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007368.htm

 

THE NON ELECTRIC SLIDE(RS)

The rock sliders are finally on. I bought these years and years ago for the Tundra. Never installed them. The stayed in the corner of the garage for about 8 years!



I finally cleaned them up and welded some 3/16 inch plates to them. The plates allowed me to use the factory holes in the frame to make the sliders bolt on. They may not be quite as sturdy as being welded on, but I'm no rock crawler, and the Tundra has been driven for years without them to no ill effect. Like the skid plates they are a just in case reassurance for that time I do something stupid.....like dancing the Electric Slide.....

 

Sliders look great!

 

THE AIR NEAR MY FINGERS

Air, we breathe it, our trucks breathe it, our tires need it. I've been carrying around a Masterflow MV50 (or a variant thereof, I don't remember, I'm old and too lazy to go out and look) to air up the tires on the Wild Crow when needed. It's a good little compressor, stays in its little canvas bag until needed and it works. Who's to argue with success? Well, me.....

I've had this old ViAir 380C (again, I think but can't remember - maybe I'm an Air Head afterall) mounted under the hood of the Tundra for yeeeaaars. You see a theme here don't you?

What I like about this old cheap air compressor ( I got it off of Ebay back when that was a real shoppers paradise ) is that it has a 100% duty cycle. No big deal I'm sure, but that 20% duty cycle of the MV50 doesn't thrill me. In the back of my mind I can see me overheating that thing in a hearbeat and cursing at its cool down time.

So, we devised a way to install the Viair and its 2.5 gallon tank into the Tacoma. After removal from the Tundra, I spent a large amount of time cleaning things up. The years of road grime and Toyota's rust preventative undercoating made the tank and hoses a PITA to clean



Elizabeth built a nice box to hold the compressor and the tank, while I refitted the tank fittings into more appropriate locations. The box itself mounts to the bed rails via some homemeade T-bolts





In this position it's tucked up underneath the toolbox in the cap so it's not taking up any valuable real estate. It's actually a spot that's real hard to use to store anything, so this is a great option. It also keeps the compressor cooler by NOT being in the engine bay.

The ARB pressure switch (150psi if you please), air distribution manifold, gauge, and on/off switch are mounted in the toolbox directly above the compressor





You can see they are tucked up high in the box so they shouldn't get inadvertently bumped/bent/broken/switched-on/switched-off or otherwise damaged - unless the truck goes upside down - in which case I have more to worry about than a broken are compressor.

It runs, shuts itself off at pressure, starts itself back up if needed and should make airing up after those moments of crawling over mall curbs eezy breezy.

 

Cool set up and I love how you had the fore thought to make everything useable from outside the truck with no having to climb up into the truck to access it Good write up and great pics as usual

 

How are the aluminum skids holding up after a year? I went with the same skids and chose not to paint them. I liked the way yours looked and I hate painting. Have you noticed any galvanic corrosion between the steel fasteners and the unpainted aluminum plate?

 

Nope, not yet. But all the pieces it bolted to were painted or covered in a film of grease which goes a long way to preventing that corrosion.

The skids are holding up nicely. I've bashed them harder than I wanted to on some rocks in North Carolina. They've got some gouges and the front one has a little dent but no structural damage. I recommend these Mobtown skids! Two thumbs up!

 

Now don’t you just got a sexy belly

 

Well, You know how the song goes:

Ah ah ah ah, I work out

 

Uh yeah that’s it

 

Taking a Newbie to Flag Pole Knob:













Everybody is going to think I just like looking at your but by the pictures

EDIT For those of you who read this thread, and there’s not near as many as there should be. I fail to be able to express properly what a good guy James is. He and his wife are great folks, very creative, and willing to help any way they can. My wife and I enjoy our time with them and They are both great to be able to bounce ideas off of.

 

Well, you see Casper wanted to get his truck, his trailer and his wife all "off grid" being the kind soul that I am, I agreed to lead him to the wilderness where he could test his set up for a weekend and finally eschew those dreaded campgrounds.

A few thoughts came to mind:
It was a long weekend for Beth and I but they only had Saturday and Sunday.
The Perseid meteor shower was Saturday night (well, more than Saturday, but that's a meteorlogical thing)
And last year when we did our 9 days in GWNF, I thought it would be cool to photograph the trailer on the peak with the great view in the background.

With the truck and trailer loaded Friday evening we got out to Casper's house on Saturday morning and headed out for Harrisonburg. The plan was to take Dunkle Hollow Road. I knew we could get up that route with the trailers, and I didn't want to beat our stuff up going the Union Springs route.

So, up Dunlkle Hollow we went. As you know the left turn off 33 can be interesting if traffic is bad, but after that it's an easy gravel road until you get past Skidmore lake. After that we were able to let Casper get his feet wet, so to speak.



The road gets narrower and a little rougher (and muddier with the rainy weather) without being too challenging. That is until nature throws you a curve. In this case that curve was shaped like a tree. Casper and I put our heads together and came up with a plan. The tree was partially rotted and wedged between to others, with the winch we could break it and move it off the road.





Once the trunk broke we all four picked up the end of it and rolled it out of the road. I thought Dunkle was a well traveled path but obviously we were the first in more than a couple of days.

On up the road we went.



Everything is beautiful, in its own way and on the last real tight switchback the beauty came in the form of washout with a boulder in the middle and a tree along the side. I surmised that I could roll my left front tire over the tree leaving me enough room to drive around the boulder. My 53,000 mile BFGs had other plans. They didnt want to climb the tree. No forward progress. I backed up and moved to the right. The washout was deeper but I thought I could climb it. Again, no bite from the BFG's.

So I backed up and parked. We cut the tree with the bow saw (while Beth stacked some rocks in front of the boulder) until we could all heft it off the road. Taking my original route sans tree, and I was able to get up and around the switchback. The tires didn't like it but the ATRAC made them work it.

After parking my truck, I walked down to Casper and we did the smart thing.....we aired his tires down. You know how hindsight is 20/20? Now his tires were 20/20/20/20. It would've been easier for me I'm sure if I'd had the foresight to do the same. Alas, he made it look like a cakewalk.




We finally reached the summit, and my beautiful picture I had in my mind was obscured by pouring rain and fog.

Eventually though the rain let up and we set up camp, ate some wonderful chicken and a squash casserole, got to see a few meteors and had a great evening.

 

You know if you've been there that Flagpole Knob can be quite busy. We had traffic drive past at all hours of the night. On Sunday morning, after coffee and breakfast wraps we all packed up. We headed off down FR85, a much easier path than the previous day, I'm sure Casper was OK with not having a challenge this morning. I did think to air down a little as a just in case, too little too late, but at least the ride was smooth.



We got to pavement, spent some time airing up and said our goodbyes. Thanks for the fun Carters!

After seeing our friends off, Beth and I decided to continue on to quieter lands, but first we went up on Reddish Knob. It offered a wonderful view of the storm coming in and we got hammered with it on the way down.



We decided on the Spruce Knob area of West Virginia. We've been there before but hadn't really explored too much, just enough to know of some decent campsites. We found ours on Gandy Creek near the Elza Run Trail.



We set up camp for rain. We were expecting it and got what we expected. In spades, and buckets, and cats and dogs. Our rain set up is side awnings, an awning attached to the kitchen that leads to an EZ Up giving us a decent sized dry living area





We spent the next day chasing butterflies, running forest roads, finding campsites, short hikes to scenic things and just generally having a good time.









Tuesday rolled around way too soon and we had to pack up and go home. Someday we will be able to do this sort of thing full time. Until then, it's back to work

 

Great job, and obviously a great trip!

 

I like that dash cam video!

Great pics James! The awning over the back of the camper looks interesting. You hadn't deployed that for our night there. Good Lord you cost me money I love it LOL

 

It seems SOS Concepts had a sale and I let myself get talked into participating. The sale was good, and with South Carolina only 460 miles away we decided to save shipping costs by planning a camping/fossil hunting trip.

We hitched up the Tundra. Yes the Tundra. We wouldn't have time for an install while we were at their shop sms the Tacoma didn't really have enough room in the bed to haul the bumper, gates, and the extra camping gear we wanted to take.

Our first night we spent at Claytor Lake State Park in Virginia. We had to visit our son for his birthday.


The next day after our short visit and gift giving we moseyed south. We made our way to Brick House Campground in Sumter National Forest. And, yeah, I hear the Commodores in my head singing every time I think of this campground.


The other campers were all hunters who has opted to pay the seasonal camping fee and as a result we were alone for the night.


On Monday morning we got up and made our way to Laurens. And there it was all ready for us. We got it loaded into the truck after some brief advice and conversation with Eddy.


Then we rolled on down to Givhans Ferry State Park and spent three days camping, kayaking and fossil hunting








It was a great trip, we found many new places to explore, found some fossils, at some great dinners and just tremendously enjoyed ourselves