NW WA Meet / BS Thread

Take 20 of those minutes and drive to a not as populated area. I walked in and out of Safeway in Bothell in 5 minutes

 

April seems early for Hell's Canyon, but I admit to not really paying attention to snow levels this year...

Alvord is great, though might still be a bit cold since it's at ~5000'. Won't be snowy on the playa, but may be wet and Steens Mountain will be closed for sure.

Lots of Alvord trips, so by all means check out the one above, or the others. I've been there enough that I made an "index" for it.

https://adventuretaco.com/index/alvord-desert/

 

Any thoughts on where to disappear for a week or so that'll be warmer and dryer than western Washington?

 

I mean, right now, I think you have to head reasonably far south. A week ago we wanted to get away and we ended up driving south down through WA, OR, and NV to the St. George area of Utah. Only as we got there were the temps really any warmer - everything else through OR and NV is all high desert and so still pretty cold (again, as of a week ago).

As we went down, Boise was reasonably nice, but unfortunately getting into the wild from Boise really means going into the ID mountains, and those are still all snowy.

Obviously, the Mojave desert is also generally warm now. So Mojave Preserve (trip index), Death Valley (trip index), Anza-Borrego (trip index), etc. are nice. But far away, like St. George.

And wow, I just checked Fields, OR (the Alvord) and it's chilly. Esp. at night!

 

I'm buying an ender 3 pro....

 

Lol, whip me one up too please and toss it over in my parts pile.

 

I'd like to buy a bigger one but for the price those things can put out some decent prints. I originally wanted one to print out custom Milwaukee bit holders and bins for the packouts, but there's no limit to 3d printing these days.

I just need to figure out how to keep my wife from finding out I bought one. She wasn't impressed when she found out I bought a welder and plasma cutter.

 

Ha ha I know the feeling. The boy spilled the beans about the rear I snagged and into the dog house I went. She came around a little today and mentioned if I would build her 4runner a little it wouldn’t bug her as much. I was like hold my beer woman. I opened up an account over on 4runners.com or whatever the TW equivalent is and have been walking around that ghost town looking for ideas.

 

My wife mentioned something about a TRD pro 4runner, then I think she realized $40k was out of the question.

Why do you think all the t4r guys hangout here? there's not much of a crowd there from what I've heard.

 

Lol, it’s a 99’ Limited it will probably double in value after $3k in a lift tires and wheels. She wants a FJ after my truck is paid off. I can’t get past the 3 windshield whippers all I can think of is that scene Total Recall with the chick with 3 boobs.

 

FJ’s are cool and i was considering one before i got my Tacoma. The visibility sucked and the ride was horrible, I’d choose a 4Runner over one any day of the week

 

If these things turn into a side hustle she might be impressed.

 

I think he's only doing custom orders now for those, which is a shame.

I goofed a little on the driver side mounting. Actually, I goofed on much of the install. For some reason I thought that I needed to cut the sunglass holder out completely, which was a mistake since that's what actually holds the forward end of the overhead console up. So, I epoxied it back together. Since I had the epoxy out, I figured I'd epoxy the switch panel in. It worked great until it didn't. I broke the epoxy loose while fiddling with the wiring for the switches. Better to have that happen while I was working on it than while on the road. I wound up drilling two holes and riveting the panel in place. I didn't realize until afterwards that the driver side was hanging down a little bit til after I snugged up the rivet.

At that point I was a bit frustrated and figured that I was going to break something if I kept trying to push it. I'll probably wind up redoing it again at some point but for now it works and even though it's right in front of the mirror it's still pretty much out of my normal sight line.

If you and @bobsuruncle wind up printing your own you should be able to double the size of the Meso mounting tabs without too much trouble. I'd make it 25% taller and at least 50% longer than what he did:

 

Wilderness camp on the peninsula

 

The closure also includes DNR and WDFW campgrounds. I'm not sure if that includes dispersed camping on DNR land. Also no mention of Forest Service campgrounds or dispersed camping on forest service land. I hope you can find a good secluded spot.

 

The mounting can be a little tricky. I really leave it up to the end user on how they want to do it. The overall fitment is tight into the overhead panel, so the side mounting tabs are made for a nut/bolt to lock it in. You need to keep the original sun-glass "shell" because that's where the hole is drilled to secure the panel.
Color/texture look spot on!

 

I was out on the peninsula yesterday, by Kalaloch Campground. A lot of the campgrounds are physically closed (gates shut) but some like Kalaloch said they were closed, however had over 20+ folks still camping there

 

Good to know, I’m going to be venturing up the epoxy route as well. I was in the process of building a custom panel out of aluminum when i found these and already gutted the sunglass holder portion

 

Not state land and on the east side, but I was out near Liberty yesterday on my plated dirt bike and there were more people camping than I expected to see. Roads were a mix of packed snow/ice/slush/dusty/muddy so not good for a motorcycle but easy for a truck. There were some nice dispersed places where everything melted and the ground was dry. I only got about 4 miles up both main roads out of Liberty before I gave up and headed home but still fun to get out in the woods.

 

um, how do ya hide a welder and a plasma cutter:
1. physically?
2. bank account wise?

Asking for a friend