AZ BS Thread 4²0

Hiked in South Mountain Park ... 6.5 miles. Was walking on Elliot-Warner Rd to get to my house, saw 2 coyotes as they tried to cross the road and use the access path to return to the park. They both jumped 6 ft to the top of a concrete wall to survey the road.

Coyotes not even 1/2 mile from houses in my neighborhood, athletic critters as well. Kinda cool, or maybe not. But certainly different from Ohio and North Carolina.

 

Have you noticed how much smaller they are out here?

 

Coming from south florida the coyotes here are huge. I moved away from NC before they really became abundant or I was so occupied by feral hogs coyotes didn't get much attention.

 

I used to hike South Mountain every evening after work and I have seen Coyotes all over that park (not to mention Javelina and Rattle Snakes). Even had one follow/parallel me while hiking a trail one day. He followed along for a good 45 mins. Had there been more of them I would have been nervous but since it was just the one I chalked it up to curiosity.

Have you found all the petroglyphs yet?

 

They do not attack me, even when I see 3 or 4 of them. And once caught a glimpse at distance of one of them dancing up on the hillside near the end of daylight, prepping fro the night hunt. Jumping on 4 legs, hopping around, playing. Too far for my camera to get a good shot. And I love it when different groups sing in harmonies from different directions in the hills ... too bad we cannot directly upload sound files here!

I have found some petroglyph art but it is not my priority. I was told a couple of stories, and I do not have reason to disbelieve but still ...

A guy, coming down off Eliminator (now "Eliminator part of Prospector Loop") onto Gila at midnight-ish. Trail junction is about 1 mile only from houses but still seems isolated at midnight. Says he dropped off Eliminator immediately into a group of 12 or 13 coyotes ... in the dark. They were not attacking but he slipped into "stupid human" mode waving his arms and yelling. They all just sideways glanced at hime with a "this is why humans should just go away" glance and wandered into the darkness.

One woman reported walking up Lost Ranch towards National (steep, narrow, gravelly, not as often used) in June. Stopped to rest. Could not immediately begin again ... rattlesnake partially wrapped around her foot as if she was just a shade-tree. She reports just kicking her leg out and sending it over the edge down the hill (not a fatal drop for a snake).

I have seen 3 Mojave green, several diamondback. One of the Mojave was beside the trail where I had just walked up to, was curled and rattling, but 4 giant steps from me seemed enough to the snake as it did not follow. Funny how terrified I was at first but now just "respectful" of them.

 

I've come across huge packs of coyotes and Javelina out hunting and they always just run. I guess the comment about there being "more" of them was only in relation to them following me, which was a bit odd cause they usually just run away. I guess here in the valley they are a little more accustom to people being around.

The coolest was when I walked up on a coyote just chilling while out elk hunting. He was just sitting there and howling and I was standing about 6 feet behind him. How he did not hear me walk up, even in silent hunting mode, I will never know but I stood there for a good 3-5 mins just watching him howl. Then he looked behind him, saw me and just booked it. Was an absolutely beautiful blackish coyote. Saw a wolf (two days in a row) in the San Juan mtns of Colorado. Now that was a beautiful creature. Had a black bear walk up on my turkey blind in Hannigan meadows. He saw my Turkey decoy and thought he had a meal. Then he smelled me and booked it. Good times!!! Wish I had pics of some of those, especially the wolf cause at the time the Rangers were convinced that Wolves had not come that far south in Colorado yet and were only in N Colorado.

 

In case you arent aware, when they "patch" your tire at a shop, they are reaming the hole and putting one of these in, so you might as well ream and plug it to drive there more safely.

 

Always use a flared base....

 

Yeah that's the only way we did it and as long as you let the glue get tacky they're basically idiot-proof to install. Which is good, because we hired a lot of idiots.

 

If anyone is interested in some hotness for their 2016+ taco I just listed Solo Motorsports LCAs and full ECGS 5.29 diffs with lockers in the classified section.

 

Weird. When I was a tire monkey we used patches like this:



Pull whatever punctured the tire out, whizz the sanding disc inside there, peel and slap the patch in, whiz the pizza cutter / pie crust thing over it a bunch of times, peel the top condom thing off, then glob a shit ton of the rubber cement and get a nice huff off that shit.

I think I mixed some of those steps up. Also it's been literally 20 years now... fuck.

Never had anyone come back for my repairs tho, so I was the default tire repair guy. Weaponized autism!

 

Not sure how many people here are also into Meshtastic (offline / off grid communication network) but it parallels a lot of the other interests that Taco owners have.
Taco-World has literally one single post on the subject that I could find so maybe no one?

Anyway - I kicked off a Groups IO Chat about it here ==> https://groups.io/g/Mesht-AZ-tic.
Goal is to start coordinating the backbone of the Arizona Meshtastic Network. Right now there is nothing there yet. I'm the only member and my mesh device is on a boat from AliExpress. So if you have knowledge and experience with MT, your advice is desperately sought for me and likely more new folks to the hobby / tool.

 

I don't know anything about this but it sounds similar to Helium so I am intrigued. I signed up, looking forward to learning more to see how we can take advantage of this for remote communications.

 

The taco is back on the road!
Cant remember what noises were already there and not sure what might be sounds of impending doom, but it made it to work without blowing up

 

Ah that’s what the radio is for

 

Nice work James, Keep us posted and some findings.
I'm sure Its Fine, could probably Leave it!

 

Maybe it's because they had a tire fail at the wrong time.

 

Hey everyone. Made it back from SLC last night. That was a long drive! Also got to drive through @TailHook neck of the woods. Beautiful area! And they have a damn cinnabon in their fucking maverick gas stations. This is bull shit.

 

Awesome! Ready for the 6th?

 

And you didn't ping me?

What a fuckface