The Wild Crow - Flight Preparations

Ok I'm here. Looking forward to seeing you again.

P.s. I'll be back in town soon.

 

BREATHE DEEP DIFFERENTIALLY

Along with changing the oil yesterday, I did a quick and easy modification that I've been wanting to do. Extend the rear did breather.

I did this on the Tundra years ago and have been quite pleased with it. Now it's the Tacoma's turn.

I bought this little

$8 Toyota Union - 90404-51319

breather, I believe it's actually the one for the front diff. Along with two hose clamps, about 7 foot of 5/16 fuel line, and a fuel filter for a riding lawn mower.

The new breather quickly and easily replaced the old breather, the hose runs from there up into the storage box on the bed, and the fuel filter clamps to that end of the hose inside the box. Boom. Done. Took maybe half an hour, mostly cause I'm old and it takes time to crawl out from under the truck these days.

 

Great idea with the fuel filter too. I like that.

 

It's there to keep stray insects from "investigating" that potential home. I did this on the Tundra, after something decided to make a mud nest in the end of the tube....

 

Smart.

 

In

 

We got a nice trip to Pennsylvania in the week before Memorial Day. This was a combo trip of camping, kayaking, visiting family (wife's side) and witnessing the marriage of our niece. It was quite a relaxing trip, even though it rained about 4 out of 7 days. First trip of the year for the teardrop!
We kayaked French Creek from Wilson Schute to Utica. Nothing extreme, but some of the scenery was great.


Saw this immature eagle


My wife loves to kayak and drags me out on a river or creek nearly every weekend!


Ducks, ducks, ducks!


My inlaws had this little guy visit their bird feeders.


The Wild Crow tows the CrowsWing quite well to wherever we camp


Not a true wilderness experience, but we were alone and next to a stream....

 

The next day we paddled in Geneva Swamp (officially known as Conneaut Marsh). Somehow I lost the drain plug to my kayak, so we improvised a replacement


The launch is under I79


Geese were nesting


Redwings were everywhere!


Swamps are great places to be!

 

I got a decent night shot of the teardrop.


Me and the fam at the wedding reception. My son and daughter had gotten out of college for the semester days earlier. Beth looks gorgeous in that new dress!


...and for some unknown reason, this peacock showed up at my inlaws and decided he had a new home


And that, in a nutshell, is our latest adventure.....

 

Subbed

 

Great pics, beautiful family, and thank God your daughter looks like Bth and not you

 

Great log. Enjoyed reading about your progress with the Tacoma! Excited to see what the future brings and the fun you experience on your 1 yr trip in the future. My parents are planning on doing something similar. They are building a teardrop and currently started to get rid of the items in their house. Its going to take a couple years to clear out all my moms stuff(shes likes to collect way too much) but it works since they plan on doing this once my dad retires in a couple years. I'm trying to convince them to get a Tacoma or something better than they have to tow the trailer. They are loving my Tacoma so I may have a shot and succeeding.

 

Last weekend (6/10-12) we took a quick trip to explore some camping options (for a future trip) in a couple of different sections of GWNF. We wanted to stay light (as light as I can be ) and maneuverable (as maneuverable as I can be ) because we were going to put a ton of road and forest road miles on in just a couple of days. We were specifically looking for campsites (preferably not campgrounds ) with enough space to hold two or three trucks, our trailer, and an assortment of other equipment essential to a glamping lifestyle.

Beth and I both worked Saturday until noon. We did some supply shopping, had lunch, and loaded the WC for the trip. I napped while Beth drove us out to Harrisonburg. We filled up the tank at Sheetz and decided to head up Long Run Rd.



We needed a quick camp for the night as it was getting into late afternoon. We know there are several sites up Long Run. This road is pretty easy up to Second Mountain, but gets rougher after that. Our Gazetteer showed we marked a site at the Dictum Ridge trail area. We went to check that out first. The road to Dictum Ridge had several muddy holes, and the truck finally got dirty.



We found our site, nicely hidden in the brush, but the fire ring was there, and it was clean. Parked in the site the truck was only slightly visible from passersby.


Our kayaking tent hides well


Beth fixed supper


I waited patiently


Chicken Alfredo! It is delicious!


The sun went down


As the sun went down, my awesome wife whipped up some Bananas Foster






A rough first day ended, tomorrow was for driving and looking over campsites......

 

I've been trying to get Christie to look at campers or rtt's or something with me so we could start going but she's insistant we start tent camping first to see if we'll do it. I can't seem to convince her I don't want to sleep on the ground. God knows after 18 years o Girl scouts we have everything we need.

 

Three things
A) Try renting a camper first
2) Run down to Roadtrip Camping in Orange
C) We have backpacking tents, pads, air mattresses, large tents you can stand up in, cots, an extra stove, etc. What do you need to borrow?

 

We have everythng I believe with Christie having been an outdoor ed instructor for Girl Scouts plus having 2 troops we have alot. The main thing to ake it happen I'll need to do is find a battery pack for my cpap unit

 

The night was pleasant. I gotta say the weather was perfect for camping. We left off the rain fly from the tent so we could watch the moon, stars and trees.

Breakfst Sunday morning was fresh coffee and an egg sammich on a bagel


We showered in the cool water of our portable "camp shower" system. It's a 7 gallon WalMart Reliance water jug with a boat fuel line. Drop one end of the hose in the water and squeeze the bulb - instant running water!


We packed up and headed down the road. The view from Long Run was gorgeous


We decided we wanted a campsite about halfway between Flagpole Knob and Crabtree Falls. We headed down to the Todd Lake area and cruised backroads and fire roads. This little guy was crossing the road so we put him in the woods he was travelling to after this brief photo op.


We didn't find any dispersed sites we liked and we stopped in at two campgrounds. They could fill the bill, but we reaaalllly don't want to CG it. We eventually found ourselves back up around Hone Quarry around lunchtime (another campground!) so we stopped in the sunshine near the quarry pond and dined. Took a few pictures and discussed our next plan.


One of the places we want to take our friends during their visit is Crabtree Falls, so we thought we'd check out opportunities near there. South of Crabtree we hit the National Forest again, and found ourselves along the Piney River. There's some camping there but it's all wet, buggy, and most sites are trashy. The one we climbed down into was so steep and rocky the ATRAC actually worked to crawl the truck back onto the road. The forest roads got smaller and rougher and somewhere this bird flew right in front of us. She landed nearby so I snapped this


We drove until almost suppertime again, finding a couple of useful campsites (yay!) and set up for the night. I readied the tent, and the air mattress (the inverter in the truck worked well!)


Beth fixed dinner. It started like this:


And finished like this:


That my friends is Porterhouse steak with a side of smashed potatoes smothered in escargot and butter with lots of garlic!


I took some photos that I thought might look neat while I ate supper.








We spent the night like the previous, able to look up at the moon through the mesh ceiling in the tent. Very refreshing!

On Monday morning after another egg sammich we went exploring some more. Found some official dispersed sites (they were even labelled by the forest service as such). And somewhere (I really don't know the road name - the road wasn't on the GPS and it's not labelled in the Gazetteer ) we got into a serious road. I was very thankful for the Mobtown skidplates, and very much wishing my rock sliders weren't still in the garage. No pictures, sorry - I was a little too busy picking lines over and around obstacles in the road. I do know it's near Mount Pleasant. It took about 3 hours to go maybe 4 miles of road. A real off roader probably could have done it faster, but I'm all about not breaking things when you're out and about......

It was a very successful and fun weekend!

 

Well I scheduled our maiden voyage for next weekend! Getting pretty excited I've slept the last 2 nights in the camper. It's comfortable but still figuring things out. Were headed to Outlanders campground over in Luray. Nothing exciting yet but we'll get there!

 

That's how you start. Slow and easy. Figure out what works with the new set up and slowly expand your territories with your capabilities. Hell, we're still changing things on the teardrop to increase its usability.

 

Smoke alarm went off for some reason the first night and scared the crap out of the dog. I made her stay out there with me last night. She shook life a leaf but made it through the night and she'll be back out there with me tonight also