Ryan's Tacoma Build and Adventures Thread

Back on April 13th, I took my wife out to get some motorcycle practice in, close to where I grew up. On the way back, we checked out a recently updated campground a friend told me about. Hadn't even opened yet, or been 100% finished. We walked it, and wrote down some sites we really liked. Stopped at my parents on the way back home and took the time to check on reservations. It was pretty much open, so I booked what, to me, was one of the very best spots in the place. Was plenty wide for two cars, so we invited some friends. They tent camp a little, but only in campgrounds, and this would be the first time camping with us.

Fast forward to May 7th, I get an email from State Parks and they say they erroneously allowed me to book an ADA campsite. The sites weren't labeled yet, physically when we were there, and the website still wasn't updated on the 7th. The email said to call and rebook a different spot or they'd let me cancel. There was ONE spot available, with a parking area approximately 1/3 as large, and only one vehicle wide. I was not happy, and wasn't even sure if we'd both fit our vehicles in it. I did take it though, as it was my only choice.

Told my friends at work about it the next morning and they told me to write an email to the State Parks department in the hopes that something like this doesn't happen to other people in the future. So I did, I wrote a nice long email about the situation, how it affected me, and how it could affect others (as I was 100% positive this was happening to a lot of people, as those sites were pretty much booked through the season by now).

I sent that email at 9:27AM. At 10:40AM I received an apology, and they said they approved my move back to my originally booked site, and said they were going to do that for everyone affected. Any future reservations made would need to prove ADA, but not anyone already booked. I'm sure glad my friend convinced me to write that email. I didn't even ask to be moved back, but they did and I'm thankful.



This picture does a great job of showing the size of the campsite. All you see was ours. Gravel tent pad in the foreground, concrete pad with firepit in the background. Had water and electric at the pedestal (no sewer, not that I'd need it.) Sadly, I'll never get to camp in this exact spot again, lol. There is another exact duplicate of it, but they're both ADA. Understandably made to have extra room to move around.




91 nights in the Scout.

 

Been watching the snow layer on GAIA and all the posts on the WABDR Facebook groups and hitup Bethel Ridge this last weekend and invited some folks to join.

Had a beautiful view from the window of the Scout.



Everyone else rolled in Saturday afternoon. Plenty of time for me to relax in a chair, listen to some music, and soak up the view and the sun (and get a pretty good sunburn).





Last but not least was my buddy Kyle and his wife and pups.



Drone photo stolen off someone else's FB page.



This one, too.




On Sunday, around 9PM, hours after I got home the group chat started blowing up with pics of a stuck GX. Two of those from camp ran up to Snoqualmie to try out a kayak and decided to hit up a FS road afterwards. Unfortunately, one slid off the road. They, of course, didn't reach out to anyone until attempting to get this thing out themselves. They spent three hours with nothing but a winch on an FJ and some soft shackles.






I sent the pics and the pin to my good friend Mike and as usual, "Does he need help?" was his first response. We took his Raptor loaded with recovery gear, snatch blocks, shovels, chainsaw, 8x maxtrax, straps, you name it. Only took about 35 minutes to get him out once we made the 1.5 hour truck up to find them. And that included me walking a little too far, freespooling his winch line right off his winch... oops...

I'm on the low side below, hooking up the winchline before Mike drug him back up into the ruts. The rest was smooth sailing.



Was a great weekend making memories and meeting new friends.

And for the Scout, that's 93 nights.

 

Took a three day weekend and headed out Thursday night heading for the Columbia. Thursday night we made it up through the Wild Horse Wind Farm and another 6 or so miles out the Quilomene Ridge.



We called it here, just off the road and figured we'd make it the rest of the way to our destination in the morning. The last few miles are supposed to be the roughest, so figured this was smart.




The morning was a slow slog down into the Canyon, but made it with no issues.





At one point Saturday, I counted 40 boats on the sand bar. And that was just on the side nearest me, and not counting any PWCs/Jet Skis. We got in the water and floated around quite a bit, with temps reaching just over 100 degrees on Saturday. Directly across from us, just hidden by a tree branch is the Gorge Amphitheatre. The Wonderland Festival was going on and we could hear some of it in the distance. Most of the day, though, it was drowned out by music from the wakeboard boats at the sand bar.



There were about as many sheep on the hillside as there were boats, too.



Wife downloaded Queen Charlotte on Netflix as she had been wanting to see it. We had a delicious dinner thanks to the air fryer. General Tso's with rice and dumplings.



Made some new friends recently, and they were able to join us in their Ram. Few others joined us for the day on Saturday, but they left in the evening making it just a day trip for them.



We timed the trip back from the Canyon to the Wind Farm and it took 1 hour and 40 minutes to make the 11 miles. Averaged 6.6 mph. This is what the camper looked like after the drive. The stuff on the floor, minus the pillow, was already there. But the mattress had slid from the nose of the camper, all the way to the back wall/door.






That's 96 nights now. We are quickly approaching 100! We may not break that this coming weekend, but we have a full week trip coming up very soon. And the summer has only just begun!

 

Last Sunday afternoon we headed out for a week of camping. First night we spent off Blewett Pass so we could head into Leavenworth in the morning to hit Bear Bear for breakfast. Place is delicious.



I had wanted to camp here for quite awhile, but this specific spot is usually taken. But not on a Sunday night!!



After Leavenworth we headed to a campground out of Wenatchee where my friend's family has a bit of a family/friends reunion every year. We spent Monday night through Thursday morning with them. No pics this year, besides this photo my buddy just posted in a group chat. The temps were pretty horrible, but my friend had bought some misters to hang up at camp that really saved the day.



Soon as we had breakfast Thursday morning we headed north to Kelowna, BC and the BC Overland Rally. We had been to the NW Overland Rally multiple times before, and this year Nicole thought we should try the BC one. The temps were still pretty bad up here, hovering around 100 every day we were there. No real shade accept what the camper made as the sun moved across the sky. We were pointed south.



Had a couple cool Tacomas around me, including this one with a Northern Lite 6-10. The owner was great to chat with.



Definitely not as big a crowd as the NW Overland Rally, but still plenty of folks.



One of our two purchases was this new Chair from Kuma Outdoor Kozy Bear Chair. Big step up from our Kelty loveseat that we bought after seeing it at the first Overland Rally we attended. Our other purchase was a 400 watt portable Ecoflow solar panel. I've got to buy a couple adapters for it, but it should run in series with the Scout's 175w solar panel, bumping up to about a max of 535w of solar with a small bit of amperage/efficiency loss in the series setup. Can't wait to try that out.




103 NIGHTS!!!
Wenatchee's final night was the 100 mark in the Scout. I think that's a pretty solid milestone. Quick calculation says we sleep in the camper 10% of the time since purchased. Far from what full timers do, but I'm still proud we get out as much as we do with our limited vacation time.

 

The Taco drug home a new-to-me toy! 2022 Honda CB500X!

 

Took the bikes out for their first trip behind the Scout. Same campground we stayed at after the Scout campout. Figured the road was nice for some practice.



105 nights.

 

Decided to see a concert at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, WA for the first time this last weekend. Decided if we were gonna do it, try the whole experience and camp at the venue as well. Knowing entry can be crowded getting in, we decided to drive over to a spot we've camped before just a few miles from the gate... Only to find out the next morning when reading online the campground was open Friday night, too... oops. We probably had a quieter night though, we heard the kids were rambunctious around the campground that night.




Our spot before it started filling in next to us. We camped in the "Premier" camping. It was definitely worth it. Not only for the flush toilets and showers, but for the shuttle that helped us bypass the ridiculous bottleneck between the campground and the venue. And fast pass, definitely pay for fast pass.




Will we go back? Probably not. Was fun to try out as a way to combine a couple things we like, camping and concerts, but we think it'd be easier to just keep seeing concerts in Seattle. For this one, we purposefully saw Imagine Dragons, someone we've seen before, so wasn't the end of the world if the show wasn't perfect. Which it wasn't. The crowd could have been better.



It's still funny to me that, if you look in the image above, halfway between the stage and the left of the picture on the far side of the river, that's where we camped a few posts above. That was definitely a more from trip, but hey, it's all an adventure.

107 nights.

 

Got me another SPOTTED!!

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-truck-spotting.194190/page-545#post-30166684

 

Was just on Google maps looking at the Tunnel Mountain Campground in Banff and saw my truck on street view!! I must have decent luck, after also finding my truck on the Satellite view over Moses Lake a few years back.



Link to the previous post of when I was actually there:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...dventures-thread.553569/page-12#post-29142984

 

Noticed when I hopped in the truck this morning that I was just a few miles from hitting 135K. Was able to snap this picture in the parking lot at work. Doesn't get a ton of miles on it anymore, unless we're taking the camper somewhere. Hopefully that means it's got quite a few more years left in it.

 

Few pics from this last weekend's Avants Offroad event out on the Dirtfish property. Had another sweet Tacoma right behind me in one session. He recognized my truck from some of the shots Avants had posted of my wife driving it at last year's Avants Offroad Women Only Event.

I probably need to get the truck into a car wash soon, but it's barely been above freezing lately. Normally I would leave it dirty, but I need to work on my truck bed. Got that nice issue where the composite bed is sanding itself off on the frame and dropping loose from the bed bolt. Started soaking the bolt / nut with PB Blaster last night in the hopes we can get it broken loose with an impact. It didn't work on our first attempt...





The water was really fun the first few laps. We still had little icebergs floating around. The puddles were all iced over, an inch or more thick.

 

A handful of photos from the annual Avants Offroad Women's Day event. Was packed with 50 vehicles attending, plus volunteers and a few Rivian demo vehicles (they were an event sponsor and had some for test drives on the track).


Photo Courtesy of: Travis Gallatin


Mt. Si in the background.




Photo Courtesy of - First Due Overland
Branden and Krissy using my truck as a stage to get things rolling.

 

Yet another Photographer dumped a bunch of photos from the latest event. These are from Travis Gallatin. One gal drenched the guy and his camera gear hitting the water a bit hard. He loves it though, and always enjoys doing photos at these events when he can come out.

 

Great thread! Loved seeing all of the adventures!

 

Thank you much!

 

Back out to Schafer State Park for the first campout of the year. Got 88 miles on the bikes, too!







109 nights.