d.shaw 2012 DCSB build

I had purchased the 2012 OR on September 30th 2016, it had 23,000 miles on it (somewhere around there) and had driven the coast home, well most of the way until I realised that the 'safety stand-down' we had been on at work had been removed and I needed to haul butt to get back home and work.

Oct 18th 2016 took a trip north, stopping in San Francisco to drive the "crookedest street in the world" Lombard St, and grabbing a classic 'the streets are mega steep here' (not as steep as the worlds steepest st Baldwin St in Dunedin NZ thou)...





From there drove north to Avenue of the Giants. Where I grew up in Rotorua NZ, a forestry town - we had the Redwood Grove, in the Whakarewarewa Forest (wicked mountaining biking), planted in 1901 they were part of a program to see what exotic species would be suited to commercial harvesting in the area, and as big as they are - California really had some giants -



Drove up around Leggett and thru the Chandelier Tree, a 276 ft tall (not the claimed 315ft) giant with a 6ft wide X 6'9" high cut out - I wouldn't fit thru there now, and I understand the impact to these tree's from doing this



Out to the Lost Coast and hugging a giant...






Further north to Prairie Creek campground, and Fern Canyon - which was quite the amazing walk (only pic's I have of the area....?)





After camping on the beach there, headed south, waaaay south to the Sequoia National Park to see 'the General Sherman' and drive thru the 'tunnel log' and a couple short hikes.





I learnt a few things during this trip, one of which was if Im going to do 'backpacking meals' I should use some measure for the amount of liquid I put in, Mac and Cheese 'soup' is not as good as it sounds.......

 

Early December 2016, whilst the truck had a few mods already (notably the Icon suspension / UCA, Trail Ready wheels, tires, sliders and the Leer cap) it was time to start installing stuff. First up was a Pelfreybilt Aluminium (say it in NZ speak - al-uu-min-iuum) front bumper, with a Smittybilt 10k winch - which my great friend Kai Wolf helped me with (Kai is one of my skydiving mentors, always happy and just a great skydiver)



And few days later - Safari Snorkel. Every off road / farm truck in NZ has a snorkel - so it was an obvious addition. Some Rigid Industries lights were also added - luckily our friend Piya Navanugraha, an electrical engineer for Gulfstream Aircraft (and great skydiver) stopped by just to say hello and ended up wiring in the lights.....




A day later I would help Damien install his snorkel. Now we were ready to camp -

 

Late December 2016
And now to camp. First trip to Anza Borrego was with a couple friends, it was fun to sit around a campfire and chat (I would later find out you need a fire in a metal container) and the view was pretty spectacular - it rained this night which made all the roads blank, so I was following my onboard navigation to get us out of there, and designating the 'new' roadway



A few days later on Boxing Day I decided to head back out there by myself, I sent Damien a pin of where I was just so someone knew. He would reply "Im 6 hrs away - see you soon" and after about 8hrs he arrived at camp, at like 11pm. I had rationed the firewood and booze I had to ensure I had stuff for when he arrived, seeing his headlights was pretty fantastic for sure. We sat around the fire and had a few drinks and laughed our asses off.



The next day we drove around and explored the area some more - producing one of my favourite shots of the area (and our trucks - notice I turned on the lights to be extra cool for this one)



January 2017 saw me and my mate Alex drive south of the border to paraglide some sand dunes. I had been there before with Alex, who had 'discovered' these whilst driving to La Ventana to kite surf. we spent a couple nights camped on the dunes and flying our butts off

 

Out for a neighbourhood walk a week ago, spotted this roofing contractor stuck in the front lawn of this house, so went and got the truck to help. They had jacked the truck up on the driver's side and had wood under the front wheel but weren't able to get the jack under the passenger side. They had connected the truck to another using a 'tie down strap' which we quickly removed and replaced with my truck and an ARB snatch strap - even thou I knew it wasn't going to take much effort to get him out and didn't really require a dynamic recovery - pulled him out easy - the trailer was not attached as they were dropping it for debris off the roof (to note he knew the tie down strap wasn't right) - he was very appreciative - as were the real estate brokers who were about to start an open house.....

 

This is super cool - @theolee of NickLeeCreations made this sweet as print featuring my truck, mega rad !! He makes some cool stuff and has a TacomaWorld patch out

Get your shirt here...

 

@d.shaw, if our paths ever cross I have a custom NickLee patch for ya

 

Whoa whoa whoa - custom - dammmmmmn

(photo because photos are neat)

 

Continuing my adventures, my first recovery with the Tacoma was with Damien when we rescued our mate Merlin (who we also worked with) who had decided after some heavy SoCal rains to drive around Otay Lake and attempt to get through this swamp. His F150 was in there 24hrs and was quite suctioned to the frame, at one point both our trucks were being dragged towards his - a quick reset and grabbing the Maxtrax we were able to break the suction and slowly get him out of there......



Damien and I then ran out to Valley of the Moon, a pretty neat area East of San Diego, but mega close to the Mexico border. We were both amazed at the amount of gallon water bottles and space blankets placed randomly out there, not sure if it was some concerned locals leaving them or the border patrol or -



I then went and camped with Merlin, him on his adventure bike - originally we planned on somewhere in the desert but it was mad hot so we went up into Big Bear. Neither of us had spent much time up there and we went in a 'back / side' way so got to see it a bit (would pay divies for later trips) - Merlin was off on a 2 week trip further north with some other moto friends



Kai and I would then install my Palfreybilt HC rear bumper. I would buy one without a swing out thinking it would be a hassle - eventually I would see that having the extra room inside would be nice....

 

When I was 22 (1994) I had met a guy (our girlfriends worked together) Ken Rikihana who at dinner one night had asked me if I wanted a summer job packing parachutes....I hate heights but as I had been working for my mate on a portable sawmill (we drove around in his sweet Hilux) but it was a bit inconsistent - I said "yes". Saying yes changed the course of my life for the absolute better, and as Ken was now living in Spokane Valley WA I decided I wanted to go visit him. With some very rudimentary planning I set out, and immediately diverted to go met up with some friends up the 395 to go speedfly (small paraglider that you can stay closer to the terrain with) - I met them at a campground in the Sierras and after falling asleep a BEAR came into our camp, sat on the picnic table (12ft from my tent) and ate some trash one of the other folk had left out - my first Bear encounter I guess
we would get up at 4am and drive part way up a track then hike the rest of the way (2.5hrs) and fly down - get picked up and driven to the bottom of the trail, to hike to the truck and drive it back down.



After a couple mornings hike and fly - I decided it was time to travel north. I arrived at a hot springs to soak and get some cell reception - where I would meet two dudes, who it would turn out were designers and testers (climbers) for 5-ten shoes, (I was wearing some) we got talking about stuff and speed flying (one of them had done some) and they knew Dean Potter - turns out one of them had Deans speedwing and a few days later would ask me to teach him to fly, so a couple months later I taught him to speedfly and successfully got him off the local hill in San Diego - and he survived !!

Any how I wanted to try to get to the Alvord Desert - and judging by the timing I needed to leave, so off I went.....many hours and miles later I made it right before sunset. It was so peaceful just sitting there by myself, in my own thoughts, I made a fire (a small one) in my brand new "solo stove" and watched the bugs come out of the broken crust of the dry lake bed and crawl around in the cool of the night



I awoke and knew I had to go back to Fields, gas, a burger and a shake I had been told, then I went to the Alford hot springs for a soak (Rotorua, New Zealand is a huge geothermal area so these always remind me of home for sure)
I wanted to drive Steen Mtn, the highest road in Oregon so off I went. One thing nice about being solo is you can do whatever you want, when you want, also you talk to yourself a lot, sing a lot, and occasionally laugh (mostly at yourself)



I continued North - and stopped at a Forest Service camp by a river. It was a peaceful (and cheap $6) speaking only to the guys camped next to me who had stopped by to say they were going hunting early in the morning and were sorry if it would wake me up - thought that was pretty nice, also I never heard them.

 

Thanks for writing up blast from the past!

 

Thanks mate. Its actually interesting trying to remember - and good for the soul

 

Such a great look back to where you've been. The solo trips are so great for introspective thought and wonder.

 

I made it to Spokane Valley WA and hung out with my mate Ken and his wife for 3 days - venturing into ID for a day at Coeur O'Alene - and just generally hanging out -


From Spokane I went over to Lake Chelan where I camped somewhere not too far out of town. There was a loud as gunshot at 4am the next morning which had me on edge but I heard nothing else about it - so
From here I went and met up with a local guy, where we hiked and flew a couple local hills in the area was again cool to meet up with random strangers / people with the same passion. I was able to stay a couple nights here, swimming in the lake was awesome fun



It was very smokey up north this year - but I was blown away by the beauty. I drove through the Cascades to a camp spot on the east side which was cool and beautiful and all - but the following day I thought I was meeting up with a mate outside Seattle - so I headed west, until I realised what day of the week it actually was - gaining some cell coverage I headed to Mt Baker and some hot springs - in which I would end up by myself as a family left right as I arrived....



I continued east and found a hotel in Anacortes, laughing at my lack of timing.

Seattle - and down towards the Olympics I picked up my mate and we went west, finding a cool river to camp along side and exploring the local area was super cool out there




I left my mate back in Olympia WA and headed south - I think this is around Cannon Beach, then into the woods, I ended up on a Sunday in traffic and settled on a hotel in Portland OR



I went south and east - hoping to camp around Crater Lake - the wildfires were nuts, including a stretch of road where visibility was like 50ft, ( thank you to all who fight these wildfires) as I neared Crater Lake I decided to stay at an established campground, to maybe not add to the problem - on the way in though watching trees 'explode' as the sap I guess heats up** photo of a tree actually 'exploding'



It felt weird to be camping at a place where we were surrounded by fires, yet were ok to have campfires in the campground, but I got up by sunrise to watch it at the lake - air quality was pretty low, I decided it was time to return home.......



After 16 days aways from home I returned home, a 16 hr drive - ending the trip listening to Rage Against The Machine - as you should always do. raging...... the 16hrs drive had me getting up early the following morning to go fly the local hill with a couple mates. Felt good to be home and felt amazing to have that experience under my belt......

 

Had the opportunity to do a slightly different type of trip when my mate Merlin asked me to crew the 68ft yacht he runs from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, Baja, Mexico. The trip took 5 days and was fun - slightly worrisome (3 hr rotations on watch, nothing like being 90 miles from shore and its 3am and you are trying to figure out if that's a star on the horizon or a ship). Once we arrived down there I spent the next 3 weeks working as a deckie - lots of washing the boat and cleaning stainless as the owners came back and forth with friends and family on a couple trips. Wicked fun



Lonely nights at watch....



At anchor in Bahia Tortuga's



This refuel in Bahia Asuncion was wild, I was picked up in a small dingy - then driven to the local Repsol gas station where this Panga (type of boat) was waiting on a trailer, several transactions (Gas station has limits per transaction) and 600 gallons later, (filled everything they had on the boat) driven back and we launched the Panga - offload took about an hour.....



Anchored at Bahia Santa Maria where we got these 'bugs' or crayfish as we would call them in New Zealand



Moved to Puerto Magdalena for the night, a very small fishing village - where I played fetch with this dude for 15mins, and his corona beer can





Super pretty little spot for sure....



Moon rising as we arrived into Cabo San Lucas.

We spent a few days in Cabo and then moved to Marina Puerto Los Cabos
Got to cruise around and do some exploring - really enjoyed the relaxed nature of Los Cabos (San José del Cabo)

And saw a ton of whales, even a Turtle 15 miles from shore with a small shark trying to eat him, we turned around and the turtle won...

 

Quick overnighter with @prof.jones - work and life has very much limited our camp time in the last year or so, so fighting for any opportunity we get has become important. 20 gusting 40 was the forecast - I sold it to Sally as 'ill just drive us home if it's that bad" so off we went, found a new to us area that saved some travel time as well. It was def windy, but the stabilising bar that supports the lid in these "Bay Area Metal Fab" Drifters is def nice piece of mind, not that I really think the lid would come down -
Left early-ish in the morning as making coffee was a struggle, everything was blowing away. Grateful for the escape though, always good to get out and actually use the truck..

 

Spent a night camping with my mate Kai Wolf - who has done a ton of work on the truck, the last mile into this spot is quite sporty, and Kai was driving, his mind was 'blown' with how easily the truck walked its way up the track. We had a fun night, felt good to show him how good the truck is....also I got to sleep in the ground tent

 

Sally's brother was in town, He is a heli pilot in the Navy in FL - so we went back to the nearby mountains, the drive in is decently fun and gave Spenser some seat time in Sallys truck.


....there is another road that is a bit more fun, this one was recently graded....


Waiting for SpaceX to launch


Was pretty neat to see from camp



Thank goodness for mountains and trees !

 

Amen to that!

 

yeah mate - for sure