Battleship Jones: 2015 Tacoma DCLB Build Thread

Started the air locker install today and ran into a few interesting things. One, I was sent two different style locker solenoids, one that had three ports, one that had two ports. This:

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

and this:

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Not sure if that was intentional? Every install I've ever seen has had the two port one, but who knows.

Second, and just as an FYI for those doing a dual ARB install, the circuit for the front locker will only engage if the rear locker is engaged. Being the idiot I am, I didn't read the entire manual and just hooked everything up using the wiring diagram and spent 1.5 hours troubleshooting it when the front locker didn't work. If only I turned a few pages further in the manual, I would have seen that that is by design. You live in you learn I guess.

 

Looks good, man!

 

Update!

The three port solenoid is ARB's new model that allows for the two to be daisy chained if there are space constraints. Must be very new as the folks at ECGS hadn't even seen it yet, but, they were kind enough to send me a two port model even though nothing is wrong with the one I have so I could maintain consistency. Thumbs up for that!

Onto the front re-gear. I found this one to be more challenging and time intensive than the rear. Part of this was because there are more things to disassemble/strip, part of this was because it was a bit of jockeying game to get the differential out of it's home. It's happily nested up there for sure.

Anyway, same rules apply to the front as the rear, chock the tires, use jack stands, be safe. With this done it's pretty straightforward and I won't beat the process to death. Other's have documented this better than I have, and I was elbow deep in grease and gear oil, so you'll have to excuse the relative lack of pictures.

Drain the diff -> pull the wheels -> pop the tie rods -> undo the axle nut -> pound the CV axle out of the hub -> undo the lower knuckle bolts -> swing the spindle assembly out of the way. At this point the CV axles should be ready to pull. You can either get a pry bar in between the diff and CV and pop it out, put a drift on the flat and punch it out, use a slide hammer and attachment, whatever is your choice. Just get those CV axles free and they can be removed from the vehicle. Take care not to damage a boot or spline while getting them free. While they axles are out it's a good time to check the seat on the driver's side to make sure the needle bearing hasn't buggered it up.

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Mine was fine, so I chose not to replace it. There are a few things to undo/remove from the differential before it can be unbolted. There are some breather lines that run along the top that are a royal PITA to reach, and the ADD plug (not so bad). I undid the driveshaft flange at this point and it is the same as the rear, 4 14mm bolts, and this time you have the benefit of using the cross member that's right there to brace the wrench while you get in there with an impact gun or breaker bar. Once this is free the differential can be unbolted, it's held on by 2 bolts at the front and one nut at the rear. I removed the rearmost nut first, then used a jack to support the diff while I pulled the front two. It takes a bit of balancing it keep it on the floor jack yet still wiggle it out of cradle. Would be much easier if a friend was there to remove the bolts while you bench press the diff in and out. Anyway, I managed and tada!

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Now a prerunner.

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With the diff on the bench you can begin transferring parts over. The mounts need to removed from the old diff as does the ADD tube. I hit a bit of a stumbling block when I put the front diff on the table and found myself staring at this.

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Everything I've read says ECGS ships diffs without the stub shaft, but unless my eyes were deceiving me, I could swear I was looking at the stub shaft already installed. I compared my two diffs side by side to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything, then called them to make sure I wasn't crazy. Apparently they sometimes do ship diffs out with the stub shaft already in there, score for me!

ADD tube face was cleaned up as was the differential mating face. Same formula as before, brass brush + scotchbrite + Brakleen. Nice and clean now.

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A generous bead of grey RTV was applied...

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and the two were mated.

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Even squeeze out all around let me know that things should seal up properly. Blue Loctite was applied to all of the supporting bracketry plus the bolts holding the ADD tube on. They were all torqued to spec and paint marked.

I set about reversing the process to get everything back together with one notable exception, I did not use the floor jack for re-assembly. It was much, much easier to roll the diff under with the furniture dolly, transfer it onto my body, then bench press it into place and use every available limb to keep the diff in place while I got the front two bolts started. With the diff in place I made sure it was all greased/oiled up then set the CV axle into the diff, but also re-installed it into the hub. I tried multiple times to get it back in while the hub side was free floating but didn't have enough hands to keep it supported and run the pry bar and hammer. So into the hub it went. Once I did that it was easy to get it all back together.

I waited 24 hours per Permatex before filling up the diff and have noticed no signs of leaks so far. Yay for that! I'd hate to have to pull all that apart again...

ECGS locates the air locker port here:

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Which makes it pretty darn convenient to run the air line over the diff, secured to the breather tube, then along some hard line and up into the engine bay.

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

From there it's simply a matter of plugging it into the solenoid and hitting the switch to confirm it all works. That's where I ran into a little bit of a snag. I hooked up the switches via the ARB wiring diagram, hit the front locker switch, and nothing happened. Launched into troubleshooting mode, went nutso with the multimeter pinning everything trying to find why I had no voltage through that switch. Turns out ARB intentionally wires it so that the front cannot be activated unless the rear is as well. No explanation as to why, but if you flip past the initial wiring diagram and go to the 'dual locker' setup they tell you that. Oops, silly me. Anyway, with that solved I flipped on the rear switch (dead for now), then hit the front, and was happily greeted with the compressor cycling and the locker blow-off when unlocking.

Job well done! 4wd works and there are no funny noises or indications that the transplant wasn't a complete success. Feels good to have that out of the way.

 

Last Tuesday I also came home to a pretty box from Downsouth Motorsports with some King rear shocks inside. Mmm, pretty blue ano. Having done the fronts a few months back I was anxious to get the rear sorted out as well. I went with DSM because they offer a Dakar specific version of the rear shocks which I'm pretty sure consists of swapping out the lower eyelet to a longer one to obtain a shock with a longer eye to eye length. This is what the King looks like next to the 'Dakar model' Icons.

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Approximately the same OAL, but the King substitutes additional shaft length (har har) for eyelet. That's probably better from a design standpoint,but when the King's cost 2X what those Icons did I see why they compromise was made. The 2.5s are huuuuge.

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Remember how the OME shocks wouldn't fit because they interfered with the lower shock mount?

20141103-P1010229 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

I ran into this same problem with the Kings as well. The Icons use a rubbing bushing in the eyelet which allows them to make the OD of the rod end smaller. The Kings use a spherical bearing and a larger rod end. To get around this I took a hammer and punch and hammered that little reinforcement lip back a little. It took a few good whacks across the length to push it back enough to get the Kings in.

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr

No comparison construction wise. It's almost unfair to compare the two because of the 2X cost of the Kings, BUT, there are a few design features that I really like. 1 is the spherical bearing in the lower eyelet. That alone should prevent any sort of binding or loading like the rubber bushing might. Second, and this one was a very nice touch, the hardware for the upper stem had some thought put into it. On the Icons, it has two rubber bushings sandwiched by a top hat and nut. With the Kings, it is a similar two bushing sandwich with top hat and nut, but the top bushing has a sleeve that runs through the shock mount and nests inside the lower bushing. I find this to be a nice touch due to the wear I noticed on the stems of my Icons from rubbing the shock mount during articulation. Even when adequately tightened, there was enough movement to allow rubbing and there were witness marks and even a little bit of material removal. Hopefully the addition of this sacrificial inner sleeve will keep things tidy. Lastly, the reservoir mounting brackets are a nice touch as well. Instead of drilling a hole in the frame and using a self-tapper to hold the reservoir mount on (same mount as their high end Omega shocks), the Kings utilize existing bolts and holds on the top of the frame to mount. It's that kind of attention to detail that IMO makes them stand apart.

With ~ a week under their belt I can say the on-road characteristics are much the same as the front, buttery smooth and planted through all of the obstacles a commuter is bound to face. Compression adjuster is set on the softest setting at the moment, but I may end up dialing in a few clicks. They pass the swingout jiggle test, defined as the amount of wiggle on my swingout mounted tire carrier over speed bumps, with glowing marks. Still waiting to see dirt, but initial impressions are quite positive. Looking forward to getting them out in the dirt soon and seeing what they are capable of!

 

Those breather plugs are hands down the worst part of that entire job, I probably tried for 1+ hours just to get them to connect trying to stuff my big mitts from every possible angle but I wasn't able to get them reconnected with the diff bolted up, so I had to partially unbolt it, attach the tubes and then bolt it back on. Pretty sure I chucked some wrenches across the garage and screamed obscenities several times.

 

I'm blessed with dainty piano hands, so it wasn't too bad to get in there, but I still have wounds on 7 of my 10 fingers from cramming them in there. I just prayed that ECGS built it correctly and the RTV sealed it up tight cause I would hate to have to pull that out again...

 

At some point in the past I alluded to my rear spring hangers being a little tweaked, not a ton, just a little, but it was only going to get worse from there. In the past the common response was to remove the OEM shackle and go with a shackle flip, but, there are a lot of additional issues that happens when you go that route, some of which are easy to correct, some of which are far more difficult.


Within the past few years a couple of companies have started working on OEM replacements for the inverted shackle configuration. The two that I am most familiar with, Archive Garage and Bay Area Metal Fab both released theirs near the end of last year. Both are both bolt on, made with plate steel, come with OEM length replacement shackles, utilize poly bushings, and have zerk fittings on the shackles to keep everything happy. I chose to go with the BAMF version for no particular reason other than they were running a killer Black Friday sale at the time.


I won't get into removing process for removing the stock shackles and hangers, suffice to say I am glad I had the fab shop burn out the rivets with a plasma torch when I was having other work done. With those out of the way we can begin preparing the BAMF kit for installation. Here are a few side by side shots to show how robust the kit is compared to the OEM.


Hangers:


Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr


Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr


Shackles:


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Goodbye squeaky creaky loaded rubber bushing!


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With the stockers removed the 4 frame holes need to be reamed out a little to accommodate the 1/2" grade 8 hardware. Upsizing to 1/2" would be fine, I chose to go with 9/16" to allow for tolerances and misalignment. The frame was a little rusty and gritty, so I wire wheeled, primered, and gloss black enamel painted it. While waiting for the paint to dry, Mother Nature gifted me a bit of an impediment.


Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr


What was once a beautiful day first yielded a little rain, then some pea sized hail, then came the big fat snowflakes. Knowing I had to get it all back together so I could be at work Monday morning meant embracing the cold and the wet and working through it. Install is pretty easy, bolt shackle onto leaf spring, bolt hanger onto frame, bolt shackle into hanger. In my case, the bolt holes lined up well. All provided nuts are either nylock or have a split washer, bolts going through the shackle were greased to prevent seizure and blue loctited as well. Shackle and shackle hanger bolt were both torque to 89 ft*lbs per OEM spec, the 1/2" bolts were tightened until I felt like they would not come off easily.


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Shackle angle at ride height:


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Shackle angle at full droop (shocks till connected and limiting travel):


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Leaf spring shape at ride height. Fairly flat but still have a little bit of arch to them and shouldn't go negative at bump.


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There's a little port on the bottom which I'm not sure if the intent was to easy access to the grease nipple or for drainage, but if the former, it's a little tough and would likely require a flexible needle tip or a 45* or 90* zerk fitting.


Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr


It is unfair to blame this on BAMF but I'll post this anyway as a PSA in case someone else tries to replicate my configuration, is the bit of interference I get between the shackle and the end of one of my leafs on the Dakar pack. This could be the result of multiple factors, but for reference, I have the Dakar pack plus the D29XL add-a-leaf, with all leaves drilled for isolator pads. It adds a bit of height between pads (probably wouldn't contact if the isolators weren't spacing things out, or if I wasn't using an add-a-leaf) but would all probably be okay if the Dakar pack wasn't so shifty and stayed centered. The contact only occurs on compression and I would imagine will self clearance at some point if I don't decide to knock the corner of the offending leaf before then.


Untitled by Tim Souza, on Flickr


Areas of improvement? The hardware (upper shackle bolt on mine is longer than ideal, as was the lower bolt) and the captive nut used on the hanger side of the lower bolt. I would have preferred a recess in the back of the hanger and a nut on the back side in case things were to get buggered up somehow. On the plus side, I like that you can add on an additional cross member between the two shackles to help prevent flexing or movement which should also have the upside of stiffening up the rear end a smidge.


How do they ride? Great! There is a difference, albeit slight, on small bump compliance. They also got rid of a large amount of the creaking and groaning I would get from the rear end during normal driving which I attribute to replacing the loaded rubber bushing with a greased poly one. I have noticed a clunk on compression that can be traced to the interference noted above, but that should go away if I modify the leaf, convince the Dakar pack not to move around so much, or knock the corners off of the offending leaf spring.

We'll see how they perform long term, but initial impression is that I received a solid, well built replacement hanger.

 

Through the first full tank with 4.88s; returned ~15 MPG which is about 2 MPG less than with 3.73s. That’s 100% city driving (with some warming up in there) and I assume MPGs might go up a wee bit once the gears are fully bedded in. Got about 400 miles on them so far and will be performing the first oil change and heading off to Moab!

 

Hate to do it, but the Tacoma is up for sale. Fully built, 2015, v6 4x4 DCLB. $38.5K in Westminster.

Please click here for more details: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...b-4-0l-4x4-fully-built-westminster-co.553055/

DSC_4039 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

 

I was thinking about you just the other day, and wondering if you were going to sell your truck.

I'm sure it was a hard decision, but that is how life goes.

Best of luck on your rig.

 

what's next OP? love this build

 

It was all part of the master plan, but I sold the Tacoma so I could build up this. It's a 2017 RAM 3500 crew cab, 4x4, long bed diesel.

DSC_3962 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

The wife and I sold our house, put our possessions into storage, threw a truck camper on the Ram and left Denver two weeks ago to spend an extended amount of time on the road. Once we are done with camper rehab here in Western CO, we are going to meander our way up towards Alaska, end up on the East Coast for Christmas, and eventually make our way back to the West Coast some time in the beginning of next year. No plans on where we will "end" our trip, but I'm just going to enjoy the year (hopefully two) on the road. Kinda like an early 30's retirement.

If you wanna follow the adventure, we are posting as explore_the_untamed on Instagram and will have a website to follow.

 

Tim,

I just followed you on Insty - I'm scott_b3

This sounds like a great adventure - best of luck.

If your roads lead you to Georgia, look me up.

 

that sounds amazing! I have some questions I'll PM you haha

 

Admittedly, I no longer own the Tacoma, but in the event that there is interest in the trip we've been on so far, I'll post some updates in here anyway. Who doesn't like pretty pictures of faraway places?

To begin, I may as well start with some pre-trip sorta words, then move into the good stuff.

This all started for me in childhood, whether I knew it or not, and it manifested itself through a voracious appetite for books. Why books? Books are, in my eyes, one of mankind's (and womankind's!) greatest achievements, a physical embodiment of personal experience, ideas, and mental fantasy, all written down on pieces of paper purely for the education and enrichment of others. Through books, I was able spend my formative years Journeying to the Center of the Earth with Jules Verne, sailing the high seas to Treasure Island through Robert Louis Stevenson, or braving the Alaskan wilderness with White Fang and Jack London. Books were the kindling that fueled my wild imagination with the desire to see and experience the things that most are resigned to only dreaming of or reading about.

Combine a head full of those fantastic, magnificent adventures with the cold, crushing realization of mortality and the preciousness of our, rather my, existence in this particular moment in the space time continuum, and you have the recipe for the desire to travel. We all only get one shot at this thing called life, and it is up to each and every one of us to make the most of it. What that means is different to each individual, but for me it meant throwing caution to the wind and seizing what was now in my reach.

If you've ever watched a video of, or had the opportunity to ask someone in the later years of their life what their biggest regrets are, the answer is seldom wishing they had spent more hours at the office or having bought that fancy new car. Instead, it's often about the opportunities not seized, love left unexplored, perhaps time missed while children were growing, or chances to travel not taken advantage of. With maturity (a fancy term for age once you start getting up there) comes the realization that one day, if I'm lucky, I too will be old, reminiscing on what I have accomplished in life, and I'll be damned if I let that opportunity pass me by.

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”– Jawaharial Nehru

So welcome to our journey that I've dubbed “Get Lost, Find Yourself”. Follow along as we make our way across the US & Canada, experiencing everything that we can and pushing our boundaries, all in the name of living life to the fullest.

-Tim & Ashley

Instagram: Explore_the_Untamed
www.exploretheuntamed.com

20150614-DSC_0222 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

 

Connected once again, so I will expound upon the first post with some additional thoughts, as well as the "Why" from my wife, Ashley.

When we first started telling people of our plans to live on the road full-time, the most common responses were “Why?” and “How?”. Some people looked at our plans to quit our jobs and sell our house and belongings as crazy, maybe even foolish. We had a house we just finished fixing up. We had stable jobs. We had friends and family we didn't want to leave behind. Others wanted to know how we could manage to make this lifestyle work. Every once in a while, we got the advice to travel for as long as we could—there's always more money to make, but there's no guarantee of time or health. So here we go, blog post number one on this journey of ours; our attempt to answer the why and how of living full-time on the road.

Ashley's Why

Ever since I can remember I've felt like a restless soul; someone who needs change to stay engaged. As a kid, this manifested in the constant rearrangement of furniture in my room. Creating a newly designed environment. As a teenager, I moved on to frequently evolving fashion choices. As an adult, it has developed into wanderlust; the need to travel, explore, experience new things. There's an ever present pull between the desire to settle down and the desire to move. My future dream is to settle somewhere I love, own a lot of property, build a business, and save every animal possible. But the future dream seems impossible until I've sufficiently satisfied the need to wander.

So there we were, heading into our thirties. We had already done some traveling and moved across the country to a state we had never been to. While for some this seemed like a giant leap of faith, for me it was a stepping stone to a larger adventure. Living in Colorado allowed for the further development of my desires. We were able to hike amazing trails, travel down the random dirt roads we happened upon, and visit small towns with all sorts of different personalities. We were introduced to vast expanses of open space to explore, sometimes going an entire day without running into another person. If Colorado has so much to offer, imagine everything you can find elsewhere if you seek it out.

Tim and I had spoken in the past about doing an extended road trip, but our musings had never come to fruition. The timing never felt right, or we didn't have the funding to feel comfortable in that decision. As I entered my 31st year, the North Winds started blowing (anyone know the reference?). I felt complacent. Things were becoming too routine and I started feeling that need to move again. The difference was, this time the timing was right to do something big. We decided to give ourselves a large enough budget to be on the road for at least a year, but we are hoping to be able to stretch that out even longer. This dream of ours may seem crazy to some, but it's exactly what I need.


DSC_4981 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

“This gypsy heart just needs to wander. Wander to the undiscovered mountains and caves that guard the mysteries of this world. I will unturn every stone, I will walk every unpaved path, I will dive through the darkest seas just to discover the secrets that were only meant for me.” - Chrissie Pinney


The How

When we decided to make this adventure happen, we had a number of things in our favor. We were a dual income family without kids who had been doing a decent job at saving. We also bought a house in the Denver area a few years before the housing boom, which meant if we sold we were bound to make a fair bit of money. This is what created the means for us, so the next step was the planning. What do we live in? Where do we go? How much does it cost? How do we move from a three bedroom house to a truck camper?

What do we live in?
It took us a few tries to arrive at the right decision on this one. I will give you the short version, but you can read the extended version of this story under the “Truck and Camper” section of our website, if you're interested. When making the decision to do a road trip, we owned a 2015 Toyota Tacoma that had a ridiculous amount of off-roading add-ons. The name was Battleship Jones, and he was Tim's baby. That truck took us on all sorts of adventures: camping, off-roading, getting engaged. Although Battleship Jones ate speed bumps for breakfast, his towing capacity wasn't the greatest. Our first attempt at creating a tiny towable living space was a used 1994, 20 foot travel trailer. It was outdated and had significant water damage that required months of blood, sweat, and tears to refurbish. But once it was done, it was beautiful inside. We named him Harvey the RV. Shortly after (mostly) finishing, my parents came to Colorado for a week and we took them around the state for the trailer's inaugural trip. While the trailer worked fine, towing it through the mountains with Battleship Jones turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Suffice to say, after returning home, Harvey the RV almost immediately went up for sale.




On to Plan B. Our next attempt was to order a custom light weight cargo trailer with an off-road package to build out into the perfect tiny home. We went with a black and blue 12 foot trailer on 32” mud tires with an RV door and named him Bruiser. We gave Bruiser a skylight above the bed, a tongue box, outdoor lighting, and an awning. But as Tim started running the electrical for inside the trailer, the deadline for our trip was creeping up quickly. In a last minute decision, we did something I'm still surprised about...We sold the beloved Battleship Jones and bought a 2017 RAM 3500 and a 1995 Lance Truck Camper instead. (Bruiser is a bit of a niche item and is still waiting for the right home—if you might be interested, let us know!).




The new set up was (supposedly) move in ready and we named them Lady Godiva and Wobble Baby. With our house under contract and the closing date approaching, we started to move everything into our new house on wheels. Unfortunately, this is where the problems arose. The camper we thought was ready to go had a significant amount of unforeseen issues, including a cracked water tank. On top of that, a week before we closed on the house, we got hit with a hail storm that broke all of the vents and covers on the roof of the camper. Therefore, at the end of June we found ourselves without a house or a working camper. Luckily, we had amazing friends come to the rescue. Our neighbors gave us a place to land for a couple days while we sorted things out and helped us fix everything on the roof before we moved on to friends in Mesa, Colorado where we stayed for 2.5 weeks while the boys fixed the rest of the issues with the camper.




Where are we going?
I started the trip planning process months and months in advance of our launch date. I made a trip binder with state road maps and researched each state one by one. As it turns out, it's a bit of a daunting task. Even starting so far in advance, I was only able to research the states we plan to visit in 2018. For every state, I have researched National and State Parks, top attractions, places to hike, must have food, and places to camp, as well as locations of dog parks and vets because I'm a #dogmom. I found the process very helpful because it allowed me to learn the attractions and geography of the different states and gave me a much better idea of the path we would want to follow. Between our launch in July and the end of the year we will move from Colorado through Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, Yukon, Alaska, and British Columbia before taking a winding path across the top of the US and Canada on the way back to Massachusetts for the holidays. In the new year, we plan to swing south and then up the west coast. If anyone has any recommendations of must-see places or has a flat driveway and wants us to swing by, let me know and we'll see if we can make it happen!

 

How much does it cost?
This one certainly depends on your priorities. Obviously there is a base monthly cost, which includes things like car and phone payments, storage units, etc. We were lucky enough to be able to pay off Tim's student loans just before hitting the road. While you lose a mortgage, living on the road still costs a fair bit. We like to boondock (find free camping) as much as possible to keeps costs down, but in some places this isn't possible. For instance, when you're visiting large National Parks, it tends to make more sense to stay within the park campgrounds. There's also the cost of gas and food. When you're living in a home on wheels, your gas budget tends to skyrocket. Luckily, since we bought the diesel RAM, our MPGs are much better than they would have been in the Tacoma. We've managed to figure out ways to keep our food budget lower than it used to be by eating less meat (and ice cream *sad face*) and making sure to plan ahead. Since our priorities tend toward activities and staying on the road, we don't plan to take in too much of the restaurant scenes as we travel.

Random costs we also needed to consider are activity costs, health insurance, and dog boarding. Since most National Parks in the U.S don't allow the dogs on trails, we will end up sending them to dog sitters on multiple occasions while we travel. Health insurance was a tricky one for us. We didn't qualify for any good state programs and couldn't afford the cost of Cobra without any income. It took a lot of research, and endless spammy phone calls, but we finally decided on a private plan with nationwide coverage that costs us about $300 a month. All in all, it takes some planning and consideration when deciding on a budget and you can expect to spend at least a couple grand per month while on the road.

Downsizing
This part of the planning process was definitely the most difficult on my end. While Tim did more of the truck/camper planning, I did more of the house selling, packing, and trip planning. As I'm sure many of you can relate to, when owning a house you tend to collect more things than you need. I took a couple months to go through our house room by room and make “keep”, “sell”, and “donate” piles. If we hadn't used something in a while or didn't love it, we didn't keep it. Even still, we were left with enough stuff to jam pack a 7x15 foot storage unit. Selling things was the majority of my frustration—if you don't need the money, I'd skip that part.

Even harder was deciding what to bring on the road with us. Since we have three dogs along for the ride, we had to make room for their food and accessories, including food (this literally takes up about 1/5 of our floor space), leashes, medications, and jackets. Given that we will be in a camp-like setting the majority of the time, picking out the clothes to bring was less of an issues. We brought mostly the same clothes we would for any other camping weekend, and threw in a few jeans and sweaters. The hardest part was choosing the shoes and jackets. We both had a lot of jackets, so we dedicated an entire bin to them. Still, we could only fit about a third of our closet. Eliminating shoes seemed easy for Tim. Casual, hiking sneakers, hiking boots, and sandals. For me, not so much. I ended up with three pairs of sneakers/hikers, my LL Bean boots, and sandals. So far, I think I chose correctly. I think overall, less is more. Truck campers aren't large and the less clutter the better! Especially when you're constantly maneuvering around a 70 pound dog who insists on laying directly in the only floor space available. I'm looking at you, Marley.


Final Thoughts

The process to get here took a lot of work and frustration, and through all of the snafus we tended to wonder how our luck was so bad. But in reality, it also took a lot of luck to get us where we are today. Thanks in great part to the Denver housing market, we are in a position not to work for a while. We are lucky to be healthy enough to go on this adventure. And we're also lucky to have found a partner in each other who wants to upheave their entire life and go make the most of it. Let the adventures begin!

 

I’m super stoked for you guys, and I’m glad I got to meet you and check out the truck before he got sold.

I hope you guys have an amazing adventure, and a ton of incredible experiences! I’ll be following you guys for sure!

 

After 2.5 weeks of technical difficulties, our trip was officially up and running on July 18, 2018! We waved goodbye and hit the road; destination: Tetons. We decided to weave our way up through Colorado to hit a state bucket list item on our way out, Rifle State Falls. I'd had my eye on this place for a while (thanks, Pinterest) and was pretty excited to see if it lived up to the idea in my head.

We leashed up the puppers and hiked a short trail that lead to the top of the falls, which is a triple, 70 foot waterfall. The trail allows you to cross over the top of the falls and down the other side, where you'll find multiple sections of small caves to check out. A few are large enough to duck or climb into, and the general feel of the area was reminiscent of the jungle in Costa Rica.



Once you reach the base of the falls, there are side trails that will also lead you up behind the falls for a mistier approach. The park allows camping and was a great stopover on our way out of town.



The next day we made our way out of Colorado, through Utah, and up into Wyoming. Ah, Wyoming. Wind, plains, and broken glass. The broken glass is so abundant we've concluded that it must be the state plant of Wyoming. That said, I'll take free camping where I can get it.



For those of you who don't know, in early fall 2017 Tim and I took a dog-free vacation and went up to the Tetons and Yellowstone. We did Yellowstone first and spent a few days searching for all the wildlife we could find in the quiet morning hours and shoving our way through hoards of tourists to see all the other attractions during the day. We enjoyed ourselves, in spite of the growing presence of wildfire smoke from the fires burning in Montana. Sadly, by the time we made it down to the Tetons, the smoke was so thick that the mountains were completely obscured. We ended up heading home early, rather disappointed.

Therefore, even though this was our second time in the park, it was our first time actually seeing the peaks. Consensus: They. Are. Awesome. So craggy and majestic.

Since we arrived on a Friday evening, all the campgrounds were full. Good thing we had an insider tip for a bit of boondocking in the Tetons! (Thanks, Shannon). We headed east from the Moulton Barn and discovered we certainly weren't the only ones in on the secret. Luckily, there was enough room to cozy on into a spot and settle in for the night, mountain view and all.



The next morning we nabbed a spot at Colter Bay Campground and spent the morning puttering around in the rain, crossing our fingers that the weather and haze would move out for our big hike the next day. In the afternoon we headed into Jackson Hole to check out the town and drop the dogs off for their overnight stay.





The next day we got lucky—most of the haze from this summer's fires moved out overnight and we took the first ferry out of Jenny lake around 7am to hike to Lake Solitude. Pro tip—they give a morning discount for paying in cash!



The trail up through Cascade Canyon to Lake Solitude is about 15 miles and just over 2,600 feet of elevation gain. It was our longest hike to date, and by far the best. It was worth every step, including the ones I felt for days to follow. I cannot stress enough how amazing this hike is. As you hike along the river on the way up you keep thinking “This is a really nice hike.” Then, you reach a certain point, turn around and realize... “This is most amazing vista I've ever seen.”









It's like every time we turned a corner the views were more spectacular.



The trail leads up through fields of wildflowers and cascades and ends with a glacial lake and stunning views. And marmots. All the marmots.



And impromptu snowball fights.



The view at the top was just spectacular. The lake is entirely fed by the snow melt, as evidenced by the melting snow fields dotting the valley. It was the perfect place to lay back, close your eyes, and listen to the sounds of nature.





Tim though, is apparently into cryotherapy, and decided to take a wee plunge into the lake. Twice, since the first time I didn't focus the shot correctly



Best part of the hike back down, a new set of views. We exchanged what was in front of us for what was behind us and it was no less breathtaking, perhaps more so.

 

On our way down we decided that our hike would only be made better if we were able to see a bear. We've been lucky enough to see a lot of the other big game animals, but the bear was still eluding us. About two thirds of our way down the mountain we came around a bend and BAM!



A giant bull moose casually walking up the trail towards us. This was both awesome and terrifying. Statistically, you are more likely to be killed by a moose than a bear. As I am “calmly” making my way back up the trail away from the moose, Tim is trying to get himself killed by taking photos and falling in ditches. Luckily for us, the moose decided to make his way off the trail and disappear. Private moose showing, check.

As we got closer to the end of the trail, whisperings of a bear started to make their way to our ears. With hope in our eyes, we took off running. If there was a bear, we were going to find it. And we did. He was just on the other side of the river peacefully munching on grass and letting us take all the photographs we wanted, before gliding into the water and swimming away. Lake Solitude Trail: Officially the best ever.



Later that evening, we made our way over to Moulton Barn hoping to capture a version of the iconic shot. Unfortunately, there was too much haze (again with the wildfires) for a spectacular sunset. I'm sure Tim is disappointed, as he seems to be whenever there is a cloudless sunset, but he was still able to manage this shot:



Looks like we will have to come back in the cold months, when wildfire smoke is a near impossibility. Maybe with some fresh snow on the ground Although our time in the Tetons was rather short this trip, there was no shortage of smiles and amazement. The bar was certainly set high for the rest of our trip.



Next stop, Montana.