Norsmanvike's Budget Build Escape to Freedom With Azure...

With RTT bed bars installed, they're blocking the ability to see the TacomaWorld.com sticker in the lower part of the rear sliding window. So I bought a new one and put it at the top of the window which can now be seen clearly. When the RTT is on, it'll still block it, but the RTT won't be on for daily driving.

 

The things we do to get spotted

 

LOL - So true!

 

A new camp cooler arrived from Amazon and its a serious upgrade from our Walmart special. The thing is that it still fits under the tonneau cover and the accent colors even match Azure, ...

 

I got a hold of @Speed Freek over the weekend ( Saturday, 06FEB ) and he was able to squeeze me in that day. What luck! He did a fantastic job, the finished result looks factory, so far, the rubbing from my 33's is absolutely gone! We were bit concerned if my MBRP sliders would be in the way, but nope, he was able to avoid them and only needed some touch up spray can Krylon liner to fix it.

 

I went to Toyota Escondido for an oil change on Friday ( yesterday ) and the service dept. told me that they couldn't get the BPF skid plate back on because the mounting points were completely distorted from being hit pretty hard. I didn't think of it at the moment, but the BPF skid I have was designed for a 2nd Gen, but fit with adapter spacers and extended bolts ( BPF adapter kit ). When MaryAnn drove on the Red Canyon Trail after the hill climb on the 3rd Annual Run, she mobbed it pretty good for a bit while I yelled at her to slow down. After a "spirited" discussion, she slowed down and eventually got the point.

But... the BPF skid took a serious beating from her mobbing on the trail, but it did it's job. After learning what the consequences were from her thrill ride, she owned up to it and offered to replace it with a genuine Toyota TRD Pro skid, 1/4" aluminum, with more coverage, and an oil access panel so the skid doesn't have to come off. My service tech offered to put it on at no charge, so we're scheduled for Monday at 0700.

I'll post a photo of the new skid after it's on. But, here's the primary damage on the BPF skid from MaryAnn... What you can't see is the main body of the skid ever so slightly caved in. I'll try to bend everything back to a usable point and resell it for good deal to someone, but I'm only in it for $100, so I won't lose sleep over it since I consider it a consumable and it did save the engine.

 

Added two stickers on back window today for gain of .25 hp.

 

A good friend helped with a great mod today! Since electrical work both intimidates and makes me nervous, he did the bulk of the work and I was his designated gopher. Mixed in with plenty chatting, he said the install wasn't hard, just time consuming. The hardest part was probably retrieving a grounding bolt and the ratchet he dropped inside the dash. In the end, his install was professional and clean. He even accommodated my request to remove the Qi charging button and put the OEM style Front/Rear switch in it's place ( I never used the Qi anyway ).

Great mod and will be well worth it when we head out on the trails to know what's over the crest of a hill and assist with tire placement when traversing obstacles.

 

On 15MAY I did Azure's 2nd official photo shoot and I edited a total of 31 light painted images into one composition on 31MAY. Azure is all loaded up in his current form camp outings and trail runs.

 

That’s a great mod. I love mine.

 

Man. Your truck has a lot of upgrades since the last time I saw you! Looks great Randy!!

 

Thanks Mike! Looking forward to getting on the trails with you again sometime soon.

 

Had a great weekend last week just prior to the July 4th! Good friends were traveling through the 395 corridor in CA right through a lot of my favorite spots to visit. On Thursday night, we took off from San Diego and arrived in the Alabama Hills at 12:30 am. Our first choice for camping was Lone Ranger Canyon, but it was already taken, so we went to another secluded spot, setup camp real quick, then did some evening shots with our rigs before turning in for the night...


We woke up kinda early, took a bit of time to acclimate, broke camp, and headed out to a specific location that I wanted to get to for a photo shoot with our rigs since morning light is the best for this spot and it turned out to be a great decision!





Next, they wanted to hit up a BBQ place in Bishop, CA for lunch, but it didn't open until 11am, so we opted to kill some time to go to Reward Mine which was on my Bucket List anyway, so we went for it. When we got to the mine, I was ready to take the ham antenna off and follow them in their Tundra into the mine, but my wife MaryAnn wouldn't have it, so we told them to head in and we staged Azure to act like he was ready to head in and was coming out... LOL



Leaving the mine, we stopped at some really soft silt spots and did some dust up photos!



We finally arrived at the BBQ place in Bishop and Holy Smokes, what it good BBQ. Once we finished there, we made a beeline for a natural hot spring near Bridgeport, CA. There were plenty of hot spring pools wich were natural, but folks had built walls from nearby rocks to help contain the hot spring water. The pools progressively went from hot to luke warm the further downstream they went ( but were literally next to each other ) and the creek that they are next to helped cool down each pool and that was pretty cold. Their dog loved it and played in the both the creek and the luke warm springs. Thunder started while we there, so we hot footed it out to avoid getting caught in the rain and they needed to get their luggage from the exposed bed of their rig into the cab. At this point, we parted ways and they continued up to their destination to Lake Tahoe while MaryAnn and I headed to our next campsite further South the way home. The free campsite was full, but some folks also from San Diego shared their spot so we could park and the couple in the space next to us turned in early after a long day and let us use their fire ring for ourselves. We collected some local wood and use all of our own to have a 3 hour long fire which was a perfect way to cap off the night and we turned in at 11pm. We took our time in the morning breaking camp, said goodby to our gracious hosts, and then headed to Mammoth for MaryAnn to visit since she hadn't been there in over 25 years. We visited Twin Lakes, Twin Falls, Lake Mary, Horseshoe Lake, and Lake George. No photos of that yet.

When we finished there, we made a quick stop at Convict Lake so MaryAnn could see where some friends of our always like to camp and then made a beeline home arriving back at about 7pm so we could rest up for celebrating the 4th of July with friends the next day.

 

Great pictures! I wonder if @Hobbs has been to that BBQ joint?

 

I have been to Holey Smokes a time or two.
I do prefer a small BBQ joint 15 miles south in Big Pine. Seems this place caters to my taste buds! Gotta stand in line for it, but it’s worth the wait.

 

Thanks @My Name is Rahl ! Holy Smokes BBQ was already hop'n when we arrived at 11:30am and everything was worth the wait. Pulled pork, beef brisket, potato salad, coleslaw, BBQ beans with bacon... Really, nothing was bad or even so/so.

 

Dometic Fridge install - Initial concept and recommendation from @AY_ARONTRD. Yup, that was an expensive conversation my bride MaryAnn had with him that day. LOL

Slide Install and Electrical Install

Installed my Dometic fridge setup today with slide and protective cover. I had to have a neighbor help install the anchor bolts for the bed since I couldn't be under the truck torqueing and holding the lock nut inside the bed at the same time. Everything else though, I did on my own. Although the placement of the fridge leaves some space on the right-side between the fridge and molle panels, It's just the right size to hold the 6 gallon water can for extra water. My estimated calculations proved to be on-point as everything fits under the tonneau cover just right with less than a 1/2 to spare. This is going to make easy access for the fridge from now on and after having to pull the fridge out manually at Sedona for just one trip, this slide is well worth the investment already and will prove to be invaluable while on the road travelling to WY, IA, and IL to see friends and family and also some sight seeing and photography in in UT, WY, ND, IA, IL, MO, TN, and TX. Not to mention future camping trips, Yup, it's a three week vacation coming up.

 

A week late on the photos, but with CA Gov. Newsome and the CA Forest service closing all forests, i.e. organized campgrounds, a group of us opted to re-direct to Sedona, AZ to tackle Schnebly Hill Road, Broken Arrow, and Crackerjack Mine trails. Schenbly was much more mellow than I anticipated, but the views were fantastic. Broken Arrow I discovered is rated as a moderate-black diamond rated trail depending what your lines and what areas you explore. I did a mix of the mellow stuff ( still scraping my tow hitch several times ) and black diamond obstacles too that experience rock crawlers were confident I could do. Following their advice, I pushed my boundaries and re-baselines my capabilities. Some of the photos from the weekend below.

 

One of our friends, Bre, took these photos of Azure out on Broken Arrow Trail in Sedona, AZ. I edited the photos though and quite frankly, it's nice to have had someone else taking photos my Azure for a change because I so often forget to.

 

I've been off the radar for a couple of months, essentially since the beginning of October 2021 that started with a massive road trip as detailed below, then spent November selecting and editing photos from the trip, updating my https://americanlandscapes.net , prepping it for the new additions, and starting up a new correlated FB and Insta page as well. Here are details of the trip...

Along the way, I logged 5,542 miles on Azure, traversed 14 states, 19 notable cities, crossed 3 major rivers, and reconnected with family and friends all over the country. I had to scrap 4 photography shoots ( Toquerville Falls, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, and Salt or Heber Wild Horses ), but I added far more photography shoots that I wasn't expecting or didn't plan for ( Bridal Veil Falls, various wildlife, St. Louis Arch, etc. ) . The fall colors that I had expected didn't develop as hoped or are coming in much later than expected. Nonetheless, it was well earned and successful trip as I was able to completely disconnect from a busy city life to get back to my roots, recharge myself, and reinvigorate my passions again. I got delayed in Sheridan, WY by a day and a half because of an unexpected snow storm that decided to keep two of my smaller GOAT armor panels while driving in the snow storm on way out of it, also got caught in a pelting rain storm, and fought 40 mph gusting winds as well. Here are just a few notable events along the way…

Many thanks to all of my family that I was able to meet with and the few classmates that made the effort to meet me back home.

Photos and videos will be following in forthcoming days and weeks, but for now, here are a few details on the trip...

States...
California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nenw Mexico, Arizona

Notable Cities...
Las Vegas, Sheridan, Casper, Cheyenne, Lincoln, Omaha, Des Moines, Iowa City, Dubuque, Bowling Green, St. Luois, Shiloh, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Winslow, Phoenix

Rivers...
Mississippi ( 4 times )...
Arkansas...
Colorado...

Outside of seeing friends and family, the highlight of the trips was defiantly re-visiting the Shiloh National Battlefield in Tennessee. I went there in high school on a trip with my mom who took us to several different battlefield including Stones River, Lookout Mountain, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Shiloh which is the one that stood out the most. To see photos of Shiloh, it's best to visit my website to save resources here.

Midwest Collection
- Lenox College located in Hopkinton, ( Civil War era )
- Hopkinton, IA war memorial
- Canyon Camp, IL Boy Scout Camp
- Misc. shots from the trip

Military - US Civil War Battlefields Collection
- Shiloh National Battlefield
- Includes a couple of shots from 1st Battle of Bull Run ( Manassas ) from a previous work trip.

Winter
- There's only one image there now, but more are on the way

More pics here with random things, but here's a couple for now.