stickyTaco's boosted eff cancer build and ramblings

With a little bit of aluminum and a few minutes at the drill press, I was finally able to clean up the way the bedrug sits with the @RelentlessFab tailgate skin. The plastic tailgate cap that I removed used to cover the edge of the bedrug so I needed a solution to keep the rug from getting snagged on things when sliding them in and out of the bed and this seems to do the trick.

When the weather warms up I'll have to pull the tailgate skin and get some bedliner on the sections of exposed primer.

 

Road trip! Planning a quick detour on a work trip to Vegas and will be spending 2 nights in the park.

First night in the Eureka Dunes area and then Steel Pass to Saline Valley on the 2nd day...likely camping around Saline Dunes away from the chaos of the springs. Day 3 I'd have to head out Saline valley road to pavement or up over ubehebe (not sure I'll have time for this though) and from there on to Vegas.

The other option is Eureka Dunes day 1 then mainly pavement to check out Ubehebe Crater on day 2 and camping in one of the canyons off west side or somewhere in greenwater valley for night 2. Out the park via deadman pass on day 3.

Right now a bunch of stuff is closed but I'm hopeful that's not the case in a few weeks.

 

Now's the time to do Death Valley. I've been through there and Scotty's Castle in the summer, and it was brutal.

Have fun!

 

Soon to have always hot power to the bed. Will run a second fuse panel in the bed that will get constant power with a main switch. The main switch will get power to bed lights (on a second switch), 12v cig plug, a high output USB charger, and a volt/amp meter.

Only had enough red wire and didn't feel like running out to get other wire colors. Odds that I burn it to the ground?

 

Worked as intended so I cleaned everything up tonight. Just need to run the power back to the bed this weekend.


Cutting holes in your vehicle is easier when you know you can replace the part easily if you fuck up and you can tell I don't solder much but it's easy enough to hide that.






Fuse panel will be mounted in the cubby behind this cover. The 12V and usb chargers are powered by the red switch and the blue switch will power lights in the shell. I have 2 circuits left on the fuse block I bought that will power a compressor for onboard air and a fridge (I'll add a second 12V in the space under the latch when that time comes).

 

Laid out the wiring for the LED lighting for inside the camper shell. LED strips will be attached to the headliner on the shell with adhesive backed Velcro and the wiring will be held up with dual sided Velcro.



Now I'm just waiting for the last few pieces I need to wrap this all up...fingers crossed for delivery Saturday.

 

More progress today.

Ran 6awg wiring to the bed and got the wiring pulled into the cubby and installed the LEDs on the headliner. While I was under the truck I greased and retorqued the u-joints and greased the ball joints on the upper control arms.

I went nascar and used duct tape to seal the openings the cubby had in the wheel well to hopefully minimize the amount of water and dirt that gets in there.

Then I tested everything again and it's working as planned. Tomorrow I need to install a breaker and clean up some of the crimps then get the lightbar up front sorted. I installed the lightbar but the brackets don't have enough adjustment so it is not aimed right. If I can get that aimed right I have the wrap up the wiring on it as well.

Been slow going but I'm happy with how it's coming together. The light output is great...



It's daytime bright back here now



The little guy worked on his stride bike while I was working on the truck.

 

Not as much progress tonight but had a couple "it's all about the right tool" moments.

I'll need another project to make this $30 tool pay for itself but if you need to crimp large wire these will get it done. There were several options in the $150-200 range that are probably easier to use but for 6 crimps on 6 AWG wire these did fine.



Also used the dremel to cut a hole in this for the rear power circuit breaker...not the right tool for the job but it worked. I burned through 2 blades. One more cut on it tomorrow then some time at the drill press setting it up to hold relays and a fuse panel along with the circuit breaker. Hope to have time to paint it tomorrow so I can mount it Thursday. This will likely be temporary and I'll see if @RelentlessFab has time to put something cleaner together.

 

Death Valley day 0 (travel day to the park) and day 1 (Panamint Dunes and Echo Canyon).

Quick stop on 395 overlooking Mono Lake to stretch. That decorated guardrail comes back into play later in the trip.



We got caught in the worst dust storm I've ever been in once we dropped into the Panamint Valley on Hwy 190...couldn't see past the end of the hood. The wind finally died down enough to get the tent setup. We were exhausted and in bed shortly after the stars came out.


Morning view. The sky was still hazy from the previous afternoon's dust storm.


Panamint Dunes in the morning light. We made some tea as the sun hit the dunes and decided a little hike out toward the valley would be good to get the blood flowing on the chilly morning.


Our destination was a small hill where the alluvial fan met the valley floor. The view looking the other direction toward our campsite (the geology here is cool). The truck is visible on the right side of the alluvial fan and we spotted a couple mines shafts on the mountainside on the left side of the pic the night before and decided it would be a good idea to scramble up there to get a closer look after we ate breakfast.


About that breakfast...in an effort to make good time on the dirt road to Panamint Dunes I ended up cracking the eggs that were supposed to go in our breakfast burritos so oatmeal had to do (this is a sign that I need to upgrade my bumpstops).


After some oatmeal we headed up the alluvial fan toward the mine and I noticed that these little pricks where everywhere. The blooms look like cotton balls. I have no idea what type of cacti they are.


Almost to the mineshaft. The view is pretty spectacular. Our campsite is between the two black hills, close to the bend in the old road that was wiped out by a flash flood.


The mineshaft (I have the name of this mine in my notes but they are in the truck and I'm the lazy right now).




Time to hightail it to our next stop which I don't have any pictures of (Ranger station to pay the park fee).


After heading over Towne Pass and into Death Valley proper, we stopped a the stovepipe ranger station to pay our fee and get an update on road closures (a storm earlier in the week caused flash flooding that resulted in closures of many of the backcountry roads we intended to travel). With the updated info, we decided to head out to Marble Canyon for a hike and lunch and then we would look a the map and figure out where we wanted to camp that evening.




We decided on heading over to Echo Canyon to camp for our second night. I had camped there before and knew of a good spot that would be sheltered if we had another windy evening. Plus, there was another mine in the canyon that we hadn't checked out before. We made it to the canyon and had camp set with enough time to explore the trail to the mine (pics of the Inyo Mine will come in day 2 post). We were treated to this sunset on the way back down the hill to camp and decided it was a good spot to put it in park and grab a drink to enjoy the view for a bit. That little bit turned into almost an hour so the light bar I installed the week before we left came in handy on the trail back to camp.


That's a wrap on day 1. Day 2 to follow in the afternoon if I have time.

 

Looks like an awesome trip. Glad you are well and enjoying life and your rig.
Thank you for sharing!

 

Cold brew coffee + low hemoglobin = 90BPM resting heart rate


I get infusion next week and the week after to get my blood counts back up which will be good...otherwise I'll be able to get an aerobic workout without moving. As it is I feel like my heart is going to pop just climbing the fucking stairs at work.

 

Hopefully, you’re good to go after that.

 

This has been happening to me every 3-4 months since my treatment in 2014 and the infusions get me back to normal.

It's a strange feeling sitting here with such a high heart rate when my resting heart rate is usually in the 40's.

 

I’ll bet and that isn’t really all that good for you either.

 

Yup. I've discussed with my oncologist and if they can't keep on top of this better I'm going to find a new doctor that can. It would be great if I could get my hemoglobin up to 15 but my current doc hasn't been that aggressive.

Right now my hemoglobin is in the single digits and there is no reason for it to be this low when they can see the historical cycles. I'm hopeful that next quarter I can get in for the infusion as soon as I dip below 13 and skip this feeling.

 

It’s a shitty way to have to live your life. Hopefully, you get a doc that will be better for you and who can work to help avoid getting to that place.

 

6 hours in the chair means it's time for a some binge watching...season 3 of GT

 

Probably the best season yet!

 

Back in business. It's amazing what a couple units of blood will do for you. Big thanks to any of YFFs that donate blood!

I had basically been living with the equivalent of altitude sickness over the past few weeks. When my doctor's office finally got the iron infusion scheduled my hemoglobin had dropped to 6.4. Took them 3 weeks to schedule the iron but they were able to get a blood transfusion within a day once they saw how bad things were. It's the second time my counts have been that low and hopefully the last.

It's crazy how much better I feel. Hopefully my doctor can get more aggressive with the infusion schedule and keep me feeling like this long term.

 

The JBL stereo broke (just a few months after the CPO warranty expired) so there will be stereo upgrades coming soon. Package should arrive next week.