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Today is just going to be Mark, Alex, and I, and we're just going to do a quick little
post-yearly camp trip episode.
We did a little mini-sode before about what we were planning on doing, the trails that
we were going to do, and now we're just going to tell everyone how it went, who broke, who
didn't break.
In fact, I can already see Mark on our camera.
Poor Mark.
Yeah, you can just see he's getting ready to start crying.
So, we ended up going with Alex's family and my family coming up to Yuma area, and we started
scouting out some trails earlier Thursday, and we found a campsite pretty far back into
the trails, and it wasn't bad, right?
I mean...
Oh, I honestly, I love the campsite.
We saw what?
One person the entire trip.
Yeah, one person.
Heard some crazy owls.
I did end up finding a tick on Mercy, though.
Oh, did you?
Yeah.
I haven't checked myself yet.
I probably should.
I was probably a very late season one.
Yeah.
Yeah, she got lucky, though.
Just a one.
And you know how she is.
She was out and all that tall shit, messing around the whole time.
Yeah, she was.
For Ann Wrangler, a run around.
They really like having the big open field to run around into.
They have that at home, though.
That's true.
But for anyone who doesn't know, Mercy and Wrangler are my dogs.
They're not kids.
Close, but no.
Close.
All right.
Well, so we got into the camp.
We set up.
We had our dog for Mark to show up.
We set up camp, had some really what do we have for dinner that night?
Grilled cheese or hot dogs?
Yeah, hot dogs.
Mix of both, I think.
I think we made both.
Yeah, I think we had grilled cheese for lunch.
Hot dogs are the other way around.
Hot dogs for lunch, grilled cheese for dinner on homemade bread.
On homemade bread.
That was good.
Cooked that up.
Spent the night in the tent.
We got down to early 30s in temperature and everybody was kind of like, huh, OK.
Kind of cold.
I don't know, man.
I was pretty comfy in my mummy bag.
Yeah, I'm sure you were.
We were a little cold in our tent.
The bags ourselves keep us warm, but it's our faces that weren't.
I don't like being suffocated.
I don't like feeling suffocated, so I don't really have shit over my face.
We thought maybe we might need to get a heater.
We used Alex's heater the first night after a while and that helped a lot.
We were like, OK, we're definitely going to need a heater the second night.
That was our main issue and my family was just trying to keep the...
I mean, we're all sick, so trying to keep any more cold, crisp air out of our fricking
lungs while we're trying to sleep is only making things worse.
Mark, how was your first night?
It was pretty good.
Army sleeping bag went for me.
I kept nice and cuddle.
Didn't have any issues of being too cold or anything?
Yeah, it was like 150 bucks.
It kept me nice and warm.
The only time was a couple of times I found myself popped out because it was just apparently
I popped myself out of the sleeping bag in the middle of the night.
Other than that, it kept me warm.
I felt bad for my brother, though.
Yeah, I was going to say, Mark, yeah.
Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, go ahead and explain what happened there.
Alan didn't have the best night comparatively.
No.
He bought a cot thinking it was the same one that Alex has that I used that night, or night.
Barely probably slept on it for a good 15 minutes and it fucking collapsed on him.
Just full on collapsed.
Yeah.
Alan said he woke up wondering why it felt like he was sloped a little bit.
Yeah, so yeah.
Last night, Alan had some issues.
Mark slept comfortably.
Alex, how did you and your wife sleep?
Once Gailen figured out how to get into the army sleeping bag, she slept fantastic.
Yeah.
And then the dogs are good.
The first couple nights, yes.
For sure.
And then, yeah, then we, I think we got up in the morning.
What did we have for breakfast?
We had eggs at Teresa?
Or we had pancakes.
Pancakes.
Some pancakes and spam.
Some eggs.
Yep.
Spam was really good.
Yeah.
Good to hear, man.
I was, I was, I was worried that you guys wouldn't like my cook, my cook spam.
Yeah, he, he paid big money on that meal, you know.
Actually, the spam's like $5 a can, bro.
It ain't as cheap as it used to be.
Jesus, dude.
When I think of spam, I think of like a dollar a can.
No, that's like five bucks for a can, no.
Ouch.
Yep.
I blame 50 First Dates and Adam Sandler.
Those guys, those guys always trying to promote spam and some Reese's, man.
But no, it was really good.
I get the, we get the low sodium stuff because it's just too salty if it's original.
Then we got all packed up and we went and did some trails.
Alex, what trails did we do?
I mean, we went and did some of the lower ones, right?
Yeah.
So the first trail we did was 7101.
That's that one that Onyx doesn't have marked the whole thing.
They only have a partial of it marked.
Yeah.
But that trail, it links up, I think was 7510 is where it ends up linking to.
I don't remember exactly.
Hold up.
Actually 7510, 7520, something like that.
Maybe it links up with 7509 somewhere in there, but that trail is fantastic.
It's lots of hills, not so much hill climbs, just, you know, sloping hills with big, beautiful
tree views.
Yeah.
Definitely a trail.
I think anyone should go down.
Yeah.
Unrated.
But if you're using Onyx's rating system and you're not, not using your experience from
Arizona or anything, what are you rating it?
Like a two.
Two.
Cool.
Yep.
I can agree to that.
It'd be a good two.
Yeah.
Nothing, nothing crazy.
Any car could basically do it.
And then then we moved up to 7515 and 5032.
How do we like those ones?
I think those, I think there was only one or two parts where I would say made it a blue
trail and otherwise they were green trails.
They were ones or twos other than certain obstacles.
So 7515 has that really gnarly off camber right at the beginning of it.
Yeah.
That's that spot where I'd say that particular spot is like a four out of 10.
Yeah.
And then 5032, that is like a two out of 10.
I don't, it must have worked.
Yeah.
That was the one, that was the one that we were like, why is this even blue?
No, that was the 37.
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, that was 37.
But yeah, which 5032 I could see in springtime maybe when there's water on it, it might have
some puddles, but for us it was dry.
It was easy.
Yeah.
It was dusty this weekend.
It was very dusty.
We didn't end up getting rain till like the last day.
We had some sprinkles here and there, but nothing crazy.
We did those two.
We took it pretty easy.
We did what 7516, right?
Or no, maybe we did that during our scouting trip.
That might've been.
Yeah.
We did 7516 on the scouting trip.
I think after 7515, I think we cut down to 7520 and took that across the harder stuff.
Yeah.
We did the Cabra-Fey lookout 7520.
Honestly, just this time of the year, it's hard to find a trail that you don't enjoy
driving.
Yeah.
I mean, they're so pretty.
I mean, challenging, not really, but I mean, they were all gorgeous to look at.
And I think after we did those, we pretty much wrapped it up for the day.
Do we do fine line?
I think we did.
We did.
We did five fine line and 37 trail before we wrapped it up.
Yeah.
How do we like those?
I'll let Mark tell about the fine line because that's where he got himself a little hurtled.
Yeah.
That was a fun experience because I was trying to do it where I was, because I came in when
we did the first time I came in, did the off cambering stuff straight on with no issues.
And then the second time coming back, I couldn't do the same thing I did last time.
Like what the hell?
I was just a quick divot from left to right.
I didn't want to go up and over it.
So I go around it.
That was so weird.
Yeah.
Yeah, you started to have a little issues there towards the end.
Yeah.
To be fair, he wasn't hurtled.
I thought he was when I came up on it, but I don't know, maybe some foreshadowing there
because we got back to camp after doing those and what happened then, Mark?
Well, I'm not sure it was from the original trip or me going out grabbing firewood, but
originally the whole thing was I was trying to figure out why my power steering fluid
was low because it was low halfway through the trip and I filled it.
When I grabbed something that was sealed in case it was a leak somewhere, thinking it
might've been a simple seal leak.
So I discovered that the rack pinion was leaking down to my boot and my passenger side for
my tie rod.
So we proceeded to trying to figure out how to tear it down.
And Alex told me, Hey, we got something else going on.
That's a major issue for us to finish this weekend off with.
I'm like, okay, what's more major than the rack pinion?
He's like, Oh, come look, I came over and my CV axle, my outer CV axle boot was torn.
Like, yeah, that wouldn't that we can quicker than the rack pinion would.
Yeah.
And that one like ripped a little bit like torn ripped around.
Yeah.
Clean ripped off.
Absolutely destroyed.
Yeah.
Not gonna lie.
I was kind of bombing down that trail where the wood was on.
Cause it was the first trail we hit earlier that day.
So I kind of knew it.
So I kind of bombed it.
It was doing 20, but I didn't think it was that bad.
Yeah.
I don't know.
No, there was some big bumps in there.
So yeah, you probably, that probably is what did it, but we got that.
We did make some calls.
We got the CV axle and what you guys did that that night, right?
No, we did the next day.
Yeah.
They decided they were going to pause it and then do it in the morning.
So we took a full day and just kind of a repair day, work on stuff and cleaned.
I kind of cleaned up my wiring.
I had some issues with my Anderson connector in the front and I got that kind of taking
care of mostly that night and then into the, into the next day, got my stuff rewired and
figured out.
And then Mark, he figured out the whole CV thing.
Thankfully, had a tire underneath his truck.
The Jack kind of gave way.
And thankfully that, you know, thankfully we were on very soft ground.
We had the tire under there that we could just kind of always, always put a tire under
the frame when you're lifting a truck.
Yep.
Especially when you're in these off road, off cambers, off ground conditions.
Jacks are cool and all, but you know, the ground's not stable.
And if you're working on a long period and you don't have jack stands, which maybe we
should have had some, but you know, it's not a typical thing that a lot of people carry
with them usually.
But yeah, I mean, I mean, tires, tire was there, tires saved it.
Or we would have been digging a hole, jacking that up.
So we got the CV, CV put in.
And then we were good for Sunday.
Well first I had to ditch my sway bar.
Oh yeah.
Fuck, I forgot you did that too.
So yeah, that was just a mod day in general.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
Alex ditched his sway bar, cut that right off.
So I am, I am now running no sway bars front or rear and it is something on the road, but
it, it works great on the trail.
Yeah.
We proved that the next day.
Yeah.
We, um, I think it was, I don't know what trail was that that we had that really gnarly
off camber.
It was, it wasn't, it wasn't even a Mark trail.
It was a, uh, it was marked like the, you know, the trail itself was marked, but onyx
doesn't have it on there at all.
Yeah.
So off of a 7533, um, in between 7533 and Yuma Hills, 5738, there's a trail that cuts
in between the two.
Um, and there's a really nice off-camera situation there.
And we did that a little bit later.
That was later in the day when we were just exploring, but that was, that one was really
cool.
The only person that could get up there was Alex because of, uh, mostly because of the
sway bars.
Uh, I don't know, man.
Um, I also wasn't getting hung up, you know, Mark's a little bit longer wheelbase.
So he was, that's true.
I think I just seeing the articulation you got out of that, um, especially from the rear,
how that looked definitely, definitely seemed to help quite a bit.
Yeah, it definitely did.
Um, but yeah, he got through that.
Mark gave it a valiant effort.
I give very valid effort.
Yep.
He tried, uh, but no, he, he couldn't get through.
And I, on that, I made that decision not to even try.
I bet you could have done it.
I might, you know what I might have, but
hit your locker, put it in for low.
You would have just crawled right up it, man.
Maybe I didn't like how it was, uh, off camera at the same time.
If it was like a ledge to climb, that'd be one thing.
I didn't like how it was really off camera too and push it to the right and judging by
how yours, you, you kind of, it looked like you almost got your like rear tail light on
the, on the dirt there.
It pushed you so far over.
Uh, kind of glad I didn't.
Yeah.
Kind of glad I didn't because I think I'm just a tad bit wider than you.
And I don't think I would have had that same issue.
I think it would have, I think it would have grabbed, grabbed some ground.
Yeah.
But no, it was, it was a cool spot.
I think that was probably my favorite obstacle of the entire trip.
Yeah.
It was, it was cool.
But, uh, we did, we did, uh, we did all Yuma.
We did Yuma a couple of the parts of Yuma multiple times.
Yes.
Um, just going back and forth, backtracking, looking for other trails.
And what's, what's everyone's overall opinion on Yuma?
The whole thing.
I mean, Mark, what do you think?
What, what are you grading it on an onyx scale?
Um, just based off of your experience.
Mine, I would say it would be a three.
I wouldn't lower it too much because it did have some of the challenging stuff, but like
I said, that unmarked trail that we wasn't marked on onyx was definitely probably the
most challenging part of the whole thing.
Yeah.
Um, I had a little bit rubbing one of the other articulating spots, but other than that,
it wasn't, didn't seem difficult to me compared to marble head and stuff.
No, no.
I would say there was two or three spots where we put it into four wheel drive and then the
rest of the trail was two wheel.
Um, so I don't, I don't think, um, I think I'm with you there.
I think I would give it like a three.
Yeah.
Um, most, most vehicles can do it and where you couldn't do it, there was a bypass where
most of the time you could get past it.
So, yeah, I don't, I don't think it was, I don't, let's, what do you think Alex?
I'm right there with you.
I put it at about a three.
It maybe not, maybe a two and a half.
Yeah.
There's only really one spot that's marked that is actually challenged.
It's not even that it's challenging, but it's the only spot that actually gives you any
type of, um, challenge at all.
The rest of it is it's like driving a forest road.
Yeah.
We agree.
I think I know that I think, I think we're all in a grins that it doesn't deserve to
be a blue trail.
Yeah.
Um, it should be a green trail, but a higher green.
Yeah.
Um, I think a three or four, if it's green, just to get it towards the top part of green
into a blue, maybe, but, uh, it's, it was pretty easy.
I don't get me wrong.
It's definitely worth going and knocking off your list.
Um, just based off of the trees right now, especially it was just gorgeous.
I would say like late winter, early spring, it might be a very gnarly area to go to.
That's true.
How late it is.
I don't think it was.
Yeah.
I mean, let's, let's preface this by saying that we hit this trail in dusty, dry conditions
with probably the most traction you'd be able to have.
So if, if it did rain for a couple of days or you had snow, ice, anything like that blue
trail, definitely, I would say, I think the, the amount of off-camber situations, you could
definitely get some sliding, um, you know, to, and I think at that point, yeah, you'd
be a little bit, a little bit more of a pickle and maybe we should go back to it at some
point in the spring.
I don't know if we get through that one in the winter, that would be fun snow wheeling.
That one would be fun snow wheeling.
I don't know.
There's some parts where I, I'm a little like, dude, if I, if I had snow mud and water onto
that, there's a couple of parts where I'm like, I don't know.
I got the tires for that.
So I'll say though, it was really fun watching you this weekend because at the start of the
weekend, any off-camber made you uncomfortable, but that last day you were like going out
and hitting stuff around camps that you were scared of the first night, you know?
Yeah.
I, the biggest, the biggest thing, especially for newer overlanders, off-roaders, and I'm
one of those people for sure is, is the experience.
So it is important to push yourself.
It's important to push your rig.
It's important to know your limits and to find them.
There's a few times and you know, sometimes it can be a bit much when you have your family
in the car and everything and you're thinking about how much money you have put into the
rig, but at the same time, you have to think about this is, this experience is what saves
you from some, some types of catastrophic failures.
And most of the time it's because of experience.
So there were lines that I took when I, when we first went down a couple of these trails
and I want to say the line that I took on, let me look real quick.
Was it 7515 with the drop?
That real big drop coming from the, remember that one that I hit real bad?
Yeah.
So we took 7515 when we were scouting for campsites on Thursday and Alex had no issues
of course, because of his rig and his experience.
And with my experience and my line that I picked, I hit my, not my rocker panels, but
you know, my side step and my rear bumper pretty, pretty hard.
It was a big solid dump.
So I was a little bit nervous about that and I will say that we went back to that the second
day when we were taking Mark through that same area, just showing him the cool stuff
that we found while looking for campsites.
And, and with a little bit of help from Alex pick, helping me kind of see a little bit
more of a different line.
I took a much better line than I took in two wheel drive and it was no issue at all.
So that first time we went through there, I think I was quite a bit ahead of you because
I hadn't been paying attention to how far behind me you had gotten.
So you didn't even get to see the line I took that.
No, I took it.
I took it pretty blind.
So that was part of it.
But I think, I think it's really important for newer overlanders and especially like
people that aren't in fully built ones are just starting to build like an SUV out or
a crossover or something like that.
Your biggest, your biggest asset isn't necessarily the equipment that you put on your vehicle,
but the experience on, on what lines you're taking.
Yeah.
A good line is always the way to go.
I mean, you can get through almost anything in Michigan and a Prius if you know how to
drive.
Yeah.
I will say Alex can test cause I have, I have improved over the last year of wheeling and
he can contest for that for a lot.
I can, I can say that you just from when I've known you, you hit things hard, but you get
through it all.
I I've seen you hit some stuff that I'm like, dude, just slow it out.
And I'm like, how does that feel for him?
Cause I know what you're running.
You're running the same shit I am.
And I'm like, how?
It doesn't feel great.
But now, yeah, like I do give my new truck a lot of credit compared to the old one.
Cause the old one did not have anything aftermarket for Lyft or anything.
So I can tell there's a difference in the performance because of that, but I still think
overall my experience on trail has shown in the last year now from what it was and what
is now.
100%.
I agree with that.
Mine's grown exponentially in the last summer.
The summer I've really been getting down into the things that we did this weekend.
I would not have done at the beginning of the summer.
And if I did, I'd been really scared.
I know that I skipped hill climbs at the beginning of the summer.
I was not touching any type of hill climb.
When you hit that one stand hill climb, you like, you went up it and then you're just
like, Oh, I'm going to go do it again.
It was, it was really fun watching you play with that stuff.
Yeah.
The, um, honestly, I really, really misjudged that first one.
That was really easy.
When I got up there, I was like, Oh, this is easy.
I've done way harder than this.
Um, just in the couple of weeks ago in the desert, um, I did, I did some hill climbs
that made that one like, look like nothing.
So I was like, Oh dude, this one's easy.
And then I was like, well, I'll just go up this other one too.
And the other one was easy until a point.
And then you kind of hit like a, you get up towards the top of it and there's like a little
lump and I hit that lump and started slowing down a little bit.
And then it started pushing me into the bank and I, and there was just a tree that popped
out a little bit and it popped my mirror out and my gang, whatever finished the hill climb,
got up it just fine.
And then went down the hill and grabbed my mirror and came back down and I was good,
but I wouldn't have done that months ago.
Not at all.
So I know that my experience is better.
And I know by the time I got done with, I think it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I
was feeling pretty good Sunday.
I was like, okay, this is a walk in the park.
And then we, uh, you know, after Sunday, we, my son woke up, he pretty much slept the whole
trail day, um, yeah, which was, which is good and bad because he really likes being on the
trails too.
He's, you know, he's 11, almost 12 months and he does enjoy like looking the trails.
So we got to the end, we got back to the camp and he woke up right as we were pulling into
camp and he was, he got out of a seat and he's like, ah, ah, and I'm like, oh, you want
to go on trails?
Huh?
I'm like, all right.
So I turned around and, and we, uh, there was a little hill that I was not going to
try to attempt Thursday.
That looked pretty rough to me.
And by Sunday I was like, yeah, I could do it.
It walked right up it, went up at turn around and like, cool.
I did it.
I said, I did it.
I got done.
I'm leaving it.
Went up, went up some, uh, some bushwhack trails and, uh, which are pretty fun.
I wish we would have been able to do them if we had the time.
But, uh, then I came back and that was it, man.
That was, uh, but yeah, just that weekend, my experience, it's great.
It skyrocketed.
Yeah.
How many, uh, before this weekend, how many, like four or five day trips have you done?
Oh gosh.
Probably I'd say a good couple of handfuls.
Um, yeah, I've done my, in, as me and Alex had talked before.
Our, our style trips are a little different.
Um, so he, like it, just to reiterate for anyone who's a little bit newer, he likes
to set up more of like a base camp and wield the area so that he's lighter and that he
can, doesn't have to worry about all the junk in his trunk, as they say.
Um, I, I, I like to have all my stuff with me and I do more of an expedition type overland
where I hit a point, I camp it, and then I traveled to the next point camp that and yeah,
I'll try, I'll look at the trails and stuff around me, but I may have a basic plan to
get to a certain area and then turn around.
So like, for example, this weekend, um, we decided we were going to sit around the Yuma
trail area.
So we set up a base camp around the Yuma trail area, did all of the blue trails in this area.
And the difference between what he would have done versus me is I probably, the only difference
would have been I would have set up towards the lower end of the blue trail one night,
moved up, um, done all of the trails in between, set up the second night, third night, fourth
night and so on to get all the way up and past Yuma and then come back down.
But that's, that's a whole different, you know, that's more driving intense.
I mean, you're driving all fricking day, you're setting up at like eight, you're using more
gas, everyone's a little bit more stressed out.
So it's not quite as laid back.
And I was really glad to do like a base camp style for one of the last trips, um, because
they are a little bit more laid back.
Um, and I really enjoyed it.
Yeah.
Last year we did like 15 or 1600 miles for our end of year, our yearly trip.
And it, it was fun.
It was fun being in a different spot every night.
But once we got down into like Illinois, man, campsites are not, you can't just camp like
we can up here.
You have to go and actually pay for a campsite and it, it got exhausting pretty fricking
quick.
Yeah, I will say that for anybody looking to start this, having a good plan, having
a good, uh, knowing where you're heading, knowing where you're, especially if you're
going to disperse camp, knowing where those areas are, it's pretty crucial.
Um, I know in Michigan, it's not all that hard to find dispersed camping.
We have a lot of state forests and stuff around.
Uh, you want to travel about an hour.
You can get into a whole national forest or there's something like that and you can find
a spot.
Say for us, you don't even have to go an hour.
You go 10 minutes in one direction.
You're going to head in that, right.
Which is weird because you know, Michigan doesn't have bad wheeling, but we have a lot
of national forests, a lot of dispersed camping spots.
So it's kind of what makes Michigan unique is we may not have hard wheeling, uh, but
we have some challenges.
We have some beautiful trails and we have a lot of them.
I mean, just spread out everywhere, hidden gems waiting to be found.
Um, so yeah, I mean, over overall, I think Yuma wasn't bad.
Um, we did, I think we missed out on tree jumping.
Yup.
Uh, but that's okay.
It's one I really wanted to do, but it didn't have anything challenging.
It just, it looked like a fun trail.
Yeah.
I mean, and we did our own tree jumping too.
We went off trail, found some bush, wacky trails and we had some good 12 inch logs that
we were jumping over.
So I mean, we did our own tree jump.
We did our own cool thing like that.
It really, really well.
I think the kids enjoyed it.
The dog enjoyed it.
I think we all had fun.
Good food, good people.
Lots of good food.
Yeah.
Yup.
Yeah.
Those street tacos are pretty good, man.
Thanks.
It was very improvised, like, well, hopefully it lives up to the name, but I was kind of
like, eh, might work.
Yeah.
You were, you picked a dangerous one.
Having, having Hispanics on the roster for the night.
Sienna, I actually really liked them.
She talked about it after we got in the tent.
She's like, she's like, I'm not going to lie.
I wish there was more.
It was pretty good.
Yeah.
I should have bought another bag of chicken.
Oh, that's all right.
No, I think my first night I didn't cook, uh, as much.
And then I overcompensated the rest.
So what was it?
Yeah.
What was the first night we did?
We did the hot dogs and then we had eggs, pancakes, spam.
The first morning there wasn't really enough.
And then after that, it was like, I did eggs of chorizo.
I used the leftover stuff from Alex's hobo pie.
He had some potatoes and onions left and I had a couple, a couple logs of chorizo left.
So I use the rest of our eggs and chorizo to make some of that.
That breakfast that last night, that was really good.
Yeah.
Oh, did I make breakfast the morning of?
Yeah.
That's what you made last morning was the, with the leftover hobo packet stuff.
Yeah.
The steak and everything.
I had a taco packet.
One of the fancier taco packets that you can get at Meyer.
And it was actually pretty good.
I fried the potatoes first, fried the onions and mushrooms second and had the, had the
bean all in there.
And then we added it all into a pot and had some little breakfast tacos and they're pretty
good.
All right.
I guess we should get off food because we're going to make these listeners really want
to eat.
So, all right.
Here's a good one.
What was the, what was something that you wish you had this on this trip that you didn't
and what was something that you realized while we were, you know, while we were here that
you were using or that, or that you had that you were like, fuck, this is such a good idea.
So start off, let's start off with Alex, something you wish you had the whole camp trip and didn't
have something that you had.
And it was like, thank God.
I really, I can't think of anything.
I mean, I brought the house in the kitchen sink.
That was the joke the whole weekend.
Yeah, right.
I really can't think of anything that I didn't have.
I mean, a heater would have been nice, but we did fine without it.
Yeah.
I really can't think of anything that comes right to mind.
Like anything bathroom related.
Okay.
So because you had a anything, well, no.
Nobody knows you don't share toilet seats.
Thankfully, thankfully we had that situation under control, but that was, that was honestly,
like if I didn't have that, that would have sucked.
No, I a hundred percent agree.
If I didn't have your toilet to, uh, I think, I think everybody at Mark and Alan were the
only ones I didn't see go in there.
And but I'm like, they must have like a pooper or something in their tent because there's
no way.
I don't know how you guys are doing it.
I usually go through camp.
We can barely using a toilet.
That's crazy.
They go to the gas station.
Well, I know.
Yeah, we did that.
Uh, I think, so for me, like something that I didn't have that I wish that I did was probably,
um, more pillows and blankets.
I just for comfort, not even, not even warmth, but for comfort, we were on kind of a slow,
but it would have been nice to throw a blanket down to have the kid run around on the blanket.
Um, but I was really, really, really glad that we had, we ended up getting a heater.
Uh, what was it?
Friday morning?
Yeah.
I like the first night you got a heater.
Yeah.
We used Alex's a little buddy heater and that was great.
But as it was starting to get colder, he almost needed it for his dog more than anything.
I mean, that's something I wish that I had brought Mercy's coat because she was her.
Yeah.
Or like even like a heated blanket for mercy.
They make those heated dog pads.
That would be great.
Like a battery powered heating blanket.
They have the little, they have charging blocks.
Um, yeah, she needs to just quit getting old on me so she can handle the cold.
So Arizona dogs, so Arizona dogs are starting used to it.
But, I mean, yeah, Arizona, I'm sorry, Arizona.
Mercy was really, really chilly these, the last couple of days, it got really cold, started
to chill your bones a little bit when you were outside.
Um, and then it started raining that last day and I, I was so glad I had that, that
heater.
I will say that I'm definitely, I'm definitely going to diesel next year.
Yeah.
I went through, I, I measured it.
I went through two cans a night of one pounders.
So I was going through two pant, two pounders a night, which is roughly, it was what?
Okay.
20, it was, that'd be 20 bucks a night.
Yeah.
20 bucks a night, which is not ideal by the time I got to the last night.
And what, what is it I was using for the camp stove, what we were all kind of using that
same stove.
By the time we got done with all that, I would say we probably went through probably 10 cans.
Yeah.
10, maybe 12 between Alex using his cans the next couple of nights too.
So that's, that's a good 120, 180 bucks.
I say 180 just because of, you know, all the extra, we had some half cans, we had some
extra ones that went out too.
That day that we bought some, we should have just got together and got like a 20 pounder.
Yeah.
Highly suggested doing a 20 pound tank for us instead of just the little Coleman tanks.
I knew, I knew it wasn't going to last much longer than this weekend.
My only issue with that is like needing to spread out your, the 20 pounder in my tent
and then something for your tent too.
So like that was the only issue I had for that keeping them warm, but we really weren't
using it in our tent.
Most of what we used was on the stove.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I, I, I, for a 20 pound tank, that would have been nice.
I think, I think a 10 pound tank is perfect.
Like 10 or 11 pound, I think is what they make though.
They make those 10, 11 pounders that you can strap to.
I think that would have been great for those four days, two pounds a night, having a little
extra for the stove.
And if you guys look at the cost breakdown of that, it's, it's like $2 a gallon to fill
your propane up on those at like a tractor supply or a gas station.
They fill up your existing tank.
Whereas you're looking at $10 a bottle almost, right?
Was it $10 a bottle or 10 bottles for a two pack?
$10.
Yeah.
$10 for a two pack that you were going through per night.
So at that point you might as well just get a state park, go sit in a state park cause
you're already paying 20 bucks a night.
Just, you know what I mean?
Just to heat your stuff.
So might as well just get full electric.
I hate to say it like that, but that's kind of how I saw it as, as I was going, you know,
through that last couple of days.
And I'm like, dude, we're going through, I think that last, that actually that last morning
I went through three tanks.
It was cold though.
We, yeah, because it rained and we went to bed at like six, we got into our tents and
stuff after we ate dinner.
So we went through a tank six to, you know, every couple hours, four or five hours we
go through a tank.
So by the time we woke up in the morning, we had already gone through, yeah, through
tanks and also definitely diesel eaters in the future.
Cause that'll save us a ton of money.
Not only that, but I have a infant and I wasn't as worried for the O2.
It was definitely a concern, O2 issues and these, and, and buddy heaters.
But my biggest issue was when he woke up and wanted to crawl over and grab it.
Those things are hot.
And, and it was a constant fight trying to keep him off of it.
Now granted next year he'll be one or so and he'll, he'll probably have a better understanding.
But for some of these other people that are thinking about putting buddy eaters in there,
you don't think about that at first, but if you're in the middle of sleeping and your
kid starts crawling around the tent, um, you know, they have safety switches and all that
was cool.
But if they touch that front metal, great.
They're burning their hand for sure.
Yeah, that's already hot.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that was, uh, that was, that was one thing that I'm glad that I had that I
was like, who kind of saved our vacancy this weekend.
Like I said earlier in the episode, we were all sick.
Um, Jasper, when he starts teething, he gets sick and he gets us all sick.
So we were all kind of battling it out and having something to keep the air a little
warmer so that we weren't freezing and breathing in cold air because it doesn't help the sinuses.
Um, it was nice.
So diesel heaters, I think we're all doing diesel heaters next year.
And that's going to, that might free us up to do some more winter camping next year.
So I'm excited for that.
Getting away from the farm is kind of hard, but yeah, but you know, we can do, we can
do weekend, we can do a night, you know, um, you know, doing a, doing a night isn't so
bad either, you know, doing like a Friday, Friday night into Saturday evening.
And you need like half the stuff for a night.
Exactly.
You, you own like, I only have to bring like hot dogs.
Yeah.
And that's it.
You know what I mean?
So, I mean, right.
Yeah.
As long as this, as long as it's like a one night or something, I think would be fine.
But you know, just to get out there, I mean, I get such bad cabin fever that if I'm not
wheeling this year during the winter, man, I don't know what I'm going to do.
All right, Mark, what's something you wish you had brought?
Uh, wouldn't I be a heater?
At least take the edge off in the morning, morning, trying to crawl out a nice warm sleeping
bag was very annoying.
Trying to convince myself to get up.
Oh, I know.
Trying to get up and just go pee.
Like I had to get up and go pee multiple times.
And we joked multiple times about having a heater in the little bathroom area because
it was like, dude, you're like teeth chattering out there, you know, hands around your legs
and you're like, damn, it's cold.
What are you talking about jokes?
I brought my little buddy with me every time I went at night time.
I thought about it.
My wife probably killed me.
It was, it was, it was such a big difference in the tent that as soon as I opened the
door, you could feel a good 10 degree difference come in.
It was, uh, those, those, after I bought the, that buddy heater from tractor, I could sleep
in my, not even a t-shirt, like just, just bare and without, and, and, and no blanket.
Let me say that.
Like no, no comforter or nothing.
And I was comfortable.
So let me preface that.
Like yes, you could sleep in your, in your sleeping bag like Alex does buck naked and
be fine.
But I was sleeping out of my sleeping bag buck naked and was fine.
So that, that was a big improvement on our sleeping.
And if anyone doesn't know sleeping buck naked when you're camping, it's the way to go.
Yep.
Until you start hearing stuff in the woods, weirdo popping out of your tent buck naked.
But no, we didn't have any weird, we didn't have any weird things happen.
Really.
We had the, the bar, the, the owls were like the creepies.
The weasel you're right, Mark.
He had, he had these weasels that were like the size of chipmunks, but there were little
weasels and I'm sitting there, you know, I'm sleeping with my hand outside of the tent
of the sleeping bag on the floor.
And all of a sudden I feel something from underneath the tent hooking up and hitting
my hand.
And I'm like, what the fuck?
What is that?
And dude, I literally played pop the weasel.
Like I'm sitting there like fuck you, like get out of here.
Oh, or like trying to smack them with a propane tank, like trying to get them out of there
that you could hear them.
And it's funny enough, my son stepped on them on accident the next day and you could hear
him.
You could hear him like, what the heck?
I've never seen these things before in my life.
And then now they're all over this field that we were sleeping in.
Yeah.
Watching, watching Wrangler try and catch one from underneath the tent.
Yeah.
And he's just paw over paw running across their 15 foot wide tent.
Yeah.
No, that was, that was funny.
That was like, that was a really good one.
I would say also for you, Alex, maybe sand stakes.
Yeah.
I definitely needed to bring sand stakes to that last night.
Yeah.
That's another one that one corner popped up and just flooded.
It was like a river running under.
Thank God that I sleep on a cot, dude.
Yeah.
The only water issue that we had was the condensation, which is known for anyone that runs buddies
or any kind of propane heaters in the tent.
The condensation, we'd get like a drip down on us every once in a while.
And then oddly enough, like running those heaters all night, the propane tanks collect
a lot of frost and then that frost would melt and you'd get like a small little bit of water.
But that was really the only water issues we had in that tent, which is, which is good.
I mean, that tent, the way that that's laid out is pretty well waterproofed, not really
any way for water to get in there.
The rain flies bigger than the tent.
Yeah.
It's like a turtle shell.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a great, it's a great harsh weather tent.
It's not a great lounging tent, if that makes sense.
Like if you have a nice summer day or something like that and you want to be able to look
up at the stars and all that, not as great there with your rain fly on.
But other than that, dude, it kept us warm, kept us dry.
Your guys's tents did well.
Yeah.
I guess we're running the same tents other than that one part collapsing and then needing
sand stakes, which is just a terrain issue, not necessarily the 10.
Right.
Yeah.
They did well.
For a hundred bucks.
That's probably the best tent you can buy.
It's big.
It's roomy.
You can fit what?
Three queen size air mattresses in there.
It's definitely, it's definitely good base camp tent, I would say.
And the setup's not horrible with it.
So I can't say that it's not a good expedition style tent.
And I'm using expedition lightly just to help classify what Alex does versus what I do.
Base camp versus expedition is kind of what I've been using.
But I would say that it's not the worst even for beginner expeditions.
I mean, it's a really big tent.
If you want a really good budget Coleman tent when you're first starting out, I don't think
it's the bad one.
There are much worse choices that you could make.
That's for sure.
So yeah.
Well, so what we, we had some, we didn't really have any trail failures.
And I say that, yeah, well, the CV actually, I wouldn't even call trail because we got
home.
Yeah.
So, so I think honestly, this weekend we did really well.
We had really good fire.
Mark has a pickup truck.
So he brought the fire ring and everything.
Yeah.
That was really nice.
We had some, we listened to some good music and around the fire, I carved out a little,
a little, I don't even know, mascot for botches.
I decided that, you know, after me and Alex were messing with our chainsaws, that we were
going to, I was going to carve something up.
I got it in my head that I wanted to carve some toys or something.
So I, I made a plan in my own head of what I was going to try to make a bear.
And then it started to look more like an owl.
Then it started to look like the weird, weird, uh, aliens from Toy Story.
Yeah.
The weird alien from Tori story or that, um, totem from brother bear, I hear.
So it, so to me, it's just a barrel and, and honestly, I was really happy.
We got it pretty, I got it pretty well carved out.
Maybe Alex will edit as cover art here so that he can show what it looks like.
And to this point, I might make that, uh, probably not the episode cover, but definitely
a chapter cover.
Yeah.
And, but, uh, yeah, I got it carved out and honestly, my son loved it.
He was playing with it all night.
I had pictures of him, you know, he was teething.
So he was gnawing on it too.
And it was kind of special for me.
Um, you know, it's, it hits you a little different when it's something handmade that you spent
time on and he really liked it.
I started making a pickup truck too.
And he played with that and the doll or whatever you call it, the, uh, all, all that night
and then the next morning and, and still plays with them at home.
So he was walking around with the unfinished truck that I haven't even finished either.
Yeah, no, I haven't finished it out yet.
I just started digging the box out, uh, that night when it started, it started raining
a little bit.
So yeah, no, I mean, it all went well.
Um, the kid loved it.
He had a fricking blast.
The inner really liked it.
I don't know.
I just, uh, it was a good trip.
It was good year trip.
Um, I don't know.
We'll have to start planning on what we want to do next year.
I think I haven't talked to you guys much about what we want to do next year, but I
mean, now's not a bad time to do it right on the pod.
No, I'm thinking like, I don't know about you guys as far as how you guys like, um,
going how far you want to go out, but I've noticed that we do all west and I want to
check some east off.
Well, I am kind of thinking about possibly doing badlands.
I think that badlands would be a very good trip for us kind of overland down to the badlands
park and then spend a day or two in badlands.
Yeah.
I know we talked about badlands before.
Yeah, I, um, I'm with you a little bit on that.
Um, it's not my type, but I could definitely get, get her, get around it a little bit.
I always, I always say that parks aren't really my thing until I started playing in parks.
Um, as long as it's a big enough park that I'm not seeing over and over again, I'm good.
Yeah.
Um, the way that we do it, we kind of, we go for the scenery and the, um, the end points.
So we're trying to get to, uh, different towns, different locales, beaches, different points,
um, you know, going to museums, historical areas.
So that's kind of what I like doing, but I wouldn't be opposed to it.
I think my original, um, my original request was maybe going east to do the St. Helen or
V route.
They have a big blue trail there and then they have a bunch of big blue trails up there.
Um, North Meridian road, Heath.
Um, and then they have a really, I don't know how long this one is.
It looks like 17 miles.
So it's bigger than Yuma, uh, 17 mile the St. Helen or V route, which is just east of
us.
So it really wouldn't be a far drive.
I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to St. Helen.
I think, uh, for me, badlands, uh, isn't like super high on my list.
I understand the allure to it, but just, I would almost want to do St. Helens.
Um, you know, Heath, this blue stuff here, and then just explore because I've never,
I've never been this far east for off-roading.
It's always been, it's always been very like Tawas, um, you know, all coastal.
Um, but I know at some point we want to go, there's, there's a Northeast, there's a, uh,
uh, a rod and gun tower loop.
Uh, it's a blue trail.
That's only like six miles though, but there's a crap ton of trails around it.
And that's kind of the 20.
So we can do St. Helens for 2025, uh, 2026.
We want to either do tell you ride or Moab.
Yeah.
Uh, where's tell you ride?
Uh, Colorado.
Oh, geez.
Is that a park or an area?
Uh, it's a city.
Cause I would be probably more down for tell you ride than it would be Moab.
It's just mine.
Oh, nevermind then.
So maybe it'll be, maybe it'll be just equal.
I think I'd still like to check Colorado off.
You haven't even been to the desert, man.
I know you like trees, but I have a list.
I have a list of priorities and the desert's just not on them.
Yeah.
That's the easiest way for me to put it.
I have Moab and these other, these other places, CNN and I don't prefer the desert type of
landscape.
We like, we like dark greens and lush forests and rainforests and stuff like what's in Canada.
So I don't know.
I don't know.
Oh, maybe.
But would you be, would you be willing to go and do stuff like that over Moab?
No.
So that's like, I don't know.
Flagstaff would be really fun.
I haven't been there in 2016.
Yeah.
So that's like where, that's where I'm like, if you go to Arizona, you're going for typically
you're going from Moab, right?
Moab's Utah, but.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
What was the heck am I thinking of then down there?
I mean, to be fair, Moab and Flagstaff aren't crazy far apart.
I mean, I think I heard of something else in Arizona.
I'm trying to remember.
Moab is closer to Flagstaff than Michigan is to Flagstaff.
So right.
Yeah, we'll see.
That's still pretty far away.
And I think we're all the type that we don't usually know until pretty quick toward, you
know, closer to the end.
No.
I mean, I think I'm going to be a little bit confused with work and everything right now.
But I know that if I can get there, I really want to go to, you know, do Drummond at some
point, because I want to check that off my list.
I would like to do.
There's a blue trail just into Canada.
Highline Highway.
That's on my list, too.
And then my biggest check off for next year for just us in general, Sienna and I and the
kid is going to be Copper Harbor, all the trails up to Copper Harbor.
There's a really long one that goes all the way from the tip of Copper Harbor, where there's
some nice blue trails up there.
And then, yeah, and then the the seven hour plane crash trail.
We want to take that.
That's pretty much shut down now.
They shut down the or they shut down parts of it.
They shut down the front and the end of it.
I don't even think it's on onyx anymore, is it?
Yes.
Yeah, I kind of heard mixed things about that.
Yeah, some they shut down some areas, but there's a bypass around some of the others.
So I'd like to do that.
And then I we wanted to do it this year for fall colors.
We're just not going to get around to it.
The porcupine mountains and the lake of the clouds is high on our watch list for next
year.
We really want to do it.
We've been waiting.
We were going to do it this year.
You know, with this, we were probably going to do it around this area with fall colors.
And then we did so we did this trip with botches.
And then I have a cryptid trip that I had planning out coming up.
And so we just didn't have the time to save for that kind of thing.
So yeah, that's going to be a that's going to be a big one.
I'd really like to do copper.
I'd really like to do the seven hour plane crash.
I could do that in a day.
You seven hour play crash.
I would play in a couple of days.
Yes, and make sure you start from Wisconsin and not drive up to the Keto on Peninsula
and drive all the way back like we did.
I say it took us.
I mean, we did that trip in about four days, three days on that trail.
Yeah.
Oh, did you?
And that was that was driving pretty much all day every day.
Oh, I'm only talking about from that to like my plan was to do seven hour down to the porcupine
mountains.
So just that trail, that part of the trail right there.
If you're starting, OK, if you're starting at the top of that one, I wouldn't even mess
with seven hour.
I just follow Bill Nichols.
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm.
Yeah, I could see that is down towards the end here.
It's called Bill Nichols.
But that same trail that says Bill Nichols is saying that it's the seven hour plane crash
too.
So that's the only reason why I said that.
No, they're not the same.
Bill Nichols trail comes all starts at Houghton and then comes around and becomes the mill
mine, whereas the seven hour plane crash starts at Houghton and then just goes south to South
Range.
Well, what's the one that goes all the way?
What's the one that starts up at the Bay at High Rock Bay?
That's seven hour.
Yeah, that one starts at seven hour.
Yes, you'd follow that down.
But then that's what I want to start at.
Yeah.
I take Bill Nichols when you get to the bottom.
Yeah.
But we want to do I want to spend a couple of days up there in Copper Harbor.
Sienna's never been up there.
She's never been to Q&A.
That might just be a trip on its own, just a four day trip in the Q&A area.
If I could move to Q&A, I would.
I absolutely love it up there.
Sienna and I were working on our plan.
Our plan is to move to Marquette.
And then just that area, the basic area of Marquette.
We really, really love that area.
It's beautiful.
We're good on the snow.
We were fine with that.
And then and then explore the whole area around here till we're okay, till we're good.
And then eventually we're going to keep moving west.
So don't know what that looks like yet.
But that's like our that's our plan for the future.
And just I like the I like that idea of not having you know, for me, I wanted to van camp
or a lot of this.
I don't want to have a base a house base camp that I'm buying, you know.
So but I'm also I have to think like semi long term, you know, is renting going to be
better than buying a house.
I don't want to be stuck for five to 10 years in one area per se.
I mean, if you have a good enough job, you just buy a house everywhere you stop and then
rent it.
Yeah.
I mean, every year, essentially, you know, that's what we'd all want.
Right.
I mean, hopefully our podcast, you know, podcast gets off and we start your YouTube and you
know, we don't have to worry about this anymore.
We've got to stand not only would you love to read your messages, but we would love to
quit our jobs.
Exactly.
I don't want to I don't want to work my day job anymore.
This is what I want my day job to be.
But I you know, we have pretty entry level jobs to where you can find them just about
anywhere.
So, you know, she was auto zone.
Yeah, you can work as a farmer.
That would be a big pay cut.
And something it has there's always ups and downs, especially like in your position to
ups and downs.
But so we're thinking maybe maybe we rent for a couple of years, like rent a house for
a couple of years and then we move west and rent a house for a couple of years and move
west.
And I think other than the only thing that I'm worried about is my son in school.
And you know, that talk will come up with him eventually when we you know, when he's
able to make these decisions and talk to us about it.
But that's the only thing I'm really worried about there.
Renting a house is, you know, if you can get to it and do a long term or do a lease.
I think that's going to be our best way to do it.
We have a house.
It's not an apartment.
So we're not, you know, locked down by, you know, apartment rules and stuff.
We have a whole house to ourselves for a kid.
So doing that for a couple of years and then moving out to, you know, running a U-Haul
with a trailer and moving out to North Dakota or Montana is probably our next stop is Montana.
Doing Montana for a few years, maybe moving a little bit more west because Montana is
so frickin big.
And then, yeah, just moving.
Just keep going.
Just Colorado to Oregon to Washington, Wyoming, everything.
I mean, we want to hit it all.
We want to, you know, we want to travel and see it all.
So that's kind of the plan for now, hopefully.
And we'll see how it goes.
We could be in Michigan the whole rest of our lives after this and take four day trips
or five day trips up there.
Who knows?
To be fair, that wouldn't be the worst thing, man.
Michigan is a beautiful place.
It's a beautiful place, but it just doesn't have.
I have lived all over.
I've lived all over the United States and there's a reason that I came back home.
Because your family's here.
No, I mean, yes.
Yeah.
I mean, I lived an hour and a half away from my family.
I mean, I like Michigan too, dude.
I think it's gorgeous.
I like the fact that we're not getting hurricanes constantly.
The people don't suck in all of the places.
There's not a lot of animals that come out to kill you.
So like it's Michigan's a super safe place to live as far as like environmental, you
know, animals, the weather, really, really good place to live.
It's just it doesn't have the mountain ranges.
It doesn't have dark green rainforests.
It doesn't have things that we haven't seen yet.
We don't have we don't have massive 30 foot giant sequoias.
You know, it's and my you know, as much as some people say that living in Washington
and Oregon right now is like the worst thing ever.
I mean, they're better than California.
Yeah.
I would like nothing more to have a small cabin in the middle of the Redwoods to be
fair, surrounded by giant sequoias on a river.
It's like 90 percent of 90 percent of Oregon would be awesome to live in.
Just stay away from Portland.
Yeah.
I mean, that's that's the plan.
I would like to live in Oregon or Washington and the trails around there.
Oh, my God.
I've got I've got a buddy from Pineville, Oregon, and that area is absolutely beautiful,
dude.
Like unmatched.
Yeah.
And that's exactly that's the thing, though, is like to me, the videos that I've seen,
of course, these are edited, blah, blah, blah.
I get it.
But the videos that I've seen and I've watched hours and hundreds of hours, thousands of
hours of videos.
Oregon is like it's like my top place.
Oregon, Washington, the rainforest, the the giant sequoias is just just where I want to
be, man.
I there's something about these rainforest areas that I just love rain.
I love rain.
So before before I lived in the desert, Oregon was like my dream place to live for the same
reason.
But after you actually spend some time in the desert, man, it is because it's brown
all the time and then it just jumps rain for like a month and it is so much greener than
anywhere else.
It is so beautiful.
This is editor Alex now.
I just want to say there's a very long pause here that I edited out.
And that's how you know that Gavin accidentally muted himself.
And Gavin muted himself.
Yep.
Oh, yeah, maybe I didn't unmute.
Sorry.
I had to cough.
But I was gonna say that's just Stockholm syndrome, man.
I was like, yeah, like you just used everything being brown and then it just dumps rain.
You're like, wow, so that's just because you're used to seeing brown all the time.
It's a whole different kind of green when it's green, though.
Like it is so beautiful.
Yeah, no, I mean, I wouldn't I definitely not opposed to it.
Don't get me wrong.
It's not like I'm hating on the hating on the southwest down there or nothing.
I course it has a place.
Of course, I would love to see it.
I just when CNN and I are talking about our end goals and where we want to be and what
we want to see, those are highest on our priority list.
And then as a family unit, that's, of course, what we're going to try to prioritize.
So where Moab might not be the highest on our priority list right now, it's on there.
And of course, if we get a chance to go there relatively cheap and maybe we do that or viewers.
Yeah, paid by viewers.
We've been tossing.
We've been tossing around running a car and just taking an airplane, too.
I mean, if you look at the total cost of overlanding, some of this stuff and the vehicle wear and
tear of going across the country, because we are going just about across the country
for this.
I mean, it's it's almost cheaper to rent a plane and then rent a Jeep or something when
you're there.
We're not.
I don't know.
It's just something that we're tossing around because we want to see the sites.
We want to see the national parks and stuff.
We're not looking to do like massive overlanding there, but we still want to check it off our
list sooner rather than later.
So it's just something that we're kind of tossing around to maybe that maybe doing that
as well.
I definitely would want my forerunner just because I'd like to be able to get pictures
of my forerunner in the place.
Yeah, no, for sure.
I mean, you know, I love I love the pictures just as much.
So it's when we start looking at the cost breakdown and we're like and you know, when
I'm looking at I'm like, dude, I'd love to go here in the next year or two.
And you're looking at how much it's going to cost for everything.
Oh, man.
You're like, there's no fricking way.
Well, if you think about it, like just right now, just spitballing, I'll look up flights
from we'll do Detroit because it's always cheaper to fly out of Detroit.
You will say Portland just come on Expedia load faster.
I mean, you're looking at four hundred dollars a person to fly.
Yeah, I'm looking at twenty two hundred miles.
And let's break down twenty two hundred miles.
And we're going to divide that.
There's twenty two hundred miles divided by two hundred.
Because I get about two hundred miles a tank.
OK.
So that's eleven tanks.
So eleven.
I'm looking at it by mileage.
I'm back with my extra weight and everything I have on there.
Plus stopping or taking whatever detours, I'm just assuming two hundred a tank.
And that's pretty typical of what people are getting.
So eleven tanks times what are gas prices right now?
And plus in Oregon, what's the average?
I just put five dollars to average it at 15 miles per gallon.
You're looking at about seven hundred and thirty three dollars.
So I'm looking at about the same price to take a flight over there.
And that's just on gas.
That's not food.
That's not any kind of lodging.
That's not snacks.
That's one way.
Yeah, that's one way.
That's road snacks, by the way.
You know, that's it's you're looking at that and like, hmm, it's it's going to be cheaper
for sure to get a flight.
Is it going to be the same experience?
Absolutely not.
Is it going to be something that I want to do later with the vehicle once I have saved
up more money?
Absolutely.
I'm not saying that it replaces overlanding.
Obviously, that's why we're all into this hobby or whatever you want to call it in the
first place.
But if we're if we're really trying to knock some of these out earlier rather than later,
you know, as a two to three year plan instead of a five to ten year, that might be a quick
and dirty way to get in there, see it, experience some of it, get an idea for what I want to
do, where I want to go and then come back with a real plan after, you know, and then
actually like plan a trip around what I saw, what I wanted to do, stuff like that.
You know, like a scouting trip, if you if you will.
So that's that's something that we've been tossing around to because I don't see myself
going to Washington in the next two, two to four years.
Just I mean, I mean, anywhere that West, it's a lot of money to save for someone who's,
you know, we're making, you know, we're making average for the typical person around here.
Yeah, yeah.
And we're coming off every week with not a whole lot saved, obviously, we paid on our
debts and, you know, at the end of the day, we're all average budgeting overlanders here
in this part of Michigan.
And so we don't make crazy money.
And the money that we do make is going into our rigs to make it easier for us to do these
things.
So or just keep them on the road.
Yeah, just the road is a struggle.
I mean, especially when you're daily driving them.
That's one thing.
But so I don't know, like looking at that price right there, adding a way back and then
and then knowing that you're going to go through multiple extra tanks driving around just to
see these places, you know, add, add, you know, you're five to 10 extra tanks.
I mean, you're looking at easily three thirty or three thousand of thirty five hundred that
trip driving.
Yeah.
Is that one way?
No, that's all together.
Yeah.
Because I can tell you right now, your truck.
Yes.
I can tell you right now that when CNN and I did our expeditionary 1200 mile trip at
the U.P., we went through a good 12 to 1500 dollars.
And and I think all things considered, we did well.
But most of that was gas, man.
I mean, two, four, six, eight, two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve.
Yeah.
We had two rigs when we did ours.
And I think with trailside repairs, lower ball joint.
Yeah.
I think that we came out to what, like twenty four or twenty five hundred.
Yeah.
Sounds about right.
A lot of it sounds a splurging when we probably didn't need to.
So what's man, what's the point you're doing there?
You're you're there to have the fun, man.
We went up there and we went and bought some stuff, some clothes for Jasper's from some
of these small town shops.
We bought some stickers.
We bought some knickknacks for Jasper.
Things to remember him by.
We stopped at waterfalls, got special ice cream.
That was the first time he's ever tried ice cream.
So I mean, it's not like it's not going towards anything, but it's not cheap either.
Right.
So these these bigger trips are definitely longer in the future for me on that.
That money talk we would love if you guys would boost in and just give us a little note.
Tell us that we're god awful at this.
Maybe some money so that we can maybe quit or quit doing it.
You know, who knows?
Yeah.
Put a note in and and say how bad Gavin's ADHD has gotten.
How many times I've went off topic lately.
Just put in a note.
Just let me know.
Don't worry.
I'm getting meds.
I'll be fixed soon.
You're like, yeah, just just help help in any way you can.
And it doesn't have to be sending money.
It doesn't just viewing helps sharing helps talking about it.
The whole value for value thing.
It's not just money.
It's time, treasure and talent.
You got some talent that you want to give us?
Shoot, shoot us some artwork for our covers.
You got some time and you want to come on and tell us how much of idiots we are.
Fuck.
Come on.
Let us know.
Send us send us messages.
Say hey, it'd be really cool if we talked about this.
It'd be really cool if we talked about that.
I've gotten a couple already talking about an off road Prius we have coming up.
We have our upcoming episodes.
We have some talking about North Carolina, some of the relief that are one of the groups
we're affiliated with did.
It's just some some really cool stuff we have coming up.
We have a really exciting interview that we're working on right now that we're going to be
dropping soon with a very, very well known podcaster and overlander.
So we really want you guys to keep in tune.
We're trying to keep things fresh.
We're trying to keep things like I said, all things, all things overlanding from camping
to rock landing.
So talking about how broke we are.
Yep.
Talking about how broke we are.
We really appreciate you guys really sticking with us and helping us through this.
We're still working out the kinks, still getting everything settled.
We'll be we'll be set pretty soon here, though.
We got things we got things rolling around.
We're getting better every time.
Yeah, not.
There's not really a not really a whole lot left for us to do, but climb really.
So you know, we appreciate your time.
Thanks for stopping in.
Thanks for listening to our little our post trail updates.
Thanks Mark.
Thanks Alex.
Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, you know, all things overland leaves a really, really big opening for us to get
off topic.
Yes, we did.
We did get through all our trails.
We did get through all our stuff.
And overall, Yuma was fun.
I mean, we can all agree it's not meant to be a blue trail for dusty summers.
But yeah, we could definitely see it being a blue trail for the winters and spring.
Anytime it's soggy out, it was a lot of fun.
We'll see you guys next time.
Later.