Welcome to Botches Off-Road. Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to
trail stories, tent camping to rock landing, and all things to do with the outdoors. Today
we have another special guest. Let's welcome JD. Thanks for joining us, JD.
Thanks for having me. JD's got a couple little things that we want to do today on the episode.
We want to talk a little bit about her rig. We're going to talk a little bit about some
of the things that she's been doing lately. She made a relief trip down to North Carolina.
We're going to talk about that in a little bit. But why don't we start out with your
rig? What's your primary overlanding rig? I've got a 2022 Tacoma SR5. Currently right
now I have a two-inch lift on it, Pro Comp Shocks Patagonia tires, Old Man Emu Leafs.
I've got an Ironman 4x4 front bumper with a 9,500 pound winch synthetic rope. I've got
a rooftop tent from CVT, which was a prototype. Oh, I didn't realize that was a prototype.
Yeah. It's been an interesting build. I started my build in 2023 and ironically I had traded
in my 2020 TRD off-road because I was like, I'm never going to do any off-roading. I'm
not going to be hitting the trails or anything like that. And then fast forward a year, I'm
in my driveway with tools and YouTube videos going, how do I build this SR5 out? Right?
Oh man, that's SR5. Does that not have rear lockers on it? Is that true for the SR5s?
Yeah. I would say, good.
Yeah, no, it doesn't. The reason I traded down was because I was like, oh, I don't need
lockers. I never use any of this. And here I am.
I hear drumming was pretty fun for you.
Yeah. It was my second time up there. First time was good. Did some stuff, did marblehead
before they shaved it down to be a half roadway. This last tour was interesting. A couple of
the guys from the Mitten State Tours group took us on a route called Titan Twisties.
I got stuck every five minutes on Titan Twisties.
I was about to say, I think that was gnarly last trip too. Cause me and Alex went down
the, with, oh, what's his name? I keep forgetting, me and Alex keep forgetting one guy's name,
the other white Tacoma.
I met him once, but I don't recall his name. But yeah, we hit Titan Twisties and they're
like, you're going to be fine. It'll be all right. I'm on 33s, right? I'm on 33s. I don't
have any skids. Like the first part of the tour was fine. And then we get to like the
muddier areas and like, they were pretty much tank traps. They were pretty close to tank
traps. And I was like, well, how do I avoid these? Right. And I just got stuck from that
point on. I tried to get around the first mud hole and I got stuck and I think it took
us about 45 minutes and two winches to get me out.
That's my next question. Your truck's heavier than 9,500 pounds, isn't it?
No, no, it's, it's, it's two in a line, but no, it's not, it's not that heavy. It's back
end heavy with the big roof top 10. I'm tall and I'm top heavy basically. And we're working
on a solution for that. When my wallet gets a little bit thicker than it is now.
Yeah. Let me know what you do because I'm going to be ending up all around that same
path by choice, but I'm going to try to compensate for that. So,
I know, like, I don't know if you guys go to Riggs and coffee or not, but I'm dropping
the truck off with Becker and I'm doing Ironman four by fours, foam cell shocks and everything.
He's just going to, he's going to do everything. We're going to replace the leafs. We need
the shocks, the control arms, everything. Cause Drummond Island beat me up pretty bad.
Oh yeah. You should, you should buy her leafs, Mark.
I mean, it depends on how good they are. I mean, I know mine are been out of shape because
it used to hold a giant bowl. Well, I've got the old man, emu 112 Rs, which is 660 pounds
constant load. They're sending me new ones because they sagged. So those are brand new.
I don't. Sounds like, sounds like you could bar, buy those old ones off of her then.
I probably could, as long as they're not in shape. They're probably better than what I
have. Yeah. Some sagging leafs are still better than no leafs. I'll, I'll sell you the brand
new ones right out of the box for the same price. I'd sell you the used ones. I'm not
going to use them. I'm not running a big load, so it should work for me. That should be plenty
for you then. If, if you're not running a big load, I, I'm pretty back heavy. So I'll
have to, I'll have to get you to send me a picture of your rig so I can put it for a
cover art somewhere in here. Okay. I do. I do a lot of photo editing, so I'll make it
look cool. Yeah. You got a lot. I, I'm on your Instagram right now, so there's plenty,
but I mean, you also have, you said the CBT, it was a CBT tent, right? Yeah. So I've been
pretty lucky. Yeah. I've been lucky in my build so far in true raccoon fashion. I've
been able to have Facebook marketplace, a lot of stuff. One of the ones was a CVT prototype
tent that I got from a guy who used to know the owner of CVT before he sold it. And it
was a tent called the Mount Fury. It was when they first started breaking into kind of like
the hard shell rooftop tents. And so they had brought a bunch of models over from testing
and they just released them, but they had hinge issues. So I got a pretty good deal
on it and him and I worked together to get the hinge fixed. And it's, it's pretty big.
It sleeps four. It's got an awning that I can zip onto it, but also has an annex that
sleeps an additional three. So, well, that's great. Yeah, that's big. I think that's what
I'm looking at for. I think it's the, the four by four Colorado that I'm looking at
is the Alto Elite. Okay. That's, I think that's 270 pounds, complete aluminum shell canvas.
So I mean, it's heavy, but it should be durable. I should not. My, my reasoning, other than
all the other stuff around it is I just, that's the one stop. Like I'm not going to grow from
like a Temu tent to like an iCamp or to this. I'm just going to, I'm going to jump straight
to what I could, the best one that I can find and the biggest one that I can get for my
family. And if that doesn't work, then I'm screwed. Cause then you get a travel light
and we mount it to your roof. We are not putting a pop-up camper on my roof. I think I just
saw a video of a guy who did that the other day. Yeah, it's a little one. It's only four
by four and then it pops into big. He was talking to me earlier about mounting a motorcycle,
motorcycle like pop-up camper on the top of my roof instead. And it would be cheaper.
And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I wasn't saying your roof just in general. I want someone
to do it. Like I said, if you did it with like a flat bed or something, that'd be, that'd
be nice. Like I would, I wouldn't mind having like an older Tundra with a flat bed that
you could like put, put on like your overland setup onto it. Like the Australian utes, you
know, that's that style. That'd be cool. But yeah. So you have the, well, the, the CVT,
what are you running for air for air up, air down? I just have like a via air pump. So
for alternative power, I have, I built just like a off grid power system. I run a house
battery. So I have a thousand watt inverter in the bed. And then I have my house battery
that I've run an isolator up to the alternator charges while I'm driving, but it also has
solar hookups. I started with an AGM battery, couldn't, couldn't keep up. So I ended up
taking the plunge and getting a battle born hundred amp hour life PO four battery. And
that's worked fantastic. I've never used my solar home. It runs everything from the diesel
heater that I built to my lights. I wired my switches for all of my off-roading lights
so that they can run constantly, even if the trucks off. So that's been, been good. What
else do I have? I got a lot of stuff. I have way too much time on my hands.
Yeah. I'm going to steal some pictures off your Instagram for cover art. Cause you got
some good stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, intro true raccoon fashion, like you said, you're
running, you run in stuff that we get off of marketplace. Your lights, what primarily
what are your lights running? Are they a certain company? I used lasfit. Oh, it's an Amazon
brand. They're, they're mid cheap. I'd say they're fairly comparable to like Oxbeam.
I run pretty much all my lights with them mostly because their customer service is fantastic.
It's good to know. I actually, I have a couple of them in my cart and I installed my chase
lights. They've been on there. I just haven't wired them in and I wired them in a couple
of weeks ago, finally, before our botches trip. And so I have the lasfit chase lights
and they seem okay. They're not like too bright, but they're bright enough that you could see
them. So pretty happy with them. Yeah. I have, I have them running on the back. So I have,
I have got pods. I've got two on the left, the right, and then two on the rear. And I
use those as my chase lights. And so far, everyone that's been behind me is not complained about
being blinded. Yeah. No, your, your light setup is really fucking cool. So I'd like
to be seen from space. Yeah. Between you and between you, what's his name? I'm trying to
think. Gosh, now I can't even think of his name. Yoda, disciple. Oh, yeah. Joe Yamber
with his light setup and then Mike with the other Tacoma, the forest green Tacoma. Those
have been like the best, the best setups for lights that I've seen. You three. Yeah. You
know, I've talked about Mike. Yes. Yep. Or near or a foreigner for near for near. I don't
know. I don't know. He's his, him and his family are awesome, but the, the, their light
setup is like top notch, super, super good. And then you have like Alex with like a light
bar on his bumper. And are you talking crap about my light bar? No, I said, then you have
an Alex with a light bar his bumper. It's beautiful. I'm pretty sure I have less than
Alex right now. So yeah, you just, you just put ditch lights on too. Did you work for
box team? Yep. Yep. Yeah. I like last fit so far. Their customer service is really good.
I ran a trip out to Utah to look for rocks and I lost the bracket on both of my fog lights.
So what I had done is just out in the middle of the desert. I had run my fogs to just like
white led pods. And then it's just on my OEM switch. Right. So I just tapped it in and
I noticed it like when I turned my fogs on, they were like not bright. And I was like,
what's going on? So I hop out and I lost both the brackets on both of them. And it was probably,
you know, tighten it well enough and then put Loctite on whatever. So I called them up to
get new brackets and they just sent me a pair of new lights. They're just like, oh, just
here. Good to know. Yeah. Not that I would ever be evil, but I'm just saying. We like,
we like to hear that. I mean, we do. It's nice that they like go above and beyond. I
mean, exactly. So well, you mentioned going to Utah and that kind of, that brings me something
else. I was asking Benji about his favorite place to overlay in and camp. What's your
favorite place?
I don't know. I like to do a lot. I've got raging untreated ADHD. So I like to see all
of the things, you know, amen. Utah is hard to beat though. I'm not going to lie. If you
go in the off season, it's just Colorado, like in Utah, probably top for me. But you
know, I've, I've been a few places and they all have something special to offer, you know,
not, it's not the same no matter where you go. So, yeah, I mean, it just depends on your
outlook. I guess if you look hard enough, you can always find something. It's like,
I mean, lower Michigan is just gorgeous. Upper Michigan's like going into a different state.
To me, it's weird. It's like going west because of the rock faces and cliffs. But I've never
been farther west than Wisconsin. So that's a big, that's a big goal of mine to get out
there.
I will say this after moving back from Colorado, I'm not tempted to go that far back. I don't
want to make that up again. Mostly because of Kansas. I hate driving across Kansas.
Really?
Yeah, it's windy and I'm a wind sail. Like I'm top heavy.
Yeah, for real. I get that. I get that.
Where did you, where were you at in Utah?
I went out, I did Moab and that was, that was cool. I was solo though, so I wasn't really
fully sending it.
I'll bear in mind.
Yeah, yeah. It was an interesting experience, but it was just me and my drone. Just did
some cool stuff in Moab with that. And then I went to, I went to a mine out in the middle
of nowhere and I can't remember the name of it. Let me see if I can pull it up. Dugway.
So Dugway, Utah is known for, it's a military testing ground. It's a huge valley, but there's
also lots of rocks. And so I went and I camped out in like the valley out by Dugway and just
looked for geodes and stuff like that. Just amazing sunsets.
Yeah.
Well, did you find any rocks?
Oh, I've got buckets of rocks.
So JD's a rock hound too. I didn't realize that until I'm like posted pictures of rocks
and rock hound group. And she's like, Oh, you here too? I'm like, Hey, look at that small
world. Yeah. We're out here stealing rocks from all the places that we go. I stole a
Toskey stone, size bigger than my fist from a campground. Thank you.
I should take a picture of the one I got from Drummond Island. We were, was it Sunday or
Monday we went swimming out on the fossil edge?
I think that was Monday.
Yeah. I got like a big old rock that I dove into. Drove in to get.
Oh, I thought you meant dove into. I'm like that.
No, no, no, no, no. No, it was cold water. And so I was looking down and I saw this really
cool rock. I'm like, all right, I guess I'm going to get cold. Grab the rock.
It's a full send right there. That's, that's how you rock now.
Yeah, that's how you do it.
Have you guys ever looked at a rock fort?
No, I want to go. Well, I mean, I was when I was a kid, I went down to the, the mill.
What is it? The mill or whatever you call it. Went down to that. I'd love to go back
again. I actually forgot it was even a thing until like a month ago when I saw someone
post on it. It sounds like they were doing some changes over there too.
Yeah. It sounds like they're going to try to develop it, which is a bomber because it's
a designated dark sky area.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's over by Alpina. It's called Rockport State Recreation Area.
That's one of the few dark areas, designated dark areas left.
Yep.
There's not a crap ton of them.
I know we have one up in Mackinac.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's called.
Yeah. Good old state of Michigan doing what state of Michigan does.
Oh, you, oh, you like the outdoors. Oh my God. You enjoy this stuff. Let's get rid of
it. You're losers. You nerds. Go back to your job and pay taxes. That's just how I picture
Michigan just to stay if it was to talk to me. He's like, you nerd, pay your insurance,
pay your taxes, enjoy our bumpy roads. Go back to work.
Where do our taxes go? We don't know, but keep paying.
Yeah. Just, just pay it. Stop asking questions.
I guess now's the time to hear about your second rig.
Yeah. The one that you save all the money from taxes on because at least you save gas
money on it.
Yeah, that's true. I get anywhere from 32 to 56 miles a gallon. It just depends on how
I'm driving. I have a 2013 Prius V5 that has been lifted. And I think it's funny that my
Prius has skid plates when my Tacoma doesn't.
Bro, that's so funny.
Oh, Becker did that too.
Yeah. Yeah. So that skids and it's lifted. It gives me about 12 inches of clearance,
which is the equivalent to like a Subaru Crosstrek.
Dude, that's more than Zach's got. At least it outperforms the terrain.
I mean, is it still, is it two wheel drive or is it all wheel?
It's all wheel drive.
Oh my God.
It's pretty cool. I'm pretty jelous about it. I really want to send it in the winter.
It's got, I want to say Falcon Wild Peaks on it.
Which are great winter tires I hear.
Yeah. And those are the summer tires. I have winter tires. I haven't picked them up from
Becker yet.
Oh shoot.
Yeah. So it is, it drives smoother than my Tacoma. Hopefully that'll change soon.
But wait, wait, wait. Are you going to make the Prius worse or the Tacoma better?
Yeah. She had to pause.
I'm hoping to make the Tacoma better, but I might also make the Prius worse while I'm
waiting for the settlement of my Tacoma.
I was going to say that thing needs a light bar and some chase lights.
It's funny you say that. So the company that does the lifts is Prius. It's a company called
Prius Off-Road. Yeah, legitimately. If you have a chance to look at their website, it's
pretty cool. They've got some action shots of Prius doing donuts and stuff. It's pretty
cool. They make tow packages, lift kits, skids, and light mounts for Priuses. And I do have
a light mount for the Prius.
I'm seeing something, man. I'm seeing a really good future for this Prius. And I'm thinking,
are you going to tow a small teardrop behind it? Something like that.
But it's me, so I'd probably just throw an M104 on the back of that thing.
Yeah, right. It weighs more than the Prius.
If I can find a reliable welder, I'll probably put a Gooseneck trailer hitch to the middle
of the roof.
Have you seen those old Beatles that have that?
That would be the dopest thing ever.
I love it.
Like I said, I've got way too much free time.
No, that's perfect. No, but as far as if you were to take that overlanding and do... Obviously,
we're not trying to sink it. But if you were to take it and do forest roads, some of the
maybe a little bit harder off-camber ones, you have a really low center of gravity. It's
all wheel drive. You'd probably do okay. I mean, you'd be able to get to most places
in Michigan with it. And at 50 miles to the gallon, 30 miles to the gallon, man, it does...
I mean, I don't know, man, a little Sprinter car like that to go and do something for the
weekend, drive real far. I would not. I mean, that sounds really ideal to me for some purposes.
Absolutely.
And she can do Marblehead.
Yeah, she can do Marblehead.
She could have done Marblehead with it, not lifted with skid plates. But no, I mean, that
thing is so cool.
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. The only downside is the Prius Vs do not have the ability
to mount a roof rack without some serious modification.
I'm sure you'll get that figured out. She's like, I'm working on it. We're mock fabbing
it up. Get some cardboard out and some tape and start making some brackets.
Oh, yeah. Just wait till I have a shot, man. It's going to be all bets are off.
Oh, yeah. JD is like, she has so many different things going on between her Tacoma, her Prius,
her little heater company that she's going to start up in the next five years, her leather
punch or leather company where she's going to make like she already told me she's she's
going to make like backseat organizers out of the leather. Like it's going to be it's
going to be really cool.
I do miss having the shop space to do hobbies, but I'll be changing that in the next year
or so. So that'll be good.
Yeah, I was gonna say you you bought some property that you're going to be heading up
too soon, right?
Yeah, I am moving the first not to the property, but I have to build a house on it yet, but
just up to West Branch area.
That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah, it'll be good. Maybe I can use the one car garage and the rental to get out
the leather smithing punches and make something cool. I don't know.
Yeah, do some patches. I mean, she's got so much skill, she could make money off of
just staying at home if she had a shop. It's it's crazy.
See, I just
It's liking people.
Yeah, you're right. Exactly. Well, that's why you get in touch with other people. So
you just make them and then you get in touch with people that have customer service skills.
And then and then I help I mean, they help like take care of the rest. Then you never
really have to talk to anybody.
That's true. I can just be a gremlin. That'd be nice.
That would be nice. I mean, that's the goal. After all, I just I don't have any other skills
other than customer service. So I had to use what I got.
Fair point.
Right. But, you know, to bring it back to to a little bit more overlandy stuff here,
you actually just recently did a pretty cool trip. As I understand it, you had some family
down in North Carolina that were affected by by the floods and stuff, right?
Yeah. So how that came about was I've got extended family that lives in the Asheville
area. And they had elected to shelter in place when Hurricane Helene had hit. And they had
been stranded for a while. And they had sent out a message for help saying that they were
running out of supplies. At the same time, there was a guy on the MST group that had
posted that he was planning on going to North Carolina because he also had family that needed
help. And so Derek van Spronen, I think that's how you say his name, Derek.
Yeah, yes, bro. Yes, bro.
Michigan's. Why can't you pronounce that?
Influencer, off-road influencer.
Yeah, that guy. He's like, hey, well, why don't we do a supply run? So a couple of guys
and me got together and people started bringing in donations. Derek lent me his overlanding
trailer. We filled that up, filled the back of my truck up. And right before we were supposed
to leave, the rest of the group couldn't make it. Various obligations, they couldn't get
work off, et cetera, et cetera. But like I said, I have way too much free time. So we
made it work. And I took off down there and I was originally going to connect with a group
that was stationed in Black Mountain, which is one of the hardest hit areas. Signed up
for their volunteer groups, was going to do a supply drop there. And at the last second,
as I was going down, they said that people would just keep showing up to camp and we
have our volunteer list. It's full. We don't need you. If you're not nearby, then we're
full. We don't have any more housing for anybody. So I was like, well, what do you do? Right?
You got a trailer full of supplies, a truck full of supplies, where can you help? So my
parents actually live outside of a town called Newport, which had also been flooded, but
they had been doing some pretty concentrated efforts and things had been moving along there.
So I called up my dad. I was like, hey, look, I've got all these supplies and we need to
get them to people that need help. So my dad teamed up with me and we loaded up one truck
and took it all over along the river lines where all the smaller towns had just been
wiped out by the hurricane and just found supply drops, talked to locals. Where do we
need help? Where are people trapped? Where do people need supplies? And people were just
out there helping each other and they gave us great direction. We were able to distribute
a pretty decent amount of the supplies the first day. And then the second day we had
the other half of the supplies in the trailer. So we headed out again, talked to some locals
and they said that there were some people that were pretty bad off along the Nola Chucky
River. Smaller trailers in the mountains, smaller communities, that sort of thing. So
we dropped the rest of the supplies at a church that was cooking hot meals for people who
didn't have any power, distributing water. And while we were there, they were like, go
this direction. We haven't heard anything from the locals there. It's been several days.
We don't know if they're okay. So obviously my truck is fairly capable, despite being
heavy to tackle some of those muddy roads, those washed out areas and everything like
that. So we just took off and they pointed us in the right direction and we came across
some people that needed some help. And we talked to them. It's a group of about 70 people,
locals and then around the area that were helping dig out roads so people could get
back to their homes if they had any homes left, farmers trying to get back to their
fields, people looking for lost loved ones, that sort of thing. And so they were working
on clearing out areas that had not been cleared yet. So they said we haven't really had a
good meal in a while. Could you get us meals? So we coordinated with the church, fed these
guys and then they couldn't believe how pretty my truck was. And at that point we hadn't
gotten into too much deep mud. So they had asked if I could use my truck to drive up
a road that they couldn't clear, they kept getting their equipment stuck. They wanted
to see how far I could get with my heavy truck because then they could move their work trucks
further up the line. And that just minimized their risk of having to dig out one of their
trucks that they're using to run supplies or whatever they needed. And I couldn't say
no.
Absolutely not. So I did and I got pretty far. They got farther than they thought I
would. But they followed me with a track steer with a big old log claw on it to pull me out
if I got stuck. And we got pretty far so they were able to move their equipment up a pretty
decent way. And then just keep pushing forward looking for people stuck in houses, stuck
in trailers, that sort of thing. So overall it was a really good experience. I'd say it
was really humbling. Just the absolute devastation that the storm caused. It was kind of hard
to imagine seeing an area that was fully developed be wiped off the face of the earth. Like nothing
there. You showed up to a spot and you're like, there's supposed to be a town here.
There's supposed to be trailer park here. There's supposed to be homes here. And it
just looked like a flat floodplain. It just was mud and nothing. And so that was pretty
humbling but more incredibly was the ingenuity of the people and the helpfulness of the people
there. They were getting stuff done. Just in the few days that I was down there, they
were opening roads that, well, anywhere else would have taken months to even get drivable
maybe. They were getting them open. They were getting people help. And the selflessness
that I saw was pretty incredible. We don't have much but we've got enough. We know someone
over on the other side of the mountain doesn't have enough to get through for the next day.
So go to them. That type of thing. Doing whatever they can to help each other out. And it was
just help from all over. But most of it was locals helping each other. So that was pretty
cool.
It was such a unique event. Just how Helene hit, how everything kind of happened. And
you don't typically see so much coverage on the issue from people. And I noticed going
through social media like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, there are reels, there are videos
of these people that are down there. And it's like one of the best ways to find out what's
going on because it's not, you know, usually it's not, you know, made up or biased or anything.
And just seeing the devastation down there was, just like you said, I mean, I've seen
it through a phone, obviously, but it was pretty humbling to see even then, you know,
before and after pictures. But as you said, I seen a lot of people, you know, a lot of
people coming together, people getting using equipment that, you know, maybe they shouldn't
have been using. But like, you know, you got to do what you got to do. And they were clearing
roads and taking trees out of houses with it. And everyone's just coming together to do
stuff.
That's one of the cool things about us Americans. You know, I think back to, I think it was
2016 when Dallas had all those floods and you just had, you know, big trucks, just random
people driving through the water to get people out of their houses. You had people going
with kayaks to deliver food. And the way that us Americans can come together when there's
a catastrophe like that, it just, I mean, it warms my heart.
Oh yeah, it does. I mean, what was it? Hay shortages here? What was that? A year or two
ago, or we had people from up here driving hay down to the south and stuff because of
that. I mean, it does, it speaks to, I mean, I think America gets shown in such a bad light
sometimes that some people only look at the bad and the negative, but there's a lot of
good that happens here. There's a lot of, there's a lot of, I don't know, there's a
lot of people working together, especially when these things happen like Katrina. That
was another big one that we had. I mean, just crazy things happen, but Katrina, Helena,
the, you know, people using their personal helicopters to bring in, you know, supplies
and take people out.
I would say most of, from just from just being out in the area and talking to people, I,
I talked to some emergency management groups and stuff like that. And it was most of those
videos that you see of like dropping supplies via helicopter and like rescues and stuff
like that, private people were looking at other people, their aircraft, you know, to
fly people supplies and using drones, et cetera, et cetera. But I mean, it's,
I mean, so it's a great place for drones right there too. I mean, searching houses, searching
areas that are inaccessible by vehicle at the time. That's, that's one of the more important
reasons. I mean, I guess, you know, I was hearing a lot of stuff about FEMA not really
being around. Did you see much of anything like that? I mean, what's, I mean, I mean,
I'm not, that's a step on step out anywhere, but you know what I mean? But I'm just,
I will say what I saw. It was not much of our fellow people in blue. My last day, I
did see FEMA coming out. They were with a group of environmentalists and they did have,
they did have a cadaver dog with them. But I did not see any relief efforts or research
efforts than anything.
Yeah. I mean, I only asked that to get a sense because there was a lot of, a lot of people
saying that FEMA wasn't doing anything or they were almost inhibiting in some ways or
slowing the progress, commandeering supplies in areas. And it would get to the point where
people were just saying, Hey, take this shit straight to a church. They have no right to,
they have what is it? There's a subcategory of law. I think you're not allowed to pull
supplies or FEMA is not allowed to come into it like church ground or somewhere that's
been.
Yeah. There was, there was a little bit of tension regarding that. Some churches were
having issues when they were feeding hot meals because of the volume of people that were
being fed, I guess, health code violations.
At that point?
Yeah.
What are you, what are you worried about? Are you worried about someone starving? Are
you worried about, you know, I mean, I mean, you have to decide to cut out like that, that
red tape at some point. And when you're in a high level disaster situation like that,
all hands on deck.
And that's kind of what it ended up being. You know, the areas that were having issues
with, you know, supplies, they just splintered it off and just made it into smaller, smaller
distributions and stuff like that. But I mean, ultimately it was, it was a lot of pointing
your fingers down the way. Hey, we got so and so on that side of the mountain. They
need this and this. We have reports of people coming in. Our needs have changed. So, I mean,
chaotically organized, I would say.
I know. I know. We had some companies here in New Waygo, Michigan, that were putting
together semi trucks that were going down. That was, it was pretty nice. I think who,
do you remember who it was, Alex? I want to say it was AGO. Yeah.
This is editor Alex. I just want to say that it was not AGO. It was American Classics in
Grant. They did a lot to try and get some stuff down there for the North Carolina relief.
AGO, there was some private, I think, but they were getting donations from everywhere.
I mean, I can find out real quick. They, I think they did three semi trailers full. But
I mean, every, I mean, everyone was helping everyone. Anyone who could. I had a five gallon
water jug, but there was no way I was making it to you guys in time. That's like all I
had. I was like, you got me right in my poor time, like in the in between paycheck, where
I'm like, like if it was a Friday or it was a Saturday, it would have been good. But anything
after that, I'm poor. So I was like, I don't remember what day you guys ended up heading
out, but I was like, dude, there's no way. Yeah. I mean, we ended up, I mean, the last
minute change of like logistics actually turned it out to be really perfect because I, I Tetris
the heck out of my truck. Like I consolidated all the donations into one thing.
How long did it take you to get down there? I'm not fast. It took me about nine or 10
hours to drive down there with the trailer. It doesn't sound that bad. Honestly. It wasn't,
it wasn't too bad. I mean, I took my Utah trip to go look for rocks. I drove 11 hours
and stayed the night drove 11 hours back. So I can send it if I need to. Right. So could
not do that. I'd be passing out. The key to the radio. Yeah. I like, I let the radio
on as loud as I can windows down cold as it could be. I just get so my, uh, my key for
staying awake on long drives is turn on family guy or American dad. I'm not a huge fan of
those. So like neither of them is a shit out of me. That's why I stay awake.
I haven't had too much, too much of an issue staying awake on long trips. Um, I took a
trip to Texas. It's a long story. I won't go into details with it, but, um, the longest
round trip that I've ever done was four hours to the San Luis Valley, 16 hours to Texas,
five hours in Texas, and then I flew back. So it was mostly on the car.
I did a Sierra Vista, Arizona to New ego, Michigan in like a little over 30 hours.
I can't do that anymore, man. I used to be able to stay up for, used to be able to like
game and stay up for probably, you know, I dunno, 18 to 20 some hours, like no big deal.
Just get up, go to work, come back, game, do it all over. And, you know, it was never
a big deal. Now, dude, if I'm up for more than eight hours, I'm narcoleptic. I'm just
passed out. It really talks to sleep quality when you have a kid like, like my son just
drains all the energy out of me. And I don't like, I see pap is pumping at full blast.
Like it's like having an air compressor hooked up to your mouth all night.
You need to get a house battery set up. I'm just saying.
Oh yeah. I know. I have the little battery, you know, the little anchor 515, the little
battery cell. And I've been debating on bringing that in, but I don't sleep very, like I sleep
good when I do fall asleep, but I don't sleep a lot at night when I'm camping anyway. So
I just don't end up bringing it. I don't get a lot of deep REM sleep. So, but yeah, my
sleep apnea was so damn bad that yeah, I don't, I don't know if I could ever do more than
eight hours at this point. I know we did our 1200 mile trip into the UP and I was like,
I got to pull over this, take a nappy. I need a nap right here.
Power off for a second.
Oh, I did. I was like, Stiana, please, please just handle the kid. I just reclined my seat.
I take nap right here. I go bed. It was, it was embarrassing. I'm like, I shouldn't have
to do this. I don't know what's wrong with me. And they go to the doctors and they're
like, severe is like 40 on the AHI scale or whatever. You're at 50.9. I'm like, Oh, okay.
That makes sense.
I'm pretty lucky in the health department, I guess. I'm sure it'll hit me with a freight
train soon.
How old are you now?
I'm 32.
What?
Yeah. What? You think I'm younger or older?
I thought you were like 21, if that. What the hell?
I was thinking like 24. So even I was way off.
32. They say everything happens in year 30. I'm about to hit 30. And I'm like, bro, I'm
already, I'm already hurting.
My back is 80, 80 years old. Oh yeah. I have a stress factor in my back. So that I don't
love that, but it doesn't help that I weigh three, about as much as three people. So that's
kind of my main concern. I need to need to cool down with the, with the Speedway taquitos
or something.
They taste so good.
So good, dude. Nothing, nothing beats it.
The French toast ones with the sausage and French toast. Oh my God.
You know that I'm fat when my middle, I have a middle school page that I made on Facebook
that is literally titled monsters and pop tarts for breakfast. And that was like, that
was like, that was like, it was like, so I was chunky throughout all of school. Gonna
have to, we need change here.
I need to get out and film more when I'm out over landing. That's the issue. I need to
actually get out and film more.
Let's see how to do the driving. Will you get out and do some filming?
I don't know. I want to, I want to be able to get home, but like the, and that's nothing.
She just has zero experience. So she, she would like try to straddle like an off-camber
situation and she just, she'd go right in.
No, I did that last time when we went on Austin's trip. It's got a few wheels off the ground.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where was that? That was, um, Oh, actually that was Yuma. We did Yuma.
Yeah. The Yuma trails, uh, around that, that loop.
Was it that, uh, that part you said was bad last time that was like a cake?
Yeah, that, yeah. Yeah. The one where we all had got out and spotted JD. You remember that
was, was that the place you're talking about? Yeah. I walked that. I walked that out in
like two wheel drive. It was, I'm sitting here. I've been, I was telling Alex and Mark
about them like, Oh dude, this thing was, it was cool. You know, and we went through
it and we walked, everyone walked through it in two wheel drive. And I swear to God,
it was way worse. Like we all had gotten, it was like way cooler back then. And he's
like, I can't remember if I ever, I probably put it in four wheel a couple of times on
the trail. Um, but that just, that one, I just, I tried to straddle that, that rut and
the bank gave way and I was just like, Oh, we're looking, we're looking straight down.
Yeah. Yeah. It was way steeper than, than before. And then, uh, then he tried taking
the power lines and the power lines were so much fun. Why didn't we do the power lines?
What'd you say? I just wanted to know who tried to pull Austin out the first time that
he got stuck. Ed. Ed. Yeah. Ed and then Zeke, which was driving the same thing Ed was just
way crazy or outfitted. Fifth gen forerunners for listeners. Yes. Fifth gen forerunners.
And uh, so we had to kind of get Ed unstuck first. Um, and then once Ed got unstuck, we
had to direct him through swampy cat tail brush to get Zeke in front of that. And then
Zeke had to pull them out and then Zeke was stuck trying to get up there. So I have some,
I think some videos of him just spinning, um, on my Instagram. It is just, it was a
crazy and then that was even the worst part. The worst part was trying to get back through
one of the holes that we originally at all went through, like no big deal. And because
I was the last person through, I had to go back through at first and they gave the guy
with like no mud tires, no lift. Like, they're like, you go first. And, and my rear bumper
and hitch dug that hole. So I fell into that hole and I was just reverse drive, reverse
drive. And I dug a ramp for everybody else. He's really nice of you. Really nice. Yeah.
You know, I'm here for the people. But yeah, that's, uh, that's pretty cool. I mean, we
had some, we had some good times over there. Yuma was a lot of fun. And I mean, pretty,
I don't think any of us needed lockers or anything either. Wow. Who needs lockers anyway?
Yeah. I mean, sometimes you just trade down because you want to make things harder on
yourself. Yeah. I mean, you wanted some, you wanted some challenge. It was too easy. I
can say that I missed my locker. Right. Did you ever even have it begin with Alex? I used
it that one time in ever. Yeah. One time. And then it didn't work again. Yeah. Yeah.
We have to, I think we have to get together and we have to do a trip up there and ever.
I think Everett's got some stuff that was a little worse than Austin's. I was about
to say the last group, they, I think they hit it at a really wet time. Cause that was
all clips I've seen the gnarliest I've seen ever in a while. Yeah. Yeah. But we'll have
to get together and do something like that spring or something. Or, uh, JD, are you done
for the year? Um, as far as like overlanding or are you going to keep going? No, probably
not. So the trucks going in the shop to get completely redone on the bottom half. Um,
and that that'll put me out for a little while, but, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with
a guy named Marvin. He goes to rigs and coffee every once in a while. Kind of a, he's an
older guy. He has a white GX. No, I've seen that. Yeah. So he's got a white GX. Um, he
wants to do an ice roads trip through Canada. That would be fun. He keeps messaging me about
it. Like he says it enough. I'm going to do it. And I probably going to do it. Cause that
would be a lot of fun. If I get set up like that next year, we'll have to do something
like that. I mean, he, Marvin, I had a hard time keeping up with him. He has a mostly
stock GX. Um, and he, we went on a Canada trip, midsummer ish and he was sending it.
It handled really well. It's surprising how well those GXs handle. We had, uh, we had
Nathan, I want to say, or Nicholas who had that pretty stock GX with, uh, wild peaks.
And he took that same thing that we did and he did everything else. We did pretty well.
He just made everything look really easy. Yeah. That was sad. It's like, I haven't done
this before. I was like, it's, it's the tools, not the operator clearly. Yeah. Obviously,
obviously you're, you're well set up for this. This is my 15 grand. I've got my truck just
making me look like a fool out there. That's yup. That sounds about right. Well, hey, you
know, I, uh, we, we really appreciate you guys coming on here talking about your story.
Um, we, we love having the, uh, having the, the Prius talk, the North Carolina talk was
really cool. Oh my God. There's a cat. Oh, I have a 20 pound Maine Coon mix. Oh my God.
I really wish that my 20 pound Maine Coon mix was up here. Cause I would show him to
you. He's massive. His name is mango and a guard dog. Yeah. Well, he's a, he's a, he's
pretty much a dog. He plays fetch. He also knows how to take the screens out of windows
and he knows that door that has a pull handle. He can also reach the door handles because
he's so big. Yeah. I've got an orange one and he can open doors if he wants to. It's
the Maine Coon one. It's they, they have an extra brain cell and it's, it's just the ones.
Yep. One actual one. That's all they need. My cat's orange. So he's missing one to begin
with. Yeah. Yeah. That's very true with the cat world. Yeah. Anybody who's had orange
cat knows they are just one of the dumbest cats out there. It's there. They're also one
of the loving, the most loving, but they are, they are, they are smooth brain, smooth brain.
Me too. Yeah. He just wanted to stop in and see why I've got my attention on anything
other than him. Yeah. Sounds like my son, which, which he's making noises right now.
So yeah, we, yeah, no, thankfully. Yeah. I sound dead into my room. So, or his room,
technically it's the nursery. So I'm going to feel really upset when I have to give it
back to him. He won't even appreciate it. You won't dang kids. So I should have got
a cat. I'll lend you, I'll lend you mango, but you got to keep your kids too. Like I'm
not, I'm not trade. That is a bad trade. Bad trade. Well, you know, you'll have to see
him. He's walking around now. I think the last time you saw him, you was barely crawling.
Yeah. He was hard to say cause it was pretty late at night by the time he actually just
that's true. So that's true. Yeah. Well, he was walking around now. He's got teeth. He's
getting into shit. So he's being a menace, but it's fun. Like, uh, like Derek's kids,
he's going to have like 11 years of off-roading skill before he's even 12. So that should
be, yeah. Well, Hey, I appreciate you on here. Uh, I think we're going to have to wrap up
our little session today. Um, you know, it was really, it was really cool hearing about
the North Carolina and all the, all the effort that we, uh, you know, not we, as in the group,
but we, as in a people, uh, put into it and just good seeing everything coming together.
So yeah, I would agree. Yeah. So yeah, I appreciate you on here. Um, we'll have to get you on
here for another one. Uh, after one of our MST trips, we'll do some post trip stuff after
the Canada ice road. That's what I want her on here. You'll find that I have very interesting
near death experiences. So we can test the waters on my divine benevolence, if you will.
Yes. Yeah. Like how you put that. Yeah. Well, I can get you on here after your ice road
truckers, uh, truckers episode. Well, it's probably going to have something to do with
like my diesel heater failed in the art. Oh yeah. Yeah. This nice little like click bait
like diesel heater failed, but you don't know that I'm JD. So I fixed it within minutes
with a leather punch and electrical tape. It's a small toolkit and the candy out of
it. Yeah. That's all you need. That's, I like that. Well, thank you very much. Uh, thanks
for getting on here guys. Um, Alex, Mark and JD. We'll talk to you guys later.
Yeah.2020.