Welcome to Votches Off-Road. Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to
trail stories, tent camping to rock climbing, and all things to do with the outdoors. Thanks
for joining. We're going to do a little 30 minute episode. And I think we're going to
talk a little about some of the black forerunner that's going on with the botches build, a
little bit about my upcoming trip. And yeah, I think that's going to be a good little mini
so there, I guess starting out, let's hear, let's hear any updates of this, this black
forerunner. First of all, I guess, as part of botches, I shouldn't know, but I don't
actually know what year this forerunner is. So for, I guess, for the, uh, all of these
other listeners here that have not seen this yet, you'll see it in the cover art. Um, what
year is this forerunner? So the black forerunner is a 2000, uh, forerunner third gen. Um, my
mom bought it for her adopted daughter and then stuff happened. The girl's not getting
it in the car. So my mom decided that she wants to drive it. So we're just going through
and we're replacing everything that can fail. So we've done, it's got brand new knuckles,
all brand new wheel bearings, uh, brand new seals, um, brand new front suspension, brand
new tie rods, everything, uh, solid axle swapped. Yeah. Like we said, anything that's going
to fail, we switched it out. Solid axle, six inch suspension, all king. But it does have,
uh, gusseted front knuckles, even though it's stock height, we gusseted the front knuckles
for safety. And then in the rear, we're doing a one inch lift from Icon. Um, she doesn't,
she doesn't need the one inch lift, but with the amount of crap that my mom puts in her
car, I'm sure that that thing is going to sit level when it's loaded. Yes. Um, I mean,
it looks pretty solid, honestly. Um, for the year and everything, it's very nice. I can,
yeah, for a Michigan truck, it's super clean. It's got a little bit of frame rock, but not
bad. Nothing we can't patch. No. Um, and then we took, it had the, uh, factory wheels still
on it. We did a Tundra brake swap. So we ripped the factory wheels off and we put 17s, uh,
those are what? Visions, Mark? Yeah. Vision rims. And then they are BF Goodrich's. I don't
remember which title tire type, but they were okay. Were it 285s? 285, 65? Yeah. That's
the size I was getting. That was the exact, um, type of tire, you know, how like KL twos
and all that. Um, those were usually keep on my truck. I didn't mind them, but just
the silver and gun metal just didn't quite work for me. So I took my last set that I
had from the black one and put the bronze on my truck. So these sets been sitting around
for spares for us to use. Yeah. That silver is really clean looking. Yeah. That, that
gun metal on black. It's who that, I should have bought these from Mark before we ever
thought of this and I never really got them out in the open. I should have took it out
and like put it next to the FJ to see what it would look like. Yeah. I regret that. I
should have just bought them off of you. They, they, after seeing it on that forerunner,
I was like, damn, maybe, maybe I could do like silver maroon silver. I could do like,
uh, you know, color match the rims and do that on the roof or something. Do that. Yeah.
I, I never really loved that color of wheel until we put them on that black truck. They
just, it's like they were made for the truck. They, yeah, it looks good. I think, you know
what? I'm in just because I like tin. If you did a really light tent on the truck too,
just to, I agree. Oh God. That'd be one of the sexier third gens out there. We're at
like $3,500 in repairs now. So about how much it costs to get it. Yeah. The only, the only
sexy or third gen out there right now is probably Benji's. Yes. Since he's redone everything
from the bottom up. So I was going to say, is it, what's the one that the maroon one
that I'm sure who got it? The maroon. I keep her, uh, family that was literally just had
it pulled up one second. Family of forerunner. Yeah. Family of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's
right. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Third. That's a gorgeous one. Yeah. That one was like set
for everything you'd need in Michigan. Man. I feel really offended right now. Oh yeah.
You got one too. The crawlers better crawlers better. No, I do like Alex's, but it's, it's
like one of those things where it's like, you never want to pick that as like your main
answer because it's like an obvious answer. Alex has a really nice third gen. It just,
it's like, there's little things here and there. And because I've never actually seen
these other ones in person, other than the black one, they, they are cool. I'm sure you
look at anything hard enough. You know, Alex is like from the end of his driveway, his
third gen is like the coolest third gen in America. A hundred percent. Yeah. In the end
of my drive, 60 feet away, my truck's beautiful. 60 feet. But he is a trail truck and she has
been had the hell beat out of her for the last year. So yeah. I mean, that's what it's
there for. Yeah. People, people who buy these, you know, third gens like that and then do
anything with them and just drive them on the road. And this is excluding people who
are older. But like you, why, why are you doing it, man? It wants to be out there. Like,
yeah, these things have souls, man. They want to, they want to be out there. They want to
do what they're made to do. They get upset. They start dying on you and you don't let
them go out. When I was washing mine last time, I found a scratch that goes from the
front bumper all the way down the side of the truck and then exiting off the back. And
I mean, it's, it's through the first layer of paint. Like it's, it's deep. After our
botches trip, I washed my truck and I have a good eight inch hole, eight inch tall, like
scrape. And I'm like, I don't even know where it came from. And it's fine. So it had to
have been like grit, like dirt or something. Yeah. I'm trying to think I'm like, I don't
know where that would have came from, but it's like, it's an eight inch tall scratch.
That's about five to six inches long. And it's just the whole, and I'm like, I really
don't need this right now. Like I have, it looks like someone keyed my fucking truck because
I take it down like 65 inch trails, the legal, the legal guy, and they're not actually designated
to 65 inch. I should say that now before I get busted by the DNR or something. But yeah,
it's like that dent in the back of my tailgate. It wasn't there. I have no idea where this
dent came from. And it's a big dent. Dude, I might have to throw some like detailing
stuff on my truck before I bring it in the rigs. It's, I probably won't because I'm going
to be on the trail. I'm, I'm leaving. We're leaving Thursday night. So we're, oh, today's
Wednesday. Shit. I just realized that I have a lot of packing to do. I pulled everything
out to clean it up a little bit in there from the botches yearly trip and, and you know,
organize it. And this year we're going to do it's, it's named cryptid hunt. We're just
basically going to do, you know, a night run up in the area where dog man was spotted years
and years ago, camped at, tell some scary stories. But I'm trying to rearrange everything,
trying to get us ready for maybe some warmer or like, not warmer, but like a colder climate.
It's supposed to get a little cooler again this weekend. So I'm just trying to optimize
the, the storage and the vehicle for that. So I did get like a organizer to go on the
back of the driver's side seat to organize like my air hoses, my spare parts, like the
either pulleys and belt and stuff like that. And got that packed away and out off of my
seat so that I could put other stuff. And then I don't think I have a whole lot else
that I'm doing in prep other than trail prep, like, like route prep. And I think I'm going
to do some scouting campsites. The area that we're going to is just west of, I want to
say it's Fife Lake. Yeah, just, just a little bit of Southwest of Fife Lake and it's in
the Cadillac of forest management. And it's, I mean, massive amounts of trails around there.
Where we're sitting is kind of right in the middle between the two. There's a Riverside
campground that could fit 10 plus cars. And we're planning to get there Thursday night,
just wow, to secure the spot. And then I think at about Friday at 12, we're going to meet
up at a pull off off of US 131. There's a roadside park and we're going to meet everyone out
there and I'll drive them to the campsite. Anyone else that's coming later, I just give
the coordinates to. And then we're going to get there Friday, get everyone nice and set
up, do some introductions. I have a couple of new groups coming that have never done
it before. So I have two new families coming to do that, which I'm probably the perfect
person for them to do that with because most of my stuff isn't hardcore. We have a family
too. Very, you know, the climate is going to be very inviting. It's not like it's to
be a bunch of drunks or anything, which there never really is with any of the MST groups,
but no, not really. Which is great. I love that. Just for timeline for listeners, we
record these 30 minute clips on Wednesday and then we release them on Sunday. So this
will come out while he's out on this trip. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. It will be the end
of his trip. It will be when this comes out. Yeah, it'll be the rigs and coffee day for
us. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we plan to do, you know, once everyone gets all set up there,
everyone feeds themselves and we'll decide whether we want to do a night run Friday.
But I know for Saturday, sorry, excuse me. Sorry. I know for Saturday, we're going to
do a night run and we're just going to try to keep it in the area. The areas is just,
you know, dog man, big foot area. And you know, we'll go around pretty quiet, pretty
slow and just see if we can find anything. Yeah. Nothing, nothing crazy. It's just mostly
a night ride and a fun opportunity for some of these newer guys to do an easy night ride.
I say easy, but I have no idea what we're getting into. And I think that's, so I have
the routes planned out. I've already done a good part of that area. And so I don't,
I don't know. I think it'll be okay. We'll do the, you know, around the, the squash camp
around the river and we'll try to stick near that on Saturday. And then I think Saturday,
you know, morning we'll do the normal Saturday morning stuff, make breakfast, blah, blah,
blah. And then I'm going to talk with a group about wanting to go west, Southwest a little
bit. There's a massive branch of trails. There's some blue ones. Yeah. Yeah, dude. There's,
there is number 19 road, high rollaway river loop. I wish that Michigan had more blue trails.
It's cool seeing more start to pop up on Onyx as people, you know, finds them and marks
them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We found some that should have been marked blue and I almost
wish that I was a, that I was a, what do you, what do you call those trail creators or whatever
is where I could actually have marked that? Yeah. Trail guide. I might look into doing
that next year just for something to do hobby wise. Cause I do, I do really enjoy mapping
out the trails and, and, you know, doing them almost like, Oh, like a game almost, you know,
like, Hey, you know, yeah, yeah. You got to catch them all. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I like that.
I actually actually really mad because our botches trip, I didn't actually save the,
it was a trip. So I missed the whole line of Yuma and everything that we did. I still
have the, well, the last time my phone died this time. Oh yeah. I've got that last time.
Yeah. This time, this time it asked me to save and I thought I already did. So I just
clicked out of the app and then I went back into it and it didn't save, which sucks so
bad. I'll just have to do you. I'll say Gamer 101. Ask you want to save, save it. Yeah,
I know for sure. I should have. I thought I did already like three times. So I wasn't
really, I at that point, I wasn't worried about it. I figured it already saved. It did
not. So I learned my lesson. All the points that I had before, like that, that really
cool, you know, skitter Hill Jr. I have marked down and everything still, but it was just
the route that I had driven and that we had done. I didn't get, you know, just means I'll
have to do it again. But there's, we saved that super gnarly spots. I want to do that
again. I did. Yeah. So we're good there. I saved the campground. I saved some of the
potential campgrounds that I found on the way, which is another thing I like doing.
But you know, there's, there's so many different areas around here and around this area. It's
all around, I think the Manistee river. Yeah. The Manistee over there. And there are tons
of potential riverside campsites. And I mean, tons, like I have probably at least 10 spots
marked out within, I would say a five to six mile radius. Wow. I mean, they're all riverside.
They all connect or they, they all stop at the river or do a small loop right before
the river. So there's a bunch of different spots I want to check out. And I think that's
what we're going to do Saturday, because I have like, I have no idea what I would do
all day Saturday. Like just sit around. And I want to get out and do them. So I think
we'll do we'll do a small one Saturday and whoever that wants to stay and relax, good
stay and relax and but everybody else is gonna go out and then I'll preface it by telling
everybody like, Hey, I don't know what we're going to be getting into. You know, full disclosure,
I'm not going to try to get anyone stuck or broke but you know, pinstriped by side trail,
you might yeah, you might end up getting pinstriped. I'm gonna tell everybody like, Hey, do not
come on this because we will check these out. So yeah, that's gonna be really fun. I mean,
I have one documented trail over there. Because someone gave me a spot I was I think it was
Nolan or something who gave me a spot. So that's gonna be nice. But there are a shit
ton of these little green trails. There's you know, tree tundra trail tree root forest
trail. Hart Creek Trail. There's there's actually a water crossing. Oh, that's sick. Yeah, I
heart Creek Trail has a water crossing and I'm not sure that it's supposed to be a water
crossing.
So tread lightly.
Yeah, tread lightly. And depending on how it is, we might not do that.
Yeah.
But I'll say because if I remember correctly, I pretty sure Kyle like literally just opened
a whole bunch of trails this last summer. They did and they had like a giant opening
for it.
Yeah, there's a there's a crap ton of trails around here. So this that could be part of
that. It's in Cadillac, Cadillac State Forest area. So I am I'm I've seen some reports on
that river crossing being a broke bridge area. There was a bridge down and then people just
went through the water. So if that's the case, we won't go through it. We're going to try
to you know, follow the rules follow the law. But if there's no signs of that, if there's
no signs of a broke down bridge and it looks like a well used trail. Yeah, I mean, as long
as there's no nothing pointing to us breaking the law or doing something bad, we'll we'll
go through it. I want you to get all the Instagram videos of that. Yeah, I would like to I'll
set up a tripod and try to get some things up. I want to try to do better on the videos.
And I say that every time I go out and then I forget to do it or I get so we say Alex
says all the time to we try our best. But you get so caught up in like having the fun
of doing it. And then you're like, I don't want I don't want to have to get you know,
like get out. Half of it's doing it with the group. I think if I was solo would be a lot
easier when you're in a group you hate to like, hey, can we stop a second? Can we stop?
Can we stop?
I'm about to say Alex part of a pretty big group trip and they just kept stopping every
five minutes or so was it?
Yeah, I had we did one I think it was Austin's and or I don't know. I don't know what it
was. But we kept stopping every like two to five minutes. And there were people on there
that actually like to wheel wheel. Like, yeah. And they were like, what are we doing? And
they're like, I we were stopped for like 30 minutes at one point. And I was like, dude,
oh my god, I just want to go. So I don't want to like do that to other people. And I want
to leave a good impression on these newer people, too, that are, you know, I take it
seriously that, you know, I have I have some new people that are coming and doing this
for the first time. Yeah, I want to make sure that they have a good start and good idea
of what's going on.
Yeah. So on that whole video front, I actually found a pretty well reviewed, cheaper than
a GoPro action camera. It's like 60 or 50 bucks brand new on Amazon. And it's got image
stabilization, you know, all the stuff you'd expect from an action cam for 50 bucks. And
it can do up to 4K 30. Yeah, I have to look into that. So I think I'm going to try and
pick up a few of these because if I can get the video without stopping, I'd much prefer
to do that. Yeah, for sure. You know, at most, maybe have someone hop out with the first
truck and videotape each person coming through and then hop in the last truck. Just things
going. Yeah, I think it just depends. The best way that I am starting to realize how
to do this is we need to alternate alternate trucks. So I there was a couple of times in
our last trip that I had Mark go in front of me, Mark go behind me and mostly didn't
have Alex do it because Alex is leading for the most part. So we didn't really do it with
Alex as much. But I had I had Mark go front and behind me so that I could get shots of
him taking trails or like roller shots and stuff like that. So I think it just the alternate.
Huh? Which you never uploaded. I did. Oh, OK. They they weren't the roller trails were
unedited there in the Google Drive. But it's hard. I keep forgetting to tell Sienna. She
has all of the videos in 4K, which don't upload to like Instagram and stuff. You have to dumb
them down. Right. And Instagram won't even take them. You have to go into your settings
and then dumb them down first and then bring them in Instagram. So it makes it hard for
social media sharing, which I struggled a lot this last weekend. We had a lot of really
good videos and all of them. She had to send me like via quick share. And she sent me all
of them. They're all in 4K, so I couldn't do anything on TikTok. I couldn't do anything
on Facebook. Couldn't do anything on Instagram. And like editing or uploading. I really need
to get my server going so that we can just drop files on there and not worry about hitting
these Google Photos caps. Yeah. And then if you have a 15 gig file, just drop it on there.
We can dumb it down, you know? Yeah. So it was like, OK, I need I need to remember to
tell her to or to switch her video camera quality down so that it's so that I can do
that. And that's why we didn't get a lot of edits of rollers and stuff, because it was
really hard and it was taking me forever to do any. And I mostly work off my phone because
all the files are on my phone and Instagram, TikTok editing and stuff is is smoother on
the phone. And I don't log into it. I just did an Instagram from my computer the other
day and I was really impressed with what you can do Instagram wise on the computer now.
Yeah, I have to look into like logging in on TikTok and then using files from the computer.
I have to look into that. I'll I'll I'll monkey with a little bit. I think I understand the
UI of Instagram and TikTok and stuff well enough on the mobile platform that I don't
know if I want to mess with it on the computer platform as much. But YouTube, it's a little
different story. I don't know. I'm sorry. No, you're good. No, I was about to say, hopefully
you don't get strike like Joe did just recently. If all the music he was using suggested. Yeah,
I've seen that Jeep Joe, he posted Instagram reel. It's just him scrolling through his
notifications and it's just post after post after post after post. They got taken down.
Yep, it happens, especially Instagram reels, because you can upload from like TikTok on
Instagram or source like songs from Instagram. And then they just had like a copy like a
copyrights issue where a bunch of the songs you can't use anymore. And I think that's
what it was. It's like a copyright violation. Yeah. But you didn't I mean, it didn't have
anything before the songs were accessible before. So yeah, it is what it is. But now
like 30% of his songs or his videos are probably songless now. Yep. You can't play can't play
us. So that really sucks. All the more reason to try to source your own music. Which is
really hard. Use an AI art generator and hope for the best. Right. But you know, with our
intro. Yeah, right. But hey, I mean, it sounds all right. I don't mind it. I like it. But
yeah, I mean, I think having these having these new people will be really nice for me.
They don't have high expectations. So it's not like you're taking highly seasoned off
road people like you guys out on you know, out on a weekend trip. Although when I was
leading we found some really cool trails. So I guess it's not too bad. That's part of
the exploratory fun. You just going out and looking for stuff. Yeah, I'm a I'm pretty
easy to please here in Michigan. You know, as long as I'm on dirt. It's fine. Yeah. No,
I think these guys will be that way too. Yeah. I mean, if I have to make my own fun by doing
weird or try and drift my truck or whatever, like what? Yeah, if I have to try to learn
how to drive a truck. Yeah, after your sway bar delete, I bet it is. No, I think I think
Saturday we'll take the trails. I don't know. I'm going to feel it out by group because
I could trail ride, you know, eight, nine hours, take a little break in between and
keep going. But I don't know about all these other people, especially the newer guys see
how they do see how far they want to go, how long they want to do it. But then we'll we'll
chill out. We'll make dinner, get a good fire started. And I got to pack some more fire
starters and stuff. And then Saturday night, we'll do a night ride. And maybe we'll go
left over here to we'll see. And then Sunday morning, we'll pack up as early as we can.
And we'll try to head to Hudsonville for the Riggs and Coffee Trunk or Treat, where we're
going to bring in our little Jasper. He's dressed in Monsters Inc costume. He's Sully.
So I don't we didn't have any time to get any like costumes ready or anything. So I
have the same boys. I have no costume prep for this one. Yeah, I'm going to go as a very
poorly dressed farmer. I'm going to go as a portal poor overlander. And there'd be hard.
There we go. I just put the DNR hat on the DNR officer could be a DNR officer. You know
what? That's not a bad idea. I have the DNR. I have the stickers, drawing natural resources,
not dependent on natural resources. Yeah. Let's get really tentacle with the what it
says. Yeah. I mean, you could make a really bad off road group like an evil off road group
and call it the DNR. And I mean, it would not be cool, but side by side groups could
be called the DNR. Like you could do like a really bad side by side group and be like
we're the DNR destroying natural resources because they could aim for aim for any vehicle
on the trail and just hit them because you know that's what pride my sides like to do.
So their beer cans out leaving big old dents on a basically mint their gen four runner.
That's just what they like to do. Hey man, DNR. But yeah, I mean, it's going to be fun.
Hopefully we could get to rigs and coffee and time and we'll set up early, sit there
for a couple hours and probably probably just head home and that'll be our last trip for
the year probably. So that we'll probably pack everything up, all the bedding and stuff,
bring it inside, keep the truck cleared out and, and just start working on paying off
upgrades and I'll be working on buying some plywood and stuff for the organizer in the
back for the truck. Yeah. I think this this winter the most I'm going to do is I might
do some of the we've got a New Lego County map projects that the botches have been working
on. So I'll probably work on that a little this winter. Yeah. I don't plan on doing I
don't plan on going anywhere. I don't plan on spending all the money to go camping or
anything. No. Yeah. No overnight, but definitely, definitely wheeling around New Lego County
for sure. Day trips and stuff. So yeah, that's the, that's the plan. Hopefully everything
works out, but don't break anything. You know, I thought I did honestly, after this last
weekend I had mud from one of the ruts on the blue trail. I had a mud cake down on the
bottom side of my wheel and I thought I cleaned it all out. Like I, I threw my, the washer
onto it, the pressure washer onto it. And I was like, dude, there shouldn't be anything
left. And it was just, I think it's one of the reasons why I need to switch out those
wheels because there's so many little crevices for mud and stuff to hide. Oh yeah. Everything
up. So Mark's just cake into the fake bead lock. Yeah. Mine is pretty badly kicked in
the fake bead lock. Yeah. That's not good either. Nope. But yeah, I mean, we'll see.
Um, lots of stuff going on here. I think we're wrapping up for the year. The season's closing.
Yeah. You know, next year, I think we're all going to be a little bit better prepared for
a cold weather camping. So, um, we'll, I know our season's going to last a little longer
next year, but yeah, that's, it's sad. It's kind of getting, kind of getting to the end
of that. Um, between that, um, my, my job ending. So I'm going to be looking for something
else. So we're not going to be doing much traveling. My time is going to be a little
bit more constricted. It's just, uh, it's going to be a little, little different over
the winter. It would be paying off some of those debts. So I did lie a little bit. Uh,
we and Mark are planning to go down to Benji's open house for Midwest adventure outfitters,
uh, November 23rd. Um, so that will be my last official trip. Yeah. I would, I would
absolutely fricking love to go to that. I would absolutely love to. Maybe I'll chuck
some money your way, maybe ride along, take some video, something like that. That's what
I was saying. Uh, we've got, I don't know about driving right now. We've got it broke
down. It would be pretty cheap for the two of us. So if you tag along, it's $10 for a
ticket for a rider. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. I, uh, you know, it's right around that time
we're going to be like catching up on bills because there's going to be a small gap. So
I'm trying to make sure, and I don't want to have to take any time off of work if I'm
starting my new job, lots of uncertainties here in the next few months. So we'll see.
Uh, but yeah, I mean, lots of stuff to come. We're going to obviously see, keep doing the
podcast. Uh, we'll have updates on all that stuff coming up. Uh, post a post trip, 30
minute mini-sode. Um, I think we have a cryptid episode coming up. We just did an episode
with JD from mitten state tours. And she talked a little bit about her trip in North Carolina,
her rig, some of her favorite spots and upgrades. So we definitely still have a lot coming and,
uh, it'll just be, just stick with us and we'll get better as we go. And you know, it'll,
uh, can't, I mean, like I said earlier in a couple of podcasts, you can't go much for
a, getting nowhere to go, but up. So yeah, especially when you're at the bottom, especially
when you're at the bottom and we're getting, Hey, we're getting views in Russia, man. We're
doing good downloads in Russia. I can't believe it. Yeah. Thanks for listening guys. And,
uh, we'll see you on the next one. Later.