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're talking about our trip to Missouri to hang out with Benji from, Oh man, I just
blanked on what Benji's podcast is called.
Newfound Overland.
Thank you.
Sorry, Benji.
I did not mean to forget that.
And we went for the grand opening of his new store called Midwest Adventure Outfitters.
I'll put the link in the description because he's doing a lot of really cool stuff over
there.
Oh yeah.
Good stuff.
He's got a lot of items you can buy.
He's looking to do installations so you can buy stuff.
He'll install it.
I think he was talking about opening up a Bay for like weekend hangouts where you can
come work on your car in the Bay.
I don't even know.
Benji's doing a lot of really cool stuff and Benji's a really cool guy.
So we need to support him.
Yeah.
But I think he talks a lot about it in his podcast too.
So if you want more details, you can probably go hear from him over on his podcast.
Yeah.
Go to Newfound Overland.
They're great.
Yeah.
So yeah, we drove the old third gen from Michigan to Crocker, Missouri.
Like 500 and, I don't know, 650 some miles.
It was, the drive down there was actually pretty decent.
It was.
It was nighttime.
There was really no one on the road.
The car was smooth for the most part.
I was about to say, I think all the final rain showers went through by the time we were
ready to go.
Well, we had some rain until we got out of Michigan, but once we got out of Michigan,
it was nice and dry.
Yeah.
But most of the rain that I worked in that day was gone.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
No, the drive down there was good.
We left at like 8 PM and got there at what?
Six in the morning?
Yes.
Well, so no, it was six.
Seven in the morning, our time, because they're an hour behind us.
Oh yeah, yeah, that too.
I think that's why I was second guessing what time we actually showed up.
Eleven hours straight through.
I slept for an hour on the way down and Mark slept for like three hours after we got there.
Yeah.
So that was fun.
And then once everyone started showing up, we got set up, pulled out our wonderful packout
kitchen that I 100% recommend anyone build because it honestly was the best kitchen I've
ever used on any trip.
And we met a lot of really cool people.
Coming from, I don't want to say budget because the Tundra was probably the more budget of
all the builds there, but it wasn't really budget.
It was just older.
He did a lot of really expensive stuff on that truck.
Oh yeah.
And a lot of it, he made himself too.
Yeah.
Really smart guy.
I can not remember his name, but I have his Instagram, so I'll put him in the show notes
as well.
And then we met Robbie.
I don't remember his last name, but he works or he does stuff with Overland America.
He was there in his Grenadier.
Actually my first time seeing a Grenadier in person and I have to say, man, is that
a beautiful rig, man?
It is.
And that's like a Land Rover Discovery or something.
Not a Land Rover, but it's based off the disco.
Yeah.
But I mean, that stock, all he did to it was slap a roof over it.
He put a roof top 10 on it.
That's just, it's insane that we have manufacturers still building cars to that level.
Oh yeah.
What who is the guy who had the really nice taco, the super well built taco?
Oh, I don't remember.
I don't think I actually called him name.
Yeah.
He worked with Overland America too though.
Cause I know the forerunner, the Nixie was said fast.
Yep.
That's steadfast.
And I've been talking to him like all day.
It's just a real Tacoma.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
And then we had, man, I better just pull up Instagram because I can find them all on Instagram.
Yeah.
You'd probably find them quicker that way.
Oh, Hey, little shout out.
And all that I'm on Instagram, right, our friends over at radical road hazards.
They have the cab on the Dodge.
It looks like.
Nice.
I think it's all that earlier.
Unless he bought another one.
Nope.
He bought a power wagon.
That's right.
He bought another one.
Oh my God.
Why did he need to buy another one?
Well, I'm going to have to drive the mile over to his house and bullshit with him tomorrow.
Yeah.
So, but anyways, follow radical road hazards on Instagram.
They do some really cool stuff and they're local to us.
So we may as well give them a shout out.
Yep.
I'm trying to find that guy that built his rooftop tent.
Oh, I don't remember that one.
That was a cool, that was a cool rooftop.
I didn't even realize it was homemade until someone bought it up.
Dude, it is by far one of the best rooftop tent setups I've ever seen.
Yeah.
Maybe I'm not going to find them faster on here.
Cause all I see is a bunch of people.
I think he likes something though.
I can find them that way.
Queen city off road.
So yeah, we met queen city off road.
He's got a super sick taco with a home built rooftop tent slash camper and he did all of
it.
He built the frame out for the tent.
He made an access panel into his bed.
That's actually his main way of getting into the tent is from inside his bed.
And it's just, it's a super sick, super sick build.
Yeah.
I mean, other than how cool everyone's builds are, I guess there's not a whole lot to say
about the event really other than a shop is sick and there's lots of cool stuff for sale.
Oh yeah.
There's lots of cool stuff.
And go ahead.
I was about to say in fact, I won a prize that he sells there too.
Yeah.
No, the, you won the, uh, I do not remember what brand that pop up.
I did not remember.
Hold on.
I want to say it's like a fire spot, something like, yeah, we got a nice pop up.
I just saw it going from being stupid.
Oh my God.
It was, and now it doesn't want to love me.
Fireside pop up.
That that pop up fire pit, man.
It seemed to burn cleaner than what a ground fire pit did.
It seemed to burn hotter than a ground fire pit and the cleanup was so fast and easy.
Oh yeah.
And like the morning of we were getting ready, Benji realized that we were up and going like,
oh no, they started firing their pit and he transferred over to the other pit without
any issues.
Yeah.
So fricking cool.
Um, and we're going to be working on some grill options for that, I think.
Yep.
So I guess stay tuned for that.
Maybe we'll start a botches off road store that hasn't been stuck.
Maybe sell some botches off road gear, some botches off road coffee, some botches off
road whiskey, which is really just my piss in a bottle.
I don't know about that one there, but okay.
We could, we could sell our botches off road whiskey at varying alcohol levels because
I drank more that day.
We could do aged.
Oh, I don't sound good at all.
Maybe that wouldn't be whiskey though.
Maybe it'd be kombucha.
Yeah.
So stay tuned.
We might be working on a store intent.
Um, yeah, man, it was just, it was a really cool event.
There was a lot of cool stuff.
Um, the community in Missouri is drastically different from the community we have in here
in Michigan.
Oh yeah.
And you could even see it in the builds, you know, here in Michigan, you've got someone
who likes to off road.
So they build an off road rig and you've got someone who likes to overland.
So they build an overland rig, but down there, it's the two combined.
Oh yeah.
Definitely the two combined.
So I mean, it, it was a lot of fun.
It reminded me more of how I remember the overlaying commute or that overland back then.
That wasn't a term.
The off road community was when I was in Arizona.
Um, I don't know if that's just cause we're out West and there are people that had done
more harder stuff.
I don't know.
Yeah.
What about say, cause I think anyone I've watched that dealt with overlaying in general
are out West more than over here, to be honest.
We were a bunch of posers here in Michigan.
That's all we are.
Yeah.
We slapped some tents on our roof.
We sleep in them once a month.
That's about it.
But yeah, it, it was a really good trip.
Um, the camp out was fantastic.
I don't think I've seen that much food in one place in a really, really long time.
I think that was the special thing there, but it's still, it was, it was, that was the
friends giving thing.
Yeah.
But that, that part of the camp out, that was fantastic.
I don't think Benji could have put together a better event.
No, the band was good.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And this campground literally we camped.
Well, we slept in sleeping bags on the ground, but our feet were almost dangling over a drop
off into a river.
Like it was beautiful.
It was.
That was a really cool.
I wonder how, how much cooler it would be when the water is raised up a little more
in some areas.
Cause you can tell where the water raised.
I almost wouldn't mind going back to Froggy's just to spend some time there.
Oh yeah.
Definitely.
Like that.
It was a really cool campground and the owner was super cool.
I sat and talked with them around the fire for a while.
Just all around.
It was a cool experience.
Yeah.
Then our, we woke up kind of later than we wanted to on Sunday.
I'd set my alarm for like six in the morning and then my phone died while I was sleeping.
So my alarm never went off, but we, we got, we left probably what around nine, I think
we left.
Yeah.
Somewhere in there.
This is around nine.
And the first probably half of our drive was really uneventful.
It was just nice, smooth truck was doing everything the truck was supposed to do.
And then I, we were getting gas and I looked underneath and I realized that there was just
oil everywhere in the back end of my truck.
Yeah.
Like absolutely just oil coating the fuel tank, oil coating every single inch of space
it could cover.
The oil was coming up the tailgate onto the window.
And so we climbed under and we found that the, the pinion seal was, which leaked a little
before.
So I probably should have fixed it.
Yeah.
But it was absolutely destroyed.
Fluid was just pouring out of it.
So we pulled into an O'Reilly's got it apart in like what?
Eight minutes.
Yeah.
I think eight minutes.
It didn't take long.
They had the part in stock.
So I grabbed that and a seal puller.
We popped it out, put it all back together.
We're done in like 25 minutes.
What tried to pop it out.
Oh yeah.
No, the old seal was so rusted that every time I pulled on it, it just disintegrated
into pieces.
Yep.
But finally I got it out.
Thank God.
So got that out, got a new one put in, got the truck put back together.
And then we, oh, we drove down through, uh, we went through St. Louis.
Yep.
I'm trying to remember what city we ended up, uh, finding that guy on mesh tastic.
Oh, I think that was Illinois.
No, I think it was before.
Was that still Missouri?
But anyway, we made a connection on mesh tastic, a guy who was, uh, he was from Texas.
Um, and he was just passing through.
So we had a little chat over the chat room and then got back on the road.
Um, stopped in Danville, Illinois.
Is that where Josh lives?
Yeah.
We stopped in Danville, Illinois and had a beer with a friend of the show, Josh.
Um, it was fun.
Haven't seen him in a while.
So it was nice to, you know, sit down and have a beer with him.
And then we just headed back up to Michigan and it was just nice, easy truck did well.
Nothing really broke other than opinion.
I didn't park because he farted too much.
As if.
We I don't think we use the fart extractor once.
Did we just eat that clean on the strip?
I think we did.
I think the only time we had an incident was when I farted outside of the Oakland somehow
at Leinard and gas station.
Oh, that's right.
I was like, good God, it's just such a small truck.
It holds farts like crazy.
But all sun roof pop open that back window.
That's it.
Flushes out real quick.
Yeah.
I guess that's our, uh, our post trip, uh, information there.
It really, it was just nice, easy.
Great time.
Real great.
It was a great time.
We have video and someday we'll sit down and edit video and make a video about it.
Um, yeah, we got to work on that.
We got to get better about doing video, man.
Yeah.
We have a YouTube channel for anyone who doesn't know.
I link it in every show note.
There is exactly zero videos on it.
Um, so yeah, that's great.
Oh yeah.
This is a great time for an ad read.
So for the ad, if anyone on here is listening and would like to, I don't know if you, maybe
you have an off road shop or you make ding dongs to put on Molly panels or you've got
middle fingers that people can put on their antennas for $15 a month.
This, uh, little 30 seconds slot could be yours and you could send us a little money
and we'll talk about you and how great you are, even if we hate you.
Um, so yeah, please reach out.
We would love to put you in here.
Yeah.
I guess that's an ad read back to your regularly programmed show.
Um, yeah, I really think that's all I've got.
That's a 15 minute episode, but Hey, it's better than nothing.
Right.
And Gavin should, what is going on?
Sorry for any audio quality problems.
Gavin should be back, um, next week he said he's feeling quite a bit better today.
And I guess keep him in your prayers if you're listening.
Cause he really had a bad bout of pneumonia there for awhile.
Um, but that's it from us.
Have a very good Thanksgiving.
I guess Thanksgiving will be over when this episode comes out.
Have a very good post Thanksgiving recovery.
Yeah.
Later.
Yeah.
See you guys.
you