Welcome to Botch's 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. This
episode we're going to try another, you're getting two new segments this week. We're
going to try doing something a little different and read off some radio chatter cards and
kind of answer them and play the game a little bit. We definitely forgot our radio chatter
deck somewhere, so we're only going to have one card today. It's going to be the one that
they advertise on their website. I'll link the radio chatter website in the show notes
because this is a game that it's good to just have it in your glove box. It doubles as a
deck of cards, so if you want to play normal cards, it's there. There's some really fun
questions and it's worth reading them out.
They even have a radio chatter after darkie game, which is not safe for kids or not safe
for radios, NSFR as they say.
I definitely own that deck and that deck will definitely be mixed in when we're reading
our cards.
Oh yeah, that'll be a lot of fun.
The next time you hear radio chatter from us, it might be dirty.
Yeah, right. So it'll be nice for a little mini-show today. The conversation starter
for the radio chatter, as they have up on their website, the question is, what is your
favorite upgrade on your rig? I think that's a pretty good one. Why don't we start with
you, Mark? What's your favorite? I know you just got a new one, so I wonder if that changes
anything now.
I kind of debated about it, thinking about it. I'm like, does it really? Is my new favorite
one? No, I think my favorite one, and this is the second time now, but this time is better
than the first time, is how I had my comms and speaker laid out for my truck.
Very efficient if you've ever seen it. Maybe, Mark, you could take a picture of your cab
area at some point.
Yeah, I got a couple pictures. I think I can get them off my phone. This last time, instead
of having my main unit mounted in the back behind my seat, even though last time we did
it was temporary and we just threw it back there, but I got that set up that way. It's
in my glove box, or actually not a glove box, but the center console. I plumbed the mic
cord into a little mic plug-in where my outlet used to be for my cigarette lighter.
Using Cat 5.
Yes, Cat 5 cable.
We ran a Cat 5 cable from the center console to the dash that goes through a pass-through
that makes it so we can plug his mic in on the dash.
Yep.
Then ran speaker up over into above my sunglass holders and put a speaker there because it
was a good area for me to position it. It looks clean being centered. Beyond that, I
got some off-roam foam mounts, ones for my phone. Now, Zoom, mostly more than the phone
now.
Then the other one is strictly for my mic holder. I got this cool magnetic mic mount.
It's quite awesome just to throw it up there. As long as it's within range of that main
unit, it will grab the main unit and stay up.
Yeah, your magnet holder for your mic. I'm going to have to copy that because that is
the sweetest thing, dude.
It is.
It just holds it so... It's easy to grab. It holds it tight. It's rock solid.
Hey, I'm muted.
Yeah, okay. Do I leave the 10 seconds of silence there or not?
What I was going to say was that, yeah, I actually thought about that too while we were
doing our poker run. I would reach with my left hand to go put the mic back on my A-pillar
where I have it mounted at. I would literally just drop it on the ground because I'm not
looking at the same time. There was a couple of times where I dropped it on the floor.
I'm like, oh, shit, and picked it up. Yeah, the magnetic, that's pretty interesting. I
might have to think about something like that too. Or maybe I'll look at a cheaper version
and looking at the magnets we sell at our hardware store, like neodymium magnets or
something cheaper like that, and just see what I can find. We could totally build one.
I think I could drill...
I bought it.
Yeah, I wonder if I could drill a hole into my A-pillar, see a magnet into it, glue it
in, and then just glue, obviously take the mount off the back of my handset, and just
glue a magnet onto that. I wonder if that would work.
You might even be able to just dig some of the plastic out of the back of your A-pillar
so that the magnet doesn't even show through. It's just clean A-pillar.
Yeah, I mean, I've actually... So what a lot of people do with the FJ stuff is they actually
put magnets on the other side of the plastic, and they just glue them to the other side
of the plastic with hot glue or whatever. And then they put them... They have a tablet
mount like that, where they... Alex, you've seen how my radio is set up, how the tablet
there is. Well, they literally have the regular radio, the stock radio there, but they have
magnets on the other side of that plastic. And can they literally put their 11-inch tablet
and just pop it right there. So it's actually pretty cool.
So, Gavin, we're going to go to you. What is your favorite mod you've done to your truck?
Mine did change. I think originally... You think originally it was the fridge. It was
just so much nicer to have something like that. But I think as of late, a couple of
weeks ago, I installed a switch panel, much like the AuxBeam H, like the eight-button switch
panels. I think I got like a 12-button cheapo one from Amazon. And I installed that. Definitely
have never done anything like that before. But that is by far so far my favorite. It's
so much easier where my lighting is all in one area. Before I had switches underneath
my dash, I'd have to reach for them. I'd have to feel for which one was what because I didn't
know. I had a button and a switch. And then the amount of wiring I actually had going
to my battery, which Alex can confirm, it was crazy for all the lights that I had and
everything. I only have two chasers, but the wiring harnesses together plus two fog lights.
Yeah. So I think having that on, being able to minimize all that wiring was like awesome.
And then of course you could program that switch panel on the go so that you could change
it so that your lights flash if you're in an emergency situation. Or let's say Alex
and I are doing a recovery at three in the morning and we want people to see us in the
middle of a snowstorm. I can make those lights flash so that people actually understand,
Hey, we're on the trail, slow down, you know, whatever. So that is super nice. I could turn
the lights on and off. I could change the color of the LCD on the panel. It makes it
my, under the hood is much cleaned, cleaned up from wiring. And it also makes wiring new
lights much, much, much easier because now I just have to run the positive and negative
straight to that panel and then assign a button to it. And that's it. So it's, it's great.
And that is probably my favorite so far. Yeah, that's a, that's a good one. I actually, when
I did my battery relocation, I put just a, um, just a, uh, a relay box in there. I think
it's got 10 relays and then I just have to wire my switch to the relay and then the relay
to the light, but it's all in one spot. Easy to get to. Yeah. Like just having that universal
bat, uh, location for power is so nice. Oh yeah, absolutely. I think eventually I'll
hook up a like power. So like my, my fridge right now, it can be charged off of like an
electric cigarette lighter. Um, so eventually when I wire that new cigarette lighter into
the side of my, uh, or, you know, or plug or whatever I decide to do into the side of
my FJ, where I'm going to plug my fridge into, I'm going to wire that power to that panel
so that I can turn that on and off so that it doesn't continually charge my fridge while
I'm, uh, you know, while I'm, um, parked, but if I need to, I can keep it on and charge
while my ignition's off and everything. So to be able to have that, yeah, to be able
to have that, uh, choice is what I want. So what about you, Alex? What's your favorite?
This is still your, uh, I think we talked about this once way back in the beginning
and our first season for a long time. Uh, my favorite was my quick deflators. Yep. Because
I think our first episode is when we talked about this probably, um, but yeah, my quick
deflators were my favorite for really, really long time because when it, you know, you get
to the spot, you're aired down, ready to go and ready, just go bullshit with people in,
you know, 30 seconds or less and no one else airs down as fast as I do. So I get aired
down and I've got five, 10 minutes to sit and bullshit with people. Um, then, but now,
uh, my favorite is probably my packouts. Um, the pack, just the pack out mounts themselves.
I won't even say the boxes. Uh, the boxes are really nice, but what's nice about it
is that I can just lock them into a pack out mount and never have to worry about strapping
them down, tying anything down. It's just click in their locks. They're going to stay
put and that is a huge benefit. And specifically the ones that you may have, they're metal
and not just the plastic ones. You have to modify out. I'm sure the plastic ones we would
have broken by now, but the metal ones are rock solid. Right. Well, I think that's, uh,
that's, that's a really good upgrade, uh, and a really good pick. I was, I was wondering
if it was going to be the same as what you were saying last, which was the deflators.
Yeah. I mean, I love my deflators. Don't get me wrong. They're probably my second favorite
one. Hmm. Hmm. Hey, so I actually have a question that I just was thinking about randomly and
for time's sake, I'm going to ask it anyway. Um, it's a little off topic, but what's your
guys's favorite state forest campground in Michigan? Okay. This is a good, you've been
to a couple cause we went to the one up by the porcupine mountains too. Oh, yeah. Oh,
wait. State forest campground. Yeah. Like take up or the little loop actual campground
or like a favorite state forest. Um, I'm thinking campground. Honestly, I, there's so many in
Michigan and I'm, there's like, there's one in Noeigo. Um, which I'm sure much been to,
right? Uh, soccer. I never, my favorite state campground is Hungerford Lake. Um, yeah. Or
pigeon river, either hunger for the lake or pigeon river. We do a lot of, my family does
horses. Uh, so we've done a lot of horse camping. So those that's hard. So hunger for it is
really great because it's close and beautiful, but pigeon river, you get to ride horses with
elk. So honestly, I'd say pigeon river is my favorite state forest campground, but my
favorite campground in the state has to be D bar D up in chase Michigan. That's not just
because my grandpa owns it and my family runs it. It's the best campground in the state.
I would say for me, um, and I, you know, I can't remember any of the ones that I've been
to in the UP. I've been to a few of them in the UP, but, uh, I will say the one that comes
to mind right now is the Leland all state park. Um, that's already, that's all the way
on the very tip of Leland, all, uh, peninsula and Michigan. And it was gorgeous, man. There
was a, there were cedar tree campgrounds that were just cedar trees. And then you have all
the fine needles on the ground right up against the, you know, the lake. It was absolutely
gorgeous. It wasn't super overcrowded. Um, they had a beautiful little, um, uh, lighthouse
and a little gift shop even in that same park. And it was just gorgeous. It was such a fun
place to take my son. Yeah. I have not been there, but we should do a botches weekend
trip up there. One of these, yeah. Yeah. Just maybe just a fun one just to go up to Leland
all and just maybe not really any wheeling, just camping. Yeah. Fun. Honestly, just like
the families up to state park and do three campsites and it's only like 20 bucks a night.
So it's like, it's not like a crazy amount. Do we even need three campsites? A lot of
state campgrounds will let you have two tents on a site. Yeah. It'll be like two tents or
vehicles, but I just said three just for gearing and everything. Just to have it kind of have
it separated. But if we could just do two men that would save us a boatload of money,
like 20 bucks a night. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm down. I mean, I, when I went, I, they
gave me one of the hosts campsite because they had no campsites left. And I'm like,
we just got here and my kid is not happy. And the lady was nice enough to give me the
host campsite because there was no host at that time. So, so I mean, I've had nothing
good to say about that place. The bathrooms were really very clean. It smelled very good.
They didn't smell like a bunch of crap. They had massive showers. No, but there was a lake.
So Oh, well, you know, beating off in a lake is a lot less, a lot more frowned upon the
beaten off in a shower. There's a lot of lake buddy. And I don't know if the sunset that
we saw, maybe I'll give you some clip art of, of my wife playing with my son and the
sunset behind her, but, or for chapter art, but the, the, the, the views were pretty great.
So not the worst place to beat off, to be honest. Not that we're beating off in state
parks or anything. We do not, we do not condone beating off in Pope's Lake. No, no, we don't.
But I'm just saying if it was to happen and you're that kind of person, which we are not,
but if you were, it's a beautiful area to do it. Just like a two hearted campground
area up there. Like we wouldn't condone you beating off on the suspension bridge, but
it would be a hell of a place to put on here in your notebook or your diary of favorite
beat off locations. That's all I have to say. Your sock drawer. Yeah. Not my favorite beat
off location, but one out of 10 wasn't easy to get into.
Back on topic on the forest campgrounds. Yeah. Yeah. What about, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of,
yeah, Mark, what's your favorite? I've only been to two. I think my favorite one so far
has been the Caryville state forest campground. That's part of the main ST loop. Is that actually
the most data for Labor Day? What? Two years ago? Yep. That's a great campground. That
is a good campground. And you can literally drive right on the trail, right at campground
site. So many side by sides and they like to hit runners. Well, specifically on Labor
Day weekend. Yeah. Specifically Labor Day weekend. It's specifically my forerunner that
was in the back of the group for whatever reason. Yeah. I've never heard of that. Maybe
we'll have to check that out. I really love scouting out these areas and I'd like to do
more weekends where we can just go out for a weekend, do a real low budget, not crazy
wheeling even maybe just do a camp. And yeah, I think we got to just try to get out more
this next summer. Remember we're halfway dead. We only have 30 more years, give or take,
depending on our eating. Your plan on dying at 60. I'm planning. Dude, I was planning
at dying at 20. I'm surprised I made it this far. I just hit 30 and I'm like, now what?
I definitely have like another 50 years because I'm going to die at 80 in space. So I've got
at least 50 years left over. Sure. You know, let me say usable years. That's my biggest
thing. And not to not to jump down this topic too much, but like I was talking to a guy
who's who I was working with. He's like, I can't wait to you just bought a brand new
Colorado. So it's like a 2019 with 7,400 miles. The first owner died and just never drove
it. And he's like, I can't wait to build this thing up a little bit and just take it around
the country touring. You know, he's not overlining or anything, I don't think. But just to around
the country and live in the back of this. And I'm like, dude, you're like almost 70.
Why are you waiting so long? Why? Why? It's like the earlier generations wait till they're
almost too broken to do it. And I don't know, man. My grandpa's in his late seventies and
he runs a campground and gets on a horse every day. Yeah. I mean, of course, it just depends.
But to me, I hear people talk like that. I'm like, why would you wait till you retire?
Like you have you have so much. I mean, let's say you retire at 60 or 65. You had probably
20 to 40, 50 good years there where you could have been out doing stuff and living life
and making other types of memories. Instead, you're like, nope, got to keep it to the man
and got to keep keep working and working and working until I get my nice pension. And it's
like that's that was a I think that was a thought that was instilled on our fathers
and grandfathers. But that was also in a different time where the country cared about you a little
bit more than it does now. And in my opinion, corporations care about you. Right. The living
wage never cared about you. No smaller ones. We just had we just had this conversation
about the radium girls. Yes. Right. Yeah. Unfortunately, the fact that there are people
that don't even know about that is crazy. But if you've never heard of the radium girls,
please read it up. It's it's a very sad story, but it's it's a lesson. It's a lesson that
was needed to be taught and learned. Unfortunately, but and sadly, being radioactive does not
give you superpowers. No, not not not by what they were not by radium. No. But back then,
they were using radium for everything. Is your baby fussy here? Here's a radium tincture.
So it was it was being mass marketed as being something healthy. Like so many other things
in life like the pyramid or lead makeup, the food pyramid that was lied to for so fucking
long. The food pyramid was definitely made to make us buy grains. That that is crazy.
And I found that out recently. And I know this is a mini so we're not going too crazy
about this conspiracy shit. But the fact that we were lied to by our own fucking like government
and facilities that we needed to buy more grain, how can you trust a fucking word that
they say? And the grain wasn't even the big one. It was the the sugars. What about this?
Because this what about the milk ads? I was about to say, are you crazy? Hold up. Milk
is actually extremely important for the human body. However, pasteurized milk is not after
you boil that milk, you kill all the benefits as much as their heart been now telling us
not to buy raw milk, don't buy raw milk. Raw milk is by far the best thing for you. It
is the best if you're going to drink it. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Because what raw milk gives
you is well, one vitamins, too. It gives you it's a way to boost your immune system because
it exposes you to little bits of a virus, which then gives your body ways to fight it
off. Up until we started pasteurizing milk, and what was it the 70s? We started pasteurizing
milk, I don't even fully know. But anyways, whenever we started pasteurizing milk up to
that point, we actually use milk as a way to increase the immune system of human of humans.
Yeah, which so if you don't know this, it's much like honey, bees that produce honey in
their area. It's always recommended that you eat honey from those bees in your local area
because they make antibodies in their honey, which help you from getting sick. So it's
kind of like the same thing with mothers and their babies. Mothers, a lot of the times
will produce antibodies that actually go through their breast milk. And during their time,
if there's flu going around, or any other kind of sickness going around, their body
automatically adjusts to what the baby is going to need and provides antibodies to help
the baby survive that. And it's the same thing with cows. So that's where that comes from
is it's their bodies adjusting to the local area and providing those antibodies to these
kids and, you know, parents and all that. So it's, I guess it's, that's an important
point to make is that raw milk from your local area is what's good for you, not just raw
milk in general. Right. And of course, and this is another thing, I guess, we're not
saying you should just go out and buy raw milk from the first person you find either.
If you do, if you are interested, do your research, buy from someone who's reputable,
who's clean, because a lot of the issues that happen with raw milk are because it's either
as some kind of, I can't remember the illness or the what is the reason why they started
doing it. Can't remember what it's called, although I should, people will make fun of
it.
Oh, pasteurization, pasteurization is another one. Pasteurization is definitely one of those
scams that the milk industry pushed the government to make it illegal or make it requirement
to pasteurize because the cost of the equipment to properly pasteurize milk is so high that
they pushed out local dairies. That's how we ended up with big dairy problems is that
they use pasteurization as a way to kill off local dairies.
And it did very well. My, my grandparents had a dairy farm that was eventually pushed
out. They were one of the biggest, I think, what was it, Prairie Farms? Is that one of
the milk suppliers? They were, they did a lot of milk for those guys. So yeah, it sucks.
But it's, it's, it's important stuff. But we digress out of this, all this conspiracy
stuff, right? Out of the milk conspiracy, the bread and the wheat conspiracies. Hell,
there was, I mean, a red meat conspiracy for the longest time not to eat red meat. And
your doctors were telling you not to. And now it turns out it's great for you. And now
it's got almost the reverse effect. It's supposed to help. And if you eat that almost by yourself,
it's supposed to, it's supposed to help. And there's been plenty of people who have done
this carnivore diet that you've been hearing around that have just swear up and down that
they feel so much better. And I don't know, when you look at what we were doing back when
we were native to the wild and, you know, 10,000 years ago, what was our diet consisting
of? It makes way more sense that we're eating 80% meat and very few nuts and grains and,
you know, and maybe it makes more sense for us to be changing that throughout the year.
So maybe we should be eating more meat in the summers and maybe eating more fruits and dried
meats in the winters. And, you know, it just depends.
I flip that around. You'd be eating more meat, you'd be eating more meats in the winters
and more fruits and veggies and stuff in the summer.
Because it's there, right? Like, yeah, that makes more sense. That's kind of what I was
trying to say and I got backwards. But, and it's really good for you to eat local produce
in the proper season. So yeah, that means you can't just make a fucking taco on a Tuesday
night in the wintertime, but it's a really big deal for you to be eating those tomatoes
and stuff in the right season because it also helps you prepare yourself for that season.
Yeah. Fun fact, tomatoes aren't actually ripe when you get them in the grocery store in
the middle of winter. They are ripened via gas during transport that actually changes
the color of the tomato from green to red. So everything you know is a lie. The government
lies to you. And what you need to do is grow your own food, not listen to the government,
but listen to Botch's Off-Road Podcast. And listen to Botch's Off-Road Podcast for your
weekly and very frequent conspiracy ideas, apparently. And start homesteading. And on
that note, we'll catch you guys later. Botch's Conspiracies. Yeah. Oh, look, there's flashlights
at my door. And on that note, catch you guys later. Yeah, rack of light on my handgun.
We'll talk to you later. Later.