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. So it's just going to
be a small, little smallie episode today. It's
just me and Alex on this one. I kind of signed
on a little late. Been busy running and doing
stuff on my one day off a week. It works out
good for the listener, though, because they were
just going to get an episode from Alex saying,
hey, sorry we missed doing an episode this week.
Tune in on Tuesday. But now they get some content.
Yeah. Well, so I guess I should explain why he
wasn't even on the last one. I would say something
like that. I don't even remember, actually. No.
I have no idea what it was. I think I had the
kid. Your kid was sick, and there was no one
to watch him. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Something's
sick. This is the first time I haven't been sick
in a long time. Trying to stay away from all
that. But, nope, this week I missed it because
I got a bug up my ass, and with my plans coming
up, I decided I wanted to put my Princey rack
on finally. It was a nice enough day, so... I
went and grabbed my heavy -ass box, brought it
out, started ripping everything off of my old
rack, which was surprisingly more annoying than
I thought it was going to be. Got all that stuff,
like the Pelican box off with all the junk in
it. Got the jack off. Jack off. Got the... I
got something you can jack off. Oh, no, no, no,
no, no. No, no, no, no. We got the pooper tent
off. I had to take my Wii Boost off, which I
honestly just grinded the bolts off of that.
It was just being an ass, and I was just like,
I'm not dealing with it. I have extra. So cut
the bolts off that and took my... God, what are
they called? The brush risers? Limb risers. Oh,
my God. It's been a day, man. Took those off,
and then I started getting the rack off, and
I've never tried to do anything with this rack,
so it took a, I think it was a 6mm Allen head,
but, of course, every angle that you tried to
get this Allen head in, To take it off, you couldn't
use a drill or anything because the rack folded
out, you know, over it. And the rack was so flimsy
that the rack itself actually bent inwards, and
I didn't know that until I was taking it off.
So I'm glad I got a new one because that was
not going to hold a rooftop tent. So I hand unscrewed
all... 12 of the Allen bolts and got that off,
got all the leftover RTV out of there, picked
up the rack and scratched the shit out of my
roof, my princy rack, trying to get that on there
because that thing's actually heavier than it
looks, all assembled and whatnot, and started
getting that fitted. You assembled it on the
ground? Yeah, that's how they recommend to do
it. Oh, man, I totally would have done it on
the roof. Well, I would have had to stand on
the steps the whole time, and there was a lot
of, like, fitment stuff that... I'll be honest,
I think it would have been easier just picking
it up and putting it up there. I was so much,
like... Like, I had to leave all the screws loose
and all the bolts loose, and then when I finally
got it up there... You know, until I got everything
together. Yeah. And then once I put it up there,
I could, like, tighten everything down, but it
was just a pain in the ass. Got a bunch of RTVs,
threw it all over the places I scraped off, then
threw the back brackets on and bolted everything
down, and I thought I was good. Got down and
realized that the rack was all the way to the
right. hanging off the right a little bit because
they're slotted. So I untightened all of those
bolts again, shifted them, waited for Sienna
to get home, which she was on her way home anyway,
picking up the kid. And so she eyeballed it.
So if anybody sees my rack and says that it's
off a little bit, it's on Sienna. So tighten
it back down. Got my Wii Boost on there. I had
to switch the mount around a little bit to get
it to actually fit in the slotted rack with the
cross beams, cross bars. Mm -hmm. And got that
installed pretty easily with some leftover bolts.
Princey was pretty cool about giving, like, four
extra bolts for everything. Nuts, washers, everything.
Good. I was actually pretty impressed. The only
thing that they didn't do is any kind of install
manual. Actually, I had to look that up, which
wasn't a big deal, but I was definitely kind
of guessing at first and then decided to just
go on YouTube. They have an install video of
it. Yeah, I got the Wii Boost on. Got my Chase
Lights re... I don't even want to talk about
how stupid I put them on before, but let's just
say I had to cut the wires and then reconnect
them. Oh, that sucks. Yeah, I had them underneath,
and there was no way for me to... There's no
way around it, so it was okay. I mean, it allowed
me to clean it up a little bit. I had some big
heat shrink tubes that I wanted to put on anyway,
so I reconnected them, heat shrinked. um, the
connections again, and then use some tape to
clean up that a little bit. And, uh, cool enough,
the wire running to the chase lights, because
those cross, um, yeah, those fucking cross beams,
bars or whatever are slotted on every, you know,
every side. I can actually tuck the wire into
the slot, um, which hit it pretty well. it actually
looked pretty pretty neat by the time i was done
with it despite how fast i was just bullshitting
through it so yeah got that on took some pictures
of it um it's looking really good and uh went
on a test drive and the seems like it's not i
don't know it seems like it's diverting air a
lot better so i do like the fact that the It's
got a wind deflector with, like, a rubber seal
that rests on the roof, so it's pretty nice.
Yeah, it looks good, man. I'm looking at pictures
right now, and I'll be honest, the old roof rack
was better. Just kidding. Yeah. I mean, it was
actually a lower profile, to be honest, but that's
not a big deal. No, it looks good. Yeah, it's
a lot sturdier. I mean, a lot sturdier. I'll
be, I was a hundred percent surprised when I
went to take the rack off and the, my side rails,
like the left and right side rail were bent in.
So, uh, yeah, that was not gonna, I'm glad that
I did it because it was not going to support
the weight of all of us and whatever else I decided
to put up there. So yeah, all in all good. Um,
Got my battery in from EcoFlow. Nice. Nice. This
weekend, and that's all good to go. So fridge
is all charged up, ready. What else? I think
that's about it. And then, yeah, I'm just trying
to get everything ready for this weekend. We're
probably going to go around either Fife Lake
or Grayling. I know Derek from Men's State Tours
had some. Had some places around Grayling, like
Spring Kids Camp. Grayling is like shut down
still. It's straight up no -go right now. Yeah.
Well, I was thinking about it, and I'm like,
I got four batteries, but this is just supposed
to be kind of a shakedown weekend for us, so
I'm probably just going to go to Fife Lake. Well,
it's in that area. That's the same place we did
the cryptid hunt, and we camp around there more
often than anywhere else, really. Go up to ever.
It's close. It's beautiful. No, I want to take.
So I think it was last year that or the year
before my buddy Hayden, who I've known for pride
now, probably 16 years. First time I've seen
him in five or five or six years almost. You
know, he had a baby, then I had a baby. Just
been busy. He's down in Tennessee. He drove all
the way up here, met me at my house, and then
drove a couple hours back up to Traverse City
area. And we went to one of our old camping spots
we used to go, you know, as kids when we were
back in high school. And it was a beautiful,
beautiful camp spot on the Manistee. I wanted
to take Sienna up there. She always mentioned
how beautiful it was and was jealous that he
got to go and she didn't. Yeah, I got you. What?
Isn't Fife Lake shut down right now too? I don't
know. I don't think so. Fife Lake's west of Grayling,
so it's just north of Cadillac a little bit.
I don't think it is. It's up by Traverse City.
Yeah, it's about 30 minutes, I want to say southeast.
Because it's in Grand Traverse County. Yeah.
If it is, that would suck, but we'll still find
something, man. Yeah. I would just look into
that before you go up there. Yeah, there might
be a burn ban, which I haven't gotten that. It's
on my list, but I haven't gotten that propane
fire pit yet. That was going to be probably my
next purchase. I'm too broke to think about next
purchases. Well, give me a really quick rundown
on what went good and what went bad for... Third
gen. I mean, as far as just your camping setup,
I guess. I'll listen to the episode, but I just
want to hear as far as equipment goes. What were
you like, hey, this is fucking great. And then
you're like, okay, maybe I need to improve a
little bit on something. Everything was fucking
great. Everything was at hand. Oh, well, okay.
I was going to say, be critical. We didn't get
into this in the main episode, so I guess that's
beneficial. The cheap toilet tent that I bought
is not the best option. Okay. It's kind of a
bitch and a half to fold up. Is it one of those,
like, pop -out ones? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
So, I mean, that's annoying, but it's not the
end of the world. I mean, when you set it up,
I mean, you just kind of left it and it was good.
Yeah, once it's up, it's fine. It's putting it
away that sucks. Right. And it seemed to kind
of hold the smell. Oh, that's the other thing.
So I bought a trash can to put the poo in because,
you know, to hide it and make it not look disgusting.
Yeah. Heavily recommend doing that, by the way.
But you need to be able to strap that pop -up
trash can to your roof somewhere so it can air
out because that will hold the smell for a long
time. Yeah, that's one thing I do love about
having that little kangaroo bag on the back of
my trash bag on the back of my tire. So then,
yeah, other than that, the toilet that you recommended
I hate, but other than that, it was fine. The
one I recommended, the one that I had? Yeah,
the one that you have, yeah, I hate it. You do?
Yeah, it's terrible. What's wrong with it? It
doesn't fold up small enough. Oh, okay. Well,
that's, yeah. I'm thinking like, I'm like, dude,
this thing's comfortable. It's sturdy. No, it's
literally fine. It just doesn't fold up small
enough. I get that. And again, that's something
I keep in my kangaroo pouch or whatever you call
it. But I've looked at a couple different ones,
and they're plastic. I know. Hear me out. But
they have higher. They have higher weight ratings
than what the one that you have does. Like this
one, which is just the one where the plastic
goes around the seat and then it folds up into
a small compact. It's weight rated for like 600
pounds. I know, this stuff just makes me nervous.
Like I wanted something that I knew if I could
rock around on a little bit as I'm trying to
pray to Jesus, you know. I'm thinking worst case
scenario, I got, you know. I got my shirt off
because it's that bad. My goal is to be able
to put it in a packout. Yeah, yeah. It'd be cool
to have all your toiletries in a packout, actually,
to just throw it all in one. That's what we were
talking about is right now we have a packout
that all of our individual camp stuff goes in.
So each of us have a packout with our tent, our
sleeping pad, our pillow. And I can fit my chair
in there. They can't. But still, pretty much
all of our campsite stuff can go in one packout,
right? I would love to do another one for the
toilet. And then we've got a kitchen packout
stack. So literally, we get to camp. We set the
packouts at each spot we're going to set up that
tent. And it's just all there, ready to go. Yeah.
Yeah, that is pretty cool. I've seen a picture
of you guys' packouts near each tent. Or each,
like, cot with a tent on it. Like, is that what
it was? It was like a cot with a tent on it?
Yeah, it's the military cot with the Light Fighter
tent on top. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Yeah,
it worked great. Is that single person? Those
ones are. They do have a Light Fighter 2, which
is a four -season tent. It's got what's called
a wind jacket that goes over top of it to turn
it into a winter tent. That's a two. That's a
two -person. It's $600. Holy shit. It is hands
down the absolute best quality tent you can buy.
Nemo doesn't get close to it if that tells you
the level of quality. Hmm. Now, the benefit with
Nemo is the weight of a Nemo tent is way lighter
than a Lightfighter. but the quality of a light
fighter and the speed of setup on a light fighter
is way faster. Yeah. I think my Nemo is like
a, I think it's like four pounds. Yeah. Whereas
the light fighter two with all of it, with the
winter wind jammer, it's like 13 or 14 pounds.
Yeah. Well, I originally bought the Nemo for,
like, backpacking and stuff, but it's turned
out to be a really nice, quick setup two -person
tent for just one -nighters. I actually forgot
you had a Nemo. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I have the Nemo
Dagger. It's two -person. And honestly, it's
been fucking fantastic. I haven't had any issues,
complaints. The other cool thing about the Light
Fighter tents, which... I've got to find where
to get the wind jacket. But if you get them on
eBay and they're GI issued, then they're made
here in the US. If you get them off their website,
then they were made overseas. So you can actually
get a US made tent through Light Fighter, which
is no one else really has that. Yeah, it's nice.
That's why the price is so much higher. But I've
seen. I just saw Light Fighter 2 go for $2 .85
today. Oh. And if I'd been paying attention,
I totally would have bought it. Oh, yeah. You
know. Yeah. Well, what did you guys eat? Wait,
was it just the guys? Yeah, we did, like, walking
tacos and whatever that thing that Shane makes
is. We talk about it in the big episode. Oh,
yeah. Well, I was just curious because I'll listen
to it, but I was just curious what the menu was.
I think I'm just going to do cheapo stuff this
weekend. Try to keep it as cheap as possible.
I think our walking tacos. So we did a pound
of beef, a can of corn, a pack of taco seasoning,
and then like a handful of bags. And I think
that's like the cheapest way you can eat in the
field. Yeah. Yeah, and you have your own plate
and everything too. It's pretty nice. Yeah, it
was delicious. Yeah. I've definitely thought
about doing that, like do some black beans and
do like some lettuce and stuff. Chop that all
up before I even go out. Yeah. I might do that
this weekend. We'll see. It's worth it. Yeah,
I'm going to try and keep it as cheap as possible,
and I have to think about what the kid will eat,
which is basically hot dogs. Like, it's the only
shit he'll eat a lot of. It's crazy. And I hate
it, but it's like, it's meat, and I get, like,
the 100 % all beef ones. That's what we get,
too. Yeah, you know, I'll cut it up long ways,
and then I'll cut it up again, you know. And
the one day that I cooked outside to like test
the propane, because I ran a longer hose to my
Dometic. That way I could move that over to the
far side of my fold down table for like washing
dishes or getting water. And then I tested out
my five pound tank with my stove, which thankfully
the hose that came with it hooked right up to
the stove. So then I decided to just test out
the Gerber. cookware that i got into which is
fucking fantastic oh my god speaking of cookware
we didn't talk about that we bought new cookware
for this trip too yeah way better than anything
stainless way better than even carrying cast
iron i mean i let me pull it up so i can tell
you exactly what this thing's coated with uh
so it's a ceramic granite coating Oh, yeah. I
think I've seen something like that. And it's
like $30. It's got a removable handle so it fits
in our packout. I mean, it's a 10 -inch skillet.
It's a good -sized skillet. The thing is rock
freaking solid. When I got done cooking – oh,
we cooked steak on Friday. That's the other thing
we ate. Nice. When I got done cooking steak,
I literally just took a damp rag and wiped it
out, and it was clean. Cast iron takes longer
to clean than that. Cast iron is a quick, clean
setup, you know? Yeah, it's just wipe and done
pretty much, yeah. Yeah, I was really impressed
with the Gerber stuff so far. I mean, I didn't
realize it until Sienna pointed it out, but all
the pans, pots, pans, and bowls all have measurements
on them. I had no clue until she pointed it out.
It's pretty sick. Yeah, and I cooked the hot
dogs on it. It's a big pan. I was really excited
about that. The heat did not transfer to the
handle at all, which I was kind of wondering
about. And I could just wipe it right out. I
threw a little bit. I think I threw just a splash
of water or something on there while it was still
a little warm. Took a paper towel and just wiped
it clean and threw it in all that stuff in the
bag and threw it back in the truck. Took all
my old pots and pans out. I got a lot fucking,
I got a lot more space now, so. It's good. Next
on my list is the Automatic Coffee Grinder, the
Brewtrek Overlander, and the Ignik Fire Pit.
Oh, the Brewtrek, like my Brewtrek? Yeah. It's
a little different. It's not as big because Sienna
and I don't drink that much, but it's enough
to. The Bruchac Roverlander is what I have, the
24 -ounce one. Oh, okay. I thought you had a
bigger one for some reason. I thought you had
the one that's a whole pot. No, that's literally
the same one I have. Oh, yeah. Then probably.
And I absolutely love it. Everyone should have
one. Yeah, I had. If you get on eBay, though,
don't buy it off Amazon. It's like 50 bucks on
Amazon. Yeah. I think I paid like $20 for mine
on. eBay. Oh, there's like none of them for sale
on eBay anymore. You might be stuck buying it
on Amazon. There is one on eBay right now for
$30 with $10 shipping, and it's used. Yeah, I
got, let's see. Yeah, I have that. That's $50.
It's called Crops. It's a coffee grinder. That's,
like, on sale for $39. So I want to get those.
That'll really just kind of step up any of my
coffee stuff. And I know Sienna likes coffee
in the morning, especially when it's cold out.
And a couple people, you know, when I'm camping
around want some coffee, and so I figure it's
always good to have it. And after I get that
propine, I guess, I guess that's what it's called,
propine. fire pit uh that'll be nice for the
burn bands because there's kind of a lot of burn
bands right now so i'll have to take a look at
that and see what's going on up there in fife
lake it is that time of year where burn bands
are a plenty yeah yeah we've had uh the uh We've
had a lot of fires near us. You had a fire, like,
right down the road that you did a couple weeks
ago. We've had brush fires everywhere on top
of the DNR doing underbrush controlled. Yeah.
I don't know if those are all... I almost wonder
if some of those controlled burns triggered some
of the other brush fires, the embers from them.
I think so, because it was the same day. There
were fires everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And the wind's
been fucking crazy. But I think that's a good
place to call it. Yeah, it gives you a little
25, 30 -minute rundown of what's going on and
what's going to be. So we appreciate you guys
listening in, and we'll talk to you later. Definitely
tune in Tuesday. Yeah. All right. Later. Later.