Welcome to Botches Off -Road. Join us as we talk
about everything from trail reviews to tech.
Dang, guys, I screwed up that intro. I thought
I could do it pro bono. You know what? That's
the intro they're getting. So, Mark, Gavin, how
you doing? Doing good. Oh, we're doing. Surviving
the heat. It's hot, man. It is fucking hot. I've
been drinking water nonstop, and that's all I've
been drinking. Yeah, we, you know, my birds are
sick. We had a little incident yesterday when
it was 90 degrees out where I noticed that only
half of the water was working. Oh. Turns out
the medication we were using filled the lines
with a yellow foam and plugged them up so they
couldn't have a lot of water anymore. Oh, that's
bad. Took a long. What's up? You using Corrid?
Corrid what? Isn't that what the medication is?
This one's like Penn Chlor, I think. Penn Chlor
64. Yeah, no, it went through the medicator,
and it's like a chocolate milk when it's mixed
up. And just as it goes through the line, it
was all building up in the site tubes and making
it so the water wouldn't flow anymore. Yeah,
it took... First, I couldn't figure out what
was wrong, so it took me probably 30 minutes
to figure that out. And then after that, it was
probably 30 minutes of flushing lines and cleaning
fittings. But the medication is over, and the
birds aren't dead yet, and now they leave next
Wednesday at 2 a .m. Nice. Yep. So, yeah. Let's
see. Gavin did stuff this weekend, so we'll let
him go first. Actually, screw that. Go to Gavin's
podcast. Oh. Yeah, I gave a more in -depth rundown
on the happenings of what happened this weekend.
But, yeah, we left... Have we even announced
HOA on here at all? Does anyone even know it
exists? I don't think so. I don't think we have
announced it here yet. So, Gavin, I'll let you
give the quick pitch on your podcast, and then
we'll go from there. Oh, yeah, I just... We kind
of... Wanting to start a little something different.
Kind of the same thing, but it's more about my
personal Overland experience. Doing it with the
kids. More pointed towards the gear reviews and
stuff like that. It is called Huckleberry's Outdoor
Adventures or HOA. I give more in -depth updates
on some of the stuff that I've been doing. or
more in -depth updates on some of the gear that
I'm using. So if you're interested, go check
it out. Yeah. Now I'm done putting you off. You
can give your wrap now. Oh, you're good. Yeah,
so we left Wednesday night and got there probably
8 or so, 7 or 8, and found out that the place
that we were going to... camp with everybody
if everybody actually came was going to be way
too small so we ended up going back to the spot
that we camped last year for kids camp fall and
that was fun um we got there that night it rained
that night until 10 or so in the morning and
so that was fun and then we had a guest uh come
and camp and we had another uh another guy coming
to camp and Then that was a whole interesting
thing that happened there. But once everybody
got to camp, I think Friday, I think it was Friday
into Saturday morning, we had a massive storm
hit, and that was pretty crazy. It was flooding.
The whole area flooded. The underside of my tent
was like a waterbed. You could just push down
and see the water. Thankfully, the bottom of
my tent's made out of tarp material. Yeah, it
should have a bathtub under there. Yeah. So nothing
got in, but there were certain parts where I
didn't have the rain fly tightened down all the
way, or I didn't have it. If you see how mine
is, it'll fully enclose. I had it rolled back
to get in and out. And the rain started hitting
the tent side where the door is. It started kind
of coming in through there. So we dried that
off and fastened up the hatches and waited it
out. That was a good 45 minutes to an hour that
that happened. We even had hail the size of a
penny start hitting our tent. The winds got really
crazy. It was pretty cool, man. Then, you know,
after that, we went straight to town because
we were tired of being cooped up. We got some
donuts from the bakery. We went and traveled
around for a couple hours, came back, and then
the heat started. And it was like 96, 97, the
whole rest of the day. Everything's dried out.
You couldn't even tell it rained. And we were
dying. And then, of course, I was going to be,
I was planning on going on a nice little trail
ride because I was like, it's going to be hot.
I might as well be in AC the rest of the day.
So we were going to go trail ride, and that's
when my power steering, I noticed it was being
kind of funky, but as I was driving by after
I just aired down, Joe, one of the guys there,
was like, yeah, man, that's kind of loud. So
we opened the hood, and lo and behold, I'm slinging
power steering fluid. Joe ended up having some
power steering fluid. We filled it up, burped
it. Did you put power steering fluid in it or
ATF? Power steering, I think. I know you're supposed
to do one or the other, but nobody had ATF. Now
that you mixed it, we really should do more than
just the power steering pump or you're going
to have issues quick. Is it supposed to be ATF
on that? It's supposed to be ATF. All right.
I'll double check because he said he thought
that too, but I didn't look at the bottle when
he put it in. But, yes, I got new lines coming
in for it, power steering pump itself, and, yeah,
it was fun. Yeah, we burped it out, tried to
get rid of some of it so that I could at least
get home. But the power steering pump, I'm assuming
the pulley itself was getting fucked up because
my belt was starting to get eaten. Yeah. So you
could see that that was kind of starting to get
chopped up. So I was like, yeah, I'm not going
to do that trail ride then. I'll just wait it
out and then drive home Sunday and pray that
I make it. If not, I have an extra belt to try
to get there. You? So. You only have one belt,
don't you? Yeah, just a serpentine. Oh, that
sucks. That is one thing I do appreciate about
the third gens or the 3 -4 in general, because
each accessory has its own belt. So if I have
one fail, I don't lose everything else. Right,
right. And, yeah, I was kind of like, damn, that
kind of sucks. I was thinking the same thing,
but I was like, yeah, whatever, you know. And
I can't be super mad either. Yeah, I'm kind of
tired. But I can't be super mad. That's the first
thing that's really happened in the three years
or so that I've had it. Yeah. And so I went into
Rock Auto, bought one. It's supposed to be here
Thursday or Friday, and hopefully I can get that
on pretty quick. And I guess, I don't know, what
do you think? Are you going to have to flush
it out or what? well you got lines so that's
good uh the problem is you got a rack and pinion
down there yeah so really without replacing the
rack and pinion all you can really do is put
it back together fill it with atf that you got
and call it a day the right thing to do would
be replace the rack and pinion and the lines
and the pump yeah and probably won't happen i've
yeah I've done a few of them. It happens. Mine
leaks right now. I just keep putting ATF in it
to keep it going. Yeah. I know usually people
say to only run OEM. Fuck them. I've got a Detroit
axle under there right now. Detroit axle seems
to be pretty good about their warranty. Do you
remember, Dad, did you have a Detroit Axle in
your mind or no? I think yours is a Detroit Axle,
too. That's what I thought. I know I got Detroit
Axle lower control arms, but I thought I did
the Rack Opinion, too. Yeah, your Rack Opinion's
$250, Gavin. Yeah. That's about right. It ain't
cheap. No. Yeah. But all right, Mark, I guess
we can get into ours because we were together
again. go figure so mark came over on friday
yep what were we working on friday when my boss
showed up we were working on cleaning up the
shed oh that's right yeah so we were just kind
of doing busy work because it wasn't quite hot
yet but it wasn't cool so we didn't want to get
into anything major And then my boss showed up
and ate out like an hour of my time ate out.
My boss did not eat me out. I promised. Um, so
he ate up like an hour of my time. Didn't even
get anything done. It was just, it was boring,
but whatever. Um, then Friday night, I did not
want to camp in my front yard again. I was done
with it. So I brought the lawnmower up and there's
like a, Next to my yard is a small section of
woods with a drainage ditch in it. And I was
just like, you know what? Screw it. And I made
us a really nice campsite that's tucked back
in the woods there. Yep. We grabbed the weed
whacker. We weed whacked down to where the drainage
ditch or the... It's almost a creek. There's
water there, but it's just a drainage creek.
Yep. I mean, there's fish and frogs that live
in it, but... So we whacked down to that. We've
got to get some railroad ties and kind of build
a little bit of a retaining wall and do some
backfill to level it out. Because sleeping on
a slant sucked. It's not even like a super noticeable
slant. It's just enough that it's like, well,
fuck. I'm just glad I didn't have a panic attack
when the last time I slept on a slant didn't
work out. But it's pretty nice back there. We're
tucked away, so sitting back there, you can forget
you're at my house. Oh, 100%. Oh, was Friday
night the meth head fight? Yes. Oh, my God. Guys,
we had meth heads fighting in front of my house.
I live in the middle of nowhere. There's no reason
that meth heads should be fighting in front of
my house. But I was getting my tent set up, and
I heard a woman screaming bloody murder. And
so I hopped in Mark's truck because it was the
closest one and headed over there. And her boyfriend
or husband or something was trying to, like,
talk her down. And they were still screaming
at each other. So I checked on him. I was like,
hey, you guys broke down. What's going on? He's
like, man, I really fucked up this time. And
they're, like, both clearly methed out. Like,
it was bad. He's like, I fucked up this time.
And then. So I turned around and came back to
the farm, and we were just sitting there listening
to her then go on and on. And he just screams,
the cops are coming. I ain't calling the cops,
but I bet the turkey farm is because you're being
ridiculous. And as he said that, I was dialing
911. I was like, fuck, am I that predictable?
I just, I didn't know what he was going to do.
I didn't know what she was going to do, you know?
yeah it was it was really bad and then he hopped
in his truck and drove away and then what like
two minutes later we had a trooper go by yeah
like it was quick but yeah so methods apparently
they are moving out of the city and fighting
in front of my house now so that's fun um yeah
so we got our campsite all set up uh what did
we do sad oh saturday we did something pretty
fun we started painting our pack outs. Oh yeah.
And we also ran the last load of scrap. Yeah.
And we ran scrap in, but that's who wants to
hear about running scrap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially
when it's not the last load and I have more that
I'm putting on the trailer tomorrow or Friday.
Oh yeah. So we have another load that'll go on
Saturday. Gotcha. Yeah. And this one's going
to be a pain in the ass to unload because it's
that loose wall metal stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah,
so we got more scrap to run. But, yeah, so we
painted our pack out, so now they're tan and
black with a little tiny bit of red. Hopefully
that makes them a little less likely to get stolen,
and it makes them look so much better. Oh, yeah.
I was getting red fatigue from how many red packouts
we had. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that the red accent
and the handle and the latches actually make
it pop. Yeah. So, yeah, packout painting was
fun. It took a long time. We did, what, five
or six boxes? We did three of the... Ammo can
ones, as I call them. Four? Four of the ammo
cans. Oh, yeah, four. I forgot mine. We did one
of the traditional half boxes. My cooler. And
your cooler. I don't think we did any other ones.
Yeah, so we did, that's six. But that took us
the better part of like six hours. Yeah. Yeah,
packouts are fun to disassemble. But they look
good. Yep. From 50 feet away. That's all that
matters. Yeah, no kidding. See, and then Sunday
was Rigs and Coffee. Does this even count as
a Rigs and Coffee event? I don't know. It was
definitely the smallest I've ever seen. I think
we had a total of six trucks. Yeah. I was going
to say, there was a massive amount of people
there at the camp, so I doubted there was going
to be many of them. Well, I think it was because
of the heat, too. Most of it was heat, yeah.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because Becker actually
switched the time frame up, which threw me off,
because I just thought it was going to be at
noon, but it started at 11. We had a Nissan Titan,
a Silverado. We had one of the newer Tacomas
there. A couple of Jeeps. A couple of Jeeps.
And then us. Another 3rd Gen. Yep. Oh, yeah,
I forgot about that one. And then we had a 4th
Gen? Oh, yeah, that one 4th Gen showed up. Yep.
Yeah, it was small, man. There were not a lot
of trucks there. And then Lexus Derek eventually
showed up to tail in. Mostly just sat there and
talked to Becker. That was about it. Yeah. And
Brian. And got my tent. It's on my tent zone.
That's cool. Yeah. Oh, you count Brian's rig
if you want to count that. Yeah. Even though
it was already parked there. I know. It was just
there. Yeah. So, like, smallest rigs and coffee
ever. Yeah. But, yeah. So, that was our weekend.
We'll... drifted over what's everyone doing this
coming weekend oh um if i get my power steering
figured out before late late friday then i might
go camping um i also wanted to add too i got
a yeti cooler i found it on the side of the road
while we were sick uh on the trails it was uh
it was like the not the cloth but the soft like
fabric style with the zipper weird like one of
the backpack ones no yeah more like the side
yeah that's like a 24 you could fit like a you
could fit probably a dirty 30 in there that's
pretty cool yeah yeah i had a bunch of like sharkuchi
board stuff in it does it stink it didn't smell
great um but i clorox wiped the shit out of it
and then today i actually took my steam cleaner
and steam cleaned the fuck out of it and then
wiped it back down and it doesn't smell bad anymore
i cannot get the smell of rotting jerky out of
my cooler you should uh i'll let you borrow my
steam cleaner that that is super hot and it works
pretty well for that i might try the clorox whites
first i've done baking soda and when it was disassembled
i scrubbed it down really good but yeah i also
kind of noticed It's kind of warping, so I don't
know what that's about. I was going to say do
it on a really hot day when it's really warm.
Open up the pores of the plastic. Yeah. I'll
send you guys a picture later, but it was pretty
exciting, man. You know what? If you're driving
down the side of the road and you can't latch
your stuff right. secure it right, and then it
ends up in the side of a ditch, and I just so
happen to see it. I'm two hours from home. I
ain't making a Facebook post. Finders keepers,
man. Pack it in, pack it out. Yeah. I mean, you
lose a rooftop tent, freebie at that point. On
the side, yeah, on the highway, and someone else
finds it, then that's on you. God, and I've seen
so many of them this year. Yeah, I've seen like
two or, yeah, about two or three of them. Not
like in person, just people posting them on Facebook.
Yeah, right. They're all over. Shit. Shit, if
I saw it in person, I'd be running. So, yeah.
And I think, not too sure what we're doing Friday
and Saturday. Are we going to camp out this weekend?
I'm totally down if you are. Yeah, we can camp
out this weekend. Fuck yeah. So, I guess we're
doing a camping weekend in the... The campsite,
not anywhere cool. And then we might work on
my truck a little bit. I got a couple things
I want to get done. I'll leave that open -ended
because who knows if we'll actually get it done.
Yeah. And then Sunday, I think me and Mark are
going to Detroit to look at a slate pickup truck.
Yep. Um, yeah. Uh, have I announced on the podcast
that I reserved a slate? I know it kind of happened
recently, so it wouldn't have. Yeah. So I reserved
a new truck. Yeah. I reserved a new truck. Uh,
it's not going to be shipped until like November
of 2026. So we, we got a little while, but yeah.
If you get a chance, look up the slate EV pickup.
It's. I'm not the biggest EV fan. There's things
I like, right? Like the lack of having to do
maintenance so I can reserve that money to go
to my forerunner. And I like the size and the
price and the fact that it's just a truck. There's
no bells and whistles. It's got crank windows.
It has no radio. yeah um it's literally just
a truck uh so i it'll be good because i look
at it as like a blank slate if you will um where
i can just kind of add features as i want them
like i'll probably end up putting some kind of
radio system in it whether it just be a bluetooth
speaker or not we'll see uh but for the most
part i just want to keep it cheap um right now
with tax incentives The final price of the one
I reserved comes out to, like, $19 ,000, which,
what new car can you buy today for $19 ,000?
Like, it just doesn't exist. Yeah, no, I can't
think of a single one. And that's with the 250
-mile range battery. Yep. So, and, you know,
our family, I live where I work. My wife doesn't
work. On average, I think we put 100 miles on
our car total a week, maybe. So we're in that
unique situation where an EV vehicle makes sense.
Yeah. I mean, you may have discussed this before.
EVs should be marketed more towards, hey, you
live in town, you work in town, you might as
well just have one. And, I mean, I don't live
in town, but... No, but you're not that far from
town. And I work from home, so it's not like
I'm driving, you know, 30 minutes every day to
get to work. I just need something that if I
need to go to the hardware store, I can just
hop in it and go and plug it in at work and make
them pay for it. So, yeah, it'll be cool. With
it not coming out until next November, though,
I do think that I'm going to buy something else
that's a little cheaper. just to kind of hold
us over with a second vehicle. Yeah. I said a
little cheaper, and then I'm looking at Teslas,
which doesn't sound cheaper, but the ones I'm
looking at are like $12 ,000 after tax incentives.
Hmm. So I'm looking at older ones, guys. They
don't need great battery life, okay? But, yeah,
so I guess that's a wrap on wrap. Do we have
any other news? I mean, we should tell everyone
to listen to the next episode because it's important.
Mm -hmm. Do that. Yeah. Other than that, I don't
think we have any housekeeping to really put
down. No. I'm going to plug our merch store.
Everyone, go to the merch store and buy some
merch. Oh, hey, I had... Wreck -It Rob reached
out to me on Facebook, and I've been so busy
I just realized I never responded to him. Oh.
You see my beautiful Yeti mark? Yeah, I saw it.
You sent it to the group chat? To, yeah, the
off -road podcast, yeah. That apparently I can't
find. That's weird. Really? I haven't seen it.
It must be in one of my tabs. I see you sent
it twice. Ah, there we go. Damn, dude, that's
good. That's a good deal for finding that for
free. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I just cleaned
it up, and then I just wiped it down with some
detailer stuff I had around because it was kind
of faded. Like, you could throw a couple, like
a 12 -pack in there and some ice and just set
it behind your seat in your kid's lap, and boom,
you got easy access to drink. Actually, yeah,
I was going to say, that's actually what I'm
going to do is put it there, the gap between
the back seat and the front seat. And it actually
came with a Yeti ice pack, the solid ice packs.
Yeah, those gel packs, that's the way to go,
man. They don't sweat as much. They hold the
cold longer. And I don't mind sweat as long as
it's on drinks and not everything else. Right,
right. Yeah. You can use it as a quick way to
get to drinks without needing to stop and open
your fridge all the way in the back. Which, yeah,
I do too. Usually I'll pack like three monsters
in the cubby and then go through those during
a road trip or something. So it'll be nice to
have all the drinks there. And it'll take some
room out of the fridge, put some of the drinks
there. I could take them out of the box or something.
Yep. All right, well, I think that's a wrap on
rap. You guys ready to move on and record our
all -important next episode? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect.
Catch you guys later. Later.