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Listen to that crack. This is going to be a wrap
slash hour -long episode all in one. Another
busy week here at the botches. I did nothing
last weekend. except sit on my ass and play games
until like 4 in the morning. And I know Mark
really didn't do a whole lot last weekend, but
Gavin. No. Gavin's got you guys covered. He had
a hell of a job. Oh, yeah. So we left Thursday.
I can't even remember. I think it was the morning.
Yeah. And pretty quick into it. I had my eye
on my CV. I was having some diff fluid leaking
out and just kind of worried about that, whether
I'd make it up, make it through. And so we stopped
a bunch of times on the way up to our first spot,
which was just past the bridge. I'd say, I don't
know, probably an hour or so off the bridge.
And I went down the wrong path. Google Maps,
of course, is not something that you're supposed
to follow when you're going to trails. But anyway,
we stopped over there, and it was really, really
nice. It was near Big Knob State Forest Campground.
Not there, but in the area. And we parked up
there, stayed that first night, and it was absolutely
gorgeous. Just sandy beaches. The kids got to
play. uh everybody else kind of got into camp
oh god probably like eight or nine so they had
a long trip and talked a bit packed up and started
heading uh west we did a couple it was a couple
hundred miles a couple hours went through escanaba
all the way up to wait wait Did you go through
Escanaba in the moonlight? No. No. I knew what
you were doing there, but no. And then we hit
a campsite. Wait. Did your Chevy take a shit?
My Chevy take a shit. Did your Chevy take a shit?
No, it didn't. So, yeah, I guess. Wait. Did anybody's
Chevy take a shit? I don't think it was a Chevy.
No. It was a Subie. So, actually, thanks for
reminding me. While I was there Thursday, I threw
some diff fluid in and only got about half a
quart of diff fluid in before it started overflowing.
So, whatever. I wasn't leaking too bad. So, that
was really nice. I kept an eye on it, but, yeah,
we went west, and in Austin, one of the guys
that's with me knows a little bit more, was showing
me where my front diff breathers were, and we
noticed the caps that are on there were, like,
pretty, I don't know, how would you say it, pretty
stout. They weren't moving very much. They're
usually supposed to be pretty. Plugged up? Plugged
up, thank you. And so we wiggled that a little
bit and loosened them up. And then we went on
our big long ride to giving. I'm trying to give
areas, but not like exact areas. Calumet area.
Crystal Falls area. Sorry, not Calumet. And we
stopped at this like absolutely gorgeous. It
was like a lake. and the the whole lake was like
dark blue like crystal clear bottoms and the
whole pretty much the whole side of the lake
was rock face so it was really cool really unique
looking and um the unfortunate part was where
we did camp was super super unlevel so it took
a while for us to like for everybody to find
a spot some of them kind of had to park down
not down the road but like There's just so many
of us that everybody couldn't find a perfect
spot. Yeah, but absolutely gorgeous camp spot.
Really quiet. Chilled there, and then in the
morning it was threatening to rain, and thankfully
I got packed up in time. But it did rain, rained
pretty heavy for a little bit on our trail up
north. And on the way out, the trails that we
took were pretty fun, honestly. They had, like,
bigger rocks, kind of like what Everett had,
some of the bigger rocks in the trail. But it
was all, like, that red mud. And that was just
slippery, dude. I don't know. It's, like, different
from Michigan, like, lower Michigan mud. I don't
know if there's just, like, more clay in it or
what. But it was just slippery. Like, every corner
you were going around, we were hitting it. doing
little fish tails getting around the trails it's
pretty fun got some red mud everywhere i didn't
think i'd have red mud up in the up that's my
this is my first time in the west on western
part of the up so i've never seen like red puddles
red mud red dirt really oh yeah there's quite
a bit of them yeah yeah i've never seen that
so that was pretty cool like i was like dude
it's like feel like we're down in like arkansas
or something like you know somewhere down there
um so yeah we went through there stopped and
got some gas in crystal falls went up through
iron river it went all the way up to kind of
the adventure mountain rockland area and that
was where we did our next night can i interrupt
and give a squirrel thought real quick what okay
so i'm on a humvee repair maintenance facebook
group And a complete squirrel thought it just
popped up. I got a notification. That's why I
brought it up. So I used to work for a company
called Nartron out of Reed city. And we made
parts for home V's, you know, turn signal switches,
stuff like that. Someone just posted a smart
start system and the quality check sticker on
it has my name on it. Nice. Yeah. So that's all.
It's going to fail. probably another squirrel
thought but it's still related to the actual
thing we're talking about your eyes has been
two years since you me went to the up alex good
lord it has yeah too long well no we've been
we've been to the up since then but that's when
we did that first big trip yep our first big
one our first botches yearly yeah Yeah, so we
stopped at the Rockland, and so we split camp
that night. The one camp was right next to this
red clay river in the area, and the other one
was at an old mining quarry. And so we went to
the mining quarry, stopped there, found some
moss set up on that, because as you can imagine,
in a mining quarry, there's not a lot of tent
spots. like ground tent spots that aren't just
filled with like giant rocks, like not giant,
but you know, three or four inch and makes it
very uncomfortable. Um, we chit chat a little
bit cause we got there probably about five or
so. And we were talking about going to the lake
of the clouds and I was feeling pretty dirty
grungy. So I proposed that we went to like Michigan
too, or sorry, Lake Superior. and and we were
like well we could just go tonight screw it so
we went that night um and yeah that was fucking
beautiful we got there like i would say 10 minutes
before the sun had set sat out there um i'd never
been to lake of the clouds it's been on our list
for a couple of years so that was super super
cool um the elevation changes were like gnarly
i didn't really understand you know like driving
up driving up that last bit to get up to the
top of that mountain area i was like god damn
like and then uh we got up there i checked my
brakes and stuff because i've been worried about
my back brakes those uh those are pretty much
at the wear bars um sorry they are at the wear
bars so we aired back up came down and stopped
at Lake Superior. We all jumped in Lake Superior.
Sienna, my wife, she hates cold weather and cold
water, and not only was it cold enough to see
her breath, it was so cold that the lake was
fogging off of it. It was still that cold, and
we went up there, and I was kind of chickening
out, to be honest. I was the one that proposed
that we took a dip. and i was like i know it's
kind of cold and sienna just fucking trudges
through the water and i'm like are you kidding
me like like you know sienna she's not a cult
she won't even get into like river water and
lake superior is frigid and she got in up to
her waist and just dove in and we like ed steven
looked at like we looked at each other austin
looked at me and we were like fuck we gotta go
now Because if Sienna jumps in, like, I'm not
going to be caught a pussy. So we got in there.
And, oh, my God, you could see our breath while
we were in the water. And we jumped in. It was
super refreshing. Like, it woke everybody up.
We all felt really, really good. We got in. We
went underwater. And we got out. And we walked
back to our trucks and drove home. Well, home.
Rockland home. and we chilled out by the fire
the rest of the night and bullshitted along with
um oh man i gotta hold on i gotta remember his
name he's worthy of mention here um yeah i love
to be a up right now i guess it's 50 degrees
up there while it's 100 down here yeah i think
his name's david schmitz pretty sure um he does
a lot of like motorbike uh like travel but he
brought the to the second campsite which you
have to go down some pretty like everett type
rocky trails um he brought a fucking like completely
mint polished up show ready gto like 60s gto
out there and it was fucking you it was beautiful
dude and we're like what are you doing and he
came out hung out for a little bit because he
lives up there and then left later that night
but so we so we were chatting with him you know
talking to him about his stories like where he
almost died up there and i don't want to have
a motorcycle crash and you know it was pretty
cool i uh i'd never met him so he had some cool
stories to tell we should probably get him on
here actually he'd he'd have a lot of really
cool stories um so then we got up in the morning
um and that this would be sunday and half of
the group pretty much went home they did like
the mining tour in that area i think it was i
can't remember adventure mine they did that tour
we split off um joe's fast group was gonna go
after the mine tour and head up to keweenaw we
split off from joe um honestly because we wanted
to just like take our time with the kids and
if we found a spot we liked we wanted to be able
to stay there for time and not be under like
any kind of structure for it so we said our goodbyes
said hey if we see you we see you because we
were planning on going up there too and we stopped
at little some little falls here and there we
swam in lake michigan for a little bit and made
it up to uh you know copper harbor then the cumana
had to stop refill on water and make sure maps
were downloaded because no service up there on
the way up to copper harbor so yeah there's nothing
up no it was it was crazy so uh yeah we refilled
Right at that fort, right before you go into
the Keweenaw, there's like a fort, a state park.
It's got like an old Michigami fort kind of thing.
Yep. And then we went up to High Rock, and holy
shit, was that a fun trail. Did you guys take
the right trail and not the trail that my brother
took us on? No, the trail that we went on was
the right trail. That was so fun. Yeah. I think
we took, let's see here. So I'm looking right
at it anyway. Fort Wilkins, by the way, is the
name of that. We took High Rock Bay Trail. And
we followed that all the way up to, what trail
is this? Well, I think it's Rocket Range Trail.
And then we went straight up. And instead of
going to the Rocket Range, we went up to just
the High Rock Bay area. We were gonna do some
more, but we got there pretty early and we wanted
to get set up because there were a lot of people
already there. But, dude, it was... It wasn't
gnarly in the sense that, like, it was hard.
No. It was gnarly in the sense of, like, the
ride was fucking horrible. Like, these are, like,
three, four -inch rocks. Just, I mean, the whole
trail is three or four -inch rocks. And then...
We had multiple puddles that were three -quarter
way up our tire, if not over our rim, which were
fucking sweet. I loved going through those. We
had that little water crossing. And, you know,
there was partway through that trail I'm looking,
and there's like a hybrid Highlander parked to
the side of the road. I'm like, how the fuck,
like? I was like, dude, are we on the right trail?
Because I don't understand how that thing would
have cleared some of these rocks. They must have
taken some good lines on that. And then we got
up there, found our spot. You know, the kid played
around, had a bunch of fun, you know, picking
rocks all day. We were going to sit right up
at that top high rock spot, but it was getting
kind of like the black flies were fucking horrible
up there. And so we went down. Like, there's
a little trail to go down along the beach. And
we stopped down there. And the mosquitoes were
bad, but they were better than the black flies.
So that's where we ended up setting up. Got everything
set up. And probably about three hours. Oh, shit,
I forgot. We stopped at Gay Sands. At Gay. Went
to the Gay Beach. Did you go to the Gay Bar?
We passed it and took a picture of it. And Gay
Sands was pretty cool. It's way bigger than you
would think. Way bigger. When I drove out there,
it was the same kind of opening when you come
into Silver Lake. It's just all black sand. Super
gritty. Sucks when it gets in your sandals. We
were thinking about stopping there, but there's
arsenic in that. The government says they cleaned
it up, and I don't really trust the government.
So we were like, yeah, no. So anyway, yeah, so
we get to Rocket Range. Joe's group comes in
probably three or four hours later. I guess they
spent, like, two and a half hours bebopping at
Gay Sands. Which, yeah, I mean, you could. You
could if you wanted to, like, do the speed thing
and actually bebop. So they did that. And, yeah,
they said they had a Subaru hydro -locked in.
one of the puddles on the way up to high rock
i guess so they uh they tried helping that guy
out and they came up here it was pretty fun dude
um oh and we went over a trestle bridge that
was fucking sweet um it scared the shit out of
me though like i'm not super like i'm scared
of heights but only on like ladders and stuff
but when you're driving on that wooden trestle
bridge and you can hear it kind of creaking stuff
And then you just look down, and it's like a
couple. It had to have been a couple hundred
feet down. It was nuts. But it was a fun trip,
dude. We were done from Thursday to Tuesday.
We made the massive trip back Tuesday. Sienna
actually drove for part of it because I was done.
I was tired. You just needed more coffee. Well,
I think that's the quietest I've ever been on
the podcast. I was just enthralled in your conversation
looking at photos of your trip. Yeah, I posted
a lot. But yeah, so you just needed more coffee
and you just needed some Monster and some Rockstars
and you'd been fine. Oh, my Monsters. I was at
the point where I was like three or four Monsters
in and I was just crashing no matter what. What
color were they? My blue ones. Well, there's
your problem. Yeah, it's the only ones I drank.
You have to have either a white one or a green
one. Yeah. The blue ones have left caffeine.
That's just a known fact. Yeah. That's fair.
That's fair. Oh, I did get to use our Overlander
coffee maker, the BrewTrek. I used that every
day, and it was amazing. Isn't it? Did you take
your little metal flap out, or did you leave
yours in? I left it in. I never had an issue.
I cannot get that fucker to push down when I've
got that in. And then it does push down, and
it just starts shooting out the top at me. Yeah,
I don't know what happened with yours, because
mine never had an issue. It pushes down super
easy. I had my little... It might be improved.
Yeah. What's up? Now I might have the improved
edition. I said his might be improved. Yeah,
mine is not easy to push down. Mine is a version
one. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know. But, yeah,
no, it worked fucking amazing. And I even served
up some coffee to some other campers, and they
really liked it, too. Like I said, I had that
corded grinder, so I was, like, grinding it fresh
every day. It was pretty nice, dude. And that
grinder was super silent, so that was actually
really cool. Everything went good. The Brewtrek
Overlander might be my favorite piece of, like,
kitchen gear I own. Yeah. Yeah, I will say that
the tent's starting to get a little small with
him, the kid. I thought you were going to take
the big pop -up one. The core tent. Yeah, I wasn't
planning on it. For the take -up and take -down,
I was thinking the two -person because I can
do it myself while she's busy with him, and it's
super fast. by myself like i can get everything
done in like a couple minutes if that i would
say the quartet i think setting up alone it took
me about like six minutes six or seven minutes
and and i think i might take that on the next
one um even if it is like you're moving every
day and like we did okay in this tent like there
was room we were comfortable we were fine but
i could see in another couple months that being
different like when it's a little bigger with
the core tent it's a quick setup tent yes it's
a bigger footprint but it sets up like most two
-person tents do time wise right so it's not
like you're moving every day yeah the only time
the big footprint would have been an issue is
the rock quarry because i didn't have enough
space there for one but otherwise it would have
been perfectly fine this weekend space wise is
the issue like it i'd have to figure out something
I'm sure I could stuff it somewhere, but we were
packed, packed to the brim. But everything, all
the system I had in place for packing, for cooking,
everything like that, it worked flawlessly. Even
the pop -up, that worked good once we figured
it out. We still can't close it one person, but
with two of us, we can get it. It's fine. It
only takes us a minute if there's two of us.
The pop -up what? I'm sorry. The shitter. oh
yeah dude so i i will say that switching to that
one that i bought the king's camp i can't go
back to one of those shitty hard to take down
ones yeah well and i told sienna about that i
said you know when this one takes a crap maybe
we'll switch to that um yeah but it was really
nice because i could just set that out in the
woods i didn't have to do anything i only uh
i only had my fold out one on the side of the
truck out like a day or two like just uh for
a second like if we had an emergency at camp
like we had to go to the bathroom or something
the star the star player this weekend was a modium
that was so so good the only time that i really
see the fold out one nice is like when you're
on the side of a trail and have to take a shit
yeah it was that um it's actually kind of nice
for like like if you have to change like to go
to the beach or something like that and you're
at the beach it'd be nice for that Yeah, that
was nice. We stopped at a roadside park and went
to the beach, took like an hour off of driving
just to get him out. Because he was, I mean,
it was nine hours of driving, of just drive time,
not like stopping, nothing else, just nine hours
on Google Maps. So he was done. I'm thinking
about getting one of those side ones when I get
my roof rack. It'd be nice, like, when we take
the swag somewhere, right? Because you're not
changing in the swag. Like, it's way too small
for that. Yeah, it's tight for that. Yep. So
it'd be nice to have something like that that
I could just, you know, pop up real quick and
just change and stuff like that. Couldn't you
do that in the shower part of your shitter? I
only have a single, a one. Oh, yeah, I forgot.
You don't have the dual. You have the. I thought
I meant to buy the dual and somehow ended up
buying the single. Yeah. Oh, we also stopped
at, I think it was Agate Falls. That was fucking
just beautiful, dude. That was amazing. Those
pictures are up, too. That was one of my favorite
falls we've ever been to. Tobacco Falls, we stopped
there. That's where we sat and played and kind
of swam around a little bit. That's just on a
roadside park. on the coast so that wasn't really
it wasn't hard to get to they're actually not
big but they were fun to walk up and down the
lake was warm kid loved it so also to answer
your question that is a chunk of copper yeah
i figured um i by the color you know we found
that at high rock bay we found a lot of cool
rocks at high rock bay obviously i think that
whole that whole that whole beach is just rock
it's awesome it's a pain to walk in like barefoot
but there's a lot of fun to go through the water
and stuff around there because the first part
of the beach is just like like i don't know like
the first five feet of like the water beach part
like when you get into the water is rock just
like the rock shelf kind of thing so it was cool
yeah overall like my my biggest concern which
was diff that kind of healed itself when we opened
the breathers and i stopped leaking death fluid
so that was the biggest concern breaks were the
second and honestly i kind of just was like whatever
thankfully austin was nice enough because we
were gonna change them saturday night on the
trail uh well on the trail at camp but we were
so unlevel and the ground is super soft i was
like i don't want to risk you know anything slipping
it's not worth it the brakes will be fine you
know so it was a lot of fun i did get dubbed
officially a botches member yeah because because
i was doing uh camp repairs or working on my
truck at camp. Listen. I got back. I'm wiping
my hands, getting the diff fluid off of it. And
Jill's like, I think, yeah, you're officially
botches because you're working on your truck
at camp. I'm like, damn, yeah, you're right,
too. Just because we have class. I don't associate
with those nerds. I'm not a part of those nerds.
You are, though. I said it was just maintenance.
It doesn't count. It does. No. No, it was fun.
I had no official breakdowns. I did tell a couple
people not to go to High Rock. Like, we stopped
and I aired up. And there was like a brand new
Cadillac SUV. You know, stock SUV. Just some
old timers in it. We saw a minivan go through
there last time we were there. It's worse than
it was two years ago. I can believe it. I was
just talking to people about that, and Joe even
said that it was worse. Like, the puddles are
deeper. The rocks seem to be, like, worse. We
saw some washout when we went. Yeah, there's
some washout. It was pretty fun. But, like, I
looked at that vehicle, and I'm like, dude, like,
your clearance is nothing. Like, you will hit
the first rock sitting in the middle of the trail.
And I told him that. I'm like, I don't recommend
you guys doing that. no it's beautiful but it's
not that beautiful that it's worth wrecking your
car like no and they're like well we appreciate
it thank you and they turned around i was like
i was like okay good deed done because it was
it wasn't worth it like no i'm not saying high
rock bay isn't beautiful it is but i don't think
that's like honestly a lake of the clouds is
as far as destination goes lake of the clouds
is more beautiful camp spots it was cool but
I don't know. I like sandy beach camp spots,
too. I mean, that's pretty much like telling
people not to go to Marblehead because we know
the water crossings are bad depending on which
way you go. Yeah, yeah. And there was only one
way from that point. I didn't see the branch
trail that was there. I did see some, I guess,
but there's one. The one we were on. Yeah, that's
the one we hit. Alan took us down that one. The
north point to the rocket range? No, that's High
Rock Bay. We took High Rock Bay. Oh, okay. I
see where you are. Yeah. Yeah. That's a fun coastline
to go across. But that was a down and back, right?
You didn't actually get to rocket range from
there. No, 100%. It looked like it used to, but
I think it got turned to a private land or something
at one point. Yeah, there is some private land
there. I was just wondering because it doesn't
look like it connects. So that's why I didn't
end up going down there. Yeah. I guess we saw
a soggy bottom trail, which was blue. And I actually
had some guys that weren't as experienced, I
guess, behind me. And so I didn't want to take
them down anything too crazy. Or I probably would
have went. I don't know. We didn't do soggy bottoms.
We were starting to make our way to soggy bottoms,
and we decided to go back. I was like, dude,
if the regular trail is this bad, I was like,
I don't know if I want to attempt soggy bottom
trail. Because I think Horseshoe became rocky
in some parts. Horseshoe was rocky the whole
way. That one was... I had my stock Tacoma high,
so I was like, I don't want a chance of going
down these right now. It was rocky the whole
way. I was down to 30 PSI and it was rocking
our world still. It looks like they're going
to do some plowing on it, dude. There was a sign
up there saying it was going to be closed. I
forget what it was, September or something like
that. Yeah. September 8th to the 12th, it'll
be under construction by the Q &A ATV and snowmobile
clubs. So, safe to say that's going to get...
Yeah. Safe to say that's going to get... Snowmobile.
Yeah, it's going to get pretty well done. Yeah.
So, I'm assuming they're just going to take a
dozer down it and straighten everything out.
I hear that they're going to... fix that water
crossing so yeah it's gonna get marvel headed
definitely yeah so the thing is though i can
see them doing it because snowmobile is a major
market for them when winter comes yeah and it's
the reason why no one wants you to be off -roading
up there right during the winter time yeah it's
it's a major market up there but it's just like
uh But I could see how they would get more tourism
if they, you know, made that trail a little easier
to work on, to little drive on. Because there
were three cars that turned around after I talked
to that one. They kind of overheard me, and they
turned around. Three more cars that would have
been to High Rock. But, hey, I mean, they still
went to the area. Like, I remember going to Copper
Harbor as a kid, and I thought Copper Harbor
was, like, super cool. I went through Copper
Harbor. a couple days ago and i was like this
is kind of underwhelming this isn't what i quite
remembered although the switchbacks to get up
there were pretty cool sienna was like there's
a bunch of like curves and dips and stuff it's
like 45 throughout the switchbacks to get up
to copper harbor and sienna was just like she
doesn't get car sick but she was like i just
don't like this road dude it's left it's right
the dips up and down my little truck was like
screaming i was like you good buddy like barry
was barry was having the time of his life mark
do you remember that like stock minivan that
we found on the uh high rock metro yeah that's
why i told him jesus there was a uh there was
a car broke down looked like it snapped it's
uh i want to say like hub or axle or whatever
Did we see a Buick LeSabre there, too? I think
so. It was an Acura from Illinois, and it was
still on the High Rock Road, but it was before
it got to all the deeper water. Yeah. And that
was sitting on the side of the road on our way
back. It looked like the wheel just fell off.
That's what it looked like. Typical Rust Belt
things. Well, yeah. Yeah, that or that freaking
rattled their wheel off, but snap something going
too fast. A lot of these people, like, if you
pick the right lines, you can get through just
about anything. But a lot of these people that
don't know any better, I would say city goers,
you know what I mean? Like, never had the experience.
Tourists. Yeah. Never had experience with, like,
going off -road and making good judgment calls.
Because, like, that Subaru that, like, hydro
-locked. apparently he said he had water going
up past the hood and that only happens especially
on those puddles there if you're going way too
fucking fast through it yeah so like i like i
could see how it would get above maybe his grill
or something because it was an outback i could
see it would be deeper for that guy but it would
not be going over his hood unless he was fucking
bombing that puddle so But even then, I bombed
puddles and it got over my hood. You're a lot
taller than a freaking Forester. Yeah. Dude,
they got deep. On my wheels, they were up to
the tops of the wheels. I mean, for an Outback
with significantly smaller wheels and clearance,
I mean. And like I said, he was bombing them.
You could tell by how he was dressed that he
did not know what he was doing. I guess when
you said puddle, I was thinking, like, actual
puddle, and he was, like, drowning his car from
puddle splash on the hood. No, these were, like,
they're called puddles, but they're, like, did
you see the video of me going through the one?
Yeah. It was like that, but it was deeper, and
I just didn't feel like, and there was a bunch
of, like, bigger rocks in it. So I didn't feel
like backing up. Because what I was doing was
I was driving through it, dropping Sienna off,
backing up through it, and then coming back through
it for the video. And I just had to get a couple
of shots. Because I had very little to no video
of me. And I realized that as we were leaving.
And I was like, damn it, dude. So watching that
video, he'd have to be flying to hydrolock his
car in that. Well, like I said, it was. much
deeper in the other way which are you looking
at the one where it was the puddle or the uh
or me going through the actual water crossing
puddle going through for sure puddle like that
that is a puddle literally basic puddle i didn't
even know you did a water crossing where's that
video at yeah that's just a creek it wasn't like
a real one but it was the puddle was deeper yeah
yeah so But, yeah, I mean, and that wasn't, like,
a deep one. Like, there were deeper ones that
were, like, 15, 20 foot long that you had to
drive through. And while it was an absolute blast,
I didn't have to engage four -wheel drive this
whole weekend, unfortunately. That was a bummer.
If that tells you how wheeling in Michigan goes.
Yeah, I mean, that was also the trails. Like,
the trails that they planned weren't hard trails.
But on Onyx, they show that they're trails, but
they were more forest service roads. I got you.
Oh, that's Michigan in general for us. So partway
through it, we kind of split off because we were
in the slow group. And we split off. Austin Winters,
who's a really knowledgeable guy when it comes
to that stuff, wheeling around anyway. me him
and ed and steven yen my the other fj uh we all
we all dubbed ourselves or i dubbed ourselves
a scout group so if there was a trail that we
weren't sure about or we had stopped for like
they were like do you want to go see a dam and
i'm like it's a dam like But there were three
other trails. I was like, let's go check out
these trails. So we went bombing down the trails
down there. And we found some cool stuff that
way. While they were walking around, we went
and bombed down some trails. Austin and I took
a split to one of the trails, to Little Falls,
I think is what it was called. And we bombed
down it just ourselves. And it was really cool.
We had to cut some trees down. couldn't find
the falls even though we were like right on top
of them so we turned around and met back up with
the group but and then at rockland the actual
camp spot there was a trail going through it
that had some really nice deep water in it like
it was up to the top of our wheels and we were
like oh this is sweet but we were also just got
to camp and we were like i don't know how much
we want a chance going down this so we turned
around but it was it was cool like wheeling wise
it wasn't what like even like i don't know there
wasn't anything really hard high rock bay was
the hardest um and i did kind of want to do the
trail with joe because that actually had some
more technical stuff on it but um we stayed like
a whole nother day after they left so i was like
yeah i'm just I'm not going to take that with
those guys either because we left together. It
was cool. I mean, 10 out of 10 would do it again.
And I definitely want to get a house in Houghton.
I don't know if you guys have ever driven through
Houghton, but that city is gorgeous, dude. Houghton's
cool. Damn near impossible to live in, but it's
cool. I was like, oh. There's a hardware store.
I could get a job there. There's a Dollar General.
I could get a job there. To live there, you almost
have to have some rich guy money just like out
of the blue. There's some cheap houses. It's
just where you're going to make the money is
the issue. Yeah, where you're going to make the
money and it's high cost of living. Yep. Oh,
dude. You know what was fucking crazy? Is gas
down here is more expensive than gas up there.
We hit $2 .85 up there. I came down here, it's
fucking $3 .40. Depends on where you're at. I've
seen $2 .80. It does, but up there, we barely
saw anything over $3 .00. I was like, dude, is
it because you're closer to Canada or what? Why
is it cheaper up here where it's harder to get
to? Sometimes it's more expensive up there. It
just depends, I guess. Yeah, yeah, because we
did good on our gas budget because of that. There's
a Canadian gas station in Sault Ste. Marie that
was cheaper than our actual gas station. Yeah,
it's crazy. By like 10 cents. Yeah, we saved
a bunch of money. So, yeah, all in all, good.
Didn't really have anything that didn't work
out well for us, like as far as equipment goes,
so everything performed well. It was pretty smooth.
We got everything pretty. I will say that I wanted
a rooftop tent more this week than I have before.
Um, just because of like a lot of the places
that we were at were super uneven and rocky.
Yeah. And like, and I had two seats, even with
them in compression sacks, just two seats, like
pillows, sleeping bags, extra blanket for the
kid. they were just filled up with like bedding
and it was like dude i just want to be able to
like i could delete a seat if i didn't need like
it was just such a pain in the ass i mean all
if you really think about it like how warm was
it at night it was pretty warm at night it it
was pretty cool the first couple nights and then
like are we talking like low 60s 50s and 40s
to 50s the first couple nights okay that's a
little cooler But it did get into, like, I would
say 50s the last couple nights. And then that
one, like, we barely used a rain fly this weekend.
And if we did, it was just in case. But we didn't
have anything heavy enough to warrant anything.
We were already packed up by the time the heavy
stuff came. But it was fucking gorgeous, though.
especially summertime one of the ways you can
really save space on betting is just getting
like one of those uh zip up sheets like what
i put in the swag yeah yeah yeah i i would like
to i i like having the 20s because especially
up there in the up like you'd never know right
like day by day it could be something different
so like that was that was like dude one day it
was like 60 something The next day, you were
in, like, the 40s, and you could see your breath.
And it was like, holy fuck. I think when we were
on Drummond, that's all you slept with, Mark,
right? Was that zip -up sheet? Yep, zip -up sheet,
and then we had the rainfall, because we knew
that rain was going to hit, so. Even then, it
wasn't that, it didn't drop too bad. Yeah, like,
our setup time and stuff wasn't crazy. Like,
it wasn't anything too bad, but it was just like,
even then. People were still in their rooftop
tents were still set up quicker than us. Yeah.
Just because, like, we had, I think it's the
kid, to be honest. Yeah. Like, a lot of it, it
goes down to, like, one person setting up, one
person kind of watching the kid, and that extends
our time. Right. So, like, that's part of it,
too. Like, I just have to, like, get used to
that. But, like, Ed and Rebecca, they had their
kid. Dude, they were set up way before us. It
was like. Were they set up or were they at the
halfway set up point? Because they have to inflate
a mattress. Oh, they were set up. Jesus, it takes
you way too long to get set up. I don't know.
I don't think it does. We were under 30 minutes,
but it doesn't take them long either. They pop
it up, they turn the mattress on, and they get
out. That's it. That's still not set up. They
still got to put their bedding in. Their bedding's
in there. No, their bedding can't fit in their
tent. They add their bedding there. I was pretty
sure I was just talking to them. They said they
had it in there. Remember when I made that comment
about rooftop tents not having, most people aren't
putting their bedding in anyway? It was specifically
Ed and Rebecca I was talking about. Because the
way their tent folds up, they can't put their
bedding in it. Huh. Because I thought they said
they had their stuff in there. Because I didn't
watch them throw anything in there. Yeah, no,
they always have to throw their sleeping bag
in there. I think they changed their mattress,
though, so that might have been why. Maybe. Yeah.
I know it was just way quicker. Like, they were
done and already set up. They were getting stuff
out for food, and I was like, sound beach. But,
you know, the every night part, maybe they downsized
a little bit. Could be, yeah. there were a couple
nights where i didn't grab everything out either
like i didn't set the table up till we stayed
at high rock bay which was we stayed there that
whole day uh monday yeah whole day monday so
then i ended up setting that up but uh otherwise
the table stayed in the back of the truck if
we needed to the table for anything i didn't
i just used the fridge which was perfect the
fold down table in the back of the truck or we
just ate with our plates on our laps of the camp
chairs it was nice yeah i i mean when i'm doing
that style of trip i'd prefer not to get anything
out of the truck like yeah the least is possible
yep like you try to minimize try to minimize
it and then you know after i'm done cooking and
stuff i clean everything and put it right back
in yep that way in the morning all i have to
do is pretty much pack the tent and the bedding
up so the bedding is rolling that up rolling
up the air mattresses getting those put in the
seat that was more of a pain but it was just
like i kept looking at it i'm just like this
would be so much quicker like it's like you've
been reminded like i'm like so much quicker if
i just able to put this in in the fucking tent
and just fold it up and go just kept being reminded
of that everybody um how fucking derrick just
won a fridge too like He just won an Ice Co.
$1 ,000 fridge on a giveaway. He's been getting
lucky with those giveaways lately. I started
doing them too. It's because he sits there, doesn't
really do anything for work. He just sits on
Instagram commenting our name into the fucking
thing over and over. I probably get 30 -ish messages
a day from Derek about giveaways, dude. It works.
What can I say, dude? That fridge. I think it's
the, it's the ice co APL 55 or something. It's
a 55 liter fridge. It's a thousand dollar fridge.
Like mother fucker. Nice fridge. So he's won
a couple of things. Like you won those nacho
lights. Those things are like fucking expensive
and he's power station. Like, you know what?
If I can't beat them, join them. If it gets me
a... I was looking for rooftop tent giveaways
to enter in. I was like, I'm going to get one
of those. Every one of those. Oh, and otherwise,
for anybody into the rooftop tent world like
I am, RoofNest rebranded and their tents are
fucking beautiful looking. They did? Yeah. They're
all black and have a gold RF on them now. But
they used to be, like, black and orange. Yeah.
I thought more gray than black. Yeah, and they
looked very similar to some of the cheap, like,
Temu tent kind of things. So they rebranded their
tents, I think, because of that. They looked
a lot like the Roof Sparrows or whatever the
other off -brand Roof Nest ones are. So now they
look pretty sick. Sparrows were the name of some
of them. Oh, yeah, you're right. The models.
Yeah, you're right. Sparrow was one of them.
I can't remember the name, but yeah, their rebrand
is pretty cool. Yeah, I see that. They make it
look a lot fancier now, man. You know, I never
got an email back from 23 -0. What the heck?
Did we ever get anything back from that brand
we were talking about? The Michigan brand for
the kinetic? Not the kinetic rope, but our winch
ropes? No, I never heard back from them. You're
talking about Crawler Off -Road, I think. Crawler
Off -Road, yeah. I just saw a post from them,
too, and it reminded me earlier. I was like,
I don't know if I've ever heard anything back
from them. Yeah, I never heard from them. We'll
have to get back. But, yeah, I'm glad your trip
went well, man. Keweenaw's probably one of my
favorite places in Michigan. Also, holy crap,
my eyes are really blue today. I'll take your
word on that. I was definitely patting down Barry,
because I always pat him on the top of the steering
wheel. I'm like, good job, buddy. Thanks for
not leaving us stranded. As I'm looking at our
1 ,300 -mile mark, as we're pulling in, I'm like,
thanks, buddy. Thanks for doing that for us.
You didn't have to. I might be abusing you a
bit by not keeping up on your maintenance like
I should. Thanks for not fighting me with it
and, like, leaving me out in the middle of the
road or somewhere. Oh, Jesus. What? I also see
they jacked their prices, too. Oh, they sure
did. It's worth it, man. The rebrand. It's beautiful.
Oh, my God. $4 ,000? What company was that? Roof
Nest. Yeah, but a lot of these companies, like
Roof Nest, even that 4x4 Colorado one that I
look at, because one of their tents on Roof Nest
looks pretty similar. Okay, so they still have
some of the old models, which is like $1 ,000.
The Metal Lurk. Yeah. But all their new ones
are like over $3 ,000. But they give like $1
,000 off discounts at times, so it's kind of
nice. Brings them back to like an actual normal
price. Like my tent right now that I'm looking
at, it's like $4 ,000. But they did a little
over $1 ,000 off of it, so it brings it back
down to $3 ,000. Jesus Christ. I thought the
$600 I spent on my swag was a lot of money for
a tent. I couldn't imagine spending that much
on a tent. I mean, it's a good amount for a ground
tent, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, but you got
a lot of good, like, you got good quality out
of it. Like, it's a good tent. Yeah, it's a great
tent. It'll last you for years. I just, I couldn't
imagine spending that kind of money on a tent.
Even a, you know, even a rooftop tent. That just,
it blows my mind how much this crap costs. I
couldn't imagine doing it for, like, one weekend
of the summer. Right. Like, you have to have
some disposable income for that. But, like, if
you're trying to get out every weekend and you're
trying to do it as much as you possibly can,
maybe even bring it into winter camping, like,
that's where I can see it. And there's value
in storage, too, for me. So, like, and a lot,
like, that roof nest, I can't remember if that
was the one that they upgraded their material
to, to, like, ripstop, Oxford, canvas, or whatever.
Hey, that's what mine is. Yeah. They're bringing
up the quality of some of these tents. Some of
these brands are getting better about it, so
making sure they last longer. I just couldn't
imagine losing storage like that just for a tent
because you could throw any tent on the ground.
I don't know. It's just hard for me. Yeah. It's
a hard sell. Bigger thing, too. Bigger thing
for us, though, is that $4 ,000 to a tent on
a roof can go to the suspension upgrades. Hell
yeah. Yeah, and for your guys' type of wheeling,
that makes a ton of sense, yeah. And, like, for
me, like, the amount of spots that we went to
this weekend, I would say out of, like, the four
or five spots that we went to, three or four
of them were super uneven to where tent campers
were the ones having hard times finding spots.
And everybody in a rooftop were like, oh, yeah,
we'll just go here. No big deal. Really, as long
as you have a decent enough tent with a decent
enough pad. Even ground, meh. Rocks don't really
matter. I don't know. I don't know. The rocks
were large, but yes, I agree. I mean, when we
were in Kentucky, dude, I was sitting on three
to four inch boulders, like big brown rocks.
That's what I had my tent set up on. I would
definitely not choose to do that unless I had
to, but I understand. you just couldn't feel
it. The pad is good enough that you don't feel
it. That's what I'm saying. If you have the right
ground tent, rooftop tent's a hard sell for me.
It's a lot of freaking money. I don't know. I
look at it as it's just money. It enhances my
quality of living when I'm out there. I was listening
to... outskirts overland earlier and he was talking
about building a new mattress for his tent his
uh rooftop or yeah whatever you want to call
it whatever his on the off the ground tent is
and uh i kind of want to take that i think i'm
going to build the pad up in the swag a little
bit not because i need to but because it'd be
kind of nice to have just that little bit extra
cushion yeah yeah i will say that my sleeping
pads have done We did camp on some uneven ground
and stuff, and we made it work and everything.
The pads this weekend are my favorite pads that
I've ever, ever used. The amount of comfort we
get off of a pad that's like two to three inches
is crazy. And I deflate mine a little bit so
that I can roll, sit on my side and stuff and
still be comfortable. Crazy what a good sleeping
setup can do for you. Yeah. Not only at night,
but the next day because you're recharged from
it. I know. When you get shitty sleep, it makes
everything shittier the next day. Going from
inflatable pads to the three -inch high -density
foam, it's hard when I have to sleep on my inflatable
pad again. I was more comfortable on my pad than
I was my bed when I got home last night. No,
it just... Fuck, dude. And my pad is inflatable,
but I think that, I don't know, I just really
like that style of sleep that I get from it.
And it does depend on how you sleep and what
your preference is, too, as far as do you like
firmer or softer. I like firmer. And I like a
little bit of soft on it. I let the air out of
mine so that I can have a little bit of give.
So, like, if I sit on my pad, if I just sit on
it, my butt will touch the ground. When I lay
down, everything gets distributed evenly and
nothing touches. So that's kind of how I like
it. So it worked really well for us. I slept
like a freaking baby every night. Like, quality
of sleep was just so much better. It's probably
the fresh air. Yeah, especially. It was at this
point that my computer decided that it needed
to crash and have the GPU ramp up to 100%. And
I could talk to the guys, but apparently Audacity
wasn't still recording. I ended up having to
reboot and I lost everything beyond this point.
But I mean, it doesn't go that much farther.
So sorry about that. And I'm working on figuring
out why it does that. But we're getting there.
So I hope y 'all have a good one and I'll catch
you later. The guys will tell you that in a little
bit after you hear them rambling, but catch you
guys later. It's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the,
the air quality, when you get up to the UP, you
can smell the difference almost. I hear a lot
of noises. Yeah. I hear a lot of background noises
all suddenly. Well, you're still there. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I hear a lot of background noise.
I'm assuming it's coming from you. Later.