Welcome to Botches Off -Road. Join us as we talk
about everything from gear reviews to trail stories,
tank camping to rock landing, and all things
to do with the outdoors. And it's a wrap, boys.
I hope you heard that, listeners. I hope you
heard that. Wait, wait, wait. Let me get mine
out. Before we go into the wrap, which I guess
it kind of does fall into the wrap, I have the
Cider Mill Donut by Blake's Hard Cider. I've
been saving it since this weekend when Mark gave
it to me just to try it out today. So let's get
the crack here. Ooh. It's not a crisp. Mm, smells
like, I do smell like cidery donut in it. Yeah,
dude, it's really. That is not bad. Right? No.
Okay. It was a gamble, and Alex was like, I don't
know about this. And we cracked him like, oh,
my God, this is the best decision. It's so good.
It almost tastes like, yeah, a little bit of
caramel, a little bit of apples, kind of what
I get out of it. I think it tastes like Christmas,
which is supposed to be fall, but I just taste
Christmas. Yeah, that's weird. It's not bad.
I would give it, on my scale, which people that
do listen know that I'm not a big alcohol guy,
but on my scale, I'd give it like a solid 6 .5,
7 out of 10. Okay, so last time we had you taste
test a beer, it was a brapple. Which one's better?
Oh, this by far. By far. The brapple would have
been like a 3. We need to like... We need to
get Blake's to realize how great they are and
how great we are and then start sending us beer
and sponsoring us. Yeah. Yeah, you know the flavors.
It's weird because it's almost coffee house -ish.
Yeah. I almost get like coffee house. It's weird
to say that, and I'm definitely not one of those
connoisseurs that's like, do you hear the wood
notes? From the proper beige. I don't do that.
I actually have really poor taste buds, but that's
just the vibes I get from it. I guess I could
taste a little donut. I definitely get some apple.
It's definitely sweet, but the alcohol's at the
back of the tongue, so it's not bad. Very drinkable.
Yes, very drinkable. I think I really... Out
of the stuff I like the best, like I like Red's.
They had like a Red's, their ciders, and the
blueberry. They have like a blueberry cider.
Not very often. That is my favorite Red's. And
they had it like four years ago, and I haven't
seen it since. Yeah. Yeah, actually. I really
like the blueberry, though. But this is higher
up there as far as alcohols I've tasted, especially
lately. Hasn't been on. A whole lot. People have
been giving me straight shots of, like, bourbon
and stuff at camp, and it's not. They're like,
do you taste that? Isn't that good? And I'm like,
I taste, like, ass. Like, alcohol ass. Like,
I don't taste anything but alcohol. Which is
funny. I think you would have enjoyed the sangria
that we had at our wedding. Not our wedding.
Sangria, man. Yeah. Congrats, Mark and Alex,
by the way. The wedding we were a part of. No,
that dude. I'm not a wine fan, right? Like actually
very much so despise wine. That sangria that
Taylor had made for her wedding. Oh my God. I
drank like half of the jug that was pre -made.
Sangrias. I really like Bloody Marys that are
a little lighter on the vodka. But, or is it
tequila or vodka? You can do both. You can do
both. Traditional is vodka. I do like the spicy.
Spicy ones. I like Bloody Marys as long as there's
a sausage in it. Because if there ain't a sausage,
it ain't worth it. You hear that first. Congrats
on the marriage. He only likes Bloody Marys with
wieners in it. No, I've been different, dude.
Usually I drink a lot of beer, but lately, for
whatever reason, I've had so much liquor in the
last three weeks. Yeah. I like a good mixed drink,
like a Jack and Dr. Pepper or something. I'm
good with as long as you get the mixture right.
I used to do Jameson and Baja Blast Mountain
Dew. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to do that,
but it's just like there's a certain time and
place for me. I can't. do like the podcast and
drink like this at the podcast. I can't go grab
like a mixed drink like that. Oh, I can sit now
at the campfire and I'm like, yeah, okay. I'll
do a drink or two. I could sit here doing shots.
Uh, I actually was thinking about, we could do
like, I want to do a drinking game over the podcast,
but I haven't quite figured out what I want to
do yet. So. Because I think it'd be so fun, dude.
Update, the burps taste just as good. That actually
tasted almost better because there wasn't any
alcohol behind it. Like, we could do something
like, I don't know, if you've had this happen,
take a shot kind of thing. Or to try to... Get
us off of a bad... Fuck, I just did it there.
To get us off of bad... Damn it. I did it again.
Anytime we say uh, you have to take a shot. I
love this idea. That would be so... I would be
fucking wasted on... Like, I have such a bad...
Like, I was deleting uhs before today for my
podcast, and it's like... I'm going through it,
and I'm like, oh, my gosh, stop it. It's not
a space killer. I could just not talk and cut
it out. What am I doing? I think it's funny.
So, like, I was talking to you. Yeah. You know,
I'll go get vodka. I'm down. You'd be so fucked.
I was talking to Jimmy, and he was saying how,
you know, he goes through and cuts out all the
uhs. And I was like, dude, just try not doing
it once. And he didn't do it three times, and
nobody noticed, including me, who was specifically
listening for the stuff to get cut out. I forgot
about this conversation. I mean, I don't cut
them all out, but it's like the ones where I
use them as a pause, like a break. I'll be talking,
and so all you have to do is this, and then you
can do this. If I cut it out and it makes zero
difference in the conversation, that's kind of
where I'm like, okay, this is a useless. See,
it's a useless break. Yeah. I wouldn't play that
game because I would be fucking sloshed so fast.
We could do like a half hour episode talking
about who knows what. It'd be so fun, dude. I
would need like a 15 minute one just so I could
wake up the next day. Because I wouldn't be able
to function. I'd be that messed up. I do it so
much, and I caught myself. I swear to God I deleted,
like, 30 uhs in, like, the three episodes I recorded
earlier today. They weren't even long ones. I
was just doing update episodes and just making
sure I had stuff, you know, pushed out onto that
page since I've been so busy. Speaking of busy,
let's get into our rap for our last week. Guys,
we all have the same rap. Yeah? Yeah. Been a
while since we've done that. I don't think we've
all had the same rap in a minute. Probably since
the last time we had the Botches camp out. Yeah.
Mm -hmm. So yeah, we did Chords and Calf, the
inaugural Chords and Calf. Mm -hmm. I think it
went well. Yep. Yeah, I think it was good. Yeah.
I think for what is typically the... Like the
topic, cords and calf, like the typical category
that that's in, I think we did very well because
people stayed pretty much the whole time. Well,
dude. Oh, yeah. And you don't get that kind of
engagement. People usually stay for an hour.
People were here from when we started at 12 until
I think I left at like 6 .30. We didn't leave
till 8. Right. So, I mean, all in all, it was.
It was good, man. We had a fire. We had chairs
by the fire. It was basically like camp, but
with donuts, coffee, and everybody chilling and
checking out each other's rigs. Yep. Yep. And
one thing I noticed that was interesting is like,
so you go to Rigs and Coffee and you end up with
like 20 different little groups that are all
broke off together. We didn't really have that.
We had a lot of... Full group conversations.
A couple of small little break -offs, but...
I'd like to say at most we had three separate
groups at one time, but other than that, it kept
getting reformed back to one group. Do you want
to... Not to change subjects, but I just got
a message from my wife. Do you guys want to try
a new segment real quick? What's that? It's called
Mystery Mail Call. Okay. I got a random package
through UPS, and I haven't ordered anything.
Let's do it. Oh. All right. All right. So mystery
mail call for the viewers. Uh -oh. Sienna says
she knows what it is, and it was extremely fast.
I don't know what it is. Super. Oh, holy shit.
So I won a giveaway with Super E, the light company.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That was like a day
or two ago. They're in. Nice. Holy shit. That
is the fastest shipping I've ever had. You probably
shipped it right away before they even announced
the winners. Oh, my God, dude. I've never had
that happen. So let me just open this up real
quick. I'm going to rip the box because I don't
have a knife on me. Here, let me just pass you
mine through the string. I got this. This box
is tough. It's made in China. Because I've been
sitting here combing my beard with it the whole
time. Sold as a set. So there's three boxes that
say sold as a set. I'm going to pass it up to
the camera for the guys. Okay. Okay. So let's
pull out the first one. I don't know what these
are. Oh. These are not. These are. There's more
than three of them. Oh. Okay. Rock lights? They
could be rock lights. Oh, shit. Yeah, I think
they're rock lights, dudes. That's exactly what
they are. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck. Okay, so I got...
A little nicer than the ones I put on the back
of mine, but they look good. I got some connectors.
Let's see how many I got. I guess eight. Six
or eight. So I got, I think it's six. So three,
four, five, six. Yep, six. Holy shit, dude. That's
perfect because I really didn't need any other
lights. A large wire. What do you call that?
Lume? Harness? Harness. Looks like it has one
button. Ooh, I don't know, boys. We might have
to do this at your... No, it's all connected
by one. So I think if I splice the wire, I can
just run this to my... Switch panel? Yeah, because
it's got the button right here. But if I just
take that out... Yep. And wire before that...
Is this one colored, not multicolored? Yeah,
I don't even know. So it's got some backers.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't even know yet. It's got a
remote. What the fuck? It's not one color. Yeah,
but I'll say you got a remote. It's not one color.
God damn. Oh, yeah. That's a lot of fucking buttons,
boys. You're going to be partying. I don't know.
So I don't know. Can I do that then? Yeah, you
should. I might have to keep that switch, right?
You should be able to run main power into the
switch panel and then use the remote for the
rest. Well, yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot. IP68
rated. Oh, there's app control too. God damn.
Yep, and they have some directions for, I think,
wiring it to the switch panel. I need to, like,
get on these giveaways. Fuck. I don't know what
these are even priced at, to be honest, but free
rock lights. For six of them? RGB is going to
be a little more expensive type because it's
being multicolored. Yeah. I'm going to do these
underneath, and I'll just keep the ambers and
stuff for some area lighting. I don't really
have any colors. I'm not banging out with light
blue or anything on my shiny rims, which is a
joke to anyone who's ever seen my rims because
they're spray -painted black. You can find a
red to match your berry. That wouldn't be bad.
It might look purple, though. All right, so that's
a fun segment. We need to do that more often.
I mean, on that case, it's not really a mystery
mail call, but our flag is here. Oh, yeah, you
did get your flag. Yeah, it's a mail call. There
you go. Yeah, I added that to the official store.
So, listeners, go to our store. It's in the show
notes down below. And buy our junk. We have cool
junk, and you should buy our junk. And we want
you to buy it to just have it. It doesn't really
give us anything because we have it priced low.
It is priced pretty low. I was going to talk
about the other item. It's priced really low.
Like the license plate holder that he just made,
too. It's not a holder. The license plate. Yeah.
Yeah. That actually looks like a state plate.
Like, it's sick, dude. Yeah, I have a holder.
I have the holder. I didn't do a plate yet. The
holder's pretty cool. It's just got the topographic
on it, and then... The three bears on the bottom.
So it's not super, like, in your face. So that
website that I used to get the topographic for
Skitter Hill, oh, that's the cool thing. All
the new stuff has the Skitter Hill topographic
behind it. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. Although
we don't, like, go out of the way on the item
to point out that it's Skitter Hill, just knowing
that it's Skitter Hill is cool enough. Yeah.
Yeah. But that website that I use to get the
Toppo, I think I'm going to start paying for
it yearly. It's like $100 a year. And we can
just get Toppo from anywhere we want in the world.
Which would be really cool for each Chords and
Calfs event to do one item, like a sticker, and
use a Toppo on the background of the sticker
and just have our Botches logo on the front of
it. I actually really like that idea. So, yeah.
We've got some cool stuff on the store now. We've
got, just kind of give you a rundown because
if I don't, maybe you'll hear what you want and
you'll go get it. So we've got a really cool
license plate. We've got the really cool flag.
Our Hawaiian shirt that everyone seems to want.
There's one of those on the store now. There
is a hoodie, which it's a really high quality
hoodie. It's got our logo embroidered on it instead
of printed, so it's not going to wear off. You
can buy our patch. We've got a patch on there,
a nice beanie. Which I just bought one I got
to try out this weekend. Yeah, I need to order
a new beanie, and I'm going to design a new zippered
hoodie here soon because I like zippered hoodies,
and we don't have any on the store right now.
Then, obviously, you can get our stickers. We've
got the all -famous koozie, which I also need
to buy a new one because I gave mine away. and
we've got a can -shaped glass with a top and
a straw on it, which I use every single night
next to my bed because if my cups don't have
tops on them, my cat drinks it all. Yeah, dude.
What's up with that? They have perfectly good
water, and our cat knocks over our glass cups
on the kitchen just to get into the water. They
put their whole head in it. They're the worst.
Retarded, man. He knocked it over on all my phones
and my alarm clock and my e -reader and all that
stuff and just soaked everything. I'm like, you
little cocksucker. Okay. Yeah. So, well, hold
on. We got to go back now, now that we've got
our plug in. Hey, yeah, check out HOA2. I have
a lot of the same things Alex already said. Anyway,
so back to... Back to our really successful Cords
of Calf, dude. Cords of Calf was great. So did
we ever get a full count of how many people actually
showed up? Was it 10, 15? 19. So 19 people. We
had a couple kids. My kids showed up. Shane's
kids were there. They were all playing together.
It was really fun. It was a really good day.
No rain. It looked like it was going to. It rained.
It rained at the beginning. Yeah, just for a
sec. Just before everyone showed up, it rained
a little bit. But, I mean, throughout the whole
thing, it didn't. It was good. We had firewood.
We had a shit ton of donuts that I was not expecting
were going to be gone through. Oh, my God. I
should have bought two of those sprinkle ones.
I knew the kids were going to annihilate it,
but, jeez, they were gone. It was like, they're
like $6 a box, and I bought like four of them.
I came back, getting four. I'm like, cool, I'll
have extra for a couple of days. I went in there.
Towards the end of the event, there was two left
out of every single box, even the ones that Mark
got. I was like, God damn. We went through almost
two whole coffee things from whatever coffee
shop that was. Big B. Big B. Big B's. Duncan
got the good shit. Yeah, I was really happy with
it. Yeah. And in the future, you'll just have
to watch our show notes. And I think I like the
idea. Did you hear what Craig was saying about
the three words thing? Yeah. I'm in the middle
about that. Like, I think it's really cool. But
then how much extra work is it going to be for
a listener to get into? Like, I don't know exactly
how that works. My thought is. We start doing
the three words, and we say the three words during
the episode, but we put the coordinates in the
show notes. Because I don't want to sit here
and rattle off negative 40 .835 by negative 90
.2. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Because
then it includes both sides, because I don't
have that app for whatever that is. It's really
cool, though. I'm absolutely sure it is. It's
just one of those things, like, I don't know
if I want to add more stuff to my phone right
now. Yeah, I feel you. It might come in the future,
like, if we start doing a lot more. I think we
should do merch drops. That would be fun. Yep.
And do the three -word. We could do that specifically,
do a merch drop in a random part of Michigan.
Make sure it's sealed up really nice, and then
do three words, and then whoever comes upon it
gets the merch. I like that idea. That'd be kind
of fun. Like a geocache almost. Yeah, but for
listeners. But for listeners. And if you don't
listen, you don't see it. We won't post it anywhere
else but where we have a podcast. The Snail Trail
guys do something similar. They made these little
coin things, and then they've hidden them all
over. California. And if you find enough to say
snail trail, then you win a whole mechanic set
from gear wrench tools. So temper trip. Has anyone
actually done it yet? I guess one guy did. I
don't know. I'm not fully sure on that one. That's
really cool. There's a lot of cool stuff that
we're planning on doing more, more, uh, cords
and calf more. More drops, I'm sure. We'll do
some more giveaways, I'm sure. We're just kind
of getting into this. And as you guys might or
might not know, it is an investment to do any
of this from us. So we kind of have to take it
slow because we're not rich either. And we got
a... We had a... We had an event we were going
to do with the cryptids, but I think we've held
that off this year. Yeah, I think we're going
to hold that off because we wanted to do a cryptid
-type hunt, do some cutouts and stuff, but the
plywood, the stenciling, the cutting out, the
painting. The time. And to do the time and the
multiple figures to put it out, it's a lot. Like,
I think I'm postponing my dyno, my Rex run. Oh,
shit. Just because one of the other main organizers,
he's a teacher. He's literally got a Jurassic
Park Subie. It's a themed Subie and everything.
He was going to bring a bunch of dinosaur stuff
too. He just realized that he wouldn't be able
to make it. So to me, it's like, hey, no big
deal. There's plenty of other stuff going on.
It won't hurt us to wait until next year and
just plan it out better. Right. I, I'm not upset
about it. Gives us more chance to get some dinosaur
costumes. Maybe by the next time we can do it
in October and have some dino costumes. And,
you know, I wanted to do like a tag event with
dinosaurs chasing the kids. And maybe, maybe
like some dinosaur sounds in the middle of the
night out in the woods just to scare them a lot.
I don't know. So we'll see. But it'll give us
more time to plan it out. And these events are.
Really fun. So I kind of don't want to half -ass
it, and that takes it off my plate so that I
don't have to half -ass it. You know what I mean?
We need to get out and do some scouting for cords
and calf October. So I have an idea. So there's
this place that we all go that we really enjoy
with some decent wheeling. that I'm not going
to say the name of because we haven't decided
it yet, but you know which one I'm talking about.
It's up north of Reed City. Oh, yeah. That particular
place is a state area, so we don't have to abide
by the 20 -people limit. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah,
I think I know what you're talking about. Was
it the place where you broke Mark's tailgate?
Yes. Swing out. Okay. So I think. If anybody
listens, they might know. Got a couple areas
there. I think that that would be worth using
four cords and calf at least once. Yeah. Yeah.
I'd love to do that place on White Cloud next
to the lake, but maybe for a smaller one since
we're worried about the people part of it. See,
and that's the thing is we're not going to be
making events anymore. There's too much around
that. But if you listen to the show, we'll have
it in the show notes. We'll talk about it in
the show. Pay attention to our socials. We'll
put out reels when we drop the chords, then you
can check the show notes, and boom, there's the
chords. And you know, if you really, really,
really want to go, you can send one of us a message.
Yeah, more than that. Oh, yeah. And depending
on if we like you or not, we'll give you the
chords. Because if we don't like you, we're just
trying to make this outrageously big. We don't
need it. As much as I would love for this to
be like a rigs and coffee sized event, it's not
sustainable for this type of event. We can't
afford for it to be sustainable. That's really
the main thing. The thing is, if we were doing
it that big, we'd have to get permits every month.
And it just, it's not going to work. It'd be
one thing if we had the money from external areas,
if someone might be sponsoring us, like a company,
an off -road company nearby that works on, you
know, lifted trucks. Jeeps. Jeeps. You know,
as a really large online warehouse. Yeah, yeah,
you know, right here in our hometown, you know.
And, you know, they'd never have enough stuff.
They always have a ton. They have a super cool
Cadillac out front right now. Yep. Yeah. So,
I mean, hey, you know, we're not talking about
any company in particular. No, no. Just one that
hypothetically may exist. Yeah. I mean, but if
there was someone who did fit the bill that wanted
to help out with these kind of events, we'd be
more than happy. And they could come. They could.
Come sit up. It would be. I might reach out to
a hypothetical company that may exist to see
if they want to do one in their parking lot over
the winter, because that would be pretty sick.
Yes, it would. Yes, it would. That one could
potentially be a little bit bigger than what
we usually have. I don't know. The parking lot
size, do you think it would be bigger or smaller?
I mean, it is a privately owned area, so I figure
there is some grace there to get permits. If
we work with... uh hypothetical really good restaurant
that's right next door maybe we could take over
their parking lot too true so we could definitely
do it in an abandoned parking lot of a store
that closed down that they have thousands of
that might hypothetically be here but just got
purchased by another company and is currently
getting filled with rental equipment oh Oh, I
didn't know that. Yeah. I haven't been in Grant
in months. Not really. I haven't been in Grant
in like the downtown area by that area in a while
because I don't have any need to go down there
anymore. I'm there every day. Yeah. So that's
interesting. Yeah. I mean, there's lots of possibilities,
guys. And if you have an idea, let us know. Yeah,
for sure. So far, we only have one super active
listener. And I would really like to have more
super active listeners. I hope we're talking
about Wreck -It Rob, because Wreck -It Rob's
great. Zach. Oh, wait. Oh, that Zach. Yeah. Zach
always gets - He was asking about insurance recently.
Yeah. That's because I was talking to him on
mine, because I think he heard our podcast where
we were talking about our insane insurance. To
put it out, Michigan insurance is some of the
highest in the country. That's why our insurance
is insane. California insurance is cheaper than
ours. Let that sink in. That feels so wrong to
say that, actually. So if you guys have any ideas,
you guys want to help work with us, anything
like that, let us know. I do. That did. That
kind of chalks up our 30 minutes and our wrap.
Yeah. I'm really excited about cords and calf
though. It's an event that to me is pretty special
and I think could really become something really
good. Yeah. And if you guys could bring some
donuts next time and maybe firewood, that'd be
great. Yeah. We did run out of firewood, but
we were okay. A normal rigs and coffee last what?
Two hours. Yeah. Typically. Yeah. We were not
expecting to be almost there for like, we were
there for eight hours. I got home at like seven
and seen. It's like, you're not home yet. Like,
Nope. Just got home. She was talking about dinner.
She's like, you guys can stop at a restaurant
because I just getting out. And I'm like, yep,
I'm almost at home. And she's like, what the
fuck? We should definitely. Yeah. We should definitely
do. Like, lunch next time. Because I ate donuts,
and then I didn't eat again until dinner time.
Yeah. We should do hot dogs or something. Hot
dogs are cheap. Yeah. The can of hash and donuts
did not last me until dinner time. Oh, dude,
that's all I ate was those donuts that day. Same.
Donuts and three monsters. I was starving. Yeah,
Cords and Calf was great. Yes. All right. Have
a good day. Bye. Have a good day. Later.