Welcome to Botches Off -Road. Join us as we talk
about everything from gear reviews to trail stories,
tent camping to rock landing, and all things
to do with the outdoors. It's been a little bit,
guys. Like, I know I recorded last week alone.
I think me and Mark recorded the week before
that with Tyler. Oh, that's, that's why this
feels so out. Cause two weeks ago, we recorded
on a Sunday with Tyler for more flight last week.
I recorded with, Oh, by the way, that episode
is definitely not out yet. By the way, I recorded
with Dan Greck. Um, I just remembered. I need
to edit that yet. Yeah. Okay. You guys will get
that episode. It's a really good one. Yeah. Uh,
it's with Dan Greck. Uh, He's an author. You'll
have to look him up. He's pretty cool. I wish
Gavin was here for that, by the way. Yeah. Because,
you know, I like the off -road thing, but Dan's
more of an overlander, and Gavin and him probably
could have talked for hours. Like, super cool
fucking dude. Oh, yeah, especially since he just
got a kid, too. Yeah, he just had a kid. Yep.
Yeah. I don't remember what I had going on, but
I had something going on. Oh, I think it was...
Home improvement? I think it was, yeah. Yeah,
I had a home improvement, and then, well, that
was, I think. That was the day that you took
Sienna out across the state. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
I got up at, we got up at 1 a .m. to go to East
Hollis, which is about three and a half hours
away, because she can't drive, but she had an
inventory. So she can drive, but at night, she
has, like. uh early onset glaucoma some kind
of shit like that like she has glaucoma she has
a specialist uh it gets worse constantly and
so at night she cannot drive very well she can't
see everything's really mushy and lights are
very stringy and so a three and a half hour drive
getting up at 1 a .m going all the way over there
uh was just not a good idea And it's not like
she can really just say no. Right. So me and
the boy and her, we all got up, drove over there.
She went to work. And we sat in the parking lot
for a few hours. And then after she finally got
out, we went to a park to actually make some
use of the time. We went to the state park over
there and got there, forgot that the car doesn't
have a wreck pass because we take the truck everywhere
we need a wreck pass for. uh like the state park
pass yeah so we got up there and we're like how
much is the state park pass she's like well nobody's
working we don't have any you know any money
to pay these guys so she goes come on in i'm
like fuck yeah so we got in there checked out
the lighthouse walked along the shore you got
to play in a little sea foam and then yeah we
packed up and came all the way back and By the
time we came back, it was already pretty late.
None of us had slept a wink yet except the kid,
and we were just fucking crazy exhausted beyond
belief. I should have had Jasper on. He could
have helped me with that interview. Oh, God.
He would have deleted everything. He likes this
RGB keyboard, so he'd be tapping on that the
whole time. Wait, do you still have it set to
rainbow puke? When you say RGB? No, it's dark
green and bluish. No, I don't have it. It only
goes to rainbow puke usually when I'm logged
out or like between sessions. So it doesn't save
its RGB settings? No, so like when you log out
of your account. and it goes to, like, switch
user, it goes to RGB. That's really annoying.
Mine, I can save. I'm sure you could switch it.
I just don't know the technology. Mine saves
the RGB settings, so I set it, and then it just
keeps it until it randomly forgets it. But it's
annoying because I don't run Linux, or I don't
run Windows. I run Linux, and my keyboard requires
Windows to set the RGB. So I set it one time
and I used it and it kept forgetting profiles
until all of a sudden I had no profiles. So now
it's just a normal keyboard. Yeah, I have for
my profile, it's dark green. And then for CNS
profile, it's purple. And then when you're in
that selection, the login selection, it's RGB.
So it is what it is. I don't really care, honestly.
It doesn't really bother me when it's in that
because I'm usually always in my profile. Even
when I'm off, I just turn the desktop monitor
and the color off on the mouse and keyboard.
It's like the night light. It's a lot more than
I do. I just walk away from my desk. Oh, well,
yours is in your room. Yeah, so the kid will
get up here and fuck with it if I leave all my
stuff on. So anyways, now that we've had five
minutes of keyboard talk, is that a Mac keyboard?
Do you know what a Mac keyboard is? A what keyboard?
A mechanical keyboard. Clank, clank, clank, clank,
clank. No, mechanical keyboards don't have to
go clank. I just have noisy switches. Not really,
no. It's just like a Corsair. I mean, Corsair
makes mechanical keyboards. i don't know man
i don't know what it is it's a keyboard it doesn't
make louder sounds than a typical keyboard so
no i don't think so well my although sienna likes
those mechanical ones that make the big like
we went to best buy and she's like that's why
i like this one i like the sound it makes yeah
so i like i like noisier keyboards that's why
the listeners hear me my clanking here and there
um but i have built mechanical keyboards that
make literally no sound The benefit is that when
a switch dies, so if a key quits working, usually
you throw the keyboard out and get a new one.
With a mechanical one, you just change the switch
so you can keep using your keyboard without...
Yeah. Like, mine's been doused in beer a few
times, and whenever I get a key that gets sticky,
I just move it to a less used key. There you
go. Yeah, it works. But anyways, this is a wrap,
but it's going to be a long wrap because it's
like three weeks of wraps. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
mine's only about a week. I don't really have
anything going on. We had the Gilmore Museum,
which we haven't talked about, which was amazing,
by the way. It was. There was quite a few FJs
there, too. There were quite a few FJs there.
I know. I always have FOMO. I hate missing out
on this stuff, but we just couldn't. You had
a wedding or something. We had a wedding. Yeah,
you had a wedding. I tried to get out of it just
because I wanted to go to Nolan's wedding. uh
which uh congratulations nolan on your marriage
but uh but yeah no sienna's cousin had one and
i had forgotten about it and we did the rsvp
and everything so so you're stuck yeah we uh
we went me mark allen and joe karen from i guess
he's from beyond the mitten now um hmm my wife
backed out last minute and i'm like all right
who's someone i could sit in a truck with for
like three hours and not hate them you know what
i mean yeah um then it came who's not busy yeah
but it was fun uh we went down we didn't win
any awards because a stock forerunner with a
rooftop tent is better than my long travel forerunner
and a stock jk is somehow the best rig there
even though there were much better built jks
that was the third place oh was it who was first
oh the f -150 ford yeah it was weird yeah it
sounds like they were judging them like sima
builds it was they have to be super shiny voters
opinions it was user choice it was weird it was
weird that's what it was um That's okay. I'm
sure you guys still had fun. It was great. It
was a great time. There's a slot car track there,
and it got us addicted to slot cars. Yeah, we
went there for one hobby and came back with another
one. So now I have a slot car track in my upstairs
extra bedroom, and I pretty much spend all my
free time whipping cars around this track. We
got another box right here of slot cars. It's
a problem. It's going to be a problem. I feel
it. I can already see hobby -wise the stupid
TikTok excavators, bulldozers, and stuff. I would
buy those, and I could spend hours. Do those
come in HO scale? Because we could totally put
that in the world we're going to build. What's
HO? 164th. Like Hot Wheels size. I think those
are a little bit bigger. These are bigger. These
are like model cars. 164. I want to say they're
124. HO is your average model train. They're
about that size. I've seen the one where they
had the basement and they've just been excavating
the crap out of it. I think they're around that
size. They come in 1 8th or 1 14th, but not 1
64th. I want the bigger ones because I want to
take them out when we camp and stuff and we could
build fire pits. Yeah. Or clear fire pits. They're
really fun. They got a bulldozer, a bulldozer,
excavator, front end loader. The actual good
like usable ones, the ones that they use in the
TikTok reels, those are like $2 ,000 toys. Yeah,
I don't want those ones. I just want the toy
ones. Because those have dumpable buckets and
stuff. They articulate. They have all that. They're
not actually die -cast like they claim. You can
get this one, the Huuna 1593. It's an alloy.
It's not die -cast. It's alloy. But I don't know.
They're cool. I want to play with one really
bad. Yeah, I think they're like $38, $40 a piece,
something like that. For the whole set, it's
like 120, like a set of four or five. Yeah, I've
been. I just want them, play them with them in
the dirt, give the kid one of the controllers
and just kind of hang out and do that. I mean,
that'd be a fun thing to do at camp because I
think a lot of the times, I was already talking
to Alex about this earlier, like a lot of the
times you get to camp and I hate to say it, but
sometimes like relaxing is boring. Relaxing is
always boring. you know what i mean so like you
get to camp and you're all set up and yeah you
relax for a few hours a lot of the times i do
my relaxing at night after we're done traveling
all day so i would say you so then when you have
12 hours in between that and you're like uh so
now what if you remember usually i get bored
and start fucking with my truck at camp yeah
so it would give us an activity to kind of do
they don't take up a lot of space and give us
something to do for a couple hours maybe more
i don't know it depends it'd be fun to do as
like uh as the botches group just get a couple
beers go out and do that pair that with some
uh rc race cars that are set up for like dirt
drags build race tracks with the excavator and
stuff and then race the rc cars i'll be fun yeah
make jumps that's what i'm saying yeah Do, like,
three runners, two -wheel drive three runners
just to whip around. And then also have crawlers
because, well, crawlers are sick. Yeah, I mean,
as a kid, I never had RC cars. I never had Power
Wheels or anything like that. We didn't make
that kind of money. So I had always wanted one.
And now that these kids, these RC cars are like
a dime a dozen. And you can get decent ones for
really cheap. So it's like. I was like, dude,
I kind of want to tap into that childhood fantasy
and get some of these. I always had RC cars because
I got my cousin's hand -me -downs, but they were
like $30 RC cars from Walmart. And they were
usually like missing tire rubber by the time
I got them. I never even got the cheap ones that
had like... Like, you get those really cheap
ones from Walmart, and they just have a forward
and a backward button. Yeah, I had those. I never
even got those. Like, it was all Hot Wheels.
I had one. The one new RC I got, it was an RC
Dragonfly, and it was the coolest fucking thing,
dude. All styrofoam body with Dragonfly wings,
and it actually flew. Like, it was really cool.
Oh. I did have those hand -activated foam helicopters.
Oh, yeah, yeah. You zip the line, and they go...
I had those. Yeah, those lasted about a day before
those ended up in a tree or the neighbor's yard,
and we never found them again. I think the last
RC cars I had was the battle one with laser tags.
Oh, yeah, yeah. It had an orange Camaro and a
blue Mustang. I'm purposely trying to stay out
of RC, though, because I have a problem with
hobbies, and RC's kind of expensive to, like...
If I got into RC, I couldn't just buy an RC car
and leave it alone. I'd have to upgrade it and
modify it. And I can't afford that, dude. I got
a truck. I'm buying another truck. I get into
these TikTok guys. These guys overseas in Asia
or something. And they're making old semis. And
they're using complete axles. They're doing lathes
and stuff to bore out brake. Yeah. brake drums
like disc brakes and i'm like holy like they're
doing everything by lathe they're making everything
custom and it's like oh my god you think that's
the cheaper way to do it but those the equipment
is so expensive yeah you have to have all the
lathes and stuff for it and i'm watching him
make all this stuff and it's like it's a scaled
down like suspension of an actual vehicle like
he makes tie rods like i'm like dude this is
crazy and then he just goes and drives I'm like,
dude, but it's cool. Like they drive them through
mud, like fully loaded and stuff. And I'm like,
that'd be fun. Yeah. So we, uh, so we got into
the slot car thing. Uh, other things that happened,
they had a Bantam, which I have seen one in the
past at a car show, but there's just something
about seeing, uh, one of the first Jeeps ever
assembled, just sitting there just looking pretty.
Yep. Um, so that's pretty cool. Uh, Sadly, they
did not have a W41, so the whole me wanting to
see another Oldsmobile thing, that got put to
the side. Oh, but there is one of those for sale
right now for $4 ,000, and if I didn't just make
a deal to buy another 4Runner, I would definitely
be trying to buy it. Yep. Because I wish it came
up like... Actually, if it came up three weeks
ago, my dad would have bought it. But... Now
he's putting $18 ,000 into a Duramax that he
paid $21 ,000 for because Duramax. I just, when
he bought the Duramax, there was a power stroke
that had everything done to it. It was ready
to go. It was beautiful and better shape than
this one for the same price. And he had already
went down to Florida, but he didn't want to drive
an hour out of his way to go look at this power
stroke. So he went 20 minutes out of his way.
to look at this Duramax and bought that instead.
And I just, it was such a misstep. Really, just
Duramax is in general. He's had nothing but bad
luck with them. Yeah. I think we lost Gavin to
his game about singing ladies. No. No. Just communicating
to the other teams that they need to vacate the
premises before reset. See, what else happened
in the last couple weeks? We had Cords and Calf
and Rigs and Coffee. Cords and Calf. Yeah. And
Rigs and Coffee. That was fun. Cords and Calf
was fun. I got there late because I thought it
was at 12, like the last one. I was like, so
okay. I thought the last one started at 10 too.
I thought it started at 12. I think they both
started at 10. Yeah, well, then I just got it
messed up then, got it switched around. But I
was like, okay, yeah, we'll be a little late
because, you know, seeing I had to get stuff
around, and I had clothes in the washer and dryer
that weren't done yet. So then we finally get
out there, and everyone's like, oh, perfect timing,
we're getting ready to go wheeling. And I'm like,
okay, cool, perfect timing. So we all run out
there. I mean, honestly, I think we pretty much
just re -ran most of the routes off a poker run.
And that was a lot of fun. We just didn't do
the one loop. Yeah. Well, what I thought was
really fun about that day in particular was every
rig was built to a point where it could do every
obstacle. Every driver was competent enough that
we didn't have to stop every 30 seconds. I mean,
we were able to get out, do what we needed to
do, have fun without having to drag people through
and wait for people. Yeah. I think I think there
are definitely I think I feel pros to bringing
new people. I like to show new people the fun
that you can have. But there are times where
doing it without them and working on yourself
instead of focusing on other people is is more
enjoyable. And that's what that is. You know,
that was a chance to test yourself and to see
like, hey, this is where I've come. I can now
hang with the big boys. Like usually when I bring
new people out, I want it to be in a smaller
group of like one to three. We had, I think we
had six or seven rigs out there. Yeah. Yeah.
We had seven, nine. Oh, you count not counting
us. It'd be seven. Oh really? Yeah. We're almost
at 10. We had a lot of, I thought we were at
seven, one, two, eight, eight, eight total. Yep.
You know, that's a, that's a bigger group than
I would normally go out with. Um, but like i
said we were all competent and we knew what we
were doing we just got out we did our thing we
came back yeah and when you have people experience
like that the number of rigs that's acceptable
like for that kind of thing it can change like
like typically like alex said like usually we
would do like the group of us like four yep uh
but you know when you have everybody who kind
of knows what the deal is how to get through
everything already we all had that kind of experience
with poker run maybe except for a few of us but
they got through it all fine uh it it makes it
a lot easier to make your group a little larger
i mean everybody's on the same page if we do
stop and it's a longer stop everyone knows to
like hey if you have to piss do it now we're
not you know we don't stop for a minute oh i
gotta pee then stop a couple minutes later oh
she has to pee It's business. And, you know,
I think everyone got through every single obstacle
aside from at the end there, Shane got hung up
in that one -off camber mud climb. It's not really
a hill climb. It's not a rock climb. Let's call
it what it is. It's a mud climb. It's an uphill,
crazy rutted out, muddy climb. Yeah, it's hard
to explain. But if you listen to our podcast
back from the poker run, Mark actually D -beated
at that same spot that Shane got stuck. So it's
a problem place for people who aren't solid axle
or people who, I don't know. How would you explain
that as it's a problem for people who don't have
articulation? Most of it is articulation and
some of it's clearance. The bigger thing is not
getting slopped into there like he did. Yeah,
he got pulled into it. The line that I took was
a safer line. I did not get pulled down into
that three -foot run or whatever it was. I went
and rode the top line and was able to get out
of that. I was too wide to run the top line,
so I had to go through it. i yeah but you're
built for that dude and i did that you know i
don't have a working locker right now so i did
that open open and it was literally no problem
at all um shane is open open too isn't he is
yep uh yeah so the only down part of that the
only downside i had was my 35s in the back uh
when it tucked when they tucked up the one that
was in the body would bind, and then all the
power would go to the other one. So I was having
a little bit of a traction problem, but, I mean,
I walked up it. It just, I need to cut out the
back of my truck. My biggest problem with that
whole thing was 100%. About halfway up, I stopped
moving. I couldn't move at all, and I'm just
spinning, and I'm like, what the fuck? What's
going on? Like, I should be able to do this.
I really should. Like, there's no problem. I'm
aired down. I know my truck. I'm sitting there
looking around. Like, why does it feel like I'm
slipping? And I look down. My traction control
is blinking. I'm like, why the fuck is that blinking
in four -wheel drive? And I look down at my shifter,
and I'm like, oh, fuck, I'm in two -wheel drive.
I remember that. Yeah, so when I went to shift,
I don't look when I shift. Typically, I'm pretty
good at, you know, knowing where. Four low, four
high is. So when I threw it in neutral and shifted,
I accidentally shifted into second or two -wheel
drive. Not second, but two -wheel drive. And
that's why I stopped moving. So I shifted it
back over and up into two low. Four low. Or four
low, sorry. Yeah. Four low. And then I went right
through everything. Yeah, it was. There was no
problem. And I don't. I mean, we did that other
hill climb. I don't think anyone really – I mean,
when we were not aired down, we all started.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, so we did that first hill climb,
which in Poker Run, we actually did that backwards.
Yes, yes. Because there was a large rock that
I hit my diff on the first time and had to stop
and go around it. But, yeah, so we – unfortunately,
all the Toyotas – uh hadn't aired down yet all
the jeeps had already aired down so they made
it up no problem and we're like what the fuck
this isn't this isn't cool like and all the jeep
guys are they're razzing us like friendly razzing
they're not like saying oh you got shitty uh
so we went up and we tried tried it was just
getting up that first part i never tried it so
we all aired up yeah so we all aired down once
alex figured out i had my compressor we all aired
down and uh yeah and then after that it was no
problem i i had um where i'd gotten stuck before
i had no problem getting up after it does it's
a true testament to like how much airing down
helps traction and i know mark said something
about that too like there's you went from getting
almost all the way up to the top we got pretty
much to the peak And it's just that little last
hump over to be level is where pretty much all
of us were digging down. And once we had aired
up, that wasn't the problem. I did notice I lost
some traction once we got up to like the deeper,
what do you call that, sugar sand? The deep sand.
Looser than beach sand. yeah so it's loose sand
up top still wasn't a problem but you could still
when you drive your truck long enough you could
still feel when you're starting to lose traction
so uh yeah that's the only problem i started
to have but still got through it no problem yeah
i didn't even i it just went through it i didn't
really have any problems um it the very top of
that last time i went through there i was still
narrow in the front that's gonna be a continuing
theme here is me being wide is kind of a fucking
problem um yeah i think the only issue that alex
did have was those skinny trees oh my god dude
i rubbed everyone else drives through these two
trees like nothing's wrong i brushed both sides
with my tires took some bark off i'm sure yeah
oh and i did before we hit that i think There
was a low hanging tree and everybody else went
through it. And my, my, we boost antenna has
like, you can change the direction. You can lower
it that way. It doesn't hit things. I usually
don't mess with it because it just, I let it
hit and like, that's what it's there for. But
that's why there's a spring on it. Right? Like,
so. I got to it, and it was literally, that tree
was, like, hitting my boxes. And I was like,
okay, that's going to be a hard hit on that WeBoost.
So I went to go lower it, and for some reason
it was locked up, probably just rust because
I haven't touched it all summer. So I was like,
ah. I kind of looked behind me. That guy with
his brand -new Jeep, it only had 1 ,500 miles.
Not even 1 ,200 miles, and he's out there. Yeah,
right. Yep. Which, you know what? Good on him.
Awesome. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm
like, you know what? I'm just going to cut this
down. I said it over the radio. I'm just going
to cut this down, because I could probably go
through it, bang my wee -wee stuff and shit,
and just go. But I was like, it's definitely
going to hit your guys' truck, too. So he helped
me. He got out. I cut it up, threw it to the
side. That was the only other real issue. Nothing
really. We had some water, but for... For Evert,
that water was pretty low. It was gone. There's
nothing really crazy. And thankfully, Evert and
the areas that we traveled, mostly Rocky Bottom,
a lot of it I didn't have to hammer down through.
Unfortunately, I was behind Mark, who felt that
he had to hammer down on every mud puddle. So
my windshield was completely covered in mud,
and the whole front end of my truck was covered
in mud. Dude, I don't even want to hear it. I
thought he was going to crack my windshield,
dude. We got mud globs that big hitting our windshield.
I'm like, son of a bitch, I'm going to crack
it again. The inside of my tire is the outside
of my body. So the entire side of my truck was
black. You couldn't see paint. You couldn't see
through the windows. yeah a little like alex
is a totally different area than the rest everyone
else like their trucks were dirty right mine
was fucking trash oh yeah you had mud yeah you
had mud all the way up the side of yours and
whoever was behind you hopefully they didn't
get it all over theirs but yeah it was yeah it
was it was fun though it was a really fun day
uh we when did we stop at about five we were
out for about four hours or so like four or five
yeah i think it was about i think it's about
right it's like four or five so okay we did most
of that in four hours came back tore down camp
yep yep bullshitted everyone aired up their tires
and uh and then we left um uh yeah we ended up
following duncan yeah and then we passed him
on the highway um and then i slowed down because
i was like i'm not really in like a massive rush
when i was going the speed limit and then here
comes shane i'm like is that shane like it's
starting to get darker out and so i'm looking
at the silhouette of it and he's got his white
fog lights on and i'm like man that's set up
a lot like what shane is and then so we're we're
looking on the wolf box and we're like i don't
know man it looks really you know looking around
Finally, we see his rooftop, his roof rack. It's
got the shovel and the tire on it. I'm like,
that's fucking Shane. I know it. So then I slow
down right before we go to our exit, and he passes
us, and we wave out. We didn't get home until
almost 10 o 'clock. yeah um i think it was just
because it was getting cool pretty damn fast
and that was sienna was cold my fucking i gotta
find some heated socks and heated uh gloves for
this winter because uh like my the rest of my
body's fine like i don't really struggle with
that but i have really bad circulation and i
was just standing there it wasn't even that cold
out probably what 45 at that point i think it
was that i think 50 maybe yeah Yeah, and the
tips of my toes were freezing. Dude, I'll tell
you, because we camped out that Friday night.
It is crazy. Inside the swag, it was below freezing.
It was like high 20s. Inside the swag, we had
me, Kaelin, and Jackson. And the air itself was
probably like 40, 43, somewhere in there. But
then under the blankets, dude, it was like...
I had to climb out from under the blankets. I
was fucking dying. Yeah, that heavy fabric, I'd
imagine, is great insulative property. And then
the dogs had their dog swag for the first camping
trip. I just put both of them in the one swag,
and I'm not going to camp without dogs. I have
to have that tent if I'm camping with dogs from
now on. That was by far the best experience I've
ever had with dogs. Yeah, I think if we go out
again, we're definitely, at this point, with
how cold it's getting at night, I keep my room
with the window open pretty much. So usually
what it is outside is 5 to 10 degrees warmer
in the room until it gets to below freezing,
and then we throw a heater on. But I think at
this point, we're going to have to do diesel
heaters before we go out and do an actual weekend
again. So yeah, we... Having the dogs in our
tent was great, except at like 5 .30 in the morning,
we hear a bunch of commotion. And it wasn't my
dogs barking yet. So I unzip my little flap and
stick my head out. And there's this dude on a
side -by -side with two huskies that are just
going ballistic. And then my dogs start barking.
And I watched this dude jump from his moving
side -by -side to grab his dogs as they ran into
our camp. And then I'm like, man, I don't know
if my dogs are still there. So I'm like, mercy,
speak. Of course, they don't know how to do that.
But I just needed one of them to make noise.
Finally, I got Wrangler to wag his tail. So I
heard thud, thud, thud, thud on his tent. So
that was great until we woke up and there was
a random fucking car parked in our campsite.
well yeah we were awake since then we never went
back to sleep we were just laid there like can
we go back to sleep and then mark goes i think
i just heard footsteps so we climb out and there's
this random equinox parked in our campsite yeah
yeah i'm just gonna say the uh The spot that
you guys picked was actually really not too far
off the main road. No, it's not. No. So I was
kind of surprised when I put it in. Google Maps
actually took me to that spot. And I was like,
oh. Yep. OK. Yeah. So that was like, I was kind
of surprised that it was that easy to get to.
Because typically when Alex picks a spot, it's
usually not that easy. For cords and calf, my
goal is to keep it within a quarter mile of a
main road. um well hey you know i figured especially
with the the trails that we did i figured we
could uh we could have something a little farther
out but that was uh but because it was fine we
we had so many fucking side by sides down ever
that day oh yeah but yeah um that's actually
the spot we use for third gen weekend because
it's big and open and it's a it's a fantastic
spot um yeah right So we use that for third gen
weekend just cause we can fit everybody comfortably
and the kids have lots of room to play and do
whatever. And so it, it's just a good spot. Yeah.
That was a great trip, man. Then Sunday we had
rigs and coffee, which was the trunk or treat,
which was way smaller than last year. Oh yeah.
That was weird. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun
though. jasper was old enough to walk around
this time so he actually walked around we got
him to walk around to every single car and he
got a massive bag of candy and then proceeded
to uh he had a cup of cider in one hand accidentally
dumped it into that bag of candy so That was
where I was the other half of the rigs was I
was behind the truck talking to another guy.
I can't remember his name, Toilet something.
It was his Facebook name. But, yeah, I was talking
to him. He had the black, what was that, Land
Cruiser? The one that was farther out a couple
slots down from mine. Okay, yeah. Yeah. He had
that. I think he said he came from Alabama or
something like that, and he had never really
done anything in Michigan. I was like, oh, dude,
he's in Muskegon. I said, just come on out. I
said, you just get a hold of me. Come on out.
I said, I could show you some local trails that
are pretty easy, get your feet wet, nothing too
hard that isn't going to sink your daily or anything.
So we chatted while I dried off all the candy
from the apple cider. Wait, is that the – oh,
no, no, no. The one that – kept uh coming up
and talking to me he had a fourth gen forerunner
i think yeah he had the black one yeah that's
what it was yeah yeah that he was a younger younger
slim kid a little shorter from the army he was
in the army too yep yeah yeah that was yeah i
was messing with him Because he was like, yeah,
that wasn't fun. I was like, yeah, don't you
have Firewatch or something? He's like, fuck
you. Yeah, he tried doing that to me, and I'm
like, bro, I've been out long enough. I was going
to say, it was probably after I talked to him.
Because he was like, bro. He's like, I used to
sleepwalk, dude. He's like, that shit ain't funny.
He was joking. It was funny. I don't care. So
yeah, Ricks and Coffee was fun. Then we came
back, and we were supposed to watch the F1 race,
but we all were just too tired, so we went to
bed pretty much. Mark went home. I went to bed.
Oh, yeah, especially after helping Zach put his
bumper on his Tundra. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Yeah,
that was cool. We put a bumper on his Tundra.
See, that's the cool thing about the community,
too, is we went from trunk or treating, and Zach
got a bumper from Becker. Yep. And he was like,
yeah, probably going to put it on later. And
I don't know what transpired into putting it
on right there in the parking lot. We did not
have the right tools. We cut the plastic bumper
with a razor blade. Yeah, I saw that. I was like,
um. I'm sure Zach would have paid someone to
do it, but it was funnier to watch him watch
everybody do it. And I walked up to Zach. I said,
you're pulling a Derek Vispro right now. I said,
like at Barn Beers, he just watches everybody
else do it. Dude, it was fun. It was fun. Yeah,
I mean, it was cool. He got it done. It looked
pretty good from the pictures I saw. I didn't
really see anything too crappy. It looks good
from when you're walking out of bingo. And your
buddy says, hey, is that your rig? Is that your
job? And you say yes, that's when it looks good.
Yeah. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the bumper
itself. But from the picture, it looked good
enough. Yeah. And it's about like most of the
Tundra bumpers. It just takes up half the original
bumper valance. It's not my favorite thing I've
ever seen. But when you have a Tundra and you're
not. brave enough to buy a good tundra so you
buy a new tundra you're kind of limited options
hey i think those are good tundras oh let me
rephrase that i they're not the best modifiable
tundra yeah there you go that's better it's not
because i i do think those tundras are decent
i think i would have bought one i i wish i had
all this knowledge before i bought my fj because
i would have bought a uh what do you call them
uh extended cab yeah what do you what's the whatever
they are the extended cab tundra with a short
box um just because the space it's funny those
have more space for children yeah in car seats
than my fjs uh but what about one of those or
an lx something Or I'm sorry, a GX something.
Nah. 470 or something. Don't be gay. I do like
those. I do like them. I mean, when they're stock,
they look pretty dumpy. When they're modified,
they look pretty decent. They look all right.
I'll give them a solid maybe in terms of attractiveness.
And the V8 is pretty cool. Oh, no. Hands down,
the V8 is fantastic. You will not hear me disagree
with that. v8 with a supercharger oh that would
be yeah that'd be sick but so we did we did rigs
and coffee that was fun and then what else happened
something else happened this week oh i got my
compressor from morph late yeah so i guess i
should uh announce that since they did send me
a free compressor i will give you an official
review soon but i will tell you i did a zero
to 35 inflation on a set of 35s, and it was under
a minute. So that's pretty impressive. Yeah.
Yep. Yep. It's about time Alex has gotten a quality
compressor. and he doesn't have to share anymore.
See, and the thing is, I had a quality compressor,
and I took it out for another compressor that's
the same factory as your Thor's Lightning and
was all excited, thinking that it was going to
be great, and then it nuked itself. See, I think,
and this is me defending Thor's Lightning because
they've already done better than the all -tops.
I think they get a hold of these factories, and
I think they do order some different parts. to
spec on these because i i feel that there is
a different quality between when i had my all
top versus the thor's lightning i feel like there's
different to be fair it runs better the all top
that you had was the old design all top i only
know that because i took it apart and stole parts
off it yeah so ours was the updated all top which
is the same as the thor's lightning they're the
same compressor same parts Different paint job.
I think the only difference was that the outside
of the manifold was metal for the whole top,
while his is plastic. Exactly. You mean the top?
You know your square vents? Yeah, that's plastic
on the Thor's Lightning. That's plastic. So it
doesn't cool as good. But anyways, so the problem...
What are you talking about? It's metal. No, it's
not. Yeah, it is. The fins on the side? We'll
look at it. The top part's metal, but the bottom
part underneath that. Oh, okay. I thought you
were talking about the fins right up there around
that. And I'm like, yeah, those are metal. But
anyways, so the problem I had with my all top
is that it spit out the screws that hold the
reeds in. And I've taken this thing apart and
retightened these. There's no torque spec for
them. They just thread them in. Same thing. Thor's
lightning has, but I think from the research
I've been looking at Thor's lightning puts, um,
a little bit of like a thread lock in theirs,
which should help keep that from happening. Uh,
so that's, that's a leg up, I guess. But yeah,
so that's how my, that's how my all top was,
was cooking itself was it was spitting a fucking
screw through it. I don't know, man. I, I, I
really, uh, The Thor's Lightning has done three
vehicles in one go with very little duty cycle.
I've got nothing. And it's done that multiple
times. I've got nothing bad to say. And I'm not.
Yeah, yeah. And it's just like, I would never
trust my all top to do that. Oh, dude, you're.
And it's not hot. Like, Joe could sit there.
Like, I had Joe touch it after everyone was done
using it. Joe's like, holy shit. He's like, if
you touch that layer, he's like, you would have
skin. So your old all top, the one that I stole
parts off of, that had no cooling whatsoever.
So the way that that ended up cooking itself
was that that had a little circuit board and
that circuit board overheated and melted all
the solder. Yeah. They don't build them that
way anymore. The all top is a whole different
compressor from the one that you had. Like, that
one we had was a whole different design. Yeah,
I mean, they're very similar, though. It looks.
As far as, like, the designs for Morphlate, Alltop,
Thor's Lightning, they're all very similar. They
don't very much... Because the only similarity
is the look. Once you get into the actual components
of them, they're very different. I'd like to
get... one of each and do a teardown side by
side yeah that'd be sick and and actually and
and take them all apart and then compare them
i think that's really the only way that we're
gonna go through and like actually be able to
see feel measure get calipers out we got we got
shane or not shane duncan with his old top i
have seen i've seen all three torn down at this
point And they're very different. So like the,
the more flight has an actual round disc on the
cooling fins. So it's completely touches the
cylinder. Whereas Thor's lightning just has contact
pads. All top is even worse because they have
a plastic disc and then metal on the outside
with contact pads. Yep. And then the reeds that
Alltop uses are a different reed than from what
Morphlet uses, but the same reed that Thor's
Lightning uses, but the screws are different
because Thor's Lightning uses like a thread lock,
some kind of goop to hold those in. Yeah, I will
say the hoses are definitely different. My hose
and connection setup is different and a lot better
quality than the Alltop. Yeah, I agree with that.
Because I did have, on the Alltop, I did have
the quote -unquote updated hose system for them.
That was no better. That was just, you could
feel it. It felt junky. For the most part, I
think that the factory hose kits that come with
those things are fucking dookie. The one thing
I like about the Morphlate, because if you remember
when I modified my all -top, it was to put a
metal hose on so that it could cool before it
went to the rubber hose because I didn't want
to overheat that rubber hose. The Morphlate already
has that built in for the same reason. So it
gives the air time to cool down before it gets
to the softer line. Yeah. I would have ordered
the Morphlate if it would have came in time,
but I needed it for that big trip. Thor's Lightning
was honestly the only one that I could get one
day shipped. And it's treated you good. So that's
what I went with. And it's treated me good. This
is now my second summer with it, and it's done
well. So, I mean, nobody wants to buy a compressor
every year. I mean. We all had differing luck
with, I mean, except for Alltop. We all had pretty
differing luck with compressors. Mine from Harbor
Freight. People say those Harbor Freight compressors
last forever. People still have them. They must
have got an old model because I went through
three of them in three weeks. Our Bauer compressors,
they're slow, but those things are fucking solid.
Yeah. Right. So it just depends, I guess. I mean,
quality control is the biggest thing. Your quality
control. Some people that have all tops swear
by all tops. But the quality control is so varied
with all tops that it makes. I mean, it's the
same thing with every. I hate to say it. I mean,
I do think all top is a decent budget thing to
get into for certain products. Not recovery,
but certain products. Like we have a pop out
canopy by all top. I think it's a good, decent
thing. to start into but like most things with
quality control and the cheaper prices you are
rolling the dice every time you buy something
like that uh with you getting maybe one of the
lower quality pieces and then getting fucked
and the only compressor brand that i know of
that has never had a return is more flight because
their quality control is so good dog get out
of here um So, yeah, you got your Morphlate in.
That's awesome. I think at one point, you know,
if I ever have to get another one, I'll go with
Morphlate and then do the four -tire system because
that's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm going to do four
tires kind of. It's going to be onboard four
-tire system. That way I don't have to wrap up
the whole goddamn hose every time I use it. It's
like disconnect, disconnect a two foot long hose
at each tire and put that, you know, eight feet
of hose away. Yeah. I do like having the hose
where it's at. I think that in the future I'll
run an Anderson into the cab of my truck. So
I don't have to put the. put the compressor on
the ground, move it outside of the truck back
and forth, just plug it right in and then go.
Where I have it right now behind the seats, not
where I would use it because it would get hot
and melt some things, but I'd throw it where
my feet go. And it would be a perfectly good
place to just throw a little Anderson connector
right there somewhere. Right under your seat
so you just pop it out. Yeah. I do love my Anderson
connector that's sitting out of my... how would
you say front plastic of the truck so i don't
have to pop the hood every time that's really
nice but it would be even nicer to have one inside
the vehicle and i could also use that to jump
it too yeah wouldn't have to i could sit in my
truck and jump it instead of having to sit sit
outside so i'm uh yeah i need to get an anderson
connector to pop out of my grill um That way
I can just plug my compressor in up there and
jump the truck right there. That way I don't
have to dig down to that battery that's under
all of my stuff in the back of the car every
time I have to do something. Yeah. Yeah, it is
nice. It is really nice. I've jumped my truck
a few times on that one because I thought that
the issue is my truck needed to jump, not that
it was the negative terminal that loosened. So,
of course, you know. Me doing that, I'm like,
huh. I'm getting power there. I got power straight
from the jump, not from the back. And then as
I drove, it wiggled my negative back. Now that's
all fixed up. I also got the new Morphlate tire.
What would you call that? Chuck. Yeah. Air Chuck.
I got the Air Chuck, and it has full engagement
on my Apex valve, and that might be part of why
it airs up so fast. Because it's impressive,
dude. Compared to, like, those little, little
clippy ones from, like, All Top or Rhino USA.
The basic one. They get, like, 30 % engagement.
This gets closer to 100 % engagement. It's pretty
impressive. Yeah. Yeah, I know in the future
Alex and I and probably Duncan are going to do
a test. and and uh air up his tires evenly with
the same we're going to do the same tires with
the same apex and then use this just our different
compressors and see how fast each one does and
accurate just as a test yeah yeah i don't know
my gauge as far as that goes i don't know how
accurate that is well let's i think it's a i
think we talked about that that it was a couple
that's why that's you're running the digital
one right yeah yep i've discovered the digital
ones at least usually five off compared to the
analog and that's why i want to test it um just
because we know you know we have one that we
know is accurate so we can test the rest to figure
out how you know how close they actually are
yeah yeah yeah we should bring an analog one
though too just to check i think duncan's is
duncan's is analog and we could use my rhino
usa one too i also got mine too but well they
use them all to get neck i do know first i do
know that my rhino usa1 and mark's analog rhino
usa1 are going to be two to three degrees off
unless you're going to 40 psi because uh on an
analog gauge the only um pressure that's 100
accurate is the one at the very top of the gauge
everything everything before or after that is
a little bit off So if you want an analog gauge,
which in my opinion, I prefer analog gauges,
you always want your finish PSI to be near the
top. So like my all top, I think it's a 60 PSI
gauge, which puts 40 at the very top. I air up
to 35, so that's pretty close to accurate. I
used to air up to 40, so it was perfect, but
I don't do that anymore. Yeah. From... I'm probably
going to stay at 35 because there is a noticeable
difference from 35 to 40. Big time. So I'm going
to probably stay at 35 because my ride was a
lot smoother. And I think it's odd, but I think
if my tires are cold and my truck sits for a
little bit, when I start driving on the road,
you can tell it feels a lot clunkier, a lot shakier
at first. And then once the tires warm up, everything
smooths out because I was like, damn, what the
fuck's going on in my truck? I'll tell you. And
then as I drove for a few minutes, it was like,
oh, okay, maybe the tires just need to warm up.
Going from load range E's to these load range
C's, oh, my God, is my life better. Like, my
truck is so smooth now. So, yeah. Oh, in other
news, since he got his Morphlate, I'm getting
my next shipment of Bison stuff. That's going
to be interesting. Yeah, finally. Well, so on
one of the products that I'm pretty sure I'm
getting, which is the propane tank holder, they
had most of that in. One of the products they
got shipped was a bad shipment, and they had
bad quality control. Not quality control, but
what it got there was damaged. So they sent that
back, and they didn't feel comfortable sending
me that setup. So we were like, we're just going
to wait until... We get everything that we're
happy with so that we can send it out to you.
I got three packages coming from Poland. Because
I think that's where they're based out of. Where
I get most of my stuff is out of Poland. That's
pretty cool. I'm excited for that. I should be
here within the next couple weeks. I would say
week and a half because their shipping is pretty
damn quick for being overseas. The other thing
that happened is I got featured on 23 zeros,
Instagram and Facebook and story famous. So hopefully
that brings people to botch. Yeah. Oh, I know
it was your personal. It was, but the thing is
that we have had a lot of people start, like
I've had people message me. Oh, your podcast
is cool. Um, yeah. And then I happened, there
was one thing that liked or one group that liked
it. Uh, Let me pull this up so I make sure I
get their name right. Because I'm going to give
them a shout out, even though they haven't responded
to me. Remote Trails Radio. They have a Overland
-based podcast out of Washington. That's what
you said earlier. They seem pretty cool. Oh,
hey, they messaged me. They said, sweet, they'll
check it out. So they started about the same
time we did. They've got 30 some episodes out.
They're not quite as, I don't want to say they're
not as on it as us, but they're not quite, they
don't have as many followers or anything, but
they deserve it. I listened to some of their
stuff. They seem pretty cool. I'm going to add
them to my list of podcasts to listen to. So
that means something. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't been.
I've been listening to a ton of podcasts lately.
A lot of YouTube videos. A lot of those. Listening
to those more. So when we did... I've been too
busy. We did a trip back in... I think it might
have been when we went to... Yeah, back in June
when we went to Leatherwood. I got behind on
podcasts. Like, I have a lot of podcasts I listen
to every day. I got behind on them, and for the
first time yesterday, I ran out of new episodes
to listen to. Yeah. Yeah, in your job, you can
kind of just put them in and go, too, which is
nice. That's all I do. All day I've got my Zoom
playing with my headphones ran through my hoodie.
Yeah. Like, that's just all day. That's how I
do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think I had a few that I
listened to. I mostly listen to conspiracy stuff,
though. I mean, I listen to the Overland stuff,
but I listen to episodes that interest me. Not
kind of everyone that comes out. And then most
of it's conspiracy. Not conspiracy as much, but
like cryptid. I guess you can put those in the
same branch because some people think that cryptids
are conspiracy. I definitely listen to Millennial
Media Offensive and what's the other one? uh
the two old guys uh no agenda show two bears
no no agenda show so i definitely listen to those
two that's about six hours of my week uh actually
nine hours of my week because millennial media
offensive has one three -hour show uh no agenda
has two three -hour shows a week so that's a
good majority of my podcast listening So, anything
upcoming? Events? Anything that we need to mention?
Well, we... I was going to say, I had my birthday
yesterday. Mark, you didn't even... I talked
to you, and I didn't tell you happy... God...
Happy birthday, Mark. I didn't even know. Happy
birthday, Mark. I didn't even know. How did I
forget my best friend's birthday? And he didn't
even say anything about it. I was late. Yeah,
whatever. I was just late tomorrow. You fucking
prick. Yeah, turn 28. Fucking old man. Man, only
28? Man, you youngins. I'm turning 31 in January,
dude. What am I doing? I just turned 29, Kaelin.
Just turned 30. That scares me. Having a midlife
crisis over here. What am I doing with my life?
A quarter -life crisis. No midlife. I never thought
I was going to make it to 30, let alone 25. So
the fact that I'm 30 now. But we do have. I can't
imagine living after 60, dude. That's crazy.
We do have Friendsgiving coming up down in Rocker,
Missouri. Yeah. Yeah. That's an unfortunate date,
too. I wish that would have been a different
date. I would have been able to go. My son's
birthday is the 18th, and Friendsgiving is, like,
what, the 21st or 2nd? 21st, yeah. 21st and 2nd.
21st, 2nd, yeah. It's like, there's no way that
I could. It's already a couple hundred. Because
last year, we didn't have a party. We were like,
he's too young. Like, he ain't going to remember
nothing. This year, it's like, okay, he might
remember a little bit. Maybe we should throw
him a party. Because a bunch of people were upset
with us. Because they were like, why didn't you
throw him a big first birthday? And we're like,
because we don't see the point in spending hundreds
of dollars on something he'll never remember.
Because we went out camping instead. Mark, yesterday
was your birthday? Yeah. So you and Jax have
a birthday that's within a day of each other.
I'll remember that for the rest of my life. Because
Jax's birthday was Monday. Oh, I didn't know
that. Actually, shit. Yeah, yesterday's my dad's
birthday. Whoops. So my three -year -old nephew
is now my four -year -old nephew, and he's exactly
the same person, just a year older. Yeah, I can't
wait for that, because he turns two. Dude, his
dad got him this adventure something. It's like
a race car track thing. It's pirate -themed.
I opened this thing up. And I'm like, God, there's
a lot of little parts to this. And then I opened
the instructions and they just kept unfolding.
There was like 50 some steps. It took me almost
two and a half hours to get this damn thing put
together. Yeah, that's a punishment, man. Whoever
does that. And I was like. We're going to get
our kid a drum set. We know that's a bad idea,
but he loves drumming on stuff. I texted his
dad, and I'm like, dude, I fucking hate you.
This is ridiculous. Yeah, whoever got us crayons
on Valentine's Day, fuck you. I don't know who
gave us a Crayola pack, but we have a beige loveseat,
and all of a sudden, my kid went behind it and
squatted. Usually, he'll go and squat somewhere
high. To go poop. So I was like, are you pooping?
He goes, yeah. I said, did you poop or did you
fart? And he goes, I poop. I said, okay. So I
was waiting for him, waiting for him. Like, man,
you're being real quiet over there. You ain't
pooping that long. So I get up and look. He's
got purple crayon all over that beige couch.
I'm like, you son of a bitch. So I go and throw
that away. Somehow he finds another one the day
later. Like, kids don't put their shit back in
the packs. so he must have been in his toy box
somewhere and he just like again all over that
side of the couch i'm like and then then i saw
it like i was going to the bathroom and i look
on the wall opposite to the bathroom fucking
i just painted this wall like two weeks ago like
when i had to step out of that podcast or you
know flake out of the podcast just seeing it
like squiggles all over the wall and i'm like
i just Painted this. Just painted this. You know
what? I wonder you painting it made him think
it was okay to draw on stuff. Dude. I don't know.
I know that if it was my house, the first five
feet of every wall would be like chalkboard.
I think that would be cool to have chalkboard
paint all the way up, and he could just do his
thing, color all the way around the walls. The
girl that my mom adopted, she's grown up and
moved on. Well, she's not grown up, but she's
gone. She's over 18. But her room was chalkboard
paint all the way to the ceiling. And the whole
wall was just doodle board. I mean, it was really
cool. That's cool. And that's a good way for
your kid to express themselves. And all her friends
would come and sign it and write her little notes
and stuff. It was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that's good. And it eliminates a stressor.
Because as someone else that has kids, you now
know that there are a lot of stressors between
them getting themselves hurt, turning the stove
on, dumping all the trash. Shitting on the carpet.
Yeah, accidentally hitting the TV with a stick
because he's playing drums. There's a lot of
things. So eliminating one of them by just letting
him go on the walls and be himself and have fun.
If we ever get a house, which in this market,
I have no fucking clue if we'll ever get a house.
Well, when the podcast takes off and we're now
rich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm actually sponsored
by someone. Nah, you can do it. The listeners
love us. They'll donate to us. By the way, donations
are open. Just send us some boosts. Yeah. Yeah.
If each listener donated a dollar, I would have
$50 that I could spend on a down payment on a
kid's podcast. You would have 50 divided by three.
All right. I'd have $18 for a down payment on
a dollhouse. Hell yeah, dude. And with afterpay,
that's actually possible. Yeah, and with APR,
I'd be paying on that for a long -ass time. No.
Afterpay doesn't have APR. No. It's only four
payments. I'm going to have to split that into
six to 20 right now. You'd have $18 that gets
you a step towards having your four payments
towards a nice tat. You could live in a tent
down by, I mean, it's not a van, but a tent down
by the river. Down by the river. Yeah. I mean,
I thought about going south for the winter. Like,
I've been really fighting this midlife crisis
nomad scenario where I just want to take the
family pack up and go. Dude. And I know in my
head, like, financially, I can't. Like, there's
no way we'd be able to. But, like, I'm like,
something's going to break. We're going to catch
a break. something you know karma's gonna come
back and we're gonna hit something we're gonna
catch our stride i'm 30 this usually happens
to people in their 30s to 40s like i'm like something's
gonna happen i'm gonna find i'm gonna find that
dream job that i've always been looking for and
i keep thinking that i'm like trying to manifest
it instead of bad things i'm like it's gonna
happen you know maybe benji at midwest uh uh
At Midwest over there. Midwest Adventure Outfitters.
Yeah. No, I just meant Benji over there at Midwest.
I know Mayo, but maybe he'll need a sales team
or something, and he'll need someone over there,
and I could go over there and work on sales,
and we could move to Missouri. Because we don't
have anywhere that we need to be. I don't want
to move south, but I want to move west. I'm like,
fuck it. Let's get up and go. someday it'll catch
someday like i do want to move but at the same
time i like it here you know like it's it's hard
because i do want to just move and not have ties
anywhere and just do my own thing but at the
same time it's kind of nice like tomorrow i gotta
take kayla into an appointment and i just called
my stepmom was like hey i don't know that i'll
be back at 3 15 to get the kid off the bus could
you get him and like they're close so they'll
they can just do it you know what i mean Yeah.
I think I've always had that. And Sina's family
has been really nice to me about this. But I've
always had that loner mentality where I'm like,
I have to do this myself. Nobody's going to do
it for me. I have to do it myself. And her family's
been sometimes aggressive at times to be like,
hey, you know what? You don't have to put all
this on there. If you need help, if you need
them to get watched, just let me know. But I
think with that mentality, it does work pretty
well when we're out in the middle of nowhere.
I'm already in that state. I never try to rely
on anyone. So I think it would be really nice.
I think it would be nice to get out and start
our own traditions, not be part of everyone else's,
if that makes sense. Like do our own Christmas
traditions and not be dragged over to every single
house. I have a rule. Where we will only go to
a max of two houses on Christmas Day. And those
two houses are mine and one other one. Like,
we don't... Yeah. We typically do three, and
that's a bit much. I mean, we still do, like...
Uh, sometimes Christmas Eve we'll do stuff with
my mom. Um, luckily Kaylin, I mean, not luckily,
I wish she could talk to that other half of her
family, but she doesn't talk to half her family.
So it makes holidays nice. Cause we just have
her dad come over on Christmas day and spend
some time with us. Um, but you know, it's. holidays
are hard man and we're getting into that season
where it's going to be it's hard to go wheeling
because every single weekend is some fucking
holiday yeah yeah something yeah we'll definitely
need to get out and do snow wheeling i want to
get some snow wheeling videos i have to and this
is a struggle with trying trying to launch something
uh like botches like um hoa like anything that
we're actually like trying to do it's hard to
do that as a side gig when you don't have the
time to get out and catch content speaking of
time because if you don't have what are you what
are you doing on sunday oh we're not at time
man we haven't recorded in a while i don't mind
going over okay um sunday i don't think i have
anything i'll look after the episode i want to
get out and do some local wheeling on sunday
um I have a full tank of gas, so I'm good. I'm
ready. I mean, we're not going to be, like, going
to Everett or anything. It's just going to be
bumming around New Ago County, White Cloud area.
Yep. Yeah, I'm down. Are we going to have another
Cords and Calf, right? Not until, like, January.
Oh. Yeah, Corey's going to be bummed because
he was like, oh, get November's Cords and Calf.
Like, I don't think we're doing November's Cords
and Calf. November, we're really busy in November.
We've got Thanksgiving in November. We've got
Friendsgiving where we're going to Missouri.
We've got... I've held up pushing back so many
plans for the last couple weeks. I need to get
plans done before winter hits. So, this next
two weekends, I'm kind of busy. Wait, the next
two weekends? I thought it was just this coming
weekend. I got something going on in Ann Arbor
next Sunday. Oh, next Sunday? That's not a big
deal. I just need you Friday and Saturday because
I got maintenance to do. And that skid plate
at 150 pounds is a bitch and a half to drop off
the truck alone. Yeah. You mean both of the oil
chains? My truck just chimed at me for oil. I
haven't done one since before we went to Leatherwood.
Like, I'm in desperate need. Yeah, you're in
desperate need. I just did mine when we did our
brakes. We need to drain diffs and refill diffs,
so that needs to happen. Yeah, we've pushed that
off pretty bad. Yeah, bring me along on that
one. I also need to change that axle seal on
the driver's side front. oh yeah one that's leaking
i do need to give a shout out to uh brian brian
our sweet thank you very much uh i owe you a
couple dry tuggies uh he gave me a couple of
those parts that we had had at the meet he gave
me i think there were two calipers uh he gave
me some bear wheel bearings and i mean a couple
things yeah about six or seven dude brian's pretty
great thank you very much you saved me a lot
he is he's a great guy he's hilarious he's got
my same uh he's got my same dark humor so i could
send shit to him on instagram and know that he
won't take yeah we me and brian send each other
some of the weirdest fucking shit dude yeah i
just got him and i too He sent me something today
with a fucking jawbreaker on a hot metal just
melting itself. Dude, he sends me, like, dark
shit. Like, I can't even talk about it on the
podcast. He sends me dark shit and gay shit.
Oh, gay shit all the time. We send each other
funny gay shit all the time. It's funny. I told
him when we, because he was dressed up as a lobster
for this trunk or treat. And I was like, which
one of these? I said, does lobsters have dicks?
And I reached under his tail in his costume and
reached up there. And he goes, yeah, come on,
feel it. Did you see the octopus? He had a little
octopus. The vagina? Yeah. Yeah. I looked at
Brian. I said, you're saving this for later.
He's like, yep, this is going in the bedroom.
He had this inflatable octopus in the back of
his forerunner. And it had a little hole in it
where you're supposed to grab candy out of it.
It was a slit. I said, this is like. It was not
a hole. It was a slit. It was an octopus -y.
And for sure, I looked at him, and he looked
at me. We met eyes. We both smiled, and he was
like, yeah, I'll be using it later. I was like,
yeah. I was like, I was going to tell you. That
might be a good idea. I was going to ask you
if you wanted it or if you wanted me to take
it home. Yeah. But, yeah, he's a funny guy. He's
great. He's been to a lot of our things lately.
He's been getting out to come. So it's always
cool. This is the first time camping with him
this summer. I think a lot of us, actually, the
first time he's come out. Yeah, because he always
bails on third gen weekend, like the day of.
Yeah. So it's cool. He's been around a lot. He's
a good man, good guy to have around. So I did
get to meet up with another guy, Bill. I haven't
seen him since the first kids camp this summer.
He did some upgrades to his fucking Jeep. That
was pretty sick. He got like a, what do they
call him, a half topper or whatever for his Gladiator.
And threw his rooftop tent on that. And he does
a lot of his own mods. He does like trucking
and stuff. So it was cool catching up with him.
And it's always cool going to those meets just
to catch up with the old friends that you don't
see. Sometimes you don't see them for months.
Sometimes it's almost a whole year. um so i like
the wheeling part of off -roading but the social
part is so fun dude like and there's a lot there's
a lot to the social side of it and it comes with
some drama but you just fucking put that shit
off and yeah right and i think that's something
that like that's what these communities are about
too is like is not only is it a good information
source but it's a really good way to find friends
in a community where you don't typically have
local friends. Like, our group, the Botches group,
isn't the typical, it isn't usual. Like, there's
not a lot of people like that that are that close.
Right, and if you think about the Botches group,
like, it was me, Mark, Duncan didn't come from
MSD, but you and Shane, I would not have known
you. I knew that you were married to Sienna,
but I'd never met you. You know, I just knew
that Sienna got married to some fat guy named
Gavin. Yeah, exactly. So at least he came out
with a Toyota. I mean, that is the one plus.
So, I mean, but yeah, you don't meet these people
unless you go to these events. And some of these
people I would consider, in the future, lifelong
friends. And you don't find that. Like, as working
adults and working men, a lot of the times you
don't get that kind of interaction at work. We're
older now. We don't go to bars every fucking
week or multiple days a week. Even then, the
friends you make at bars, nine times out of ten,
they're a very close friend that lasts a year
or two. You don't get... Yeah, they're not real
friends, I guess. Yeah, like me and Mark. Like
me and Mark, we've been friends for what, like
six, seven years now? Like it's been a while.
Yeah, it's been a bit. Yeah. So it's one of those
things. And the thing is, is like the people
like us, our typical groups aren't in bars. They're
not at Playdates. They're not at Target, you
know. There is no real. They're at campgrounds.
They're secluded. They're out in the middle of
nowhere. They're at Home Depot. They're working
on their car. A lot of us stay at home. We don't
do these events outside of wheeling and rigs
and stuff. We don't do, I don't know. So it's
one of the only ways to meet these type of people.
And it takes a lot of trust to trust some of
these guys to go out camping with them for the
first time. But you know what? Everything goes
well, and people like Nolan, you guys, I've met
a few of them. I really like Bill. A lot of these
guys are what I would consider longtime friends.
I absolutely would have went to Nolan's wedding
if I could have, and it just happened to be the
wrong time. Not Nolan's wedding. I'm not saying
reschedule it, but it just, you know. Wrong date.
Just didn't line up. But these guys are really
good guys. I mean, you really get to know them
when you're up until 3 a .m. Dog. Shooting shit.
You always get into that deep shit at about 3
a .m. Yeah. You hit that 1 to 3 a .m. where the
camp gets real quiet. Fuck, me and Nolan have
stayed up until 4 a .m. talking about shit that...
People don't talk, I mean, you don't talk about
it unless you have close friends, right? Yeah.
And so, you know, and that's the kind of community
you find in people. So that's why these events,
these groups are so good, especially in the winter.
Because in the winter, like, cabin fever, depression's
all -time high. You got to have a way to get
out there and have someone to talk to. It gets
rough, man. Before I met you guys, basically
my winter was just working and sitting at home,
and that got rough. That shit gets dark when
you're stuck into that rut. Now I get random
calls at 3 a .m. Hey, there's some guy stuck.
Do you want to go save him? That's fun. It's
different. And then they're not even there. Yeah,
they're not even there. So me and Alex have done
probably, what, five rescues this year? Yeah,
something like that. And every single rescue
before we get out there, they get out. Or just
get themselves out. But we're out there together.
Or they just get themselves out. Yeah. Or they
just quit. Or they're not even there. Or they
quit responding. Listen, dog. Yeah. No one wants
to hear you. Aw. So, yeah, I mean, while it's
not the most convenient, a lot of the times these
rescues are like 11 p .m., 12 p .m., or 12 a
.m., whatever. And so we're like, well, all right,
let's go throw our shit on. We're up anyway.
Let's go do it. So, I mean, it's fun. Or we go
in storm chase. That was pretty fun, too. Dude,
that was so fun. Yeah, I almost went out with
you the one day, and I didn't see your shit until
later. Fortunately, that storm was there and
gone pretty quickly. That was a very short -lived
storm. I looked forward to the winter storm chasing.
It wasn't even advertised that there was going
to be a storm. I just looked out, and I'm like,
huh, the clouds are dark. Hey, Gavin, what are
you doing? Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to winter
storm chasing, getting those chainsaws in the
truck, and just driving around, pulling people
out. It's going to be fun. Oh, we didn't mention.
And I'll jump back to this real quick. On our
little poker cords and calf run, I did get to
use my winch. You did? For the first time since
mounting my winch, I got to use it on another
truck. So that was cool. When Shane got hung
up on his, I think it was on his frame, on that
rut, I pulled him out the three or four feet.
That was the first time I did that. It is important
to use proper recovery techniques. So I did have,
I think I had Mark next to me. He was helping
me hook up. And I asked Mark the whole time,
I'm like, hey, you know, am I hooking this soft
shackle up right? You know, I just wanted to
make sure I've done a soft shackle before. I
haven't done it under a winch load. So I wanted
to make sure I was doing everything right. Make
sure that's another good way, good reason to
have this community with you is that. When you
are unexperienced in some ways, you can lean
on other people like Mark. He's done recoveries.
He knows what he's doing. So I can lean on him
and go, hey, I just want to make sure I'm doing
this right. I don't want to fuck it up. Yep,
you're doing it right. Cool. And keep going.
Everybody clears out of the way. Hey, just double
checking. I got to have my foot on the brake,
right? Because that can't be good for my transmission.
Everyone goes, yep. I said, okay, cool. That
parking Paul does a great job. I have winched
out without having my foot on the brake so many
times. Yeah. Yeah, I just don't want to stress
it. The fact that my truck rocks when you put
it in park, that's normal. Right. Yeah, the little
bit of shift that you get, that's typically fine.
But hey, guys, we're at about an hour and a half
-ish. Yeah, I'm ready to poop. Yeah, I kind of
got to poop. That's kind of where I was going
with this. And this dog. I think she might have
to poop, too. I don't know if you heard her talking
earlier. Yeah. So, yeah. We'll catch you guys
later. Yeah. Thanks for listening, and we'll
see you on the next one. I was going to try and
get everyone else's sign -offs. I think Snail
Trail does keep crawling. I don't remember what
Benji's is. Yeah, everyone's got crazy sign -offs,
so catch you guys later, I guess. Yep, later.