Welcome to Botches Off -Road. Gavin, you're making
funny faces over there. Am I? A little bit. Whoops.
I couldn't tell if half -awake, exhausted, what
was going on there. All of the above. All of
the above. Dude, it's been a freaking week already.
What is it, Tuesday? God damn, it may as well
be Friday. We're fighting the yawns. I don't
want to hear anything from Mark. Mark hasn't
even been to work yet. No. Mark, did you get
a haircut? Yes, I did. Mark, did you get new
headphones? Yeah. Me too. I mean, technically,
not new. They're new pads. See that? You did
get the new pads? Yes, I did. Nice. Yeah, I'm
going to have to get the pads because there's
audio bleed through with these open back headphones,
which I was scared was going to happen. And I
had to build a new noise gate for our last few
episodes. So... Yeah. I'll have to get those
back so that I can not have to use as heavy of
a noise gate from now on. Let me just turn you
guys up a little bit. There we go. That's better.
Wait, Gavin, you said you got new headphones
too? No, I got a new haircut. I asked him if
he got a new haircut. And he said yes. I said
yes, I did too. Yeah, so it's been a week. We
did timing on the 4Runner. Kind of. Yeah, did.
4Runner's broke again. The timing job that we
did, I didn't have a good... What's that thing
called? Harmonic balancer? So I couldn't tighten
the crank bolt as far as I was supposed to. Then
when I tried something to make that happen, it
slipped a bunch of teeth. So, yeah. Timing's
not done. I have parts coming to do it and a
new harmonic balancer. So this weekend we should
be able to fix it. Hopefully I didn't break anything.
Hopefully. So unless we hear something about
my truck at this point, we're probably not going
to rigs and coffee. Yeah, so I think that your
truck isn't coming or going to be ready until
Friday. Wait, what day is rigs and coffee? Sunday.
What? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so your truck, I got
a call from O 'Reilly's today asking me if we
had gotten two parts because they lost a part.
And I was like, no. And they're like, well, we've
got this shop that's looking for a VVT sensor.
And we had ordered two for you, but somehow you
bought one and we can't find the other one. And
I was like, oh, well, we only have one. And I'm
like, and the truck's at Precision Performance.
And he goes, oh, it's probably for the same truck.
Yeah. So... Yikes. Yeah, Sienna called me...
Another bad VVT then at that point? I don't know,
because the VVT's brand new. I know. Could be
faulty. Weirder things have happened. Yeah, but
it was having the same issue before we replaced
it, so... Could have been faulty before? It'd
be weird to have two faulty ones, especially
when one was good. I don't think so. I'm wondering
if they broke it, like we did. Probably. If they
did, then Mark gets a whole new engine. Yay!
Bread -sized everything, guys. God, dude, it's...
Yeah, so Forerunner's still borked. I haven't
done anything except for work on that and go
to work and hate my life. Yeah. Gavin did stuff,
so I'll just let him talk the rest of the episode.
Wow. I mean, I didn't really do much. I got the
tent in, which was good, finally, and really
wanted to set it up, so I set it up that night
in the kitchen, and thankfully it wasn't as big
as I thought it was going to be. Cause I, I don't
know why I don't, it doesn't feel like the size
of your gazebo, but it could be in measurement.
It just doesn't feel like it. And so I was like,
cool. This isn't quite as big as I thought it
was going to be. It doesn't have the as, as big
of a footprint. Uh, or you just think of our
gazebo as bigger than it actually is. It could
be. Yeah, it could be. So. uh probably next day
is the day after that or something whenever it
was sunnier because we haven't had a sunny day
in a while um we went out yeah and set it up
and i took some video and tried to make a decent
youtube video of it and of the whole taking it
out of the bag and everything and it's pretty
cool it's fucking heavy but it's pretty cool
I mean, I forget. If there's a tent that makes
the swag light, that's a heavy ass fucking tent.
Yeah, dude. I mean, I know like 75 pounds isn't
like heavy, but for a tent, when I went to go
pick it up, I was like, like a little, I was
a little surprised. Like, you know, you don't
pick up 75 pounds. all the time at least i don't
other people do but like so you kind of forget
my job yeah you kind of forget what 75 pounds
feels like until you're trying to throw a fucking
sack of it on you like i could pick up two bags
of pellets it's 80 pounds and i know how that
feels but like in a long tent form i was just
like wow okay it's like That's why I always just
roll the swag off the truck, and then wherever
it rolls off is where it gets set up. Yeah. I'd
probably do that if I wasn't worried about, like,
tent bolts breaking or something. But, yeah,
I think I'm going to have to clear some space
on the roof for that. That's true, because not
only is it heavy, it doesn't have the cushiony
mattress to protect everything. No, no. But I
will be bringing that to Rigs of Coffee and setting
it up for people, so that'll be fun. Yeah, it'll
be cool. I mean, it looks like they're going
to be a good area to do it at because you got
the park there. Yeah, I was kind of surprised
that it was moving to a park. Well, I think it's,
I got to double check it, but I'm pretty sure
it's like slightly down the road from their place.
I mean, the garage currently is not that big,
so I'm not surprised that they got. permission
to do in the park so is is it saturday or sunday
usually sunday i know it's usually sunday but
i was wondering saturday's the um rocks and valleys
oh yeah which i can't go to period there's no
way i'll be ready for that yeah huh but yeah
no i'm gonna show up there we're gonna Maybe
I'll bring some hot dogs or something. With the
tent there and everything, we might stay the
whole time and just relax for a little bit. Depends
on the weather, I guess. I was about to say,
depends on the weather there. Yeah. It's supposed
to be like 60. Yeah, if it's 60 and stuff, then
we'll be fine. I don't know. I mean, last couple
weeks of weather here in Michigan has been insane.
Yeah, pretty rough. Cold. Rainy, snowy, sleet,
all in the same three hours. Blizzards. Thunderstorms.
Thunder, snow. Did you hear about the guy that
decided to go out on the ice from Mackinac Island?
Oh, on the snowmobile? During the blizzard? Had
to get rescued by a cutter. They saved the snowmobile,
too. It was a cool video. Yeah, I saw that. Nuts.
Yeah, the shelf broke from him, so he really
had to get rescued. Yeah. Yeah, that was... All
you do is you just floor it on the snowmobile,
and you scoot across the water. Yeah, I was...
Have you seen the guys? He was told not to go
out there. Yeah, he was warned by, like, a sheriff
or something. But... It's just crazy, dude. Yeah.
But, yeah, my... But, yeah, anyway. Tent's cool.
I didn't know it came with a footprint, and it
comes with a footprint, so it's pretty cool about
that. Oh, like a tarp that goes underneath it?
What else? Pretty cool. Tent stakes. It's got
some decent tent stakes, and it's got rainfly
stakes, which are just the cheap tent stakes.
Because that's got a solid roof. Do you even
technically need the rain fly at that point?
I don't know. I don't know. Because it's got
sky windows. Do they have storm flaps over them?
No, not over the top. Oh, then yeah, you need
the rain fly. Otherwise, you're going to be leaking.
Someone messaged me on YouTube about that and
was asking if I moved the plastic windows for
the side of the tent. to the top if that would
work and i'm like well probably not because it's
like it's a velcro put on so i don't imagine
it would keep water very well so but that's fine
after i installed the rainfly the first time
all you have to do is take it off like the pole
extenders and you can fold the tent up with the
rainfly on top of it so next time theoretically
when i set it up all i have to do is stand it
up and the rainfly should still be on it so no
that is kind of i guess if the rainfly stays
on it's not as big of a deal but it does kind
of suck but at the same time if the rainfly can
stay on it then it doesn't really matter yeah
i think for it's no different from like my dagger
or my um colorado three person the six person
tent except I'll give it a boom in the fact that
those, if you set up in the rain, the inside's
going to be wet. Whereas with that, it should
reflect some of the rain, even if it's not completely
waterproof. Yeah, that's true. That's a good
point. I was asking, because the big thing about
the swag is you don't need a rain fly. You just
roll it out and pop it up. Even if it's downpouring,
all your shit inside's going to stay dry. Yeah,
this isn't quite like canvas. But it's a pretty
heavy material. I don't really know how to call
it, you know, like what to consider it as, but
it's pretty heavy duty. Like I said, when we
get a nice day, I'll bring it over and we can
set it up and we can both look at it. Nice days
are far and few in between, you know, this whole
cold and windy. Like, not to bring up the weather
again, dude, but this has been rough. Yeah, no,
it has. Like, when that day, me and Jasper spent
a couple hours outside just because it was that
nice and we were that fucking, like, kept up
and just wanted to get out. And I was like, oh,
yeah, yeah, come inside, let's go do dinner,
and we'll come back out tomorrow. And then tomorrow
comes and it's fucking shit and rain and sleet
and snow all at the same time and thunderstorms.
Okay, well. Maybe not. And... Yeah, I... Sorry,
guys. I didn't mean to yawn on you. Oh, yeah,
you were saying hi, so I stopped to listen to
what you were going to say, too. I know I, like,
spoke, and then it was like, boom, yawn. Yeah,
no, and then to make my weekend even longer,
I had a massive feed spill in the brooder the
day before Baby Birds came. Yeah, that was bad.
Lots of clean up on that one. Like seven tons
of feed. Well, the problem is I can't open the
doors with baby birds in there. Yeah. So I've
just got to keep them out of the feed. Oh, yeah.
That sounds fun. Because it's too cold to open
the doors or I can make them sick. Yeah. I was
hoping Thursday we were supposed to see 60s,
and then now it's like high of 40s. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, the UP's getting hammered. Oh, yeah. Dude,
Marquette is wild. Yep. Because they had almost
no snow left, and then they just got hammered
with, like, four or five feet. Yep. There was
a plow truck. In, like, two hours. There was
a plow truck that was stuck at Harbor Springs.
Jesus. Yeah. That's how bad they got hit up at
the northern part of the Minton. Yeah, everyone
got hit. It's, like, just, like, 45 minutes.
above us, they get hit so much harder than we
do. Like, all the counties is like a red stripe
outage up there. Wait, so 45 minutes north of
us, so you're talking like Big Rapids area. Well,
maybe a little more like Cadillac -ish. That's
about an hour. Us and Cadillac usually get hit
with about the same stuff. They might see a little
more than we did this year, but usually we're
pretty on par with Cadillac. Yeah, I mean. Now
you go up Traverse City area, they get a little
bit more snowfall than we do. Yeah. Yeah, when
I went to Cadillac, that's where we were doing
the wheeling, and it was like, holy shit, there
is way more here. Well, we, that day that you
were doing that, we were out in about the same
depth. We were two and a half, three foot of
snow. Yeah, well, I don't know. It wasn't like
that in my yard, so I don't know. pretty rough
up there and you could tell that there's like
a point on the highway where all of a sudden
the snow piles on the side of the road where
the plows hit them move up a good couple feet
and you're like oh you know the roads get crappier
the the piles on the side of the road get taller
it's like a band you know and then we got hit
with See, was that the one where we camped in
a snowstorm, Mark? I can't remember now. Or was
that one we did in the yard? Technically, we
camped in two different snowstorms. Ah, so many
snowstorms. Why do we camp in snowstorms? We
could do it more. Sounds fun, now that I have
this. I think the worst one was our first time,
and we did not get our heating figured out that
time, so we were really suffering for the most
part. Yeah, I'm interested to see how... this
tent heat with as big as it is with a decent
heater how well it will that was the one where
it was like it's negative 20 or whatever and
you went inside yeah oh no dude i was chilling
i woke up sweating my ass off that night open
up my sleeping bag and was like oh fuck i can't
do your swag holds better than my fucking tent
so yeah the materials like i said i was fine
I was fine until I rolled just right and let
all the cold air into my sleeping bag and I couldn't
get back. Yeah, for me, I even had the window
open that night. For me, it wasn't even the heat
in the tent. It was the heat in my, because I
had two wool blankets on me, my winter sleeping
bag, and my down quilt. Isn't that the night
that we, the diesel went out too? Yeah, it is.
Yeah. Yeah, because mine went out too. Yeah,
that's the one where we tried to keep all three
with one diesel heater and it did not work. No.
It pulled the warm air out of mine and just blew
a mix of cold and warm into theirs. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm really hoping it works with the one. I might.
No, I can't. I was going to say, maybe I could
just set the diesel heater inside the tent and
just have the exhaust go out the port, but I'd
melt it. But I think it'll be fine. I think you'll
be fine, dude. I mean, we heated the canopy by
putting the diesel heater in it, and it did okay.
The only reason it didn't do better is that that
thing doesn't retain heat at all. Right. Yeah,
we had the open bottom. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Were
you just bare floor, too? Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully,
that came with the floor Velcroed already, because
I was kind of dreading that part, like Velcroing
the whole floor in. Yeah. Because it's kind of
a pain in the ass. I think that first time when
we did it, that second night, us on COTS kind
of saved it a little bit for us. Heat retention
-wise. Yeah, it took you off the floor a little.
Oh, yeah. Well, it put three of us in one space,
so we had our body heat and the diesel heater.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be interesting
to see. I was going to try it here when we had
all this snow piling up here, and then I forgot
that Sienna has a truck, which has the diesel
heater and everything else in it. So I was like,
eh, well, screwed. So we went down to one vehicle,
and now Santa drives my truck to work, which
means I don't have any of my cool stuff to play
with when it is warm out. But I was going to
do a video with me and the boy out there in the
tent with the diesel heater and stuff, and it
was just one of those things where it's like,
well, can't do that now. You just got to make
sure you get the stuff you need for your video
out the night before. Yeah, and I didn't even
think about it. I just got a bug up my ass after
seeing that I was starting to get some views,
and I'm like, oh, maybe I should do another one
real quick. But it's all good. Maybe I'll do
one this weekend. No, I think as long as you
got, like, there's no open mesh on your tent,
it's pretty much sealed off for the most part
unless you open it. Mm -hmm. I think you should
be fine with a diesel heater. Yeah. I know it's
slightly bigger than what me and Alan had, but
we are pretty much, our winter kit just pretty
much has a layer that blocks off the mesh. Yeah.
So that's pretty much what brings heat. All the
windows zip up and everything, so it should be
fine. I mean, it seals completely, plus with
the rain fly on. That would help retain any heat
that might escape. I mean, always shove quilts
between the rainfly and the tent, too. That'll
help. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, I think it'll
be good. I mean, for what we paid for it, it
should be good. It better be good. It better
be good. You'll be hearing a very different review
if it's not a good four -season tent with a diesel
heater. That you paid. $900. Yeah. That's the
most expensive ground tent I've ever bought,
hands down, by like $600, $500. That's a lot.
Yeah. When I bought the swag, that was my thing.
I'm like, man, this is the most expensive ground
tent I've ever bought. Yeah. You ever feel like
you're starting to get into that range where
people see your gear and they're like, oh, it
must be nice. You ever get to that? I don't know.
Am I there? I think people starting out would
see our setups and go, oh, yeah, it must be nice
to have all that money. You know what I mean?
You have a full Milwaukee setup, a nice 4Runner,
a good lift. And, yeah, yeah, I know you're having
issues with it. But to the outside view, you
have a nice 4Runner. You long travel, good camp
setup. You pair all that into a package of what
you've spent and stuff and show that to a new
person, and they'll be like, yeah, man, that
sucks. You know what I'm saying? Maybe. I think
we're in a different bracket now. I think we're
at a different level than what we started. I
mean, obviously a little bit, but even with Mark's
truck. He's got a solid truck. He's got a solid
setup. The Light Fighter, we all pack up and
get to camp and do our thing really quickly.
There's no fumbling around with what to do. You
know what I mean? I don't know. We've hit a groove.
We've hit a different level of it. I would look
at myself now as a new camper. If I looked at
myself three years ago with the Ozark Trail stove
kit that costs $17 with a tin pan and you just
put it on a small burner, that was all I had
for cooking. If I looked at that, myself then,
and looked at what I have now, I'd be like, damn,
you hit it big, dude. I don't know. We're doing
well. right like yeah yeah we're doing well i
don't know man that's that's what i use to keep
the perspective if i ever get down on things
like dude i got a damn near a thousand dollar
tent now um i got a diesel heater like i have
expensive stove expensive fridge expensive uh
like kitchen sets and power and like i figured
out how to wire a little bit so like i have a
spare battery and lighting and a winch and like
moved up a lot in the last three years if that
i'd say the last year dude all of our setups
this last year of oh yeah it's ridiculous it's
kind of it's kind of hard until you look back
like i was looking back at google photos today
and i'm like god dang dude in the two years that
we've had the kid it's actually been two years
because my truck was stock when i got jasper
So in that time, I have gotten a lift, a winch,
a winch bumper, the whole back redone, fridge,
all the stuff that I have now. That's a lot of
money, dude. I look at just the last year. The
last year I've done, did long travel. Yeah. Roof
rack. Yeah, roof rack was a big one. Swag was
this year. Most of the pack out was this year.
Yeah, I forgot about the roof rack, but yeah,
roof rack was $1 ,000. Like, that ain't no joke.
Mine was $250. Right. Hey, I love mine. I still
think it's worth it compared to the old one,
but that was not a small purchase for me. And
it's taken a long time to get to these, too.
Like, people would look at our setup now and
be like, yeah, you know, you're loaded. I was
like, no. It took two years to get all this stuff.
Nothing about what we have took a day to get.
It took a lot of sacrifices, too. There was definitely
times where we were eating corn out of a can
and hot dogs for dinner. What are you talking
about? You don't eat hot dogs. I love hot dogs.
You guys are too fancy for that. Yeah, yeah.
We have these gourmet meals. Yeah. No, I'm just
saying. We've done good. We've came really far.
If our past selves looked back at us, they would
be proud. All of us. They would be envious. You
guys ready to move on over to the hour? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Kudos to us, guys. Cheers. Chink.
Hell yeah. Cheers to us. Yep.