Micro adventures of the NW rockies

[MT6bt]

Unka, it was a success. The levels held the boards straight. Just unclamped them today and it seems to have worked out well.
Catmandu, you should make the move. I haven't regretted leaving the Midwest at all, except being far from family.
The ability to look out your door and see adventure waiting is the best part...granted you could get that anywhere. but for me and millions of others, adventure starts where hills end and mountains begin :-D
Krick , yes, I do rather enjoy taking pics of my truck. I guess because it has helped me view the world and appreciate the little things so much more...like showers, hah!

 

[MT6bt]

This will be a quick update on the build so far.
It was a very productive evening. Crunch time has motivated me enough to put in 7 hours after my normal 8 hour day today, and I am very pleased to see things moving along well.

Setting up a jig for mortising out the hinge for my box lid..
Below, I've already mortised the lid.

The hinge is completed! Turned out good enough for the back of my truck.

The putz that I am, I screwed and glued the fixed 12" piece backwards, ruining the pattern.

I risked damaging the box just now, thinking that the glue wouldn't be completely set up 3 hours later....I was wrong! Fortunately nothing major happened, and my OCD can breathe 3 sequential sighs of relief knowing that my pattern has been corrected. Hah!

Above is some aluminum I will reinforce the corners with.

Hopefully tomorrow ill be finished with this one and on to the more technical one.

 

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I agree with you about Glacier NP. By far the best park I've visited. Stunning Scenery. My favorite area is on the eastern side near Many Glacier.

Great looking dogs too!

 

[MT6bt]

Right? It's stunning up there. Thought I've seen just bout everything in Montana until glacier.
Well it looks like my overland adventures will officially start next Wednesday! I will be headed down to southwest California to pick up a really nice cabover callen camper shell and then after that? Not sure. I believe Christmas will be somewhere near death valley or sequoia national park. It's sounding like I will be meeting up with some fellow members in death valley the 21-26th...tentatively.
I don't have as much money saved up as I was hoping but I figure life has gven me many curve balls the last 6 months and perhaps it's brought me to my current situation. So why not dive in head first and see what happens!?

 

[PowerWagner]

Right? It's stunning up there. Thought I've seen just bout everything in Montana until glacier.
Well it looks like my overland adventures will officially start next Wednesday! I will be headed down to southwest California to pick up a really nice cabover callen camper shell and then after that? Not sure. I believe Christmas will be somewhere near death valley or sequoia national park. It's sounding like I will be meeting up with some fellow members in death valley the 21-26th...tentatively.
I don't have as much money saved up as I was hoping but I figure life has gven me many curve balls the last 6 months and perhaps it's brought me to my current situation. So why not dive in head first and see what happens!?

Cool write up and hope to meet up this holiday. It's looking more like I'Ll arrive at Goler wash on 12/26. On money and curve balls - gas price dropping at a good time for you? How's the price of diesel, I assume dropping along with gasoline.i know the price drop on gas will make this less costly for the hemi.

 

[MT6bt]

Yeah, diesel is cheaper than it's been in a long time. Up here we're at 3.38 and gas is around 2.69. So that's nice at least! hopefully it's decent priced in California.

 

[MT6bt]

Things are progressing nicely. I finished my last day of work yesterday and what a relief that is! Now I can focus on the preparation for my trip.
I've finished my first box, it turned out well. It's almost as if I do this as my occupation!

Installed the hinges. Mortised out the front to help reinforce the hinge.

This is where it will be placed. Still "lots" of space on the left front side for elwood. I Will probably place 1-2" of foam insulation below some nice wool carpet I've acquired from the jobsite.
And now onto the next one!

This one will have a hinged lid in front of the drawer which will slide outside for my kitchen set-up.

Not too much more than that going on. The next several days will be pretty crazy organizing everything on top of completing my truck set up.
I have seen some beautiful scenery up here, both at the jobsites and travelling in between them...here are a few pictures.

 

[MT6bt]

Well I'm officially on the road. Made it to salt lake last night and am currently 3 hours north of las vegas. Turns out google maps grossly underestimated the time it takes to get to L.A.! (Not suprised) probably because I am averaging about 65-70 mph. At this speed I still can achieve a decent fuel economy, which is averaging 18.5. Not too bad considering the 5-10 mph crosswind I've experienced for the last 400 miles.
Unfortunately also is I have time restrictions; I need to be at a camper place outside of LA by 9am tomorrow in order to pick up my "new" callen camper shell and have it installed.
My rear platform build turned out pretty nice, although I still have some locks to Install still. All in all I spent around 50-60 hours on it, mostly due to biscuit jointing all that alder together! I will post pics as soon as I have a chance, but until then, its time to hit the trail again!

Also....people drive like psychos in this area.

 

[digitaldelay]

Also....people drive like psychos in this area.

I hope you used the HOV lane in SLC!

Jason

 

[MT6bt]

Hahaha! The thought certainly crossed my mind however the traffic wasn't bad.

 

[MT6bt]

Well the drive to California was pretty smooth, other than having my rear shocks give out completely about halfway in, making for some incredibly sketchy city driving.
I encountered a massive traffic jam west of san Bernardino (I think that's where I was)

It took about 2.5 hrs to travel about 3 miles. Not my first choice of fun things to do after being on the road the entire day... I also learned that kindness 101 and proper road manners 101 are books that mine as well just be thrown out the windows in these huge metropolitan areas. Signaling several seconds before a merge seems to just give "the enemy" (it seems) your intentions, and rather than allowing you to merge, they'll just speed up and prevent you from doing so! Arrgghh....
Anyway, today after buying another set of rancho shocks (the O'Reilly store that I bought the first set from couldn't validate my purchase, prohibiting me from warranting a new set) and installing them at your friendly, local (sarcasm ) Wal-Mart parking lot, I was on my way to the beach!
It has been beautiful the last couple days here in cali.

Although I wonder how easy it is to pick out this northern howlie from a crowd when I am in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals when everyone else is wearing sweaters and pants!
My build is coming along nicely...
Installed the callen camper and it looks very nice on my truck

It conveniently comes with a huge storage rack on top that supposedly can carry 1000 lbs although carrying that amount of weight 8' up kind of sounds like a bad idea!
Interior is still a work in process.
The platform I built ended up being just about perfect except my rear sliding drawer ended up about 1/4" too short for my stove. D'oh!

 

[MT6bt]

I took some random road that ended popping out above lake casitas. Beautiful! The ecosystem around here is quite lush. Lemons, avocados, etc. Being from the north, it's pretty amazing to me.

 

[98dango]

Glad you made it down to the warm land. If you ever get to Arizona hit me up. You still need some sliders.

 

[MT6bt]

Glad you made it down to the warm land. If you ever get to Arizona hit me up. You still need some sliders.

Yea I sure do. Did u end up moving to AZ? I was thinking of heading over that way, no real permanent plans just yet.

 

[98dango]

Ya I'm heading back to Montana for the holidays should be in az around the 5th or so