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Rhyolite it turns out, has two additional cool elements - a bottle house, and a visitor's center - covering the history of the relatively successful town, as well as a collection of desert art. Naturally, we stopped at both. Meet "Shorty and his penguin." Shorty was the founder of Rhyolite...

Death Valley: Day 2 - Colors Everywhere January 18, 2018. The alarm woke us at 6:00am. We were cozy under the covers but it was cold. It hadn't rained or snowed overnight, but dew had covered the tent and frozen, so the tent went away wet - not ideal, but we had places to be and weren't about...

read: Death Valley: Day 2 - Colors Everywhere

Starting a trip report over in the Adventure and Trip Reports (less than a week) forum - Our First Trip to Death Valley. Or, read the entire report here: Death Valley, January 2018.

Death Valley: Intro and Day 1 - A Day of Driving Winters in the Pacific Northwest, (but perhaps especially this one) are tough to swallow when you like to get outdoors to explore and experience new adventures. The weather gets cool and wet, and it often takes a multi-state trip south to escape...

External Speaker for Ham Radio January 15, 2018. The Kenwood D710GA has been working well since it was installed. Transmission and reception seem good, the APRS has worked as expected, the display is nice (but not quite as nice as the Icom 5100A), and it's great having it securely mounted under...

Fixing the IFS Skid Mounts January 14, 2018. "That's strange." I thought as the guys at JT's Parts and Accessories took my IFS Front Skid off to replace the gears in my front diff. "I don't remember the guys from @RelentlessFab putting any clips behind the middle bolts. I wonder how those help...

New Wheels and Tires, Again! (Stealth6 and ST Maxx) January 12, 2018. The day has arrived, finally. For three months, I've had a set of SCS Stealth6 wheels stacked, in the boxes they arrived in, in the living room. @mrs.turbodb has not been happy. In that time, I've been trying to decide what...

Removing the Dash Trim December 30, 2017. I've removed my dash trim (at least, the driver side) more times than I'd care to admit, and figured it was time to write up the procedure - because I remember how daunting it was the first time. With photos, it's available here: Removing the Dash Trim

Breaking in the new gears December 7-12, 2017. Before leaving JT's Parts & Accessories, I'd gotten the rundown from Jared and Chris on how to best break in the gears they'd just installed. Essentially, it boiled down to what gear manufacturers recommended as well... Break in Procedure New...

No More Lugging - Re-Gear to 4.88's and Front ARB Locker December 6, 2017. Over the last 17 years, the truck has been amazing. Truly a joy every time I get in it, work on it, or even just get all googly-eyed looking at it. But, as we've started bigger and longer adventures, and turned it into...

Finally, the Pinch Weld Mod December 4, 2017. Having recently installed bigger-than-stock tires, it was of course clear that I needed to do something to get them to fit up front, even before I get my new wheels installed... I mean, they didn't rub when driving on perfectly level ground which...

The Day After Thanksgiving...Must be Christmas Tree Time November 24, 2017 Last year's hunt for a Christmas tree hunt went nothing like we planned it, so this year we were itching to get out and see what the adventure would bring. It turns out, everything went exactly as planned, perhaps making...

APRS Explained Over the last couple years I've been asked a few questions about APRS, and figured that the topic would make a good post. This isn't everything there is to know about APRS (by a long shot), but it does explain things in (I hope) a way that can help clarify how various components...

A few questions in there :). APRS - I use it on every trip, so very glad to have it. Usage depends on the trip but generally falls into two categories. It's always used for folks at home / family to monitor where we are. Since we do quite a bit of solo-vehicle travel, it adds a layer of safety...

Mod Wars - USB charger blocking Ham Radio Communication November 9, 2017 Having just installed a new ham radio setup to get APRS, I was keen to play with Kenwood TM-D710GA and Mobilinkd to track my location. So, on a few local trips, I turned everything on and waited. And waited and waited...

Where are you? Adding APRS to the Ham Radio Comms November 5, 2017. It wasn't all that long ago that I got my Ham radio license and installed an Icom-5100 in the truck. A great radio, it's gone now - because a great radio isn't all I need; I need a great radio that can also do APRS. What's...

I hear you. I had to dork around for quite a while to find the combination I liked. Ended up using a medium arm to double ball to short arm, and it's perfect for my ham radio display. And, as I recall, I could only get the medium and short arms from two other kits or something. Luckily, I've...

Adding a Ram Mount to the #%@#$@! A-pillar. November 1, 2017. I've always hated the A-pillars in my truck. Actually, it's the trim I hate. And I've hated it since I first tried (and failed) to remove it several years ago to run the wire for a microphone from my head unit up to the rearview...

Tundra Brake Break-in and First Impressions October 28, 2017. New brakes nearly installed, I waited anxiously to see how the replacement brake line that Steve @ Wheeler's Off Road sent was mailed - was it fast, or would it be slow? It was great - he sent it 1-day and I had it Saturday morning...