Overland Truck Travel
Overland truck travel. Vehicles for 4×4 off road #vanlife. Tools for backcountry overland driving. How to use a HiJack… or is it a come-along.
Billy Newman Robert Biscarret
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Get-out-there-09-overland-truck-travel
Hello, and thank you very much for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. My name is Billy Newman. I’m here today with Robert Busker at Robert. How are you doing? Here? What’s going on Billy, thanks for doing another podcast, man. It’s great. episode eight. Here we are. Yeah, man. I think this is episode nine. isn’t really we did that yeah, I think we’re moving. Oh, you’re right. You’re right. Because you did that. Yeah, we got through that one last week too. Yeah, I can’t really count that well, so yeah, it’s hard to get the first 10 numbers and straight to man, but I but no, it’s great. I’m really glad we got we got this one. Coming together again. today. It’s gonna be cool. And yeah, man. What’s your overtime? That’s that’s the first hurdle. That’s it, man. so to speak. No, it’s good. I’m glad that we’ve, we’ve got we’ve got through a handful of these. And yeah, it’s fun, man. It’s cool. Putting together a handful of them. But this week, I wanted to talk about some of the past truck travel stuff that we’ve done. And I think you’re the guy who’s inspired me to get a truck at first man, I got a truck gotta have a truck. Strangely, though, most most of my road trip travel has been a Camry and the old camera, man. But that camera was legendary. It was legit. It was absolutely legendary. But for today’s episode, we’re thinking about doing was kind of breaking down a couple of the stories in the past we had about doing some overland stuff. Some overland, like travel, if you can call it overland. I don’t know. That’s like a heavy word. I think that’s a modern world. Right? Like this term. I’ve seen that around like overland where people get a lot of that. Yeah, it seems to be kind of the trendy sort of rich guy word to say for Whelan. Going but in Landrover Madden, or for four-wheel or something, you take that Overlanding overland excursion? Oh, yeah, it’s always that but, but I think that’s kind of a funny part of it. But I see like a ton of that stuff. I got into that, like, I got into that stuff back in 2011. Like the overland travel Have you ever seen like the magazine overland journal? Is that inactive? I think so. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s like sort of a niche. It’s a niche category. Like this whole thing. So it’s where it’s like that thing. You’d never find it unless you looked for it. But it’s kind of it’s interesting. There’s tons of stuff out there like that, but that’s one of the first ones that I ran into. And that’s like, that’s when I had like the Camry and I was back in college and stuff and you know, that’s when I first really wanted to get because I couldn’t get a Landrover from the 70s I really wanted to get like a roof rack and a top box. I was I was like set on that because if I could get that that was like that was like my that was my version of making like a Camry into an overland vehicle you know cuz I’m going to get into this but I’m 20 and I’ve got 138 bucks so with that Yeah, but that was a part of it. So yeah, I remember setting up like like setting up the car that the roof the rooftop or the top box you know, man those are those are like super handy like and that was great on the on the camera when I had it. But that was all kind of what was yours you had like that that top box? Yeah, it was a I forget what it is now I think there’s like the excursion that I had at a time and then there was like the summit model that you didn’t have the overland model didn’t I missed out on both of these were like oh man, they were like you know I don’t know the early 90s maybe late early-mid 90s or something that’s like when the plastic was produced that’s when that thing was called New. And now it was just sitting on my my equally old aged car gonna go around and grab those things hold their value like crazy I picked mine up both of mine I think now three of them in total I picked three of those top boxes up oh on Craigslist was for different cars and stuff. I got a little fat one for the for the Camry I’ve had one for the truck and we got one from Marina CRV or what do you say the truck I mean the old Forerunner let’s just get into that later too but that long one on the old foreigner so I bought like a few of them and I always bought them on us like on Craigslist or something right like yeah, and it was like new they’re like five or 600 bucks to get into this cheap man yeah it’s yeah super frustrating so even when they’re used they’re they’re still floating in like for good ones or for like stuff from the 2000s that sort of the more modern clamping systems or you know when they actually made it they made it better you know where you can put it on take it on and off your car without putting together like a bunch of plates brackets made out to spend the whole afternoon doing yeah it’s great cuz he would always like you know mess up you get stuck in some situation like that when you like I think one time we had to move we’d like it was you and I Robert and Scott and we had to like move that that that top box we’re talking about to the Oh yeah, to the raft right and we were going on that snowboard trip so we had to like pack we had to put it on and like put like a bunch of snowboards on or something. And it was just like it was just like snow and slash and it’s kind of raining you got like
you don’t even have a headlamp you just got like a light kind crimped on your shoulder and neck. As you’re kind of trying to twist this wing that back and forth to make sure that this thing’s tight in the right spot. It was such a pain, man; it was so awful. So after that they made like more simple clamp systems that work better. But man, those are like still like 300 250. Like the low end range, like this. Yeah, the stuff broken. I just sold one for like, 85 that was that like a big chunk missing out of it? Oh, geez. Yeah, it’s nuts. Yeah, it’s like it’s a gold. At least I don’t know. It seems like in Eugene May. In Southern Oregon, it was a lot harder. I think I had one and never sold. But it seems like in Eugene and in Corvallis and Portland, are like, you know, where that that string of Hebrews and topsoccer? Yeah, right. exists all those, all those overlanders out there. Mm-hmm. But that was my foray into into understanding what Overlanding was because I was interested in like that overland journal. And so I’d like watch or watch the stuff that was coming out in that and it was just really all stuff, all equipment that was unattainable. But you look like the sweet trucks. And there’s so many cool, like land or the land that the Toyota Land Cruisers, but they never said that they never built in America. Have you seen those? Oh, yeah, they’re awesome. They’re so cool. Yeah, like all the other ones that Australia got. And like South Africa, God, those are like the coolest cars ever like that you see out there. Yeah, they’re so great. I would love to have Yeah, just this sweet diesel. Left hand drive. Right hand drive. Like, yeah, Land Cruiser track. Like there’s the the Toyota trooper, if anybody’s listening and they Google that it’s like this, this crazy track that they made for the military that Toyota made for the military. That’s like a troop carrier. But it’s a Land Cruiser, but it’s just got like a long back end. And it’s kind of squared off. So you can you can fit two benches in there to load 12 guys, or whatever, whatever. psyllium is in the back. But it just looks like Oh, man, that’d be the coolest like camper. Yeah, you take that thing. It’s like, so like the fJ. 40 see, like the old ones that look like the the Willys Jeep, have you seen that? Oh, yeah. That and that was kind of like the, one of the Jeep models that they look Yeah, Toyota’s Japanese right. Yeah, of course they are. But I don’t know where else they they sold like their equipment to for like military use. But it seemed like the F j and the Land Cruiser line is used like with them as a military vehicle all over the world. Have you seen that? Like, it’s the I’m not really familiar with that? No, or not like a military vehicle, but like, like, we have a jeep. And then we have a tank, but we have the Jeep? Like they have they have the Toyota they have a Land Cruiser? Or like a Ilex, right, like your old truck. Your old pickup truck.
Yeah. Okay. I know what you’re talking about. Yeah, the old pickup truck. Yes. Our 1980 it was the best part about my old one. Yeah. And so but it won’t get rid of it. I still have
the coolest track, but I remember learning about like, Oh, it was just weird when I found out like about American nations. Where in America that’s called a pickup. Like that’s, that’s a pickup truck. But out of the country. The truck is called a Hi Alex. I need to see that. Yeah, yeah, the international version. The International name for the pickup was the Toyota Hilux. And it’s like, it’s got that like emblem in it. Yeah. So they’d sell these Toyota pickup trucks like Saudi Arabia or like ISIS, man, like, okay, so yeah, like all the ice like the footage from ISIS. That’s like, why are they all in these like us? Toyota’s best known across the section in Syria, it’s because the military had bought Toyota’s as helixes like new ones they’re like it’s just like sweet Tacoma or something you know, it’s just like rigged up to ride around out in the desert it’s probably a great truck for it but that’s why we should be is is to get all we need all those sweet Toyota’s back now it was a big land that was like a gag in the news for a while because like all the footage from from whatever was going on which show these people but they were like next to these like old like old pickups like yours with with a with like a gun mounted mounted in the back like the war a lot of that Yeah. But yeah, you think about like all that all that crazy stuff that I think that was like the highlight stuff that Toyota was like for runners out of the country they’re called serfs. Really? Yeah, way cooler name to kind of call a foreigner a serve I’m not gonna run it it’s kind of redundant like I mean, no matter what you have, it’s like well, I mean, we expected it would it would have four wheels or big truck I guess it should have four-wheel drive or whatever whatever. It’s insinuating. But, but yeah, out of the country was called the surf. I’ve seen a few of them pass by like you’d see him out there. You’d be driving around and people are real proud of it, especially in the overland scene or that like not backward See, man. People get real proud of their Their rigs that they have set up but but we saw one that was like this diesel surf that this guy had imported I don’t know what the rules are on that either.
Yeah
if it’s I think if the if the guy’s a US citizen I think it couldn’t happen but I think if you’re in Canada, you can you can have you can have one registered and then drive it into the united states i think is where we see a lot of those vehicles. Well, we need to make some buddies in Canada if we need that, man I need I need a diesel 90s foreigner I don’t know like I knew commuting Well, have you seen like the Mitsubishi Delica that’s another that’s another sought after it. Yeah, it’s low in my mind here. Yeah, that Miss it’s a it’s another kind of wasn’t that wasn’t built in the United States. Right. But it’s for Well, it’s become really popular and like that van life. Van life culture where people you know, like I pretty much like what we were doing the Camry six years ago. But But finding it relatively decently and they get like a van. And like it’s become really popular to get this Mitsubishi Delica. They made it through the 80s. It was sort of a competitor to the to the Volkswagen line of vans that were out at that time that were kind of camping focused. But this was cool. The Delica was cool because it was a diesel van. But it was four wheel drive. It was like this. It was timing. Like Mitsubishi was just making a bunch of four wheel drive stuff probably like the Colt Vista.
That’s exactly what was just you don’t know what a call list is. And you’re listening to this podcast. Go. Go look it up. And that was that was your first car, Billy.
Oh, man, it was the best car. It was the best. It was the best car. It was the worst guy but it was really though it was the worst car.
I bet if you had that now and just put a little bit of money into it somebody? Yeah, somebody would pick that up. Yeah, in the Portland area.
I put some studded tires on that and a roof rack. Oh, yeah. an LED bar. You want to talk about rig? led bar? CV? Yeah, man. You remember that hatchback. If you could fit 10 people in that car. I think eight people I think I did. I don’t think that’s what they approved it for. No, I just where it was. I think it was seven people. It was what it was like rated for seven. Yeah, it was it was three roses seats. Robert, in a compact soccer balls are driving around in 1983. Yeah, it was. It’s not Yeah, there was the front two seats. The back two seats that were like bucket seats. Two. And then behind that, there was another bench seat for three. So you had 1234567 man? Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. What a silly.
Hey, it wasn’t aesthetically great, but it was uh, you know, economy friendly. That’s, that’s for sure.
The worst guy? So not not an overland vehicle there. I guess you could say and even still like, man, it was had like 14 inch tires. So yeah, no clearance to get over anything. What have you. You made it You made it happen with the camera though? I yeah, I did, man. And I was gonna mention that too. Because that I had a couple experiences in the Camry. You’ve always had a truck. I guess outside of like the short time you had you had a sedan for to commute and stuff. But you had like had a rig that could get some places, which I always appreciated. And I really noticed running into a few limitations when I was in the Camry. I wanted to talk about those. It was great with the camera because you really benefit from the gas mileage. Which man I would say yeah, because I mean the most of a road trip, in some ways, like is highway miles. You know, you’re out. You got to drive from here. Oh, yeah. Wyoming. So yeah, put a lot of distance in between you and where you’re going? Yeah, and it man. It’s great. Having kind of a light, easy car to like, just bomb out to somewhere that works really well. So I appreciated some of those parts. But man, we ran into a few spots where we just couldn’t get through. And the one of the most upsetting ones to me was the sailing stones. Have you heard of those before? Is that in Utah? It’s in. It’s in the southwest. It’s it’s Near-Death Valley in California. And the sailing stones is a really cool spy was in Death Valley. It’s like it’s in the park area. But the park area is just so immense, but it’s it’s all desolate, almost nothing out there, you know, but you take this road, it cuts back for a really long way. And then we were on that gravel road for ever going back there. You have to go it’s it’s the kind of deep wilderness you would almost call it but it’s like deep in desolate country out there. It’s sort of well-traveled because there’s there’s people kind of moving in and out of the park system. But we were traveling there in December, I think, you know, when we were moving move in that direction. Like early December of 2012, I think is when we were there. And when we were we were driving up just just on the gravel road as it was it said it was a it was a gravel road the whole way there. And this part of it, it just kind of went up a little bit of a grade, you know, just the hill, the slope of the road just kind of went up maybe 1215 feet or so and then kind of rounded off, leveled off and then kept going. It seemed like almost nothing at all. But my car was nearly as high centering on it basically like you can feel like did you feel like the body like start scraping because the roll off of it was like, it was just, it was deeper than than my cart like the angle the car and the clearance I could handle it. And I like I couldn’t get there and I’d wanted to go there all my life. Oh, so frustrated. We were like two miles or so it was like two-three miles or something like, well, we didn’t know that cuz you’re like in backwoods stuff. And it’s like, like, I’m not gonna park there and hike it or something. Yeah, and then somebody else rolls up in a vehicle that can handle it. This Camry parked in the middle of the road. There was a there was like a group of kids are like teenagers on little dirt bikes like little to hundreds and they were just like bouncing they just zoomed right past us. Like a little, a little bike. And they cruise. Right. It was nothing but yeah, it’s it was not it was you would it would be totally. Everything could get over that except for my cars. Except the camera. So yeah, no overland that day is what is what it was. But that story really is what ended up inspiring me to sell that Camry that winter. And then like come back in and get a foreigner like when I got that that 89 four render that. That was good. That was a good truck. I liked that is a good track. I bet it was a better truck earlier. But man, it was a great truck for me. And I really had a great time doing stuff with it was super fun. Like, yeah, I do more candy seven that was really cool. But that that was the first time that I had like that truck clearance. You know?
Yeah, it means just like a whole new world of opportunities opened up to you, when you when you have that clearance. It’s like okay, and you got four wheel drive, so you can get a little more daring with where you’re going. And even with that, though, I found that now with my current truck, I don’t have the winch on it yet. And and even that kind of dictates to what I will and will not do up in the hills. Especially if there’s not another rig with me. Sure. Yeah. I really enjoyed having that. That kind of that lifeline. And then security. I guess I’m having that winch that I can get out of trouble if I really got myself into it.
I think that’s pretty interesting. Yeah, I’ve never had I have had a rig with a winch on it. But I really liked the the you always did. It was cool. I don’t think we’ve ever used it together when we were out. I’ve used it on Tyler. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pulling out of that sandbank. Is that what it was?
Yeah. I’ve used it a couple times. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You just get into a rough spot got a tree or something you can tether off of, and get yourself out of it. But
I think that’s pretty cool. I remember you telling me a little bit about that in the past. And it seems like it’d be pretty necessary if you wanted to do something more serious or more long term, if you’re doing like an overland trip or if you’re doing some, some trucks four by four stuff.
Oh, that’s not a big like, you know, off-road or it’s, you know, yeah. But it’s Well, I mean, off-road in the sense of like, let’s go mud and rock climbing. Yeah, not I’m not that, but I do like trying to get into places where typically the you know, the road kind of ends or, you know, somebody hasn’t been back then 30 years and there’s still roadway going.
I think it’s really explore it. Yeah, I really like that part of it. I really like getting to those different areas and any you really get to get through so much more land. You know, that way, it’s I found it to be really cool.
You do especially Oregon in the wintertime, you know, this area gets so much rain and stuff. It’s hard to like, you know, when you after the winner, you get to the end of the route. Back Back. This is I don’t want to beg begging. I want to stay in the rig as long as I can.
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s definitely that’s a huge part of it for me too. And that’s Yeah, think about. Well, yeah, you should tell me about Tell me about your pickup. Chuck. Your first one that you got in high school, did you that was like an ad with a straight axle, right.
It was a 1980 straight axle Toyota four by four long. And that was a great truck. It still is a great truck. It’s currently sitting under a canopy right now. It hasn’t run in three or four years. But no, I love that truck. Man. I drove that from the time I was 15 years. So four years ago. Yeah, I mean, that was that was a blast. That was that was the coolest job. Yeah, no, I have always loved that truck and that truck would go anywhere. I mean, the really the only reason I got out of it was just I needed something more reliable. Yeah, fact it’s last trip was the trip that amber and I took down to Joshua Tree I put like, you know, 4000 miles on it. No way. I remember that trip. That was Yeah, that was pretty cool, man. Yeah. And so that was a great trip, take it out on the harsh reality was, you know, at the time, gas in California was around $5 a gallon is Yeah, insane. I was getting about 12 miles to the gallon. And, you know, that was rough. You know, it didn’t have AC. You know, that’s just little stuff. Like, people didn’t get along with that forever. But
now it makes me different. So I’ve learned a little bit too. I mean, like, like, what we both learned a little bit in this last year, like having a newer truck. It just solves a lot of those stresses about transportation, man.
Well, it does. And that’s the thing is when you’re committing to a trip like that, you need to know that rigs got to be reliable. It’s been a huge part. You need to know it’s gonna start back up when you’re ready to go. Yeah, 2000 miles away from home. Kill the battery. I gotta tell my truck or so. Yeah. And the battery is not the proper Oh, no. Yeah. Like, it’s just like, Oh, you know? Yeah, my transmission went out or like, that probably just, you know, blew a head gasket or something. You know, I mean, that truck when I took it, it had over 400,000 miles on it. And, and so you’re just going, Wow, this is fun, but really, I just need to make sure I get it home. Yeah, you know that. That’s what it came down to.
Yeah, I feel like sometimes it’s like driving a classic car around. Just doesn’t run as well. It’s maybe basil.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah. And then I got out from that, and I bought myself a little 93 I guess it was that’s our five Toyota v six. Pick up a little extended cab. I liked having the extra room. That was a great little pickup to have that nice canopy with the roof racks on it. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, I like that canopy sad to see it go.
Yeah, it was too bad. It’s too soon, you know, but too soon. But I understand to think that Daddy’s gonna move on. Or you know, it’s good. He use it. You can
see it around town every now and then. Nice. Yeah. But yeah, and so since I’ve gotten into a full size truck, which I I just wonder why I didn’t do so much earlier. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s just just having the room. The reliability you know, just all the difference in the world.
Yeah, I think so. too. I was in your track like we were on when we were on that last chip and yeah, get out of it. Yeah, super clean. Like I dig been in there as cool.
Yeah, it’s a it’s far more comfortable than it used to be, you know, cramming into the little single cab and yeah, manual transmission and trying to get around.
I remember that first trip we did in your and your old try your your, your Yeah, cap. When we were What 16? Are we are going to camp up at Union Creek. Yeah. What is like, what is that? I’ve been I guess it’s Central Oregon. I don’t know. What do you call that? I don’t know what you would call that. It’s like Crater Lake area. Yeah, it’s not really central National Forest. Almost. Right. Yeah, it’s ro River National Forest. Because it’s the rogue that it is. Yeah. Yeah. I think yeah, it’s that that area up there. Man. That was such a cool trip. And I had a great time. But man, like you’re saying that we just there was like the three of us, right? Yeah, just packed in tight. Yeah. And I was the one that had a ride, bitch in the center. Throw in the third gear, then what was it? Four years? Three years? Yeah, it was four. I ended up putting a five speed transmission. I remember that at the end.
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was just that for speed. You know, you get it out. It was great in town stuff. Then he goes on to the freeway, and you’re just tapped out like 65. Just, you know, semis are trying to pass you is not built to go that fast, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, that was a sweet track though. Man. I really had a good time in that, but I remember that back in high school, it was fun, like making that road trip up to go camping thrown everything in the back. And everybody’s just crammed, crammed into the bench seat. Now used to work I guess it’s a little more luxurious now with the with the space, I suppose. But it’s been cool, man. I like to have like, Well, you’ve always known more about like, how to use your four-wheel drive. And like, yeah, I started it.
I learned how to drive and kind of like, you know, just kind of remote is using four-wheel drive and, and all that stuff. You know, my dad when we go hunting, he drive when I was like eight, you know, nice and I drive us to wherever we’re going out there because it’s all just, you know, old logging roads and traffic and all that stuff in there. And so as a result, yeah, I learned to use four-wheel drive, especially working on a running on a manual transmission four-wheel drive, you know gives you a little more leniency on your clutch when you’re eight years old and you can barely reach the pedals and you’re trying to figure out how to handle a vehicle.
Yeah, a ton more. I wish someone had shown that to be the first time, my goodness, but yeah, yeah. But But how does that work? explain that a little bit of like, for low.
Your gearing is way lower. I mean, essentially, like you really don’t even know how to have to know how to use the clutch, you can just basically let it out. And you’re good, so low that the rig is gonna take off on its own, basically, I mean, you got to give it just a little bit of gas, and it’s gonna do its thing. But I mean, it’s great for a beginner when you’ve never never driven a manual transmission before. because it lets you lets you get a feel for that clutch before you’re actually in a in a higher gear trying to do it. Yeah, that stopper. Yeah, something like that. So that was Yeah, super beneficial to learning how to drive. But then, yeah, I guess you know, we’re always in a lot of like tight places that required four wheel drive. And that’s the other thing is you learn how to drive on those back roads and what it takes to get turned around when you’re when you know, I mean, you get up in those tight spots and you
have to stop gotta turn Yeah, here it’s a cliff on one side. It’s just weird. Ditch and rocks on this other side. I’m just going to back my truck into exactly tight little spy backing down a hill. Oh, yeah, I’ve done that. Well, we’re not doing anything right here. It says yeah, I think I got I got stuck like nose to nose on like with another vehicle on this one-lane section that just like dropped off. He was out in Eastern Oregon when we were there and it just like, Oh, yeah, what like so I probably like what we’d read into it the Iliad, but it’s a thing where I think
person
the person going uphill has to back down. Is that the rule? Yeah, right.
I don’t I don’t really know what the rule is. If there is a rule, it’s definitely unwritten. But I think it just kind of seems like the person that has the most leeway should probably grant it. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. You know, which seems to not happen as much as I would want. When I’ve been seems like people just like blow-by center the thing and they just expect I’ll get out of the way seems like a crazy choice to me. They’ve very rude people out there sometimes. Give me a berth stretched out a little bit, man. Don’t run into me. But I guess I haven’t been running into yet. It’s weird. I remember. Like, what what I was talking about? Yeah, we got like, there was six inches on either or a foot or something I said, but it was like tight. There’s no go around me sort of a thing. So I just had to back down, like 500 600 feet to the spot where there’s there’s a wide enough pull out where I could kind of tuck in and he could get around me. Man Oh, that doesn’t happen a few more times. person I run into Yeah, gotta get through this section. At least. I’m gonna be I’m just gonna have to go down here to miles and back out there. So that’d be awful. Yeah. But I remember that years back of like people at the Illinois River, they’d run into that same thing on that. That tight little paved one lane road. God knows how sober they were driving back out toward cave junction again. At the end of the day, I’m just, you know, sitting in the river river all day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. World’s Best people out there.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, just a really stand up Susan’s I mean, anywhere that you have to like, Ban alcohol. Did they ban it? Yeah, it’s no alcohol allowed at the Illinois River anymore. What? What is the Yeah, then? I don’t know. sobriety and self development. Yeah, that’s crazy. No, yeah. They, they actually end up doing that. And you know what, I really am glad now. Me too. Really? Yeah. Much of the boozehound is I am I you know, I know. It’s glass everywhere. Well, and that’s the thing too, and so much of that just became like your personal responsibility to pack out the things that you bring? Oh, no, I never understood that. You know, you pack into 30 rack of beer that was you know, 2530 pounds on your back. You hike it into miles, you drink all the beer, and then you just leave the cans that now way essentially nothing packed into something that you can put in a gallon ziplock bag. Right, crushing. Just gonna leave it there. Yeah. And so that was kind of this verb what was going on? And then just too many fights, I think. Yeah, yeah. Get all God if anyone’s familiar with Southern Oregon, you know the story, but it’s, you know, it is. Yeah, it just became kind of a mess. I think the people that were out there Dealing with it just had enough and they they instated that little that rule now, man,
the future is gonna be no fun, Robert, we’re gonna tell you it’s Sunday. Yeah, you used to go out to the river and just drink and throw glass. Yeah. The good old days. Well, I heard this same it to the token he falls hotsprings they close that whole camping area down. Yeah, because it was just too much trash, too much drinking, too much fighting. Nobody to regulate it. No money to regulate it. I mean, God knows what. Douglas County, Josephine Jackson County, curry County. That’s like the poorest. You look at like income. It’s like the poorest part. Are some of the poorest levels of county income across the United States.
Yeah, no, it really is. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so many of those places were all timber industry and that no longer produce. And so I mean, a lot of the economy went down with that. But, I mean, it’s just, it’s a shame that it ruins it. For all the people that like to go recreate these areas. Yeah. No, it’s like, unfortunately, these places of beauty also draw people of lesser beauty, I guess.
It’s what it’s curious. I like the tone of places seems to change a little bit. I remember I was at, I think it was out in like Lone Pine, California. Really cool spots used to become super popular over the last six, seven years or so I see so much more from now. But it was it was this area where back in the 50s they shot like people like Burbank Hollywood would come up. And they would shoot like Gunsmoke. And like the westerns and stuff they would shoot like a bunch of Yeah, cuz, you know, it’s like, I think there was a couple scenes in Django Unchained from a few years back that was shot in that same area. And there’s like, parts of Iron Man were shot there when they had to pretend they were in Afghanistan, like, anytime they need, like the sort of desolate, but mountain area. Yeah, they go out here to this area and drive around and pretend pretend they’re in Humvees and Afghanistan or something, you know, or, or old west stuff but but out in this area, like it seemed like it had kind of turned into like a rougher area for a while there’s like tons of broken glass in the past and then like now, it’s like an outdoors like rock climbers area, like the market for it kind of changed, I guess. Or like it just kind of got pushed out a little bit. Maybe over time. I don’t think it I don’t think they were they were crazy, but it seems like it’s way different. Now. Interest is way different. But maybe it’s the same maybe it’s like, you know, I don’t know, in 10 years or something. It’s like, super a super big deal to go to go camp or you know, go to go look at waterfalls or something down on the Illinois. Yeah, but no, never, never down there. It’s just gonna be cave junction people. I guess. That’s what it’s gonna always be. is is it’s a chip, that stuff happens, but but I was gonna ask you about. So you’re talking about truck stuff. I wanted to ask you. Have you ever used the hijack before? Let’s say that again, a hijack. Have you heard of that? or seeing that? It’s like that tool. I think Dave has one our buddy Dave. I think he wanted to show me Show me how to use it one time, but like, you probably wouldn’t because you have a winch. But I think it was supposed to do some of that. But it’s like a jack tool like like a manual thing. Like so you can use it as a as a lever to like ratchet stuff down or if that’s like if you had a webbing chain. Okay. Okay, so what hasn’t changed in the strap? And it looks like it’s like a it’s like a four foot piece of like steel, right? It’s like a big steel bar. And it’s got like a hook in it. And yeah, and then like one of the kind of moves through but you can you can jack something like fourth or two feet or three feet or something like that.
Yeah. Okay. So I’ve always known that to be called a come along. Come along, huh? Yeah, that’s what I’ve always done knows are super handy to have great tool. How do you use? Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, basically, you find a point of anchor. You would hook by, for example, let’s say a tree. Okay, you’re stuck in a ditch. You can take this come along. And essentially, yeah, it’s like a it’s a lever on a section of chain with a hook on it. You can wrap it around said tree. Okay. Now from there, you tie off to, let’s say your truck. It’s stuck in a ditch. And then it has this ratcheting. Yeah, this this ratcheting mechanism on it that gives you like a huge pull ratio. And you’re using that lever as well. And basically, you can pull a lot of stuff out. I mean, before, before tow trucks were super manual, and everything was hydraulic. They always use those on them. Really. Yeah. I’ve used it to straighten out bumpers on vehicles before. I mean, they have a huge cooling capacity. So Oh, wow, really? Yeah, great tool, great investment. That’s just one of those things. I mean, I don’t have one of my truck right now. But that’s definitely something I would love to keep in there. Just for the sake of let’s say, you know your vehicle into a spot that you can’t get out of. And now your winches are unusable because it’s on the front of your truck, right? It’s something you could hook on to the tow hooks of your rear bumper or something like that, and still pull yourself out.
Yeah, wow. Oh, that makes sense. A bit. Yeah. Like, why you’d want to have one there. I’ve seen how they’ve been used a couple of times, and it seemed like it’d be really useful. Yeah, some of the stuff that it was that they do, but yeah,
so that’s something also I kind of want to talk about, like, you know, outfitting your rig for these overland excursions, if
you will, yeah.
Just, you know, being prepared, you know, kind of just being ready for that unseen circumstance that could potentially ruin a trip. It’s like, I like having I like having tow chain, or tow strap or something like that. Something that I can pull somebody or have somebody pull me out of with, right, because you never really know where you’re going. A lot of times you’re looking at old BLM maps or Forest Service maps, and you’re just kind of going on a whim gonna
fall down many times. Road. Yeah. Or like, what if a tree fell down? You know, it’s like, yeah, it’s just blah, or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I saw that on on somebody else’s chip. They did like five days in British Columbia, they’re traveling through and they they took photos and they posted it later. Because all the all the trees that were falling over that they had to like, sit and like cut-through for an hour, you know, yeah. And then kick out of the way and then and then keep going because they like couldn’t there like hundreds of miles out and they got to go through again. So you know, they’re set up to they’re this big, like Firemen’s Polanski that they’re just, you know, chopping away at these big trees that have come down.
God, I would love to have a class game. I trucked it is expensive, man. Oh, yeah. Look, I should have taken one when I worked fire, but But no, um, yeah, having something to cut with. I usually do carry an axe. Yes, usually in my toolbox. I mean, if you can take a chainsaw, especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of backcountry stuff like that where you’re going, right? people haven’t been for years, especially if it’s the springtime, you just had a heavy winter, anything like that all things that take into account just kind of be ready for or you get up there in a windstorm and you find you’re in an area and retirees have root rot and stuff. And, you know, you get to where you’re going. You’re driving back out. Now you’ve got, you know, a 24 inch tree lane in the middle of the
road. Now you’re stuck. You’re stuck there. Yeah. If you were ready. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, Oh, well. I figured it out until until some Forest Service truck gets back in here in a month. You’re ever Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’d be bad news. Or Yeah, something like that happen. But that makes a lot of sense. What other stuff? What other stuff do you carry around your truck for things, for instance? Like when you’re gone?
I always I always err on the side of just like, what if I got stuck, you know, I always have I have a first aid kit. You know, I keep I keep probably like six to 10 bottles of water in my truck at all times. generally have food as some of it I wouldn’t want to eat because it’s been floating around between my vehicles for like seven years now. That’s good. But But you know, if it came down to it, I
did it. Yeah, I’ve got a few a few things set up like that. So yeah, dude, I’d be happy is around.
Yeah, I know. I’ve got I’ve got plenty of rope rope is like one of the handiest things you can ever have. You know, I’ve got lighters, couple knives, just things, things of that nature. Where you could really work yourself out. And if I’m, if I’m planning for a trip or something, then I’m obviously going to step it up a little bit more, but those are the things I keep in there daily. You know, like a, like a jump station is super great. We talked about that. other episodes.
I’ve saved myself a couple of times by having a jump station around. That’s really yeah. Yeah, yeah, man. You get out to those places. Nobody jumped you. Yeah, you know, I need a better one. I need a more robust. Well, it seems like you have to update them every few years. Well, okay.
There’s this new one. Yeah. I just saw and it’s made by gold zero. It’s called the Yeti. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if you have an extra grand laying around.
is a grant. Just an easy easy 1000 bucks. But it’s like a full on generator man. Oh, yeah. Ron’s for like 12 hours. You can like power. Your house
I’ve I’ve seen people go for setup. I’ve heard people that get that as a kind of a core and then they they get a few of the bigger solar panels that connect to it and so they do solar and they charge that and then they’ve got the power bank to draw like heavy power items off of that it seems really cool. Yeah, it seems like I’ve seen people take that it’s kind of like their their like RV power system or their camp power system like what we’re talking about where they run like yeah, just just everything everything that they need to I remember being at at the gorge for the concert I think with you guys. Today Matthew’s been in and like yeah, the one of the one of the party camps You know, I’m talking about like where they have like yeah, going all the time. I think one of those was was just running one of them you know, the bro camps from from University of Washington. And they’re in their mom’s minivan, but they’ve got this this like $1,000 this like, I remember seeing a Yeti, one of those Yeti power packs and they’d have it plugged in to run the stereo until the battery was like that whole weekend and they were just pumping out pumping out the beats.
No, you know what, one thing I really do want to do is take a little bit of fabrication but not much I mean for 100 bucks you can you can fabricate this. I want to clear a little bit of room on the passenger side of my truck in the engine compartment. Yeah, I want to mount another battery in there. Oh yeah. And then have an isolation switch to it so I can isolate it cut all power from it so it’ll just sit charge and then anytime I need that I have a spare battery that I can either jump my current battery off of or you know worst case scenario I could swap it with my other battery man that’s
a sweet idea but well yeah cuz you probably want on both as car batteries but I had heard of in the past I think Scott talked about it our buddy Scott talked about it when they were doing that music trip the music tour thing but but I’d also heard a bit from this other guy from from one of these overland places or you in one of these trips that we’re doing Overlanding were in the back yet an SUV but he took a marine battery like one from above one of those deep cycle yeah a deep cycle one or like what you’d haven’t seen in the RV is to when I’m working out with those they have the deep cycle marine batteries in there that run the house you know when the power to the engines off but it’s yeah where they have like the car battery charge like trickle charge the deep cycle marine battery during the time that it’s running and then they draw you know like the law yeah your your alternator is still charging that battery all the time. Yeah, it looked like it was a really cool solution for like they ran they just ran all their all their stuff like they would when they were traveling or you know like had stuff charged or whatever it is that they would they would want to do. I think that you know work on your laptop at night when your car’s off. They can do all that sort of stuff. Just run it run it right off the power from the car, but you don’t have to worry about killing the battery. Man. Yeah, same thing.
Yeah, same same principle, basically. Yeah, but yeah, that’s something I want to do. I think I can get by cheaper with just doing another car battery. But regardless, you know, it’s I think it’s a great setup to have. And that’s something I’d like to do. I’m getting this. I’m getting a commuter track just for work, I think is a sweet idea, man. Yeah, so I’m going to be spending a lot of time just really turn it might crack into just you know, full time read trip, camping hunting angling rig that’s just ready to go for any time any situation. Jump in it and go That’s so cool. Yeah, go job, man. Forget about it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I just have, man. I don’t know if I told you but I was. So I did a couple of these outdoor shows this year. Right. And I did one in Denver and then one in Las Vegas. And both of them man, they have all these different you know, Outfitters and sponsors and stuff that show up so they had like, in Denver they had Ford and Chevy and all these different all these different car manufacturers there with like, you know, like the 2017 you know, 2500 Silverado just fully loaded just just so rigged out for you know, just anything. And they had a you know, the Toyota the Tacoma just fully loaded so so yeah, just like the dream vehicle for for the stuff we do, you know, totally Yeah, it’s just such envy I have for Oh, I know, but you’re looking at it to go this is probably like $100,000 rig.
Oh, yeah. For new track. And then like the like, yeah, the whole like,
oh, all the custom modifications and everything to it. But But Man spectacular. I mean, somebody owns one somewhere.
Now it looks like it’d be a blast. It’d be so fun. It would suck to scratch it though. Oh, yeah. Oregon pinstriping right. Yeah. Just blackberries scraping the sides as you go down the driveway. Yeah, that’s exactly. That’s sweet, man. You know, I want to get a canopy for my truck. I think you were talking about getting a canopy for your truck. I was looking into it. I was looking about what how much of a tax return does a man need to get to own his own new canopy. I was looking at new canopies. Well, because I know that there’s I know that there’s other canopies out there. I know that there’s a lot of canopies out there. Really, I should look into the reseller market more for it I know like I would Oh yeah.
And a lot of places that just specialize in selling nothing but refurbished canopies Yeah, I can have a painted to match your vehicle and whatever else
which yeah is what I want to go forward to and I mean it’s gonna be super basic it’s gonna go black it’s gonna kind of to town with the truck is what I figured to go with the the other stuff but so that should be easy enough but I want to get one that that does match that truck. Have you looked into that a little bit? I was looking into a little bit of between like a RV and Lear and snug top lamb snug top are the two that I’m really familiar with. I’ve had one of each Yeah, and I found out the other day that they’re the same brand or like or yeah or it’s snug top Oh definitely make the same product are they actually know it? Yeah, snug top owns leered now and I think AR is different. Okay, that’s what the that’s what the like I went to some some hokey dealership down here. And they’re like, it’s like this, and then this is weird. I’ve heard that in the in the RV side, too. We’re saying like GM, you know, it’s like a GM and a Pontiac and Saturn and the Chevy. It’s all it’s all like the same master company. But it seems like the same guy. Same kind of game in the, in the truck canopy racket. Yeah, so I was looking at that. It seemed like it’s 1600 bucks to get like the new like, brand new. Nice. Well, yeah, bill for my year of a truck, which is pretty it’s pretty expensive. It’s kind of what I figured for for like brand new stuff, though. But I want to drop down and and look at the US market and get some sub 1000 bucks, which I’m sure is out there. Oh, man, you can you can get in over 300 bucks for a nice canopy. I bet. Yeah, I bet that I can. And I want to be pretty smart about it. I’d love to get to save that much money. I was trying to figure out what to do. Cuz Yeah, the Colorado, which is like the smaller size. It’s like, mid size or something. I guess it’s the same truck bed size as the s 10. Back in the 90s. Yeah, I’m part of the 2000s. And then and then I guess like a lot of the other Colorado’s have that that extended cab type. So apparently, there’s gonna be a ton of of canopies out there that would fit the dimensions of the truck bed, but I am going to insert are what I want to do. I want to try and match it up pretty well. You know, I want it to be kind of like have the same stock or something like fits pretty well. But I figured they all got or they if it fits, it’s gonna kind of fit. You know, I’ve I decided I could probably figure it out. I don’t know. It seems cool, though. The other thing I want to figure out is like the drawers, I talk to you about that before too long. It seems like I’ve seen people build them out of plywood. I’ve seen companies now making them where they have like, like I think AR ri like you can buy the canopy right? But then you can also buy this, this this piece. I don’t know what it is, but it’s shaped like your truck bed. And yeah, I fit it in there kind of around the wheel wheel well. And it’s like these, these two long drawers like these kitchen drawers that pull out, but they’re just like four feet long. And you just you just slide it out you like you drop your tailgate, and you just slide these these two sweet drawers out, load all your stuff in there. And then you put your pads and your mattress or whatever it is over the top. And you just have all your storage and then your sleeping area and stuff right inside your canopy.
Yeah, no, I’ve seen those. Those are awesome. And actually, I’ve seen a couple people do that same thing out of plywood, and I kind of Drive for Work vehicle one time. Cool. You know, I mean, if you have a canopy and it’s gonna stay out of the rain, I would say go out of plywood. If you have any type of like building ability rows, you can be into, you know, 150 bucks and a Saturday and have a pretty legitimate setup. Oh, yeah, I would go that route. Definitely. Yeah. And another thing like, and on the same lines of building stuff like that, not just for your truck. Yeah, I built that kitchen box. Right. For for going along on trips. And now that’s been so helpful to have.
But yeah, it’s just like some constructed box where you put that that set of things in. That’s a lot too. We figured that kind of early on to but like, yeah, we were like just out of college. So instead of building a sweet kitchen box that was actually functional for a long time. We got like a filing box. Like if you go down like for everybody’s doing their taxes last minute, and they have to go through you know, there’s like these little file boxes that are that are for like manila folders to sit in. And you’d like you’re supposed to stack your stuff in and store it in the closet or whatever. It’s like an office space or you know, office keeping supply thing, but they’re like five bucks or something, a piece is just like these cheap, but like 1212 by 12 little plastic containers. We’re like, man, okay, we’re gonna get like two of these. This one’s gonna be our kitchen. Like everything that’s part of the kitchen stuff and augers in this one but that’s how so much to contain. And sort of separate between like, I this is all the shower stuff that we want to have. That’s gonna be all over there. This is all the kitchen stuff. Foodstuff, man that helped the house so much like just organize a small pieces and camping.
Well, so much of that. Yeah, so much of that, like, you know, road trip and stuff is like, or that weekend warrior type thing where you’re gonna get out there and go do it really takes organization because I mean, otherwise, you’re spending, you know, all of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday trying to get stuff ready. And then you can leave on a, you know, Friday night or Saturday morning and get the most out of your weekend. But when you have all that stuff ready organized, it always stays there, it never leaves it. It’s so much better, man that takes off so much of the stress of doing that. Because you just get to get to go and then come back and deal with it later.
I think that’s a that’s a huge improvement. And I could definitely see how valuable that would be. I mean, even for I mean, it’s the beginning of the season. So I’m Rusty. But I consider myself fairly well prepared for some camping stuff here to get to get started to jump into it. And when we went on that trip together, we met up with you out in plush. That was like, two whole evenings after works worth of like prepping different types of things. So you’re ready to go. And you Oh, oh, yeah, I forgot about how much work this is.
No. And that’s it. That’s it do is like as ready as I was. I mean, I still pack from probably like Tuesday on you know, just kind of cuz. And also let’s, let’s be fair, this is like one of the first trips of the season, you know, it’s kind of like, well, what am I missing in that kitchen box? Like, what do I need to do here? He gets cleaned up organized again. Yeah. But once you’re in the swing of things, then then you’re good to go.
Yeah, once you get to utilize your time. Yeah, you get kind of like you kind of evened out to it all after a bit of time. It’s kind of it goes, I like that part. When you get you get you get a couple couple experiences under your belt, you practice a couple times, and then it’s smooth sailing from there. Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes when you run into stuff,
it’s like anything you do. Get more efficient at it. Yeah, I believe it. Robin, thanks for doing this podcast. Man. I
really appreciate you
talking about talking about Chuck stuff, talking about chips and stuff. We got so many other trips and stuff that we did in the track, too. I want to talk about that some other time.
Yeah, no, I’d like to know we got we got enough to keep going for a while. But hey, on a side note, we were talking about all these places that we enjoy going that have been getting shut down or, you know, heavily monitored due to people like littering and doing stuff like that. If you’re an outdoor recreator. And you like join these places, which you should, because you’re listening to this podcast, pack your stuff out, leave stuff better than you found it and take care of it. It’s not just for us, it’s for future generations. Yeah. And if we want to keep having rights to these areas and things, then we need to kind of maintain them and be responsible with them.
So
that’s a no, it’s my concluding thought, I suppose.
I think it’s a super important. And, yeah, it really makes a lot of sense. I think it was like Roosevelt when he put together the Parks Service. And he said that these resources. Everybody was mad. They’re like, no, give us give us the stuff. It’s our land. If it’s the public, we give give us those trees. Now we want to cut them down. We want to burn it. He said now it’s left to the to the womb of time, I think is right, that is what he said. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right, like we we need, it’s still in the future. And people in the future from us now still are gonna need it. And
it’s funny, because now he’s a hero. And at the time, he was, you know, everybody
staying at the stage. But we see it even still, I mean, Robert, you know, going out a few weeks ago, seeing seeing what’s out there in Lakeview. And you just look around at that kind of landscape and how unchanged it’s been for a few 100 years and then you know, kind of seeing seeing those areas where Wow, there used to be water here. There’s these artifacts here. You see these petroglyphs on the rocks out here from the native people that lived in the area. Yeah, and you go, man, this is unchanged. This needs to be protected in some way, or it can’t be just disturbed and you know, just just ruined by, by people. Yeah,
I think that area would look a lot better with some duplexes,
rents and tracks. housing in there, put some put some oil pumps in there. Get the uranium mining industry up and running. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Take care of those lands there for all of us if you’re an American citizen, you own them.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s still Yeah, and amazing benefit that we have in this country to have so much public land and really just so much wilderness area that is hardly managed at all. There’s so much that’s ours, that we have a lot of agency over, but even just as people.
I mean, we’re the world leaders as far as land conservation goes, you know, as far as like, you know, maintain public lands, there’s no place in the world that has the same, the same opportunities that we do as far as that goes.
Yeah, I think it’s a really cool thing. And it’s just super awesome that we have, you know, so much opportunity now to get access. But yeah, man, it is. It’s cool. Robin. Oh, good. Photo calm. Hey, thanks, man. Yeah, gotta plug the site at Billy Newman on Instagram. I don’t know. But that’s Yeah, it’s best stuff. Yeah, find some photos and stuff we’ve got. Yeah, check out the podcast like you probably are. Subscribe if you can shoot us an email, get notes. If anybody actually listens to this. Yeah. shoot us an email or a message or something? Or leave a leave a comment on the YouTube or the I think it’s maybe I’m going to be on YouTube or the iTunes listing. leave us a review or comment there. Wherever there’s, there’s places you can contact us. Yeah, leave us something. Give us some fodder something to work with.
Yeah, what do you what do you guys want to know about? They want to know about how we drove our trucks around the Illinois River.
I’m sure that I should. That’s number one topic of this podcast in the future. But Robert, thanks, man, for doing this podcast. I really appreciate it’s really cool. Hey, absolutely. Thank you guys for listening. Yeah, episode nine, man. We’re working it out. And you say right tonight he came through really clear on FaceTime is where his work yeah, that’s fantastic. That’s that’s a rarity. These parts good internet day. It’s weird how it is. It’s like a burn day. Right. You know, when the smoke would stay low, like a no-burn day? Yeah. It’s like a no podcast day. There’s no bandwidth. Yeah. No bandwidth to the countryside today. No podcast. Right. Robin, thank you very much, man. I really appreciate you doing it. Yep, we’re coming back next week, episode. 10. It’s gonna be the same. Yeah, that’s okay. We’ll get through it. It’ll be great. It’s gonna be better than all the other ones. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s all that’s what I meant to say.
Yeah, I got a
robbery. Yeah. I think it’s fantastic. Man. We’re gonna come back next week. Next Wednesday. We’ll probably put up another episode of The get out there podcast episode 10. It’s gonna be sweet man. Appreciate? You betcha. So on behalf of Robert bisca rap, thank you very much for listening to this episode. of the get out there podcast.