711: Jimmy Hits the Sphere, Tyler Hits the Rubicon — Memorial Day Weekend Stories
Snail Trail 4x4 Offroad Podcast
711: Jimmy Hits the Sphere, Tyler Hits the Rubicon — Memorial Day Weekend Stories
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Term
integrated bump stop
A bump stop is like a safety cushion for your suspension. If the suspension compresses too far on a trail, the bump stop helps prevent damage and makes the ride less harsh.
Term
Johnny joints
Johnny joints are heavy-duty joints used in suspension links. They’re made to survive off-road stress and still let the suspension move through bumps and twists.
Term
hymes
Hymes are strong joint parts used in suspension. They help the suspension links pivot as the wheels move, which is especially helpful off-road.
Term
offsets
Offsets are parts that move a mounting point slightly to change suspension geometry. Builders use them to get better alignment and clearance for off-road driving.
Term
Aluminum links
Aluminum links are suspension arms/links made from aluminum. They can be lighter than steel and resist rust better, which helps off-road setups last longer.
Term
link suspension kit
A link suspension kit is an upgrade that changes how the suspension controls the axle. Off-roaders use it to help the wheels move better over rocks and ruts while keeping the vehicle more stable.
Car
Wrangler Rubicon
The Jeep Wrangler is a 4-wheel-drive SUV built for off-road trails. The episode mentions doing maintenance while using it on the Rubicon Trail. It also notes an “elite partnership,” which implies there’s special support or involvement related to the Wrangler.
Term
laser net
“Laser net” sounds like a tool that uses lasers to measure things very precisely. Off-road shops use tools like that to make sure parts fit and are made accurately.
Part
axles
Axles are the parts that send power from the drivetrain out to the wheels. Off-road axles have to be tough because they take a lot of shock and twisting.
Part
knuckles
Knuckles are parts that help connect the steering and suspension to the wheel. They’re important because they affect how the wheel turns and how strong the front end is under bumps.
Part
unit bearings
Unit bearings are integrated wheel-hub bearing assemblies that combine the hub and bearing into a single serviceable unit. They’re common in off-road axles because they can simplify maintenance and improve consistency under heavy loads.
Part
axel housings
Axle housings are the metal “shells” that hold the axle internals together. They protect the gears and shafts and help keep everything aligned when you hit rocks or ruts.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a pickup truck, meaning it has a cargo bed for hauling and gear. It’s designed to handle both normal roads and off-road driving. The podcast mentions it in connection with a “Light Ranger 500” sale or promotion.
Car
Bugatti Divo
The Bugatti Divo is an extremely expensive, high-performance sports car. It’s made for fast driving and track-style performance. In the episode, it’s mentioned because of a related display or stand, not because it’s an off-road vehicle.
Term
tows
Here “tows” just means pulling a trailer or camper behind the truck. When you tow, the truck has to work harder, so towing ability is a big deal.
Car
Ford F350
The Ford F-350 is a heavy-duty truck that’s designed to pull trailers and campers. Here, the point is that it tows well even when you’re carrying a camper.
Term
fuel mileage
“Fuel mileage” means how far the vehicle can go on a gallon of fuel. They’re saying towing didn’t hurt their mileage as much as they expected.
Term
flange head
A flange head is a bolt head with a wider base. That wider base helps it hold tight and spread force, which matters when you’re mounting something near plastic covers.
Term
M8 by 125
“M8 by 125” tells you what size the bolt is and how its threads are spaced. Using the right thread pitch is key so the bolt screws in smoothly and securely.
Term
hex head
A hex head is the kind of bolt head that looks like a stop sign shape (six sides). You tighten it with a wrench or socket.
Term
Torx bit heads
Torx bit heads use a star-shaped socket in the bolt. You use a matching star-shaped tool, and it tends to grip better so the tool is less likely to slip.
Term
button head
A button head is a low, rounded bolt head. It’s used when you need the bolt to sit close to the surface so plastic trim or covers can fit correctly.
Term
AC system recharged
Recharging the AC system means topping up the refrigerant so the air conditioner can blow cold air again. If it keeps needing refrigerant, there may be a leak that should be checked.
Term
roof rack
A roof rack is the gear-carrying setup on the top of your vehicle. It often uses special mounts and fasteners, and this episode is about getting those mounts to fit under plastic roof pieces.
Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is a 4-wheel-drive SUV made for off-road trails. The episode talks about an older Bronco showing up at an off-road gathering. That’s a sign it’s still used and recognized by people who drive off-road.
Term
air down
“Air down” means letting some air out of your tires before off-roading. It helps the tire grip better on loose surfaces because it can spread out more. But if you let too much air out, you can end up with problems and have to add air back.
Term
valve cores
The valve core is the little piece inside the tire’s air valve that controls how air flows. Some people remove it to let the tire deflate quickly when they’re airing down for trails. It’s quick, but it’s easy to take too much air out if you’re not watching.
Term
air compressor
An air compressor is a tool that pumps air back into your tires. Off-roaders bring one so they can fix tire pressure when they air down too much. It helps you get back to the right pressure for safer driving.
Term
PSI
PSI is how you measure how much air is in a tire. Higher PSI means the tire is stiffer; lower PSI lets it flex more on dirt and rocks.
Term
dial mechanical gauge
A dial mechanical gauge is a tire pressure meter with a needle. It’s usually most accurate in the middle of its scale, so if your tire pressure is near the top or bottom of the range, the reading can be off.
Term
airing down
Airing down means letting some air out of your tires for off-road. It helps the tire grip better on dirt and uneven ground, but you have to air back up later.
Term
zero to 60 gauge
If you plan to set tires around 30 PSI, using a gauge that goes up to 60 PSI helps because 30 is near the middle of the dial. Gauges are usually more accurate near the middle than near the ends.
Term
air up
“Air up” means putting air back into your tires after you’ve run them lower for off-roading. It’s important to get the pressure right before you drive normally again.
Term
mechanical gauges
A mechanical gauge is a pressure meter that uses real moving parts inside. If you push it way past its rated limit, those internal parts can get damaged, and the gauge may stop working correctly.
Term
over pressurize
Over-pressurizing is when pressure goes higher than a tool is meant to measure. For gauges, that can bend or break the internal parts, so the gauge can’t be trusted anymore.
Term
recalibrate
Recalibration is the process of adjusting a measurement device so its readings match a known correct reference. In the segment, the host argues that once a mechanical gauge is damaged by over-pressurizing, recalibration effectively requires rebuilding the internal spring/mechanism or replacing the gauge.
Term
digital sensors
Digital sensors turn pressure (or other measurements) into an electronic signal. That signal can then be shown on a digital gauge, usually with less reliance on fragile mechanical linkages.
Topic
digital gauges versus analog gauges
They compare digital gauges to analog gauges and explain what happens when the pressure goes too high. The takeaway is that their digital approach is meant to avoid the failure mode of damaged mechanical gauges.
Term
inflation and deflation gear
This is the tire-pressure setup used off-road—tools that let you add air or let air out. Gauges matter because you want to know exactly what pressure you’re running.
Term
tire
They’re talking about how much air is in the tires. Off-roaders change tire pressure because it affects traction and how the tire “squishes” over rocks and bumps.
Part
front coilovers
Coilovers are the suspension parts that help the wheels stay in contact with the ground. Changing the front ones can make the truck handle rocks and bumps much better.
Topic
Trahoorex
“Trahoorex” sounds like a specific off-road trip or event. They’re saying the suspension changes felt noticeably better during that outing.
Concept
rock crawling
Rock crawling is when you drive slowly over rocks and obstacles. It’s careful driving because the vehicle can get banged up if you push too hard.
Concept
shearing stuff off
They’re worried about breaking parts off the truck. On rough trails, if you hit something wrong or stress the drivetrain too much, you can snap or tear components.
Term
pinch point
A pinch point is a tight spot on the trail where your truck or Jeep can’t easily move around. If someone gets stuck there, it can be a big problem because other vehicles can’t get through.
Term
tie rod
A tie rod is a steering linkage rod that helps connect the steering to the wheels. If it’s damaged or bent, the wheels may not steer correctly—sometimes even getting stuck in a bad position.
Term
pitman arm
The pitman arm is a steering lever connected to the steering box. When you turn the wheel, it moves the linkage that turns the wheels—if it’s wrong, steering can fail or get stuck.
Term
drive shafts
Drive shafts are the rotating parts that send power from the drivetrain to the axles. If they’re damaged or not connected, the vehicle may not be able to drive normally.
Topic
dirty dozen
“Dirty dozen” is the name of a specific trail area where they camp and drive. It’s basically a named spot on the route.
Term
front wheels up on the ledge
That phrase means the truck’s front tires climb up onto a rock step. It’s a typical trail obstacle where the suspension has to flex to keep control.
Term
XO cage
An “XO cage” refers to an off-road roll-cage style built to protect occupants during impacts or rollovers. It’s typically a welded steel structure that ties into the truck’s frame/structure to add strength and safety on rough trails.
Car
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma is a popular off-road pickup truck. Here, they’re talking about a modified Tacoma with extra safety/strength gear for trail driving.
Term
solid axle
A solid axle connects both wheels with one strong axle. That can help the tires stay on the ground better when the trail gets bumpy or uneven.
Term
steering box
The steering box is the part that turns your steering wheel input into actual steering at the wheels. If it’s broken, you might be able to spin the steering wheel but the Jeep won’t turn the tires.
Term
rear axle
The rear axle is the part that helps the rear wheels turn and stay connected to the truck/Jeep. If it breaks, the rear wheels may not work correctly, and the vehicle often can’t safely drive out of the trail.
Term
drag link
The drag link is a steering rod that helps move steering motion from the steering system to the parts that actually turn the wheels. If it’s loose or damaged, steering can fail even if everything else looks connected.
Term
steering shaft
The steering shaft is the part that transfers steering movement from the steering wheel to the steering mechanism. If it doesn’t turn when it should, it can point to a broken connection inside the steering system.
Term
PSC big bore box
PSC makes steering parts for off-road vehicles. A “big bore” steering box is designed to help your steering feel stronger and more responsive, especially when you’re turning on rough terrain or with bigger tires.
Term
red head box
“Red head box” is an enthusiast nickname for a specific style/brand of Toyota steering gearbox used in off-road builds. The “red head” name comes from the appearance of the unit, and people swap these for improved steering feel and durability compared with stock boxes.
Term
Saginaw box
A Saginaw box is a type of steering gearbox that’s popular in the off-road world. People upgrade to it because it’s a proven design and there are lots of parts and options available.
Term
winch
A winch is like a heavy-duty power puller used to get a stuck vehicle out. It’s mounted to the truck, and if the mounting isn’t strong enough, the winch or bumper can get damaged during a hard recovery.
Topic
the Rubicon
“The Rubicon” is a well-known off-road trail that’s famous for being really tough. It’s the kind of place where vehicles can break parts like axles or steering when they hit hard obstacles.
Term
splines were sheared off
The axle has a connection with ridges (splines) that lock it to the rest of the drivetrain. If those ridges “shear off,” the connection breaks, and the axle can’t transfer power the way it should.
Term
carrier
The carrier is the internal housing in the rear axle that holds the gears. If a broken axle part gets stuck inside it, you can’t just swap the axle easily—you have to get the stuck piece out first.
Term
puddles
Puddles on a trail can make things slower and harder because the ground gets slippery. They can also make it easier to get stuck if the puddle is deeper than it looks.
Place
Loon
“Loon” here refers to Loon Lake, a common waypoint/area used by off-roaders on the Rubicon Trail. People often stage vehicles there and use it as a reference point for timing how long it takes to ride or drive sections.
Topic
Rubicon trail
The Rubicon Trail is a well-known off-road trail in California. It’s famous for being difficult—lots of rocks, steep spots, and muddy or wet areas.
Term
Dana sixties
“Dana sixties” means the vehicle has Dana 60 axles. People bring them up because they’re designed for stronger, tougher off-road use.
Term
straight pipe V eights
“Straight pipe” usually means the exhaust is set up to be louder, with less muffling. “V8” means the engine has eight cylinders arranged in a V shape.
Car
a little two door JK
“JK” is the Jeep Wrangler generation they’re talking about. A two-door Wrangler is the shorter version, which usually helps it maneuver on tight trails and obstacles.
Term
shaft part
A “shaft part” usually refers to a cylindrical metal component that transmits motion or torque inside a drivetrain or suspension system. In off-road breakdowns, a damaged shaft can prevent the vehicle from moving correctly until the part is recovered and reinstalled.
Term
magnet
They needed a small metal part that was hard to reach, so they used a strong magnet to pick it up. It’s a quick way to grab metal pieces without taking everything apart.
Term
toolkits
A toolkit is just the set of tools you keep in your vehicle for fixing problems on the trail. The host is saying they built theirs to be useful when something breaks out on the trail.
Brand
Gearwrench
Gearwrench is a brand that makes mechanic tools. In this story, the host says they had a Gearwrench magnet tool that helped get the broken part out.
Topic
upper helipad
They’re talking about a couple of flat areas on the trail (called helipads) at different heights. They stop and hang out there while working their way around the rocks.
Topic
camping down at Buck
They’re talking about where they were hanging out for the weekend. It sets the scene for the off-road trip and the vehicle work that happened there.
Term
ready welder
A “ready welder” refers to having welding equipment on hand to perform quick repairs on-site. In off-road situations, people may weld brackets, mounts, or damaged metal parts to get a vehicle back on the trail.
Term
hooking batteries together
They’re connecting batteries so the system has more power. How you connect them matters a lot—wrong connections can be dangerous or break the vehicle’s electrical system.
Term
drain plug
A drain plug is a screw that seals the bottom of a component so the fluid inside doesn’t leak out. If it comes loose or falls out, the differential can lose its fluid and start wearing out fast.
Term
diff
“Diff” is the drivetrain part that helps the wheels turn at different speeds when you go around corners. If it’s leaking fluid or low on fluid, it can get damaged.
Term
carnage welder
A “carnage welder” is a portable welder people bring on off-road trips for emergency repairs. If something breaks, it lets you fix it on the trail instead of waiting for a tow.
Term
Pelican case
A Pelican case is a tough, hard case for protecting gear. It’s made to handle rough travel—like water, bumps, and dust—so your equipment stays working.
Term
wire feed
Wire feed means the welder automatically pushes welding wire into the weld. That helps you weld more consistently without manually feeding wire.
Topic
welding for trail repairs
They talk about bringing welding gear on off-road trips so you can fix broken parts right there. In this story, they weld a damaged drain plug to stop a leak.
Term
jumper cables
Jumper cables are cables you use to start a car with a dead battery by borrowing power from another battery. It’s a common roadside/off-road fix to get the vehicle going again.
Brand
more flight
“More Flight” sounds like the name of the gear brand they’re talking about. The guest recognizes it and mentions owning the gear in Australia.
Part
rear air locker
A rear air locker is a device that helps your truck get traction by locking the rear wheels together. It uses air pressure to make that happen. This helps when one wheel starts spinning and the other doesn’t have enough grip.
Part
solenoid
A solenoid is like an electrically controlled valve. It decides when air gets sent to the locker to lock or unlock the differential. If the air line near it leaks, the locker may not work right.
Term
airline
Here, an airline is just the air hose that carries the pressurized air to the locker controls. If it leaks, the system can’t build pressure, and the locker won’t work properly. Fixing small hose leaks is a common air-locker maintenance task.
Term
air lockers
An air locker is a 4x4 feature that can “lock” the two wheels on an axle together. That helps you keep moving when one wheel starts slipping. It uses compressed air to engage and disengage the lock.
Car
Jeep Gladiator
The Jeep Gladiator is a pickup truck that’s also designed for off-road driving. It has a truck bed for gear and a 4-wheel-drive setup for trails. The podcast mentions someone who owns one and wants to go off-roading more.
LIVE
Four wheel underground is making some big changes.
They really are. What's really cool about what they're doing right now is they're
kind of changing the way the business is set in the sense that you get to now buy things
all a cart.
Absolutely. So if you want the upper frame bracket, you can just buy that.
Yeah. If you want the lower link bracket, because it has the integrated bump stop and
it's super stout and it looks really good too. You can get just those before you would
have to buy the whole kit. Now you're going to be like, that's the bracket I want.
He's also brought joints in house.
So now you can buy those all a cart from cartridge joints, rebuildable Johnny joints,
hymes, offsets, all sorts of different ones.
Do you know what else he brought in house?
Aluminum links, that's pretty rad.
He found a way to source aluminum links so that there's no extra charge on the suspension kits.
They now all come standard with aluminum links.
I know I'm totally jealous.
And thanks to the all a cart system, you can also order aluminum links if that's all you want.
So if you want to move your Toyota from Lee Springs to a link suspension kit,
check out four wheel underground.
We want to check with you guys today about on X off road.
Definitely one of our favorite apps for off roading.
Yeah, what's better is not only their software, but they also are doing a lot to be a part
of the off roading community here in the country from the trail revival program,
which I actually got to be a part of and use to do some maintenance on the Rubicon Trail too.
They have an elite partnership.
So if you are an on X off road user, you can go to any of their 40 plus partners on there
and you get discounts with any of those partners.
So from bringing the people to the brands to the listeners to everybody involved,
it sounds like they really want to be a part of our community.
So let's be a part of theirs.
Go download on X off road from your favorite app store.
Welcome one welcome all to the snail trail for back for podcast.
If you like going off roading in Toyotas, wrenching on Toyotas, camping in Toyotas,
and maybe even poking a little bit of fun at Toyotas.
And of course hearing about how fantastic doing some wheeling in Toyotas is.
Then this is the podcast for you.
That's right, ladies and germs.
My name is Tyler and joining me for another episode of snail trail for podcast,
which is episode is a Mr. Jimmy Jett.
How you doing, man?
I'm great 711 Jesus Christ.
711 711.
Do we get slushies today?
We should.
I want slushies today.
I was going to think if we should like go do a little research on 711 to talk about it.
Yeah, but yeah, if you want to know a little bit of history about 711,
they'll go over to the acquired podcast and they did a whole episode on Trader Joe's.
OK, but in the Trader Joe's episode, they talked about 711's because Trader Joe's
originally started as like a convenience store.
Yeah, it was compared to 711 and they talked a lot about 711.
OK, and how Tokyo and Japan and everybody over there really loves 711
and how it's a completely different thing really in Japan.
Oh, yeah, it's like upper class, like fancy little
convenience, like corner store interesting in Japan.
It's really kind of funny.
OK, yeah.
And yeah, but it started.
I think it started in Texas.
I don't remember him back right.
That's fun.
I will admit I have not listened to acquired at all, except for the Ferrari episode
that we listened to or half of it or whatever gone to or from Nevada.
I figure which one it was.
We were on our way there.
Yeah, we were about to go through or we were right around the X.
That's right.
The E.T. Highway and that's why we missed it because we were talking about
some other stuff. That's right.
So anyways, that was a fun episode.
I want to go and finish the Ferrari one.
That was pretty cool learning about kind of the background history there of
Ferrari and how everything started and everything.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, they do some great episodes.
I kind of want to mimic at least one of theirs and do it on another topic
that would fit our our category, our podcast.
Yeah, but I don't want to do the research.
Right. That's the big problem.
Yeah, like I would love to go and like do a deep dive interview on laser net
or on Bliler, right?
Because Bliler just bought spider tracks.
Really?
So they're building all the spider track stuff now out of their their
industrial shop of Bliler, whatever their industrial company is,
their racing team is Bliler Motorsports.
Right.
But I don't know what their industrial company is,
but they just bought spider tracks recently like the knuckles and the axles
and the axel housings, the knuckles, the unit bearings.
Everything is all made in house now.
Wow.
Under Bliler's industrial business.
Yeah.
I thought that was fascinating when I learned that.
So yeah, I think there's some it's some pretty cool stories behind
some people in the offered industry and being able to do some bigger deep
dives on those stories.
Yeah, I think you and I have always wanted to do a massive deep dive on KOH.
Right.
And all the history of KOH.
And so there's there's a few other things to that we'd love to get some
really good stories on.
So but it just takes so much time to do the research.
Yes.
And and organize everything.
So yeah, that's the hard part.
Yeah.
And but it could be the fun part too.
So you just never know.
Maybe we'll do a deep dive on something along those lines sometime or I don't know.
I've always thought Toyota or Jeep or something would be a fun deep dive as well.
But that's not here or there.
I think that could be a fun topic for another day.
But yeah, we've got a few things going.
Welcome back into the studio.
Thank you.
You too.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
It's it's been a long weekend.
Yeah, you you got you or had a busy schedule.
I was a very laid back relaxed schedule, which I definitely needed.
So yeah, I'm very happy with how the weekend went and did more relaxed.
But for some reason it wasn't very well, it was relaxed.
But it I didn't get a lot of sleep.
It felt like we'll jump into that in a little bit before we do.
I think we have some more announcements.
Let's see today is the 20, what is 26?
So this episode is coming out on the 28th, which means you have a few more days
to get in for the giveaways that we have going on with Russo, the fire extinguisher.
So you can go over it.
I rate four by four, click on the snail trail four by four podcast there.
And then you can click on the giveaway tier and that'll get you entered for the roof.
So fire extinguisher, which Tyler and I both believe is the most important
fire extinguisher you could have on your vehicle.
It really, for the most part, never goes bad.
It has a lifetime.
Well, it has a limited life warranty versus
because of the CO2 container inside of it, not necessarily the powder or anything else.
But they do make refill kits so you can carry one fire extinguisher, one refill kit
and you can have two fire extinguishers, which is kind of cool thing.
So yeah, if you want to get a chance to win the Russo fire extinguisher, go over to
you know where the I rate four by four and go sign in there.
We also have a discount code going on for Russo this month.
So if you want to get more than this one, if you want to get some five
pounders for your maybe your garage or your shop or more two point fives
for all the other vehicles in your fleet, you can do that.
I believe it's in the show notes and I'm trying to remember back,
but I think it's Russo crawlers and that will give you 25% off of the Russo products.
Did you ever watch the the firepan video?
No, he was talking about.
No, but I watched the the one where the side by side or whatever.
That one. Yeah. Yeah.
So the firepan, which is the one they have to use
in the test that has to get done in order to test a fire extinguisher and certify it.
Yeah. It's impressive.
It's he was like you're walking into a wall of fire that has to get put out by a
single charge on the fire extinguisher and it it did it and it's the he sent me
the video and I'll need to see if I can dig it up and we can post a link to it
or somewhere, but that one's really impressive.
There was going to be something there was something else I was going to say.
Oh, other discounts that are going on right now that people should be aware of
with Memorial Day stuff on X off-road is doing.
It's like 70 or 80% off.
Yeah.
They're their normal paid subscription for on X off-road is like 40 bucks.
They're doing it right now for 88 dollars, eight dollars a month.
It's awesome.
And I believe they also have a similar discount on the elite membership
as well, because they do have one on the on X hunt and on the backpack or the
discovery or whatever it's called.
Yeah.
But like those are the same kind of price points, $100 for the elite.
And they're down at like 15 bucks, 20 bucks right now.
Is something like that?
So I don't know how long that sale is going on.
I didn't do enough research.
It just popped up on my feed while I was doom scrolling last night and I was like,
damn on X. Right.
So if you guys don't have on X off-road,
Jimmy now used it multiple times daily out on Trail Hero X.
We use it almost every time we go out to.
It's very, very worthwhile, especially if it's like fucking 80% off right now.
So run, don't walk to check that out.
Also, we just learned on the discord.
Oh, yeah, that on X off-road is sponsoring Ford vehicles.
Essentially, really, if you have a 2017 or newer Ford vehicle
and have it registered on the Ford app.
Yeah. Ford is offering you a free one year subscription to Onyx.
Elite. I didn't know that if you don't already have on X elite.
Okay. So if you already have, it's not like you can tack it on
to your current subscription, unfortunately,
but you can like sign up your family members.
For that.
So it doesn't have it.
Exactly. Right.
So if you have a 2017 or newer Ford vehicle that is registered on the Ford app,
you can download and have an access link to a free one year subscription of Onyx Elite.
That's cool.
Yeah. So again, Kudos to Onyx for doing some really cool stuff.
So let's see.
What else do we have?
Well, I do want to do a shout out for the Light Ranger 500.
That sale is going on now.
I didn't have a chance to use it while I were at the places that I went this weekend.
But I do want to say that we have there's a limited amount of days left
before you can get into that.
If you have not received an email from us because I've said this a few times
and it seems like people either haven't received the email or it's gone somewhere
and now is lost.
But if you haven't received the email from us, get in contact with us.
We'll give you the discount code for the group buy.
They apparently they're sold out of the 500.
So I don't know if we overdid it or what.
But now it's like what do you call it a pre-order set up right now?
OK, so get in on the pre-order and you can still get that massive discount.
We had a listener reach out and be like, hey, it's Mark just sold out.
And so I messaged Rich and I was or Spencer.
And I was like, hey, like, is there any way we can like start a wait list
for some of the people that are like have the discount code?
And he's like, we're going to change it to a pre-order. OK.
And I was like, cool.
So just know that it's all sold out at the moment.
So get in on that pre-order, use the discount code for the group buy,
get yourself in line and get yourself an amazing light at a good price.
I forgot to order mine.
I got mine the other day.
I got mine.
I put one in Bobcat.
I put one in Charlotte and I put one in the assistance car
for it in case of an emergency.
Yeah, I need to I have like, I think eight I need to order.
So I totally forgot to do that.
I need to go do that.
Now I'm going to be on the wait list with everybody else.
So I did use the the one that we got.
Yeah, this weekend. Nice.
And it was fantastic. Good.
The single red light is perfect for inside tents
when you're having to climb in the tent and you're significant other
than your family is already in their sleep. Perfect. Yeah.
I was like, this is awesome.
And then just hang it up from the little attic space
that nets that are intense.
It was awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
I now I'm kicking myself in the butt that I didn't buy a stand
because Divos makes a really cool,
collapsible, very tight stand for their minis.
And for that would also work for the Light Ranger 500.
And I I wish I would have bought in one of those.
OK, so.
Cool. So there you guys go.
The only few more days left of work there essentially cutting off the discount
code, I believe at the end of May.
So once June 1st, June 1st is the last day
so that we can announce it on June 1st on the podcast.
Yeah. So the very June 1st is the last day
that you'll be able to go and get a Light Ranger 500 at the group by price.
Yeah. So once again, if you have not received the email for me
with the discount code, get in contact with me.
I'll give it to you. Cool. Yep.
Jimmy, I have not received an email with a discount.
I'm just kidding.
I probably have.
No, I don't think you did.
OK. Yeah, that's funny.
All right. Anything else that we have for announcement stuff?
We got Rousseau, Onyx stuff.
We do giveaways for Onyx.
We have a couple of elite memberships.
I think last time the last Thursday, maybe Monday show,
we went over some of the reviews Thursday.
And we were at 700 and I think 89 reviews.
Right. So there was only eleven spaces left.
I haven't looked since then to see how many spaces are left before 800
But we are coming up on 800 reviews,
which means we also have an Onyx elite subscription to give away
with a cool little swag pack from Jimmy and I and some of the companies
we've worked with in the past in the podcast at 800 reviews.
So once we reach 800 reviews,
all the spots are taken up, right?
So do we it's in order to get in for the giveaway, you have to leave a review.
So they're getting very limited as to how many are left before the 800
review mark. So if you guys have been like kind of dragging your feet
about going to leave an extra review, go do it.
That way you're in at least for this giveaway.
And then you'll also be in for the 850 and the 900
giveaway too. So and at 900 we're giving away 900 plus
dollars of more flake gear.
He's got some really cool things coming out.
I've been ear hustling him a little bit.
So I know one, at least one of the things that is in the works now.
And I'm excited for it myself.
So I think the winner of that is going to love the new braided kits
because that's going to be included and the new stuff that's coming out
throughout the year.
So we'll see how long it'll take us to get to 900 reviews.
And the probably the longer it takes us to get there,
the more cool stuff you're going to be able to get. Yep.
Yeah, it's we've got the all the magnets are showing up for the project
that you know about.
They should I think they're showing up this week. OK, so once those are all
here, we'll start 3D printing all of them and putting all the magnets in
and having those ready to go.
Sweet, be able to launch that one.
There's another one that I wasn't fully happy with the performance.
It didn't it doesn't work at all above 30 psi for deflation.
Oh, so there's a hint of what it might be and EVs really don't deflate
below 30 psi, right? Yeah.
So it doesn't really work at all.
It's not a viable option at all for EVs and I like making universal products.
Sure. So we're we're having to go through and modify
how things work in it to make sure that it can work for everybody kind of thing.
So that one's getting delayed a little bit, but I'm really excited for that project.
I think that one is going to be the one that is, I don't want to say the most
successful, I think that's the most popular.
I think the most universal for people.
Sure, because the price point that it's going to be at.
And then the other one is still kind of ready to go.
I just I want to focus on the big project that's coming at the end of the year.
Hopefully should be able to launch at the end of the year.
And we just had another breakthrough while going through the engineering
samples on it. Oh, OK, able to include another feature to it,
which you have asked for for a very long time. OK.
And it's I think it's really it's coming to fruition.
We're going to put it all together in one package.
Sweet. And I'm hoping that we were still on a good timeline
to have it launched ready for purchase and shipping to consumers.
Black Friday, Christmas time.
Sweet. So all right.
I'm excited. That's the huge one that I'm I'm
banking all of our eggs in our basket this year for that one.
OK, sounds good.
So if you want a chance to win any of that stuff, though,
go leave us a review on Apple podcast.
If you've already left a review and you can figure out a way to leave more reviews,
you can do it. Go and do it. Leave reviews.
Just remember what your names are, your aliases are so that if you get chosen,
you can prove it and you can win all this cool swag.
So we're coming up on 800 here, which we're going to away
that on ex elite membership.
So get in now, because if you get it now, you can get in for everything in the future.
Yeah. Awesome. Sweet.
Let's say we talked about the Russo giveaway.
We talked about the discount code for
Divos Divos and the discount code for Russo.
Yeah. Yeah.
We gift boxes are out and I know people have been receiving them.
I've been hearing some positive feedback on them.
So I'm super excited for that.
I know that I've been hearing the t-shirts are fitting, which is great,
because when we had Scott here from Portal pros, he asked for a medium.
And then he was like, you know what? I really need a large.
So I think he's just getting fat and lazy now that he has a DPD player
and everybody else that I've heard it, they says their t-shirts have been fitting.
Well, awesome. I talked to, I believe it was Wreckett Rob.
And he said his his wife stole the shirt.
His daughter stole one of the other items.
And his son stole the tiny little item or something like that.
And he was like, so I he got a cardboard box.
Yeah. He got a cardboard box out of it or something like that.
And then he's like, we're going to share something.
The other small item in there.
Yeah. So that was kind of funny.
Yeah. I think that's pretty good.
I think all that I mean, necessarily we kind of hinted at it a little earlier,
but the discord is going great.
It's popping off.
We've been having some great conversations on there.
We were gone for the weekend.
So I haven't had time to check it out very much.
And I think most people kind of were, but it's a it's a great avenue
to get into quicker contact with us and other like minded people
that are out there in the industry that are doing stupid and wild things.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm a little afraid because Montana Nick, Nick from Montana.
Yeah.
Asked for Brian from Utah's contact info on the discord.
He was like, is Brian from Utah on here?
Anybody know anybody?
I was like, you guys are not allowed to get together yet.
They have to start their own discord.
Yeah. I just have one more thing, I think.
Before we jump into sort of what we've been up to.
Okay. Do you have a 3D cup holder for me?
I do. It's at home.
I totally forgot to bring it.
It's sitting on my floor and my pile of stuff that's like,
hey, take this to the warehouse next time I go and in all that stuff,
still has that home.
Perfect. Thanks.
Yeah. No, I just wanted to give you a little shout out
because I thought it was super cool because you have your own 3D printer.
You print up some stuff for, you know, Morph late and a lot of other randomness
that goes on with Morph late. Yeah.
And I reached out and I said, dude, I need a cup holder for my Nalgene
because my Nalgene doesn't fit in the cup holders on the truck.
Like this is stupid.
And you're like, we'll send me dimensions and I can figure it out.
And then I was like, okay.
And then you were like, never mind.
I found a file.
There's nothing like that.
I was like, perfect.
I don't know why.
Like it's, of course, somebody has found a way to make a Nalgene holder
that fits in a Tacoma, a third gen Tacoma cup holder.
Like, I don't know.
In my head, I was like, I don't know if someone has really done that yet or done it.
And I just searched Google real quick and all these different files came up.
And I was like, you're good, Jimmy.
I'll figure it out.
I'll print it up for you.
It's so cool now how, I mean, if you have a little bit of knowledge
and you want to go down that rabbit hole that you can pretty much build and design anything.
Anything you want.
Almost nowadays.
It's wild.
Yeah.
It's, I really need to get back into CAD and start learning that and doing some of this stuff myself.
It scares me because I know where I will go.
It'll be fun.
You can get down when you start getting into CAD.
Yeah.
So cool.
I think that's about it.
Sweet.
Um, awesome.
I guess we will take a quick break then and then be back very shortly here with kind of what Jimmy
and I were up to this one morning, a day weekend.
So grab your favorite drinks.
Grab your pormosas because those are definitely still on the menu.
And we'll be back with what we've been up to.
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Oh, welcome back ladies and gentle ladies.
Everybody out there.
This is Thursday and this is kind of the section of the show where
Jimmy and I talk about the shenanigans we get ourselves into, right?
So like Mondays are kind of, we try and do something infotainment for you guys, right?
So educating and forming you guys somehow in an entertaining way that makes it so it's not
just fucking boring and you go on a tear your ears off or something.
And then Thursdays are ways that I guess you guys get to live vicariously
through the stupid things that Jimmy and I do.
That's what we're going to go over today.
The fun things that we had going on over Memorial Day weekend here.
I got to go wheeling to the Rubicon in Springs in Fiona.
So I have a lot of things to talk about.
Quite a bit happened for just hanging out in the Springs for three days.
I did that where you, I want to hear about the sphere for sure.
But then you also went up near Lassen, right?
No, we went to Truckee.
Truckee. Okay. That's how it was.
So I don't know. How was your weekend? What would you have going on?
It was good. So it was a stressful week sort of leading up to it.
Mainly because we were leaving, let's see, we left on Friday, no, Thursday.
We left Thursday day.
So I only really had, well, I had like three and a half work days.
Yeah. It was a very short work week last week.
Yeah. And then considering that, you know, our work days are like shorter
because we technically do one day of the week where we sit down and record the podcast.
So it's like, we almost, you know, we work four days of the week,
but then we do one day of the week, we work on the podcast pretty much exclusively.
So, but anyway, so we recorded on Tuesday.
We had the great recording with Scott from portal pros.
And then we did, you know, our Thursdays and snail males episodes.
And then Wednesday rolled around and I had to get all three podcasts done,
which isn't normally the case.
Normally I can do Thursdays on Wednesday and Fridays on Thursday, you know,
and then I get, um, usually I'll do Mondays over the weekend sometime.
And, but this time it was like, nope, like I got to get everything done
because I'm going to be gone throughout Monday.
So that, that threw a monkey into the, the wrench or whatever.
And, and then, um, yeah, I lost myself when I said that.
I really want to know why you're not putting a wrench into a monkey.
Yeah, I could do that too.
Okay. Yeah.
So I had a lot to do there.
And then I had snail armors that I needed to get out before, uh, before the weekend
that hit so that I could get everything done before labor or Memorial Day.
So then when I come back, I'm not too far behind.
So Wednesday was super busy for me.
Thankfully I had majority of Thursday to still do some things and pack and get ready
and, um, consolidate everything because we were flying out.
The assistant and I were flying out on Thursday to Vegas to go watch, no doubt at the sphere.
Yeah.
So that was pretty cool.
Um, and then just sort of, I'll, I'll talk a little bit about the timeline
and then I'll come back to that.
And then Friday, um, in from Vegas, we flew to Reno and then we got picked up by my parents
and then we drove back to truckie Tahoe Donner area.
And then we rented a cabin up there for my family, my parents and my brother's family
all together.
Yeah.
So not only did we have to pack just for our Vegas trip,
but then we had to pack for our camping or cabin trip,
but we had to get everything, all the food and everything we're bringing, all of our clothes,
you know, like hiking gear and lounging clothes and like kind of going,
like we're going to go relaxing clothes or like, um, you know, just normal daily clothes
and pack all that up beforehand.
And then we could give all that stuff to my parents so that they could load it all up
and drive it up to us.
You didn't want to take it to Vegas?
No, I didn't know we flew frontier.
So we were allowed one carry on the new spirit.
And, um, yeah.
So we didn't, we couldn't bring all that stuff.
Plus we had to like organize the mini assistant schedule
because she was staying behind.
We like left her for a day.
So Thursday, like she got picked up by one set of grandparents from school,
got taken care of, got dropped off at theater, then my parents picked her up
from theater, brought her home to our house and then left her there for a little while,
which is fine, um, so that she could, you know, get ready for bed and do everything
that she needed to do.
And then one of my parents slept over the night at our house in our guest room.
And then, um, they drew, got her ready for school, drove her to school.
And then my parents left to come up to come get me.
But then my sister-in-law went to go pick up the mini assistant from school.
So it was this huge like orchestration of like, uh, how are all these parts moving?
How is it, is it like, let's not mess up.
Let's make sure everything's kind of covered.
And it all worked out fine.
So that worked out great.
So, um, anyway, so we had a fantastic trip.
But now let's, let's go back to the Vegas was a, we had a good time in Vegas.
Flight there was uneventful.
We kind of, I mean, it was just frontier airlines.
We got to the airport in time, got on the plane, everything, flight was fine.
Landed in Vegas, got a ride share to the hotel.
We had about 40 minutes at the hotel before we had to leave to go to the concert.
So we like really kind of, it was close.
Like the question was, are we going to be able to carry our bags into the sphere or not?
So, but it worked out well.
Our flight was actually early and the Uber was pretty quick and everything worked out.
The assistant got a killer room.
We were at the links, L I N Q and, um, that's where I stayed last time.
Okay.
It's, um, I guess it was remodeled of like 15 years ago or something like that.
And then it's sort of been slightly updated a little bit since then.
But we got a killer room.
We got a really, it was a big room for Vegas.
I felt, and it was like seventh floor.
It wasn't anything fancy and it was kind of tucked away in this weird corner.
Like we shared, I don't, we maybe shared one wall with another room.
And, um, and it was a big room with just a king bed in it.
And it was like a hundred bucks.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I was like, dude, this is, she's like, yeah, I, I splurged, I upgraded.
And I was like, no, like, or a hundred bucks.
This is, you're winning.
Yeah.
So that was cool.
We got a, we got a ride to the sphere and that was pretty neat.
Talking to the guy and talking about the sphere and how it's really attracted a lot
of new people to Vegas.
And it's just like drawing a lot of eyes and it's just really cool looking.
Yeah.
And it's one of those things where it's really neat from afar, but not quite neat
as up close because the, the pixelization or the like, you know, how fine it needs to be
is not very good when you're close.
That's what I was wondering about.
That's what I've always wondered about the sphere.
Yeah.
No, it's very, the pixels are large when you get close to the sphere, but
and they're farther apart than you realize.
Okay.
But when you get, when you're farther, it's fine.
Yeah.
Right.
It doesn't matter.
But, you know, when we went into the sphere, like there's, it was really nice inside of
there.
We were on the fourth floor, kind of down by the rail.
Like we were like row eight or something like that.
And it was like, I don't think there's a bad seat inside of this place.
I think from the video you sent me, it, I mean, it looked like everybody had a front row view.
Kind of.
That's how it felt.
Yeah.
I felt the people that would have had the bad view were the people that were in general
admission down on the floor because they have to look up because if they, right, the
benefit of that is they actually, because no doubt actually performed on a stage down on the
floor, right?
But they don't get to watch the movie that was being put on.
I really did.
I've been saying that this was a concert and a movie in one, right?
And so we were watching both to some extent, even though like Gwen Stefani was like the
size of an ant for us.
But a lot of times they, in the movie that was being portrayed on the inside of the sphere,
they were showing videos of what was going on on stage, you know, so embedded in the movie.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So it was really neat.
So I'll throw a link up on, or I'll show the video on YouTube of like some of the intro
that I shot, which is, it's really kind of cool.
When you watch it, you're like, whoa, this is like, you feel like you're kind of on a small
roller coaster, but you're sitting in your seat.
So that was pretty neat.
The, the video side of things in the imagery that was going on was amazing.
Okay.
I know that they were shooting, they were showing Wizard of Oz there.
Okay.
And I can imagine how that would be so cool to see it in the sphere.
The seats rumble, which was kind of neat.
So there's one time Gwen Stefani was on screen and she was like walking around like she was
Godzilla and every time her foot came down, like the seats went and, and vibrated.
That was fun.
I know there's a whole thing with them and oranges.
I'm not familiar with the band as much as the assistant is, but unlike one of their covers,
I think is an orange.
And at some point they opened doors in the ceiling and dropped foam oranges on everybody.
So that was kind of neat.
We didn't get an orange with though the assistant wanted one.
But yeah, it was, it was really nice.
It was a lot of fun.
I would say it's probably my top 10 concerts just because of like the venue and everything
that was going on and the venue is super nice outside too.
I mean, every floor had merchandise booths.
Every floor had a bunch of bars.
Okay.
So like there was carts and bar like full bars, like not just like a little tap area.
There was a little tap areas too.
And there was like the convenience store ones where you like you walk in and there's just
glass doors and you can choose whatever you want.
And you grab the deli sandwiches, your drink, whatever.
Yeah, kind of.
I don't know if they had deli sandwiches, but they had all different types of beers
and chips and other things.
And so we bought drinks in a cup.
So we got our no doubt cups and drink them up there.
And we took one of that.
We took a straw in one of the special straw.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's a THC or CBD or whatever.
It's a 10 milligram straw.
Okay.
And then we got it and it's raspberry.
I think it's either raspberry or strawberry flavored and sort of lined on the inside.
So when you draw in, it pulls some of the flavoring with it.
And apparently if you leave the straw in the drink for so long, it just evaporates completely
into the drink.
But we got a berry seltzer and then we added the berry flavored straw,
strawberry, raspberry into the berry seltzer.
So that was good.
And then I got a beer.
And then during the concert, there was, I only knew like four or five songs that they played.
So one of the songs that they're playing, I'm like, I'm going to go to the bathroom and I
I'll get another drink.
So I went to the vending, like convenience store style thing and I grabbed two beers and I grabbed
some chips and the guy was like, yeah, just set it on the tray.
And so I said everything on the tray and it was like, bing, here's your total.
It knew it by the weight.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
I was wondering if they were using RFID chips.
No, I don't think so unless I ate it or something.
No, I think it's all weight based.
So they know that you're selling chips and this is roughly how much chips way and these are how
much beers and sodas and everything if everything in the same weight was the same price.
Yeah.
So that was kind of cool.
But yeah, so it was a good concert.
They played for like 22 and a half hours.
Okay.
So it was a pretty lengthy concert for one band, which was, which was pretty good.
And then afterwards we walked through, I think the Venetian is pretty much tied to it.
It's, yeah, it's like, right.
There's a little, like a breezeway kind of thing and you're right in there.
Yeah.
So we walked into the Venetian and then we didn't realize it, but there was a whole no
doubt experience going on in the Venetian that was free to walk through.
So we walked through that.
And then when we were walking out at the end of the Venetian or really into Harris,
there's a piano bar.
And so we stopped in at the piano bar and we sat and we're like, oh, I was like,
this reminds me of New Orleans and the piano dueling pianos bar there.
And I was like, we need to get a sazarak and we got the worst sazarak I've ever had in my life.
I don't know what it is.
Like every time I've been to Vegas and I ask for like, give me an old fashion or a sazarak,
they are disgusting.
Like they just either don't know how to make drinks in Vegas
or they just rely on everybody ordering beers or something.
And yeah.
So I was like, we paid way too much for this horrible drink.
And we felt like we just had to chug the damn thing to get it down, right?
Cause I mean, I'm not going to waste it, but yeah.
So then we ordered another beer and at some point these like white guy wasted people showed up.
And it was like a whole friend group, but there was like a wide variety of ranges between them.
There was like a grandpa to like a teenage guy, probably well, 21 year old, right?
And they were all plowed and having the best time.
And it was more fun watching them dance around, make fools of themselves,
having a great time, interacting with the piano players, then
literally listening to the music though the music was enticing them.
So it was kind of 61 way, a half a dozen the other.
But it was, that was a lot of fun.
And so we ended up closing that place down.
We went to another bar on our way back to the hotel inside of the links.
And we just sort of sat down and chilled for a second and then went up and went to bed.
And I looked at my watch the next morning and we went to bed around three in the morning.
So checkout was 11, no problems getting back to the airport.
Just a little hungover.
And we had a super turbulent flight out of Vegas and the assistant reached for the barf bag.
I was like, oh no, she didn't barf.
And so we got up to a level, some smooth air and we were cruising.
And then they did drink service and which was, I didn't think like Frontier did that.
So that was pretty cool.
And then on the descent, the captain came over and he said, hey,
so we're going to have turbulence again going back into Reno.
And we're like, okay.
And so she grabbed the barf bag and used it on the descent.
So unfortunately, I thought we were good once we hit that smooth air.
But nope, apparently not.
So yeah.
So she had a little barf bag on the present to take off present that we could walk out
of the airplane with.
So that was fun.
They probably collect them if they saw them, but we put them in like a plastic,
another bag, a plastic bag and walk back with you.
Yeah, another, yeah, another way back.
And so, yeah, and threw it away.
And then got picked up with my parents, drove to the cabin, hung out there for a little while.
My brother's family showed up after school got out and they left and supposedly, well,
and fortunately they didn't hit any traffic.
It was smooth sailing up the mountain.
Yeah.
I was like, man, your one hour trip is going to take two hours.
Yeah.
Friday.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Friday at four.
Friday, my whole day weekend at four PM, they should hit traffic.
Yeah, they didn't.
Nothing smooth sailing the whole way up.
They got up in an hour and 15 minutes.
Wow.
Yeah.
I was like, okay.
So, yeah.
So that worked out well.
Dave's doing a good job up there.
Dave, you're doing fantastic.
We were hungover.
My brother wanted a party.
My brother partied kind of a party of one for the most part.
And we all went to bed at like midnight or something, but he was a little,
he was two and a half sheets.
And the next morning he woke up and he was hungover.
And you're like, do you want to pour moza?
Yeah, let's get this.
I'm ready to party.
Let's go party.
Yeah.
So that day was pretty low key.
We went to, we drove to Donner.
We did like a four mile hike around parts of Donner just walking around into the
state park area, walked along the lakeside, shot out towards the rocks.
There's another small pond out there, came around, hung out, then went into
Truckee and the ladies want to do some shopping.
So we walked to the strip.
I was like, hey, they sell beer here.
Hey, they sell beer here.
Hey, they sell beer here.
But only had one beer on the time.
Went into the sock store, bought some socks.
So not, not these because I always need more socks apparently.
And yeah, that was about it.
It was pretty low key.
Went back home.
We were on, yeah, we did dinner that night.
We do these things.
She calls them the haystacks.
I call them pretty much taco salad, but it's a taco salad.
But we use corn chips instead of like taco shells.
In a way.
So you can make, it's more or less like a super,
taco shells are corn chips.
Like it's Mexican food, right?
It's actually different shape.
So it's more or less not a super duper fancy nachos, right?
Cause it's all the, all the fixings of a salad, but you're throwing it on a bed of chips.
So we did that.
And it works well for all of my families.
One of those that's California crazy or whatever else messed up
cause we got a gluten free person.
We got a vegetarian person.
And then we got meat eaters that are, we got, you know,
my parents who are old school meat eaters that are like,
meets the only thing main course.
The one thing that has to be on the plate, you know,
vegetables and your side is smaller than the meat course.
Right?
So they're optional then.
Yeah.
So we have to, it's, it's kind of funny because you have to
figure out a meal that can like please everybody, you know, in some ways.
And like my parents made the first meal and they made three different lasagnas.
I know I'm like, what the heck?
So they made a gluten free lasagna that had meat.
They made a vegetarian lasagna that wasn't gluten free,
but didn't have meat.
And then they made, you know, a normal lasagna,
which had meat and everything in it.
So yeah, just I'm like, you guys are overkill.
So every, so our family is kind of like that too.
We have a gluten free.
We have somebody that's soy, dairy and gluten.
Every like, I'm just like, vegan.
Everything.
Yeah.
That's vegan pretty much.
Pretty much.
Pretty much.
But it's a, it's a health thing.
It's not necessarily a choice.
Right.
That's what, yeah.
That's what the gluten free is.
My sister-in-law has MS and she did a dietary, the allergic reaction test.
And she was very mild on gluten.
But when she started pulling it out, her symptoms slowed down
and helped out a lot.
So helped her with her MS by not eating gluten.
Yeah.
And then we have somebody else who doesn't like muscle strands.
Meat.
Okay.
So like chicken or steak, anything that you could feel like,
take a feel the muscle fibers.
So they'll eat ground beef.
They'll eat ground beef, hot dogs, that kind of stuff.
And so the thing, every time the family gets together,
everybody splits a meal, right?
Yeah.
And so we always do taco bars.
Because you can keep everything separate.
And everything comes together because Mexican food.
You just put it together however you want.
You can make a bowl.
You can make a taco salad bowl.
You can make tacos.
You can make whatever you, whatever you want.
And it, it works out awesome.
So another one we do often, which would probably work for you too,
in theory, is poke bowls.
Oh, okay.
So because rice is gluten free.
Yeah.
So we can do the rice thing.
So everybody can have the rice.
And then it's a, it's more or less a nacho bar at that point, right?
It's like, what do you want to add on top of your rice?
An Asian nacho bar.
Exactly.
And you know, we go from the ahi tuna down to just seaweed,
or you know, and then we do, you know, all kinds of things in
between, whether it's some different types of vegetables,
or just, you know, soybeans and, or, you know, carrots,
or pickled carrots, and, you know, just all the above.
And so that was, that seems to work really well for a family
gathering where it's one meal that can please everybody.
Okay.
It's just a little bit of work.
So anyways, moving on.
We did dinner that night, and then we hung out and the kids went
into the hot tub and my, so my, my daughter, the mini assistant,
and my brother has a son, my nephew, who's roughly the same age,
roughly the same energy level and just as crazy and wild.
So they, when they get together, they have a good time.
So they were in the hot tub, the rest of us kind of hung out inside,
relaxed, didn't do a whole lot of anything.
And then we played some, we played some games, but nothing serious.
Next day, we went to a high ropes course.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
And so my brother and I took the kids to the high ropes course.
The other family, the rest of the family went on a small hike.
Boring.
Right.
And so I was hanging out with my daughter and my daughter's not super athletic.
And so the greens, they did, they had the rankings similar to skis, ski mountain,
where green circle, yeah, black, green circle, blue square, black diamond.
And so we stuck to green circles for the most part.
And then occasionally we did some blue squares where my brother and my nephew
were did all the blue squares and we're attempting to do some of the black diamonds.
And so at one point the mini assistant was like, I'm tired.
I want to take a break.
And I'm like, okay, like go get some water and whatnot.
I'm going to join, you know, Uncle Tony and a G man for a black diamond.
And we did this one called the wind chimes.
And it was like just these two ropes suspended.
That was suspending a pole and you stood on top of the pole.
So when you were like moving the, the poles hit each other and like wind chimes.
So that one was fun.
And then my brother and nephew wanted to go to the front
because it was kind of separated front and back and do the two blue squares that were
up there because they hadn't done them.
And the mini assistant and I went and did rainbow.
And we said that rainbow had a super long zip line at the end.
And the longest one in the park.
And that was, and that was fun.
So they're like, yeah, let's go do that.
So I was like, you guys go do that.
I want to go do the rings line.
The other, I think the other black diamond or it technically they,
the employees say it's the hardest line in the park.
And it was tough.
It was a lot of fun.
Like there was a lot more forearm necessary to use it in this on that obstacles than the
other one.
So when I got done, my like hands and arms were sore, which was, but it was really cool.
And the rings obstacle is literally they had like two cables that run up above.
And you're always attached to another cable.
Like once you attach at the beginning of the obstacle, you can't untouch anywhere
until the very end of the obstacle.
And so they had these two cables that ran above where you're tethered to.
And then it was just a rope that hung down to a plastic ring at the bottom of it.
And it was like 20 of those in a line.
And that's how you got across.
So you had to grab one then swing it, get it swinging to grab the next one.
Not, it wasn't so much of a swing.
Like I could reach the next one, but you like grab it and you put your foot in the ring.
Right.
And then you're standing there on a suspended by one rope, right?
With your, all your weight on one ring.
And you're kind of like wobbling around and you're trying to like reach the next one
so that you can then put your foot in it.
And when you reach it, it starts move like the ring starts swinging.
So now you're trying to time when to put your foot in the ring.
Right.
And now you have your hands on the two ropes and your feet in the two, you know,
two rings and they're like one foot out of the ring.
Yeah, exactly.
And get the next one, you know, so eventually at near the end, I started getting like,
okay, I'm going to keep all my weight onto onto one side.
And then you can let go and move and reach and grab and plant and continue and then
transition your weight and then rinse and repeat.
But yeah, so that was a lot of fun.
The two kids that were in front of me just apparently you can let go.
And you'll literally zip line to the end of that obstacle.
Okay.
And they're like, yay, it's applied.
Yeah.
They're like, this is dumb.
You know, I'm like cheaters.
So that was cool.
And then we went to the Palisades after that, after we had, we had a lot of fun there.
That it was the like Glenn, Glenn Rebachan area.
Okay.
It was like some German name that has this huge kind of resort and play area.
And they had the high ropes course there.
And it was like $70 and $10 for gloves.
But I think, you know, if you have children and you're up in that and they like doing that
kind of stuff, definitely worth the two and a half, almost three hours that we got.
I need to keep, keep that one in mind because Reed is just getting more and more and
more into climbing stuff.
So I need to get him, we'll talk about it when we talk about stuff.
There wasn't many, like there was some people, maybe in their fifties, maybe early sixties.
And then there was maybe as young as like five or six.
And then there was everybody in between.
I thought it was a perfect, like the kids, our kids are 12 years old for the most part.
And it was a perfect for them.
Yeah.
Like there was some things.
That's a way to decade to go to this.
Oh, you can do it.
I probably wouldn't, depending on your skill level of your kid or whatever.
My thing is that there's some obstacles where there was a big gap.
And like the mini assistant had a hard time convincing herself to step over the gap
and try to get to the next one.
Yeah.
I was like, well, just step on the cable that the thing is supporting, you know,
and she's like, no, that's cheating.
You know, I'm like, well, then jump or sit down and let the thing
suspend you and just reach for it or whatever.
You know, so it's problem solving.
Yeah.
You gotta figure out.
She's like, no, I want to make it.
And so and she was too afraid to like lean out and while holding the rope.
So yeah, I think, you know, she just is not very experienced with it.
Didn't necessarily trust the equipment and is slightly uncoordinated.
But she had a great time and it really wore her out, which was great.
Yeah.
So anyway, so after that, um, anyway, if you're up in that area and you have a free day
or a few hours, I highly suggest it was a lot of fun.
So after that, we went drove back to the Palisades old Squaw Valley.
And, um, we actually met up with Jason Green.
Oh, okay.
And so I messaged him.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I messaged him because I know his girlfriend lives on that side of the lake compared to
where he lives.
And so I was like, Hey, you on this side of the lake.
And he was like, well, not right now.
I'm leaving Mammoth because he has been skiing for the last four days.
Like you're still snow.
But he said he was going to on Saturday.
He was going to go to Palisades because they have a memorial day, uh, like fair in a way.
It's not like a fair, like a street farmer's market.
Okay.
And, um, he's like, yeah, we're going to be there.
And I was like, okay, well, we have plans to go to the high ropes course, but maybe we'll
swing by afterwards.
And then I talked to the family and everybody's like, yeah, let's do it.
So, uh, we went to the high ropes course and the game plan was to meet up at three o'clock
at the street fair, the farmer's market.
And then we actually, and Jason was sort of, he got there at one and was about to leave
kind of a scenario.
So we, uh, I got to sit down, hang out with him, chatted with him for a little bit and
the family that was there and his girlfriend.
And then, um, he was like, all right, I'm, you know, I said, I should probably go find
my family.
He's like, we're probably going to take off.
And I said, cool.
And I seen you.
So we, I walk up, go get a drink.
I walk to go find my family.
My family was deciding at that point that they were done.
So four of them were headed back in a car and four of us were staying for a little bit more.
And we walked around and then we ran back into Jason on the other side of where we were,
talked to him a little bit more while his girlfriend was shopping.
And then, um, she had to go to the bathroom.
They were headed up the way we just came and we're like, all right, we're taking off.
So then we drove home, uh, had dinner that night.
My brother made like a tie soup, like a really good curry kind of tie soup.
Okay.
Um, and then we played games, family games that night.
We ended up playing apples to apples, which is a hit favorite for the family.
And then we played a bunch of jack box games.
Okay.
Do you know those?
Yep.
Yeah.
So jack box is now on Netflix.
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
So we have a subscription where we bought a bunch of jack box games a while ago.
Okay.
But somebody told the assistant that they're now on Netflix.
Amazon prime also has a huge, like connect your cell phone to the network,
play jack box style selection of games on Amazon prime.
So yeah, we played a lot of quip lash, a lot of draw full, um, and those games into the night.
Nice.
And then we had to be out of the cabinet 10 and woke up and drove home and pretty much
no traffic.
There was a few spots where things slowed down, but then they like something was on the side
of the road and everybody sped back up.
And yeah, we got home and good time.
And then it was back to reality and we had to do laundry and go shopping for the week
and do everything that we needed to do.
That was Monday.
That was Monday.
Yeah.
So all of our normal Sunday chores now got moved to Monday.
And the mini assistant was like, it's Monday.
We don't do chores on Monday.
And we're like, well, we didn't do them on Sunday.
We gotta get done sometime.
They've got it.
She's like, I don't want to do laundry.
And we're like, you need to do laundry and you need to clean your room and you need to
do your other chores and all this other stuff.
So she was having a really hard time coming back to reality from vacation after so long.
But yeah, it was a good trip.
The sphere was amazing.
The high ropes course was a lot of fun.
The cabin was, it was fine.
I think we're probably going to end up going back there again next year.
It was in like Tahoe Donner, nice, simple area, easy to get down to truckie.
We didn't feel like we were remiss from not being on a lake.
And whenever we're on Donner or whatever, we don't necessarily go out to the lake all the time.
It's nice to see the lake, but it's like three times the cost of the cabin.
So it was a lot better to just kind of be a little ways off and up the hill a little bit.
It was a bigger cabin for better price and it worked out well.
So yeah, okay.
Now that we're almost at an hour, how was your weekend?
Weekend was awesome.
It was definitely something I needed.
I've been going pretty much non-stop since beginning of April.
Yeah.
And maybe a little bit before that.
And we've just, we've had a lot of stuff going on with more flight and work,
trying to get Fiona up and running for Trail Hero X, getting everything ready for Trail Hero X.
Yeah, then Trail Hero X.
And then doing Trail Hero X.
And then after Trail Hero X, we had Overland Expo West,
which didn't go without its issues.
Sure.
And so I've just been going non-stop.
And then we had a short week, last week, like you talked about.
So, you know, only having two to three days to get caught up on work stuff.
I thought I was going to be super stressed out,
but it was definitely like I just needed to check out and be done with things, right?
And so getting down to Rubicon Springs, where there's no cell service,
and you're kind of forced to check out and get away from the life stresses for a little bit.
I did have the Starlink with me and I ended up firing it up and working a little bit on Saturday,
but otherwise left it off and didn't do anything with it.
We went down on Friday. We left around 9.30, 10 a.m.
No, our goal was to leave at 10 a.m. We left at I think 11.30, 11, 11.30, something like that.
And so...
And you were driving all the way up to Tahoma.
We were going all the way up to Tahoma and then coming down Cadillac.
Right. Did you tow?
Yep. Okay.
Yeah. So we took the... I was going to take the Dodge
because there's no camper on it.
And gas prices are a little high right now, diesel prices, I should say.
And but I was like, everything is set up. I love the way the Ford works.
I love the way the F350 tows.
And it doesn't really care if there's a camper on there.
Like it doesn't lose fuel mileage when towing or versus a camper or having both.
They're all like the same 9.5, 10 miles per gallon.
Right. So it got everything loaded up on the trailer, had to do the huge
vehicle shuffle at the warehouse to get everything squared away and get everything over to my house.
So I can start loading everything. That took a few hours to do.
And so I did that on Thursday.
There was a few things that the vehicles needed done, Fiona in particular,
because the guys got back from Overland Expo West on Monday.
So I gave them, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday off.
I was like, you guys just relax. You were gone for 18 days.
Yeah. Right.
And so they came in to unload everything on Thursday.
So Fiona never got unloaded until Thursday.
And I needed to make sure she's all good and ready to go for Friday.
The AC was out. Oh no, on Fiona.
And I was like, all right, let's see if a shop has an availability to recharge it today.
I called a few shops. Nobody had the availability to do it that day.
So I went down to Napa and bought a couple of recharge cans
and got it recharged back up to about 25 PSI in the AC system.
And I was like, this will just get through the weekend.
And then this week, once we're back, I'll take Fiona in to get the AC system
diagnosed to figure out why it was out.
By Friday morning, the AC system had leaked out fully.
Oh, dang.
So there's a substantial leak in the AC system on Fiona right now.
Yeah. And I was like, well, all right, no AC for the weekend.
Luckily the weather was awesome.
We had AC when we were going around.
We did.
So the guys did not have any AC while driving it around Arizona in 110 degrees.
Weird.
Yeah. So something happened between when we had it and Expo West.
Yeah.
I'm not sure what and I'll get it diagnosed later this week.
So I had that going on.
What else did I need to load everything?
Of course.
Oh, the roof rack.
I had to put the roof rack back on, but we lost the bolts for the roof rack.
They're all gone.
Wonderful.
Yeah. So I had to figure out the thread and pitch and the length of the bolts,
which Carson helped with.
He just did a quick Google search and we figured it out.
And I went down to my favorite hardware store and bought new bolts.
Okay.
The roof rack bolts for the fourth gen forerunner are like a T 35 Torx bit.
Yeah.
And I was like, this is stupid.
I want hex heads on everything on my vehicle.
And so I found my supply store has M8 by 125 by 50 millimeter bolts
that are have a flange head to it with a mini head.
Oh.
And so the normal M8 by 125 is a 14 mil nine sixteenths hex head.
These were 10 mil heads.
Interesting.
I was like, I like it.
It's a smaller head, which you need on that because the plastic covers.
The reason why the Torx bit heads are the way they are.
They're a button head with a Torx bit on it.
Right.
And that needs to be as flush as possible so that the plastic covers can snap on.
Correct.
So the mini heads were just enough where like two of the three snaps were engaged on them.
I was like, perfect.
So I got the roof rack back on the AC system recharged or so I thought and that took like
four hours running back and forth to places, trying to find the search, the warehouse for
the bolts and everything and then drove Fiona home or put Fiona on the trailer, hooked up the
trailer, drove everything home, unloaded Fiona from the trailer and started loading a little
bit Thursday night and then mainly Friday morning.
Okay.
Got everything loaded and headed out and we just, we got out of there about an hour,
hour and a half later than what we were aiming for.
We have to go, I wanted to go up 80 because it's like 20 minutes shorter time to go up 80,
but we have to drop the dog off at the in-laws in Placerville.
So it went up 50, which takes an extra 20, 30 minutes.
We stopped for lunch.
So we got it to home.
I want to say it was like two or three o'clock.
Got it.
And then dropped down, unloaded everything and went on down to Cadillac in the parking lot
at Tahoma.
Yeah.
There was a couple of vehicles that pulled up a Jeep and an Bronco, an old school Bronco.
And they were starting to air down and the Jeep was like right next to us and they were
pulling valve cores to air down old school, old school way and they went too far.
So they did the thing where they started airing down and we're trying to check things with
their gauges and whatnot and then pulled out their air compressor and I was like,
well, somebody went too far.
And so when he pulled out his air compressor, I have this ongoing thing.
Every time I see somebody do that where they air down one tire too far and have to pull out
the air compressor air backup so they can air back down to the correct temperature.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I go up and just hand them a card and be like, I have something that fixes that for you.
Yeah, right.
And then get, talk about more flight and have a good time with them. So I did that talking
to them, having a great time, joking around. Meanwhile, you know, Fiona's just airing herself
down with the air hub and the hose system. So I was chatting with them, had a good time at
their gauge. They kept measuring and all their tires kept measuring at 17 PSI.
And I was, and there was one tire that I was like, your tires almost flat dude.
Like if I had to guess, there's probably three PSI in that tire right now.
And he goes, no way. My gate is saying 17. I was like, I don't, I'm telling you right now,
that is not 17 PSI 1000. Unless your vehicle weighs 20,000 pounds.
Yeah.
And it was a JK, four door JK. That's not, that's not 17 PSI.
Right.
And so I was like, let me see your gauge. And so I looked at it and it's a dial mechanical gauge.
Okay.
As the needle that spins around, right?
Yeah.
And it was a gauge that was zero to 30 PSI.
Oh.
So one of the fun things about mechanical gauges for everybody out there is that A,
they only read accurate in the center of their scale.
Right. Right.
So if you have a zero to 30 PSI gauge, you need, that means you're aiming to be around 15 PSI.
Right. And the further you get towards the ends of the scale in a mechanical gauge,
you can be upwards of 15% off in accuracy.
So that's why if you're airing down your tires, you want something like a zero to 30 PSI gauge,
which is great. That's what they had. And when you air up your tires,
you really want like, say if you're airing up to 30 PSI, you really want like a zero to 60
gauge. Okay.
Zero to 100 gauge gets you there too. It's accurate enough, a little bit off.
You'll maybe be within 5% accuracy on them, but they were using a zero to 30 PSI gauge.
And I quickly realized that they spun the gauge and broke it.
So the other fun thing about mechanical gauges, and this is really with any gauge,
if you over pressurize it, you break the mechanism inside, whether it's the spring itself,
whether it's the mechanism, the mechanical connections between the spring and the dial
indicator. But if you over pressurize a 30 PSI gauge and accidentally put like 60 PSI in it,
you'll break the gauge. And you just need to go get a new gauge, right? And they're like,
well, how do you recalibrate this? I was like, the only way you're recalibrating that is to pull,
get a new spring out, completely rebuild the whole thing, or just buy a new gauge.
And so like the whole time, like they're just having these troubles with this gauge.
And I'm sitting here like, and that's why I don't do mechanical gauges at Morpholite.
This is why we use digital, Pasi electricity and digital sensors for gauges at Morpholite.
So anyways, I got to do a little spiel about digital gauges versus analog gauges and explain
what was going on and then showed them our gauge. And it was a big eye-opening experience for them
and dealing with deflation gear, inflation and deflation gear.
Since their gauge was broken, did you let them borrow one?
I let them borrow the one out of the Dooley Ford. And I told them, I was like,
just keep it. I was like, you guys, if this gauge is bad for you, you probably don't have
another gauge with you, right? And they're like, no. And I was like, just keep this one.
Like that's fine. It's been through. It's gotten used in the truck before. It's not a brand new
item kind of thing. It's not. So just keep it. We hire, I got plenty more.
And they're like, well, we've been looking at your systems. We've been meaning to buy one for
a while. And I was like, dude, Memorial Day sales going on right now. If you just don't happen to
get one during Memorial Day sale, here's my card, give me a call. And I love giving people
discounts that I run into out on the trails and getting to have these chats with people.
Like, right? I love the interaction, those wholesome interactions.
The aha moment. Yes. And so there were really good sports about everything.
And they didn't hold, they didn't keep the gauge. They gave it back. And I was like,
all right, whatever. So what was the tire at? It was at 3.5, 3.5.
You're a pretty spot on. Yep. And then there was another one that they were,
they wanted to get all their tires to nine. Okay. And then one tire that was like,
it was reading high at 17, right? And I was like, that tire is probably about seven to eight.
And they're like, so they put my gauge on it and there was reading at 8.2. I was like, yes,
I still got it. So, um, yeah, it was fun hanging out with them chatting with them.
They took off before I did, um, cause I still had a car seat to swap over the fridge to put in
and everything. Um, and so what they kind of made a joke of, all right, well, uh,
you know, if we don't see you down at the springs, we'll come back looking for you in a couple of
days. I was like, perfect. Sounds good, man. Um, I caught up to them within about 15 minutes
of getting on the trail. No way. Yeah. And they, they got off maybe 15 to 20 minutes ahead of me.
Wow. Um, and I still caught up to them within about 15 minutes.
So they were just putting, they're just putting along. They should have their tires down more.
All right. Yep. I was at eight on the forties. Yeah. So, um, but, uh, the, the tuning that Greg
over at Rockin Road did on the front coilovers, um, made a huge difference. I mean, you felt it
during Trahoorex. So awesome. Um, and I was still going pretty slow because like I had the
secretary and the kid in there too. I'm just like, I'm not going to bomb this the way I
normally do. Um, and I'm still like, like this is the first rock crawling trip
on the, on Fiona's rebuild. Um, so I'm like, I don't really want to push everything. I don't
want to risk a shearing stuff off. I'm just going to take this trip really nice and easy
and I'm solo. So, uh, we put it along and ended up passing them within like 15 minutes. And
I just kind of waved at them. I was like, see you guys in the springs. If I don't see you down
there, I'll come back and look for you in a couple of days. So it was funny. Um, they were
really cool. Ran into them again in the springs the next day. Um, but we got down to camp and had
camp set up about 430. Oh, that's not bad at all. So it took us about, I want to say it was about
two hours to get down to the spring. So it was a pretty decent pace, but not over pushing it.
Like I've made that trip in an hour, 15 before in Kermit. Yeah. Um, two hours is about me going
fast. Yeah. It's a fast believe spring pace, right? Um, so anyways, got down to camp, started
setting up and making dinner. We had a chicken fajitas, which was nice. So good. Um, and while
we were there, um, uh, a group of people pulled in. So we went in, we were trying to get mod camp.
Okay. I was going to ask where did you camp? We're trying to get mod camp. And there was a
big sign on a tree as you enter mod camp that said mod camp is reserved Saturday and Sunday
this weekend. And I was like, fuck, I forgot about reservations. Yeah. So, uh, the secretary was a
little disappointed that we didn't get mod camp. Um, but we found, uh, oh, uh, so that was going
into mod camp. Um, I was like, well, let's go up and maybe we can get a spot in VIP. Okay. Um,
I know Mark and Maria, right? Um, I was like, maybe I can just put on my really cute face and
see if we can get some spot in VIP that are right next to the river. Um, and so we start
going up there and you know how as you're going from like that ledge down at the dirty dozen
Mog camp turn off area, there's that ledge and then you get up the hill and there's like this
little V notch. Oh, where my alternator went out. Yep. Um, there was a Jeep there. Okay. Nobody in it.
The tires are jammed up to the passenger side into a rock.
Nobody around. Nobody's like behind him. No vehicles are stuck. I thought maybe he's
out of the Jeep looking and helping spot somebody behind. So I get out and I'm like looking around
like there's nobody here and there's just this Jeep sitting right in the middle of this pinch point.
Yeah. To get was it broken? I didn't look broken. Okay. But typically you don't leave a Jeep
in the middle of a pinch point with the steering jammed into a rock, right? Yeah. So I'm thinking
there's probably something wrong with the steering. Um, so I looked at his tie rod, his drag link,
his pitman arm, everything looked solid and connected. So I'm like, uh, okay. So I'm looking
at his drive shafts. Everything's connected on the drive shaft. All of his suspension is all
connected. Um, and I'm like, I can't, there's nothing. There's no obvious signs of why this guy
is just abandoned his Jeep in the middle of the trail. And so I'm like, all right,
it's going to start getting dark here soon and we're going to run out of light to, um,
figure out where we're going to camp tonight. Right. So I was like, let's just go back, um,
and see if there's any good spots in dirty dozen. Okay. So, uh, we went, we turned around,
went back down and there was only one group in dirty dozen. It was that, that first spot with
the fire pit right at the top, as you enter the area, everything else was wide open, not a soul
in dirty dozen. So we went and made our way to the back of dirty dozen and hung out right on kind
of the river side, um, at one of the spots back then the back of dirty dozen. Perfect. Nice. So
from there, people driving the main trail can see our camp. Okay. And we can see them,
which was kind of funny because the big neon green and more flate for runner is right in
everybody's view as they're coming in and out of the springs at the backside of the springs. Right.
And so, um, before long we had camp set up maybe 15 minutes. So we're just starting to make dinner.
This group of about six vehicles starts like coming up and they're about to like one of them put
their front wheels up on the ledge and then they all backed up and then came down and around into
dirty dozen. Okay. And I'm like, huh, I wonder if they're just looking to come down here and see
what's up. Turns out they came and rolled straight into us at our campsite, uh, back there. And it
was, uh, one of the people was somebody I ran into a Barrett Lake a few years ago. He has a gold
Tacoma with an XO cage on it, a solid axle, first gen Tacoma, um, and a really nice build.
Yeah. Uh, on super duties. And, uh, he came over and I was like, I know this truck. He goes,
yeah, we camped at the Barrett Lake a few years ago. We saw the green forerunner wanted to come
over and say hi. And I was like, okay. Yeah. All right. Cool. Um, so that was the first group
hung out with them for half an hour or so. Um, and then they took off. Um, and we finished up dinner,
had a good evening there. Uh, the next morning, Saturday morning, um, uh, with read read is very
particularly about when he has his nap times. Okay. So from like 1130 a.m. noon till like three p.m.
Is nap time. Sure. So we have to plan the weekend's events in the morning time, you know,
two hour gap here, three hour gap there, um, in order to have activities. Sure. So,
um, Saturday morning, I was like, let's go into the springs, um, pay for our campsite.
Say hi to Mark and Maria. Uh, see maybe there's a spot in VIP. We really like enough to move
everything over. Yeah. Um, and then we can also kind of walk around the springs and say hi to
people. And, uh, so we headed on into the springs, did all that, said hi to Mark and Maria.
The trail was clear now. Nope. The rig was still there. That's what it was. So the Jeep is still
there. Um, and I'm like, the fuck, what's going on? And so, um, people getting around. There's a
little campsite right down hill of that pinch point. So you have to go into the campsite
and back up onto the trail. Um, and so we, that's what we did. Went down the campsite,
came back up to get around the Jeep. And as we're going down, there's a couple that's walking
this way towards us with a dog. And so I stopped and I'm like, Hey, how are you guys doing? Just
chatting with them. And they're like, good. Well, good, but not so good. And I'm like,
what's going on? Do you need any help with anything? Like, well, we have a Jeep up there
that's, uh, that has a lot of broken stuff on it. And I was like, is it the silver two door?
That's like in the pinch point back there. They're like, yep. And I'm like, Oh, okay.
Got it. So now I know where the owner is. Yeah. Um, I was like, what's going on with it? They said,
well, we broke a rear axle. Um, the, and we snapped something in the steering box. Like
the steering wheel just free spins and the steering doesn't do anything. Um, and everything
looks connected. And I was like, yeah, I looked at your drag link, pitman or your tire. Everything's
connected there. And they're like, yeah. So we're pretty sure it's something in the box. And I was
like, if you spin your wheel, does the steering shaft also turn? They're like, yep. I was like,
all right, that's not good. You need a new box. So I was like, okay, well, they're like, it's so
good. We have one being delivered from somewhere on the trail here. And I was like, Oh, from the
RTF property for maybe from the spare parts with RTF. They're like, we don't know. We went down and
talked to the caretakers, um, uh, down in the springs, they got on a radio and they have a
steering box coming to us. And I was like, okay, cool. Making use of RTF spare parts cabinet down
there. Um, which we've talked about on the, the, the show before and side note for everybody out
there, if you're upgrading your off road vehicle and say you have a stock steering box and you're
upgrading to like a PSC big bore box or a red head box for Toyotas or a Saginaw box for your vehicle,
whatever it is, and you still have that old box and it's in good condition still.
It's not broken or anything. You just upgraded donate that box to RTF. Um, donate that axle
shaft, donate that unit bearing, donate that knuckle, donate whatever it is that you're
upgrading on your vehicle. Um, find a way to get it over to RTF. Those parts are very,
very valuable and they get used all the time out on the trail. And it's a really cool program
that RTF has put together to help people get their vehicles back up and running from all within
the trail. And it's all like community supported. It's a really cool program. So, um, if you guys
have questions about how to do that, get in touch with me and I'll help make that happen. So we,
we go up there frequently enough that we can do the delivery if you can get it over here.
Yep. So yeah, for sure. It's really cool. Then they do all stuff for Toyotas, Jeeps and all the
other weird vehicles out there. Yep. No cyber truck parts up there yet. So anyway,
so I was talking to him, I was like, okay, well that's cool. That's cool. You're getting to make
use of the program. It's cool that they're having somebody deliver it from spider out to the springs
for you. Um, and so that was all neat. Now he goes, yeah, we've been having a little bit of a rough
trip. You know, we broke a rear axle shaft. We broke a front axle shaft. We broke our steering
box and we pulled our winch off our bumper. And I was like, all in one trip.
Winch off a bumper. I don't know. Not attached properly. I feel like
there's more to that story. There has to be more to the story. Is this their first time?
It was the wife's first time. So fun story. Apparently the guy has done the Rubicon over
50 times, never really had very many issues. Um, and I'm kind of looking at his rig and I'm like,
if you've, if, if you've done the Rubicon that many times, you're going to find the weak points
in that vehicle. Yeah. And so either he just always did a really good job at maintaining
stuff to never really have this kind of big issue before, or all those weak points finally
caught up to him all on one trip. Maybe yeah. Um, because he had a C clip Dana 35 rear axle
and his axle shaft, uh, once they finally got it all apart, uh, the splines were sheared off and
stuck in the, the carrier. Wow. So he ended up having to finagle away to get the spline part
of the axle shaft out of the carrier so that he could put the new axle shaft in.
So, um, they were there, they came in Wednesday. They were supposed to leave Thursday. It was
supposed to be a one night over trip thing and they were there through Monday morning. Oh man.
And it was the older couple. I don't know how old they were. Maybe mid fifties, early fifties,
um, freshly married. So they just got married a year ago and this was the wife's first trip ever
really off-roading. And I was like, how are you doing then? She goes, we're making the best of
it. The caretakers, thank God for them. They've been making us extra meals. They've been letting
us be really cool about the campsite, not having to full pay for it every time because we're just
in a really shitty situation. I was like, that's awesome. Mark and Maria are amazing people. I'm
really glad they're taking care of you guys. I was like, how do you feel about off-roading?
And she goes, you know, I'm not that into it. Yeah. Right. First and last trip.
Yeah. And I was like, are you going to come back? She goes, I don't think I will. And I was like,
don't take this trip as the standard for how off-roading trips go. Like if he's been out here
50 times a four, never had this many issues. Maybe you're the issue. No, I'm just kidding.
It's really, it's a beautiful, beautiful place. And if you're not having to stress out about fixing
your vehicle and getting it off a trail broken, it's one of the best places on earth. So I really
hope that you, you can find it in your heart to come back out here again after this disaster trip.
So talk with them for a while. Maybe next year. Yeah. So talk with them for a while. Really cool
people. And I was like, well, look, we're camped down behind you and we're going to be going up
to the springs in front of you multiple times throughout the weekend. So I'm going to stop
every time, check in on you guys, see if you need water, see if you need food, see if you
need a tool, that specialized tool that I might have to help get you the job done.
But if you have all the parts coming in and you know how to work on it all, then
you know, let me know if you need anything. Otherwise, I'll just be here for moral support
every time I pass. Yeah. And they're a really cool. And you a cold one. Exactly.
So they were really fun chatting with them. We went down into the springs, said hi to
Marco Maria, paid for our site and camped right along that first row of campsites as you enter
the springs. Yeah. Was the Jeep in the Bronco from Tahoma, from there down. Oh, yeah. And so
I stopped and talked with them for a while. There was one guy in the group that was the token
Toyota. And I was like, they're like, yeah, there's one in every group. I was like, yep,
that's usually me. So chat with them for a bit. Our group usually has a token Jeep.
Yeah. So chat with them for a little bit. While we're chatting with them,
obviously rigs are just coming into the springs, right? It's Saturday, midday, around lunchtime.
And there was a ton of people that came through that I knew. Like they would just stop. But
I just chat with them for another five, 10 minutes, see what they're up to.
Justin Wicks was one of them. Oh, wow. He came in on a dirt bike. Oh, yeah.
And so he came down from Tahoma with a buddy and they were riding the whole trail on dirt bikes.
Wow. And by the way, just this weekend alone, I've never seen that many dirt bikes
on the trail. Okay. So I don't know if it's just like a thing for dirt bikes to come down from
Tahoma and get down into the springs and hang out in the springs and then go back up or something.
But there was almost, I don't want to say almost more dirt bikes than vehicles. That was not true.
There was a lot of dirt bikes running around the springs this weekend.
And Justin Wicks was on one of them. So he ran into me. He was coming down to
home and down Cadillac and they were going to go do the whole trail. They started at 930 a.m.
into Homa at staging. And they got to me, it was probably about noon, maybe noon 30 by the
time they got to me three hours. So it took them three hours. And I was like, I got down faster
doing a kind of a slow ish pace for links and coilovers and forties than you guys did on a
dirt bike. I'm like, man, if it took you guys three hours to get from Tahoma to here, yeah,
you're going to be getting off the trail at noon, like around dark. Yeah. And he goes,
Oh, it's really? And I'm like, that's the easy part that you came down. Like other than Cadillac,
you kind of got to go slow on a dirt bike down Cadillac. But they're like, well,
it mainly took us a long time because of all the puddles. I was like, okay, I'll give you a little
bit of that. You know, I'm like, I just, I, the rest of the trail is fucked on a dirt bike, man.
I would never, never dream of doing this trail on a dirt bike. So were they going to loon and back?
No, just to loon. So they had another vehicle there. Yeah. So they parked, I think Justin's
vehicle at loon and then drove their buddy's vehicle up to Tahoma ride down getting Justin's
vehicle and then go up and grab their buddy's vehicle and then head back out. Yeah. But they
said they saw me down at a coming on 50 near fresh pond in an ice house road. They saw me at one
point as I was heading up. So anyways, ran into that. I'm like, dude, you're getting off the
trail at dark. Yeah. Like you're getting, you're getting into loon at dark. We should call them
and see what time he actually got off the trail. He posted on Instagram. Oh yeah. He made a story.
So it's gone now. You can't see it. I wish he'd made a post or something.
But it had a picture of their two dirt bikes in front of the Rubicon trail sign at loon.
Yeah. At 222 p.m. on their phone. Oh, yes. He goes, well, we beat your, I said something like,
well, we beat your estimation by quite a bit, Tyler. And I was like, that's pretty crazy.
Kudos to you. So they met you at noon, noon 30 and we're off the trail two hours later. Yes.
Took them three hours to go down Cadillac and two hours through the whole fucking trail.
I was like, that's crazy. They were flying. They were flying through that trail. Wow. Yeah.
Cause that takes me like eight hours. Right. I think coming out from the springs to a loon
at six to eight hours depending on traffic. Yeah. Yeah. He did it in two hours on a dirt bike.
Yeah. Okay. So it was fun talking with Justin for a little bit there.
Another person that came through, there was a few people from Jeepers Jamboree that I knew that was
Oh, fuck. I'm blanking on his name now from a Rubicon Trail Adventures, not Dave,
one of the drivers, not Dave, not chipper ball dude. Oh my God. I'm probably going to name
him right now. Anyways, saw him chatted with him for a little bit. And then this Jeep comes rolling
in and the whole time, every time a vehicle comes through, Reed starts going more trucks, dad, more
trucks, more dad, dad. Like, and so this, this solo Jeep comes through and I'm
kind of looking at it and I'm like, we're, we've been watching just a bunch of buggies coming
through with Dana sixties, 42s, 44s, you know, straight pipe V eights. And then this Jeep comes
through. It's a little two door JK on what I believe it looked like 44 Rubicon, 44 axles,
really quiet, no engine modification mods or anything. And I kind of looked at it and
I was like, Oh, look at that baby axle. It's so cute to the guys that I'm sitting here talking to
the Jeep and the Bronco. And I look up at the driver and it's Greg Bakken. Oh, hey. Hey, that's
awesome. And so I just immediately, I was like, Hey, I started laughing and he pulls up. I was
like, I was just telling them how cute your baby axle was. So that was fun. Got to talk with one
of the biggest guys I know as a tiny axle. Yeah. Yeah. He's lost a lot of weight. He has looking
good. Yeah. And great attitude as always. I love Greg. So getting a chat with him for,
15, 20 minutes and they were on a solo trip him and his buddy in Greg's Jeep. They camped up.
They camp at buck the night before I think
and then they were trying to decide if they wanted to camp in the springs another night or just go
home because both of them were missing their kids and they're like, we're pretty early in the day
so that we can like get off the trail and make it home for dinner kind of thing.
Yeah. Right. So anyways, chatted with them for a little bit and then sent them on their way.
So that was there. We went back to camp, had lunch, put the kid down for nap
and then that's when I got a bunch of work done. I had to set up our AI bots for more
flight for the Memorial Day sale. Oh, I forgot to do that before I left. So
did that, did a bunch of customer service, answered a bunch of customer service questions
from down the springs, which is nice, just relaxing there. In the afternoon, we went down
and just walked up to the waterfall from through dirty dozen and hung out kind of at the bottom
of the waterfall for a few hours in the afternoon, which was really nice. Reed is not a water baby.
No. No. Okay. There's not like water. He loves throwing stuff in water,
but he does not want to get in the water himself. And I'm like, that's so disappointing
because I have such a water. But he was wanting to climb stuff. He was trying to climb all over
the rocks. Has he done any swimming lessons yet? No. I've had him in swimming pools multiple times.
I've had him in a couple rivers now, but yeah, he's anti water at the moment. Yeah.
So we went to hung out down at the bottom of the waterfall until dinner, made dinner,
and then pretty much put him to bed and hung out there Saturday night, Sunday morning. Oh,
while we're making during nap time, I saw a few rigs that I knew pull in from the Cadillac side
of the trail and start did the same thing. They got his nose up on that ledge and then
backed up and came down into dirty dozen. Okay. And it was a Horton. Oh, really? Cool. So Horton
showed up and chatted with him for a little bit. He came over, just pulled right into our campsite
and chatted with him for a little bit. And then they were going down to Buck and they were going
to camp there and then come back out the next day or something like that. So I was like,
Oh, have fun. I've heard that buck is a disaster zone right now. Oh yeah. There was a lot of people
down at Buck apparently over the weekend. So they took off and went away and that was on
Saturday afternoon Sunday woke up, made breakfast and we're like, all right, let's go down to the
springs and like walk around the springs and just kind of like see how everything's looking down
there because we didn't really do that. We just kind of went down there the day before and talked
to people. And so we went down there and Reed played around on the, we ran into Chris and Shelley,
the broken Jeep people on the way down. I was like, how's your morning going? Do you guys need
anything? And they're like, we need a magnet to get that actual shaft part out, right? And I was
like, I'm pretty sure I have one. Let me see. So I pulled out the tools and I had one, gave it to
them and they're like, Oh my God, thank you. Nobody has had one of these. And I was like,
that's why I carry a bunch of shit in my vehicle, man. Those came in our toolkits when we were
designing and making our own toolkits. It was. I'm pretty sure it was that magnetic one from
Gearwrench. And so I was like, they're like, can I Venmo use LU, give you money now? And I was
like, no, it's like a 10, 20 dollar magnet. Like if it helps you guys out, like I'm not too
concerned about getting it back. If it helps you guys out, right? You're like, I'm going to be back
and forth another few more times, just use it until you don't need it. That's also what I said.
I was like, I'm camped down a dirty dozen. You guys come find me. If you get everything fixed,
I'm going to be back and forth a few more times here. If you're done with it by then,
and I'll grab it from you then. If not, I'm not worried about getting back. Yeah.
So anyways, they were funny again. Went up into the springs parked and we played around on the
stage for like an hour. Okay. Reed had a ball running around the stage, jumping off of it,
climbing up the stairs and having a good time there. We went down, talked to Maria a little bit
more. And then we started climbing all the rocks behind the stage. Oh yeah. Reed loves climbing
rocks. Holy shit. Yeah. So we made it all the way up the rocks to the upper helipad. Wow.
Before two, before long, really, he had us going all the way up. He just wanted to keep
going up and up. So get up and he'd played around on the upper helipad for a while.
And then he saw the lower helipad and we worked our way back down and played around on that one,
then made our way back down to the rocks and hung around there for, that was a good two hours,
two and a half hours, just playing around in the, in the springs. And then we headed back
and got some lunch. And then we were after lunch, he had a short nap that day. And so
it's actually a kind of a nice swim spot at the slabs right there between pine camp and that
little jet out dirt area. So it's not too deep. It's really a fast current.
It slows down by the time it gets there. It's just very, very slippery. It's very slick. Yes.
Yeah. The rocks can't be slippery. Yes. So, and there's a little bit of shade right there.
And so I'm like, let's just go down there and see if it's available and we'll hang out for the
afternoon and do some swimming. That's one of my favorite spots to camp. Absolutely. In my opinion,
the best spot on that trail to camp is pine camp. Yeah. And so that was also reserved, but we know
whatever. As we're heading down, there's a ton of people out there. There's my 20, 20 ish rigs
like lined up down along the slabs and just tons of people hanging out. I was like swimming.
Yeah. It's swimming day. It was nice and warm. It was a warmer than Saturday. It was like,
which was like 75 degrees, but like 75 degrees with no cloud cover at 7,000 foot elevation
feels like 85 to 90 degrees. Right. And so we got down there and I start looking at these rigs.
I'm like, I know that rig. And so I'm kind of like looking
for their owners. I'm like, that's his family time right now. I'm not going to go talk to
more people. I did a bunch of that on Saturday. And so I start walking down to the, oh no,
before that, as we're coming up on the Jeep, Kenny Melton son pulled up behind me in their yellow
Jeep, right? The LJ. And so he was going fast as I was. So I pulled over real quick and then I
was like, Oh, hey, how's it going, dude? And he said, Hi, we chatted for a little bit. And then
as he pulls away, this tan first gen forerunner pulls up and like he's pulling up right after
Kenny's son and not giving me a chance to really get back in the trail and go. So I'm like, okay,
but they're also flipping me off as they're rolling up. And I'm like, all right, I'm pretty
sure I recognize this forerunner, but there's no way they're here right now because they were
supposed to be out in Hype by Valley with Amber and Randy Slosson this weekend. And it was Sarah
and Zach and Oliver. Oh really? So they literally pulled up behind me or pulled up next to me. I'm
like, what are you guys doing here? They're like, we had an extra day and we didn't have time to go
all the way down to Hype by Valley with Amber. So we're like, let's just go down to the springs.
And we saw your big annoying green forerunner right in front of us. I was like, awesome. I was
like, what are you guys's plans? We don't really have any plans. I was like, where are you camping?
They're like, we don't really know. I was like, all right. Well, I'm going down to go swimming
right now. You guys can totally come and join us and hang out. And so they did. And then they
ended up coming back and camping with us and dirty dozen, which was really nice because we had an
11 month old there to kind of hang out and play with our two year old. And so that was
just, it was great. Once the kids can sort of entertain themselves and do their own sort of
thing. And you can have a mental relaxation of not having to concern yourself about one,
either entertaining your child or worrying about the child's safety. Yeah. And you can relax a
little bit and things get a lot better. And it was really nice having two also new parents
there with a first time kid, just to kind of like compare notes and just talk about life.
No, it's okay that he started exactly right. And then also having more parents there to
kind of watch over the kids so that you can, you know, work on dinner without having to
worry about the kid falling over a rock or impaling himself on a stick or something, right?
So that was a very fun surprise for us. And then the secretary after the trip was like,
they're really cool. Can we go wheeling and camping with them again? And let's find more
parents that have kids around this age to go. Really? I was like, yeah, really? That just
came out? Okay. So anyways, we went down to the slabs and while we're down at the slabs,
swimming, I'm just kind of like standing out in the river talking to everybody because,
you know, I have to be in the river. And Reed was like standing away from shore,
like just watching everybody with this really annoyed look on his face.
But this guy starts drifting down the river and I'm like, hold on, I know that guy.
And he stands up and he goes, dude, what are you doing here? It was Chris Manili.
He comes floating down the river and we just sat there chatting for like 30,
40 minutes. He had, I don't know if it's technically his girlfriend or what,
but he had a girl there named Emma and she goes, she was like, yeah, this is our first date, I think.
Of course it is. Were they there for one day? I don't know. They were camped down at Buck.
That's a hell of a first date. That's what I told her. You want to go camping for a weekend?
Yep. But she's a pretty badass chick. She's an electrician up in, I think,
Oregon or Washington, something like that. So I don't, I don't ask how they got together
or anything. Long distance relationship there. But I just kind of made the comment of,
I'm actually pretty jealous. Like I would love to go on a first date with Chiz out on the Rubicon
for one more day weekend. I would just like to date him. Like he seems like a cool dude.
He's a very funny dude. We could definitely have a bromance. I don't say that to many dudes,
but there are a few dudes in this world that I could have a good bromance with.
There you go. He listens to the podcast. Chibi wants a bromance.
And so anyways, it was fun to hang out with him for a little bit there.
And then while we were down on the slabs, there was a group of guys all like laying
underneath a vehicle and they have a ready welder out and they're getting ready to like
start hooking batteries together and pull batteries out of vehicles. And so I'm walking by,
I'm going back to the, the, the forerunner to grab another drink and I'm like,
what's you guys doing there? What's going on? I see a welders out here.
That means fun is happening. What's going on? I'm like, oh yeah, we had a drain plug fall
out of the diff and I was like, ah, okay, got it. But the, I think it's the owner of the vehicle
is named, I think was max. He's a listener of the podcast. So he goes, Tyler, how's it going,
man? That's what I was like. It looks like you guys are having fun. What's going on over here?
So chatting with him for a little bit. And I was like, do you guys want to pull batteries
and deal with all that? And they're like, I mean, it's a, it is what it is. I'm like,
I have a carnage welder with me. You want to just, I can just hand it to you and you guys can do
all the welding and they're like, what's that? And I was like, Max, you should know what a
carnage welder is. But today I was like, it's a suitcase welder. Everything's built into this
Pelican case, a case, batteries, welder, wire feed, everything. There's no spool on it. So it's
super easy to get into stuff compared to like the ready welder. And they're like, that's fine.
We'll just, we'll just bring another vehicle around and then, you know, hook up the batteries
and jumper cables and then do welding for there. And I was like, or I can just hand you a suitcase.
And they're like, okay, that's pretty hard to beat. Let me go get a drink. I'll bring the
welder back. And so brought the welder back handed it to him and went back down to the
beach area and hung out in the river talking with everybody. And I having a good time while
they got to use the carnage welder to weld his drain plug back in. Nice. All right. So
that was fun running into Max and getting to meet him. Chiz down there. There was an Australian
guy who stopped me when we parked and he goes, he goes, Oh, is this an official more flight
vehicle? And I was like, yeah, I'm the owner. And he goes, wait, you're the owner now in his
Australian accent. And I'm like, yeah. And I was like, are you from Australia? And he goes,
well, yeah, but like, I, I didn't know you guys were in the States. I thought you were just an
Australian company. And I was like, Oh no, yeah, we're in Sacramento right here.
You know, California, North Cal, you're up on the Rubicon all the time.
Yeah. Started right here. California. Yep. And he goes, he goes, that's really funny. I own
your gear in Western Australia. That's where his home is. I was like, that's awesome. How do you
like it? He goes, I absolutely fucking love it. He goes, it's funny because we're airing down for
this trip today. And I told the guys I was with, they were kind of struggling. And I was like,
you guys need to get a more flame because that's what I use back in Australia. It's amazing. I
don't know. Can you guys get it here in the States? And I was like, that's funny. Yeah.
So made his day chatting with him for a little bit. And it was just, I always have this like,
I don't know if it's an epiphany, but like, I don't, think more flights pretty cool,
but I'm like, I don't, I don't know. I'm not here for the fame and glory, right? And so when I run
into people that are from out of state or out of country, I'm just like, damn, that's pretty cool.
So anyways, talked with him for a little bit. And we had a good time down there. I had Reed
out in the middle of the river for a while. I found a rock that I can kind of sit on and have,
you know, my butt and like, post my legs in the water. I was figured I could have him there and
just kind of like have him kind of situated the same way. And he was like almost flipping out,
like trying to get his everything out of the water and finally got him calmed down on my leg,
where everything was out of the water. I kept pouring water on his foot. And then pretty soon,
he started saying, out river, river. I was like, bro,
you're okay. Chill out river, out river. You need to get him in his swim lessons this summer for
sure. So this trip has taught me that a he's going to go climb rocks. There's no way I can stop him.
Therefore, I need to get him in some sort of climbing classes so that I know he's going to be
safe and he can do it, right? And understand what his limits are and work on his balance and his
jumping and all these different things. But I was very impressed with how freaking methodical
he was being while climbing the rocks. He would definitely was not carefree. And anytime there
was like a drop bigger than seven inches, he would sit down on his butt and slide off the
rock for the drop rather than trying to jump off of it. Anytime there was a gap of more than
four or five inches, he would wait for me and be like dad to help come over, hold his hand while
he went over the gap. So he's very, it's amazing to me how aware, how old is he, two years and
two months, three months old, aware of his surroundings and what's going on. So I want to
get him in climbing classes and then I need to get him in swimming classes. Because yeah,
I'm sure there's like climbing gyms that have stuff for toddlers. Pipeworks does. Okay, great.
And then another thing I was going to suggest is I know that there's a bunch of gymnastics stuff
that does stuff for young kids. That would be great. And they do a bunch of like just tumbling
and rolling and understanding your body and your mechanics. And that might be really good if
Pipeworks didn't have something. So I look at Pipeworks, see what they got going and then
consider maybe some sort of gymnastics thing for kids. But yeah, I mean, my PSA of this entire
episode, I guess, has got to be like, you got to get your kids water safe, water friendly.
For sure. Absolutely. That was a big, I don't want to say eye opener. I knew that I need to
get a more comfortable with water, but it was an eye opener as to how uncomfortable he was with
water. Yeah. So yeah. And especially for young kids, pass this on to Sarah and family. The sooner
you can get your kid into water, the easier it'll be to make him comfortable later. Right. So once
they start understanding, besides a bathtub, like get them into a pool, get them their head
underwater as soon as you can, the easier it'll be to teach them how to swim and understand
water mechanics and everything later in life. Even if they don't learn it at like of a young age,
it'll still help later. They won't just be as terrified of it. I had to coach somebody. I
had to coach this like Indian lady. She was like 40 something completely terrified of water.
We literally started with sitting on the side, like the first lesson was a sitting on the side
of the pool with her feet in that. And then we worked our way up like onto a ladder getting like,
you know, and I was like standing in the pool like, look, I'm only up to here. I can stand,
you know, like it's not a big deal. But yeah, she didn't go for it. That meant there was a
mental block there of like, I'm going to drown. Like no, no, you can stand like as long as, but
there's if you don't know how to write yourself and you're not going to be able to go fall over
and not understand. Right. So there's a level of that. But yeah, the sooner and more comfortable
you can get the kids with water, the definitely better they'll be set for life and almost any
water situation. And me being on the complete opposite end of the water spectrum side where
me being a fish and loving water and having my collegiate swimming background, like I don't think
my daughter is I'm worried about her because she doesn't swim as well as I do. Right. And I will
like, we'll do something. And I'm like, I don't know if you're ready for this, you know, like,
I feel like, like myself going into the ocean, I don't have many fears of it. Like I understand
the ocean. I understand a lot. And I know that the ocean is a powerful beast. And I need to,
you know, be careful, be conscious of that and stuff. But they don't quite understand the kids
don't understand that they just want to go play in the ocean. And I'm like, I'm concerned about it
because like, I know what the ocean can do. And so it's, you know, and I know she's not a strong
swimmer. Right. And so it's like, if she gets pulled out, it's like, I'm going to have to swim out
there and go get her because she can't figure out how to swim herself back in. But so it's like,
I'll tell her the mini assistant is who we're talking about. Right. I'll tell the mini assistant,
like we need to put you in swim lessons. Like you need to be a better swimmer. And she's like,
I swim fine. I'm like, you swim fine for like the dough boy pool. Yeah. Yeah. Like you don't,
I bet you can't swim across a pool. Like, you know, it's like, you don't swim fine. You swim
okay. You can, you can not die in. Yeah. Barely head, height, the water.
Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Let me drop you in the middle of the lake and how will you fare?
You know, and that's like, you know, where I'm like, tell the assistant, like, I'm going to swim to
the other side of the lake and back. I'll be back in like an hour. Yeah. She's like, you know, we,
we did that one time we were at some lake with her mom's group and I was like, I'm going to swim
across the lake and back. And then I started swimming and I got like halfway out there, you
know, and all the moms are freaking out. Is he going to be okay? You know, the assistant's like,
yeah, he does this all the time. You know, like, don't worry about it. You know, I come back and
be like, I average this in my hundred yards. Like it was pretty good. But yeah. So the PSA really
circling it all around is you get the kids in the water, get them water safe,
comfortable because you don't want to have to worry about it later. Exactly. So overall awesome
trip. Sunday morning was, we'd packed up and left, right? And Sarah and Zach followed us out
and we made it out and like, I think two and a half hours. So nice leisure pace made it all out.
Fiona did awesome. There's not really much I need to fix on Fiona. The rear air locker,
the line going from the compressor to the solenoid, which is only like a one foot
airline or something like that. Okay. There's a leak somewhere in it. Oh, damn.
So again, I'm just, I'm sick of air, air compress, air lockers, I should say.
Oh, I also ran into Rosa. Oh, really? Yeah. Rosa was out there. So got to chat with him for a
little bit too. So it was, it was just a really interesting weekend where I had a lot of a few
eye-opening things happen with the kid because the wife and I, we haven't really like
talked about our relationship like in depth since Reed was born. Okay. We, and because
we're always just in a routine at home, right? Sure. And so getting her out there with me in
the Springs, we had some really good talks at nighttime after Reed was in bed kind of thing.
And so I really value that. That was a great time. And we kind of reconnected on a couple things.
Sure. Which is great. Having another family come out with a kid around Reed's age was awesome
to have. And so Gladiator Nick has mentioned that he wants to go do more wheeling and have
the two families go out more. And so after this weekend, I'm like, oh, I, yes, I really,
I really want more of that. Reed did fantastic. So I think that that's going to kind of open
the floodgates for me to start taking him out on my own. Sweet. And with tent camping, going out
to different trails and tent camping, got to bear it for a night. He loves, loves all the
off-road vehicles. Okay. He loves watching them. He loves being in the vehicle. Anytime we'd be
like, all right, bud, it's time to go for a ride in Daddus truck. He'd get all giggly and go running
toward the forerunner, right? So that, and then getting to see everybody out there, just running
into all these people that, you know, I've seen kind of on and off throughout the years, but
like having seen everybody all to one spot in one weekend was so much fun for me. That's great. So
great trip made it out, had my lunch at Sunny's barbecue on the way back down. Awesome. And
got fully recharged, I think, from life and just the stresses of work and other things that life
throws at you. So needed that nature bath. 1000% needed that. And I'm really glad we made that
happen. So good. Sounds like a fun time. Yeah. It was a really good time. So hopefully everybody
else out there had a great Memorial Day weekend. Yeah. It was definitely a good one here in
North Cal. The weather was awesome. Lots of fun activities as always in Northern California.
Hopefully you guys got to go out and enjoy your area of the neck of the woods, wherever you're from.
We've got, let's see, we got voicemails tomorrow. Yes, we do. And then another,
I don't know, maybe more informational episode coming to you on Monday. So
enjoy the weekend. If we don't see it tomorrow and we'll be back on Monday with some other fun
things for you guys. So if you have any feedback for us, have any questions for us, have any,
and what was it? What was the, what Greg used to always say? Questions, comments,
or snide remarks? Okay. Send them on over in Greg Bakken fashion. And we love hearing from
you guys. You can reach us on Instagram, email, the discord is a lot of fun. Yeah. Lots of ways
to get in touch and interact with us outside of just listening to us on the podcast. So
run into us at Rubicon Springs. So anything else, Jimmy? Yeah, I think that's it. I think
that's good. Yeah. You know how to get ahold of us. All the show notes have all that information
as well. Cool. Final words then to wrap up the episode. Yeah, we were, we were out playing
Frisbee in the street up at the cabin. And I was like, oh, bear. And everybody's like, what?
I go black bear right there. They're like, where? Like, I don't see it. I'm like, it's right there.
It's like not too far off. And they're like, what? And I'm everybody's stand. They're like,
are you talking about that painting on the bear box? I'm like, yeah, it's a black bear.
They're like, dang it. There you go. That's hanging out with Jimmy, ladies and gentlemen.
And with that, my friends, keep growling.
I got one for you. Okay. I'm ready. What is a dog's favorite vegetable?
A doggy dog is a favorite vegetable.
A tomato dog bone, something bone. Potato. I don't know.
A cauliflower.
Collies are not dogs, dude. Collies? Yeah. They're not? No. What are they?
They're like another breed race of canines. Canines aren't dogs? No.
I don't know. Would that, would all dogs be canines? All canines are dogs?
I think so. Oh, dang it. My Venn diagram is messed up.
About this episode
Memorial Day weekend turns into a mix of trail logistics and real-world troubleshooting. The hosts share how Four Wheel Underground is shifting to an à la cart model for suspension parts and how they used the Trail Revival program on the Rubicon. From Rubicon Springs to Tahoe Donner, they swap stories about towing choices, Fiona’s AC drama, and airing down/tire-gauge accuracy. The episode also covers trail repairs, steering/axle failures, and recovery—plus plenty of giveaways and discounts for OnX Offroad and Russo fire extinguishers.
Original notes
Jimmy went to Vegas for No Doubt at the Sphere, then up to a family cabin in Truckee. The Sphere gets a full breakdown — the way the seats actually rumble, why the general admission floor might be the worst seat in the house, how the venue works as both a concert and a movie at the same time, and the weight-based checkout technology that somehow knew exactly what he grabbed off the shelf. After the show, he wandered through the Venetian into a piano bar and ordered what he describes as the worst Sazerac he’s ever had in his life. From there, Frontier Airlines to Reno, parents pick them up, a cabin at Tahoe Donner, a high ropes course, a run-in with Jason Green at a Truckee street market, Jackbox games, and a bear box — not an actual bear.
Tyler took the F-350, Fiona on the trailer, the secretary, and Reed down to Rubicon Springs. The pre-trip wasn’t smooth: Fiona’s AC recharged Thursday, leaked back out by Friday morning, and the roof rack bolts were missing entirely — cue a hardware store bolt-matching tangent that goes deep into Torx bits versus hex heads and why that matters for plastic covers. But the trip itself was exactly what Jimmy needed. Dirty Dozen camp. No cell service. Fiona ran the whole trail without any real drama.
What made this episode are the trail encounters. At Tahoma staging, Tyler ran into a Jeep crew that had accidentally over-pressurized and broken their mechanical gauge, which turns into a full explanation of why digital gauges exist and why analog gauge accuracy degrades at the edges of the scale — MorrFlate context makes this land. Then on trail, a Canadian couple stranded since Wednesday with a broken Dana 35, a sheared steering box, and a winch that pulled off the bumper — all in one trip — and this was the wife’s first time ever offroading. Tyler explains the TFS spare parts program at Rubicon Springs (donate your old upgraded parts so they can bail out people exactly like this couple), and it’s one of the better trail culture segments they’ve done in a while. Also on the weekend: Justin Wicks ripping the entire Rubicon on a dirt bike faster than Tyler predicted, Greg Bakken rolling through solo in his two-door JC, Horton showing up to camp, Chris Neely floating down the river with Emma on what was allegedly their first date, a listener named Max welding a diff drain plug using Tyler’s Karnage suitcase welder, and an Australian MorrFlate owner who told his buddies they needed to get one — not knowing he was talking to the actual owner.
We have a massive discount this month with Rusoh Fire Extinguishers. You can get 25% off this month only with the discount code Rusohcrawlers. Go grab yours today!
SnailTrail4x4 Discord: https://discord.gg/yFyFFkQbuy
Come hang out with us on the SnailTrail4x4 Discord — it’s the easiest way to connect with Tyler and Jimmy directly, chat with fellow offroad enthusiasts, and get first access to Group Buys and Treasure Hunt token drops.
MORRFlate Giveaway at 900 Reviews on Apple Podcast. But our next giveaway is when we reach 800 reviews; we are giving away an OnX Elite Membership. We will also give away an OnX Elite membership when we get to 850. However, when we reach 900 Reviews, we are teaming up with MORRFlate for a $1000 MF Product Giveaway. Go over to Apple Podcasts to leave your review now and become eligible to win. Congratulations to A13XMONT, who won a set of tires from Yokohama Tire!
Call us and leave us a VOICEMAIL!!!We want to hear from you even more!!! You can call and say whatever you like! Ask a question, leave feedback, correct some information about welding, say how much you hate your Jeep, and wish you had a Toyota! We will air them all, live, on the podcast! +01-916-345-4744. If you have any negative feedback, you can call our negative feedback hotline, 408-800-5169.
4Wheel Underground has all the suspension parts you need to take your off-road rig from leaf springs to a performance suspension system. We just ordered our kits for Kermit and Samantha and are looking forward to getting them. The ordering process was quite simple, and after answering the questionnaire, we ensured we got the correct and best-fitting kits for our vehicles. If you want to level up your suspension game, check out 4Wheel Underground.
SnailTrail4x4 Podcast is brought to you by all of our peeps over at irate4x4! Make sure to stop by and see all of the great perks you get for supporting SnailTrail4x4! Discount Codes, Monthly Give-Always, Gift Boxes, the SnailTrail4x4 Community, and the ST4x4 Treasure Hunt! Thank you to all of those who support us! We couldn’t do it without you guys (and gals!)!
SnailSquad Monthly GiveawayMassive thanks to this month’s giveaway with Rusoh Fire Extinguishers. We have one of their 2.5-pound extinguishers to give away to a lucky winner. This extinguisher has an 18-year shelf life and is the best fire extinguisher for any off-road vehicle. To learn more, check out Rusoh.com. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
For the Month of April, we are giving away Gift Boxes. It’s Gift Box month, and two lucky individuals will win one of our gift boxes. These are jam-packed with goodies from tools to whiskey smokers. They are always different and always random. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Listener Discount Codes:SnailTrail4x4 –SnailTrail15 for 15% off SnailTrail4x4 Merch
MORRFlate – snailtraill4x4 to get 10% off MORRFlate Multi Tire Inflation Deflation™ Kits
4WheelUnderground – snailtrail 10% off
Ironman 4×4 – snailtrail20 to get 20% off all Ironman 4×4 branded equipment!
Sidetracked Offroad – snailtrail4x4 (lowercase) to get 15% off lights and recovery gear
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Shock Surplus – SNAILTRAIL4x4 to get $25 off any order!
Mob Armor – SNAILTRAIL4X4 for 15% off
SummerShine Supply – ST4x4 for 10% off
Backpacker’s Pantry – Affiliate Link
Laminx Protective Films – Use the Link to get 20% off all products (Affiliate Link)
Show Music:
- Midroll Music – ComaStudio
- Outroll Music – Meizong Kumbang
Snail Trail 4x4 Offroad Podcast
Tyler and Jimmy: Off-Road Enthusiasts
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