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Term
upper frame bracket
A frame bracket is a strong metal piece that bolts to the truck’s frame. It’s where suspension parts attach so the suspension can move correctly when you hit bumps.
Term
lower link bracket
The lower link bracket is where the lower suspension arm/links attach. If it has an integrated bump stop, that means it also helps prevent the suspension from traveling too far and getting damaged.
Term
integrated bump stop
A bump stop is like a safety cushion for your suspension. It helps slow things down when the suspension is fully compressed so parts don’t slam together.
Term
Johnny joints
Johnny joints are special suspension joints that let the suspension move through big angles. They help the suspension stay smooth and strong when the vehicle flexes off-road.
Term
hymes
Heim joints are strong pivot joints used in suspension. They let suspension links move and rotate as the truck flexes over rough ground.
Term
aluminum links
Aluminum links are the suspension arms/links made from aluminum. They can help reduce weight and are used to keep the suspension working well off-road.
Term
link suspension kit
A link suspension kit is an upgrade that changes how the suspension is controlled using link arms. It’s meant to help the wheels move better over bumps and uneven ground.
Term
Lee Springs
Lee Springs is a type/brand of suspension spring setup. The point here is that the truck is being changed from a spring-based setup to a link-based suspension system.
Topic
trail revival program
The trail revival program is an off-roading community effort to help keep trails open and in good shape. The host says they helped do maintenance on the Rubicon Trail through it.
Place
Rubicon Trail
The Rubicon Trail is a very famous off-road trail in California. People go there to test their trucks on tough rocks and rough terrain.
Car
Wrangler Rubicon
The Jeep Wrangler is a 4-wheel-drive vehicle made for off-road trails. People often use them on challenging routes and do their own maintenance for reliability. In the episode, it’s mentioned because it’s connected to trail work on the Rubicon.
Car
Pontiac Solstice
The Pontiac Solstice is a small sports car designed for enjoyable everyday driving. It’s the kind of car someone might use for a weekend trip, like camping. The episode mentions it alongside other vehicles the host uses.
Part
rear swing out
A rear swing-out is a back door that opens outward so you can reach stuff mounted on the back of the vehicle. Here, it sounds like the parts were made so tight that when everything was loaded, it started scraping the hatch and causing damage.
Term
tight tolerances
“Tight tolerances” means the parts were built with very little gap between them. If the vehicle flexes or the hardware shifts when loaded, that tiny gap can disappear and the parts start rubbing.
Part
roto packs
“Roto packs” are usually those plastic jugs/containers you mount on the outside of a 4x4 to carry fuel or water. The point here is that when they’re full and the vehicle settles, the setup needs extra clearance so things don’t scrape.
Term
rear hatch
The rear hatch is the vehicle’s rear door panel that opens to access the cargo area. When the swing-out rubs into the rear hatch, it can damage paint and even cut into nearby mounted gear or bodywork.
Term
wrap
A “wrap” here is a protective film stuck onto the car’s exterior. The host is saying the rubbing was so bad it wore through that film and even damaged the paint underneath.
Term
Molly panel
A “Molly panel” is a grid of attachment points that lets you hook or strap gear down securely. It’s like having built-in tie-down spots on the vehicle so equipment doesn’t move around.
Term
switch pro
A “Switch Pro” is a control box with switches for off-road add-ons like lights or a compressor. It helps you wire accessories neatly and turn them on/off easily.
Term
shock tuning
Shock tuning means adjusting your suspension shocks so they work correctly with the springs. The goal is to make the ride and handling behave the way you want when you hit bumps.
Part
coil overs
Coilovers are suspension parts that combine a spring and a shock together. They let you adjust how the truck rides and handles, which is useful for off-roading.
Term
spring rates
Spring rate is how stiff the spring is. A higher spring rate resists compression more, which changes how the suspension reacts when you hit bumps.
Term
jam nuts
Jam nuts are lock nuts that keep an adjustment from drifting. On coilovers, they help hold your settings in place so the suspension doesn’t slowly change over time.
Term
slider
The slider is the part that controls how the suspension moves through its travel. It helps determine when different springs are active as the suspension goes up and down.
Term
preload
Preload is how much the spring is already compressed when the suspension is at rest. It changes how the suspension feels right away when you hit the first bumps.
Term
top hat
The top hat is the piece at the top of the spring that you can adjust. Turning it changes where the spring sits, which affects how the suspension behaves.
Term
compression
Compression is when the suspension gets pushed in—like when a tire hits a bump. The shock’s behavior during that push affects ride comfort and control.
Term
rebound
Rebound is when the suspension springs back out after being compressed. Good rebound control helps the tires stay planted instead of bouncing.
Term
class 11
“Class 11” is a category used in off-road racing so cars compete against similar types. Here, they’re saying it’s the class for VW Bugs.
Car
Beetle Vw Bugs
The Beetle is a small car made by Volkswagen, and it’s commonly called the “VW Bug.” It’s easy to recognize because of its distinctive shape. The episode mentions it as a car people might not know by name until it’s explained.
Term
power steering issues
Power steering helps you turn the wheel with less effort. If it’s having issues, something in that assist system isn’t working right, so steering can feel heavy, noisy, or inconsistent.
Term
pressure relief return
This is a modification that helps manage the pressure in the power-steering system. Instead of letting pressure build up and cause problems, it routes the extra pressure back where it belongs.
Brand
radio dynamics
Radio Dynamics is a company that makes parts for vehicles. In this episode, they’re mentioned as providing a power-steering fix that helped stop the problems the guest was having.
Brand
Baja design single rock light
Baja Designs makes off-road lights. A “rock light” is a small light that shines down near the vehicle so you can see the ground—useful on trails and also around camp.
Brand
Lumberjack Engineering
Lumberjack Engineering is an aftermarket parts brand that makes vehicle-specific mounting hardware. Here, they’re providing the rear hatch light mount so the Baja Designs light can be installed securely and wired cleanly.
Car
Bugatti Divo
The Bugatti Divo is an extremely expensive, very fast sports car made for high-performance driving. It’s the kind of car people notice immediately because it’s rare and has a special design. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as part of the owner’s setup for an event or outing.
Brand
Divos
Divos sounds like a brand of lights. The host is saying it does a great job lighting up camp.
Term
siren
A siren is a loud sound device. People add them to vehicles so others can hear them from far away.
Term
radios
Here, “radios” means two-way walkie-talkie-style communication for the group. The host is saying they haven’t set that up yet and are using internet instead.
Term
Starlink
Starlink is satellite-based internet. The host wants a proper mount so the device isn’t just sitting loosely on the dashboard.
Term
valve body
On an automatic transmission, the valve body is like the control panel that directs fluid to make the transmission shift. It helps decide when gears change and how smoothly it does it.
Company
Cruiser and Company
Cruiser and Company is the business Lee reached out to for these transmission parts. They’re described as importing and selling the valve bodies.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a tough 4-wheel-drive SUV built for rough roads and off-road trails. People talk about it a lot because it’s designed to last and handle difficult conditions. In the episode, it’s brought up because the host knows the right people in that community.
Term
torque converter lockups
A torque converter usually lets the engine and transmission spin somewhat independently. A lockup is when it connects them more directly, which can make the car more efficient and change how it drives.
Car
4Runner Forerunners
The Toyota 4Runner is a midsize SUV designed to handle rough roads and off-road trails. The podcast mentions it while talking about different generations and what people may not know about them. It’s included because it’s a common choice for trail driving.
Term
automatic transmission
An automatic transmission changes gears on its own. It uses internal controls and fluid pressure to manage shifting and how power flows from the engine.
Term
rear diff
The “rear diff” is a gearbox in the back of the truck that helps the two rear wheels spin at different speeds, especially when turning. Off-road use can wear it out, so people rebuild it to keep it working correctly.
Term
crush sleeve
A crush sleeve is a small part used during differential assembly to set the correct tightness of the bearings. If it gets crushed the wrong amount, the gears can wear out faster—sometimes with warning signs like noise.
Term
ring gear
The ring gear is one of the gears inside the differential that works with the pinion gear. If the gears don’t mesh correctly, they can wear out quickly and make noise.
Term
e-brakes
E-brakes are parking brakes that use an electric motor rather than a cable. If something goes wrong, they usually need the right diagnostic procedure to fix.
Car
Toyota A90
The Toyota Supra is a sports car made for fast driving and quick handling. It’s usually easy to recognize because of its look and how it performs. The podcast mentions it as a car you’d notice right away.
Term
solar
Solar panels make electricity from sunlight. In an RV, that power is usually saved in batteries so you can use it later.
Term
4,000 watt inverter
An inverter is the device that turns battery power into the type of electricity your normal AC appliances need. “4,000 watts” is basically the maximum power it can handle.
Term
110 volt
“110 volt” is the normal electricity level used for many home appliances. If your RV wants to run those devices, it needs an AC system set up for that voltage.
Term
shore power
Shore power is when you plug the RV into power at the campground. In this plan, shore power is mostly for charging the RV’s batteries.
Term
12 volt air conditioning system
This is an A/C designed to run from the RV’s 12V battery system. The big benefit is it doesn’t need the inverter to convert power first.
Term
heat pump
A heat pump is an air-conditioning/heating system that can both cool and warm. They’re saying it uses energy more efficiently and works better in real conditions.
Term
compressor style AC system
This is the more traditional type of air conditioner that uses a compressor to cool the air. The host is comparing it to a heat pump and saying the heat pump keeps up better.
Term
battery system
They’re referring to the RV’s battery setup—how the batteries are connected and how power gets used. The way the batteries are wired can change how much usable power you actually get.
Term
hooked up in parallel
Parallel wiring means the batteries are connected so they keep the same voltage. That lets you use more total battery power for the RV’s electrical needs.
Term
bus bar
A bus bar is like a central “power junction” where multiple battery cables connect. It helps make sure power is shared more evenly between batteries instead of one battery being more affected by wiring resistance.
Term
internal resistances of the batteries
Even inside a battery, there’s some resistance to electricity flowing. If the wiring isn’t set up evenly, some batteries can end up doing more work and getting drained more than others.
Term
usable capacity
Usable capacity is how much of the battery’s stored energy you can actually use. If batteries aren’t wired evenly, some may run down sooner, so the whole system can’t use as much energy as it should.
Car
Cadillac Fleetwood
The Cadillac Fleetwood is a luxury car known for a classic, comfortable feel. It’s often talked about as an “old-school” style vehicle. In the episode, it’s mentioned while describing the kind of music or mood that fits that vibe.
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.
Oh, welcome one.
Welcome all to the snail trail four by four podcast.
If you like going off roading and Toyota's wrenching on Toyota's camping
and Toyota's and maybe even poking a little bit of fun at Toyota's.
And of course, hearing about how fantastic
lava tubes are in Toyotas.
I guess you can't do those in Toyota's than this is the podcast for you.
That's right, ladies and germs.
My name is Tyler joining me for another episode of snail travel by four podcast
is Jimmy Jett.
How you doing, man?
Good. Thank you.
How are you doing?
Pretty darn good.
Nice.
I'm gearing up for a Rubathon.
Yes, we are.
By the time this show airs, I think we'll be on the trail.
Yes, we will be.
So that'll be a lot of fun.
Looking forward to that this weekend.
What is this?
I have no idea.
Oh, really?
OK, I mean, it's it's to me.
Who's it from?
Ash, oh, I know what it is.
OK, and it's going to be a future giveaway.
Gotcha. OK.
Yes. All right.
After the awesome one that we have for next month, it's true.
Following the amazing one we have this month.
Yeah, we got a couple of really good
giveaways going on for June and July.
So what is today on release day?
Is it 25th today?
Is that must be the 25th?
Yes. OK, cool.
So we still got about another week here,
roughly to get people in for the giveaway this month,
which is APL 20
refrigerator, portable 12 volt fridge from Isco.
It's one of their like O.G. fridges, super style, awesome design,
single zone, metal exterior, so it'll take a beating.
Their pumps, which we learned about in the episode with David.
What was that two weeks ago?
Two weeks ago, Monday, Monday are really neat
because they can go upwards of 40 degrees off canter,
off-canted to and still run and operate,
which is awesome for off-road vehicles.
So, yeah, I can definitely say that the fridge I currently have,
which is kind of like an Amazon special.
OK, it's nice because it has dual zone and wheels.
So you can load it up in the house and wheel it out to your car.
It definitely errors out when I get at funky angles when you wheel it out.
Yeah, I have to have to pull the power cord real quick,
put it back in and reset the compressor.
So anyways, I'm looking forward to seeing somebody winning an APL 20 from Isco.
Definitely go back and listen to the episode,
the interview with David from Isco.
They have a lot of really cool stuff going on.
They're doing some big things in the industry.
And we got to talk a little bit further with David
after the recording, and he filled us in on some fun tidbits that they're planning.
Oh, yeah, Isco's got some fun things in the work,
some fun things in the future for everybody out there.
And I'm excited for them for sure.
It's definitely some fun and really cool as like the specialists
in off-road refrigerators, in my opinion, and vehicle refrigerators.
They have some pretty fun plans for vehicles and refrigerators.
So there's that.
I highly encourage everybody.
We've already gotten a lot of feedback on the new VPL 45 plus
that's being released from Isco.
Isco did a big Kickstarter campaign.
It is fully funded, but it's still going.
So they're still taking more people on on the Kickstarter campaign.
So go check that out if you guys are interested.
It's a fridge with a three-way door system on it.
So the top lid will open to either side, which has been around for a while.
You can remove the whole lid if you want.
Yeah, that's really cool.
And the front of the fridge pulls down and pulls, pulls open and down
and kind of turns into a shelf pullout shelf for the basket inside.
So you can pull the basket out of the front of the fridge,
which means in vehicles, a lot of times we stack shit on top of our fridges
just because we need to package stuff and camping supplies for the weekend.
And so that means you can access the fridge.
You can set it in the back of the vehicle, have the front facing towards the hatch,
pull the hatch open, pull the front door open and slide the basket on,
get access to everything in your fridge.
It's a pretty fucking cool design.
You can put in your back seat and have the front hatch come out the door
of the back seat, the passenger door.
So a lot of really cool, great applications for off-roaders.
And we've already had some people on the Discord
posting screenshots of them signing up for the Kickstarter campaign.
I'm like, that's pretty rad.
Yeah, for sure.
I think it solves a lot of people's problems because there's especially for SUVs,
right? SUV people, they've got to pack it all.
They have a drawer system.
They have shelves.
You people.
You people, SUV people or people with camper shells,
you know, that have a sleeping arrangement built into their camper shell setup.
But usually it's in like some sort of drawer system
where you have some like pull out cubby thing.
And now you can just shove the fridge in the cubby and you can just leave it there
and then open the front facing door.
It's so cool.
That's pretty rad.
So I'm definitely going to be getting at least one, maybe two, maybe,
I don't know if I'll get three, at least one, maybe two,
but we get a fun deal through them.
So it'll be a little bit here rather than getting it on the Kickstarter.
So yeah.
If you guys want one of them, make sure you get signed up on the Kickstarter.
That's the only way you're going to get product right now on those VPL 45 pluses.
Didn't they give us a discount code?
I don't know.
Actually, they did.
I thought it was on the show notes.
Yes. Yes, we did, Jimmy.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, great.
I looked that up really quick.
Perfect.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thanks to the magic of editing.
We got.
So what is it?
I don't remember.
What'd you find?
Take my credit.
I was a snail trail.
Use the code snail trail for 12% off.
So you can go and get anything right now on Iceco
and you can use the code snail trail for 12% off their site wide.
Yeah, I think the Kickstarter is around 20 to 30% off,
depending on what level that you commit to on Kickstarter.
So on and that's on the VPL 45 plus and accessories.
Yeah, but that fridge only.
They're not offering any other fridge,
but they are offering additional accessories like the battery pack, etc.
So but if you are interested in getting any of their other fridges,
we have a discount code.
Thank you to them.
Snail trail.
So 12% off.
Yep.
So let's see.
You guys have until the end of the month to get in on the Iceco giveaway.
I somebody tried and tested the
signups on discord.
Oh, and they cannot get into the threads,
the threads where I have the URLs for each signup actually posted that
they're not accessible by the general public.
So I got to figure out how to solve that
so that they are accessible without showing up in your guys navigation
pains and got it jamming and up and clogging up your navigation panel.
So I'll figure that out.
If you guys want to sign up on discord DM me or tag me on discord
somewhere and I will send you the URL in a DM for that that tier
while I figure out how to do how to make it work to buy one at working.
Got it.
So yeah, so there it's functioning, but not functioning perfectly.
Exactly.
Yeah, if you're if you're interested in signing up through discord.
Yeah, DM Tyler or myself.
I'm sure I can find it.
So we can we'll work out.
You have accessed all the threads in the URLs.
So OK, cool.
Let's there's that next month is really cool,
but I'm not telling you guys what it is yet.
Maybe Monday, maybe Monday, 29 might tease it.
Yeah, it is a little boxy.
We'll tease it, though. Sure.
Yeah, sounds covered. OK.
What do we did we get them?
Not yet. No, I need to reach back out to them.
We more flight.
We just we moved a bunch of shit around on digital stuff, digital assets.
Like we had to change our web server back over,
which means you have to change our DNS and domain, domain and DNS records back
and stuff, and then we moved everything over to Shopify from WooCommerce.
And that's it took about three and a half days to kind of do all the project.
Everything was down.
Emails were down.
The website was down.
We had no nothing coming in.
The only thing was up.
There was phone calls.
People could phone us and DM us on Instagram really.
So Sean was overwhelmed, I'm sure.
Sean was having a rough time.
I and I was trying to deal with back and stuff while on my trip that we'll talk about.
Yeah. So it all worked out.
Everything is back up and running now, but I'm pretty sure a lot of emails
got lost during that.
And I'm I know for a fact, one of them was a communication with next month's giveaway.
Got it. So I need to follow back up with them and reconvene on that.
So cool. Yeah, that's what I thought this was originally.
Oh, OK.
And then mainly because of the packaging, size and tape.
Yeah. But yeah.
But the tape makes sense in another way, which you'll find out later.
Yeah. But yeah.
So yeah, the giveaway for iceco is going to end at the end of this month.
So on the 30th is the last day that you can get in for the iceco giveaway.
We've got a fantastic interview giveaway and probably a discount code or maybe a group buy.
I think it's going to be more of a group buy.
Yeah, they said they might do a discount code as well.
Cool. So yeah, all the above, all the above for next month, which is going to be a fun one.
So get in for those tiers right now.
You can do the signups on I rate four by four or on the discord
if you DM us at the moment, but Tyler's going to figure that out.
It I'll figure it out after Rubathon, probably.
Probably we'll see.
Probably after.
Yeah, let's let's just throw it out there.
It'll be after Rubathon.
So you don't have to worry about it. Yeah.
Cool. Let's see.
What else we got going on?
We have reviews always happening.
I looked up reviews before I did a Monday's episode and we had not crested 800 yet,
but we had only a few entries left.
So we're probably right there for that 800 mark.
If you haven't got in to leave a review, go do so.
We give some fun stuff away every 50 reviews and we're coming up on 800.
And so we've got an on ex elite membership to give away for once we get to 800.
When we get to 850, we're doing another on ex elite membership.
And when we get to 900 reviews, we're giving away $900 of more filet gear.
Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of really cool stuff in there and a lot of stuff that has not been released yet.
That is going to be slated for that giveaway.
Yeah, you just learned about a new one this morning.
So yes.
Yep. That one I think we kind of alluded to that one.
That one's actually a little bit came out in the discord.
It did, for sure.
Yeah, I think the discord pushed it.
It kind of did.
I wasn't going to do it because it's not I'm I want to keep the company kind of
niched right for tire inflation stuff, but this seems like the market is ripe
for it and it's too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Sure.
So I'm going with it anyways.
If you guys are on discord, then you may know what I'm talking about.
And once we get everything shipping and confirmed on its way to us from the
production schedule side of things, we'll announce it here on the podcast for everybody.
Yeah, that I'm probably going to order at least three.
They're pretty sweet and they're a phenomenal price point.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, so go leave us a review.
You leave us a review once you automatically get entered into everything in the future.
So you're just giving yourself free entry into winning some cool stuff.
Yeah, sweet.
All right, anything else, man?
Any other updates housekeeping things?
Not necessarily.
I mean, we talked about discord tokens are out there.
You dropped a bunch of tokens this weekend.
It sounds like which we'll maybe get to in the future.
But yeah, and then we're coming up at the end of the month.
So that means FNGs and birthdays will be here shortly.
Cool.
Yeah, I like it.
All right, so then let's take a break and we'll reconvene after a couple of
moments of talking about on X are good friends over there and the cool
stuff that they come up with and we'll be right back with kind of what we've
been up to the shenanigans that you mean I got ourselves into.
Are you stuck inside?
Are you not sure where you want to go to explore?
We'll open the on X off road app.
It shows you all the trails around you and it tells you their difficulty.
Now you can quickly search out your next adventure or plan your next trip.
Download on X off road from the app store on X off road built for the adventurer.
Well, come back everybody to Thursday, this Thursday episode, shenanigans and the
what in the butt that we've been up to.
Let's see here, man.
I had a big father's day trip.
You guys went all over.
We went all over.
It didn't do any off-roading.
Nope.
We did get off pavement to get to one campground, but no off-roading really.
And then Fiona got some upgrades.
Nice.
And then we didn't even look at it.
It's so nice.
Okay.
It turned out so good.
I'm really happy with the work that Brad did and we'll get into that in a bit.
So let's see.
That's yeah, I got a Fiona update and the trip really, which wasn't a whole lot
of off-roading, so I think it'll go fairly quickly.
Yeah.
Well, I had my summer solstice camping trip this weekend and the Tacoma got as
far off-pavement as once the trailer hit dirt, pretty much stopped.
Because that was my camp spot.
Yeah, pavement.
But you took the trailer for the camping.
We took the teardrop.
Yes.
So yeah, do you want to start since you actually do have some off-roading or truck stuff?
Sure.
Yeah, we can get into that.
And I've been starting the last few times.
Okay.
Okay.
Cool.
Let's look at us taking turns like adults.
All right.
So let's start with Fiona upgrades.
Yeah, sure.
Because that's exciting.
That's a fun part.
The big issue that I was having was the rear swing out that Stella built bought.
All right.
Built.
Thank you.
That it was just built way too tight tolerances.
They didn't plan it all for the roto packs to expand for the metal to settle
once it was fully loaded.
And that was causing everything to rub into the rear hatch and rub really bad.
Like it's through the wrap, through the paint.
It's rubbing into the metal body of the hatch.
Wow.
Whipsies.
Yeah.
So and it's rubbing a hole in the roto packs.
Oh, thanks.
Which is also a very bad problem, right?
So I took it over to Brad.
We talked about it.
And he was always going to finish up and do the Molly panel on the outer exterior rear
of the swing out and the amorphate logo.
On it.
So the MF.
So I took it to him and I was selling the switch pro that I pulled out of Fiona.
Oh, yeah.
And I had it listed on marketplace for 450, 500 bucks, something like that.
And Brad messaged me and goes, Hey, I'm interested.
And I was like, lol.
Okay.
Give me some simply lemonade.
Cause that's always like my thing, right?
I like the simply alcoholic lemonade.
And so a lot of times I will trade leftover old off-roading stuff I have or tools or
something I don't use anymore for lemonade for people.
And I was just like, now you all know the way to Tyler's heart.
Exactly.
Right.
Just show up with a pack, 12 pack of simply hard lemonade.
Um, and so, uh, he died.
There was a 12 pack sitting here one day when we got into the studio.
Yes.
And there was a note on it saying from Brad.
Yeah.
And I was like, did he really think I was going to trade him the switch pro for a one
12 pack of lemonade?
And apparently not.
It was a joke, but, um, he agreed to do the Molly panel on the back and then I showed
up at his place saying, dude, we got to cut this whole thing off.
So, um, we're have a different deal now for all that.
Yes.
Um, much more work than he was originally anticipating.
But he got it all done, uh, before heading out on his vacation.
And then, uh, I got it back and it was funny because he said that when, um, he moved it
all out two inches.
Okay.
And he only ended up gaining one inch of clearance between the body, the hatch, and
the roto packs.
Wow.
That's how much the bumper kind of, the swing out kind of settled in and how much
roto packs swell out.
Um, and so, and that's how much it was digging into the door when you fully closed the swing
out.
Right.
So he goes, I just doesn't make sense in my head.
And I was like, that's how bad the measurements were done.
I'm sorry.
Like, but that's how bad it was digging into everything.
So anyways, he got it all moved out, um, about two and a half inches.
He said it was the final measurement and that leaves us with about an inch, inch and a half
between the roto packs and the door, which should be enough.
Um, and so he did the Mali panel on the back.
Um, so inch by inch and a half Mali panel, um, openings with some of the bolt holes.
I think every four Mali panels, there's the four bolt holes.
Okay.
And so my plan with that is I'm going to, um, put in some Mali panel acts mounts.
So I can get the splitting acts and the, uh, the felling acts out of the inside of the cargo
area too, because they're just weird, uh, awkward shaped objects to have and sharp to
have in the cargo area.
Um, so those will be hanging on the back rear of Fiona now, and then there'll be left over
Mali panel to hang quick access recovery items if I need to kind of thing.
So that's really neat.
Uh, I really happy with how it all turned out.
He did, uh, the whole Mali panel and the whole swing out and everything painted black
and then he did the MF logo and stainless.
Oh, right.
And it's riveted to the Mali panel.
So it's just, it pops and stands out really, really good.
I'm really happy with the stainless MF on there.
Um, and the, just that contrast, that cool contrast.
Um, and then he covered up all of the stellar built logos with more flight logos as well.
Oh yeah.
So, and, and some other stainless items, which you'll, you'll see.
So it's on the, was that the surprise that he was alluding to?
Yeah.
So I'm very happy with it.
Um, it looks like there should be enough clearance.
It's still tucked up out high in a way so that there's plenty of departure angle.
I'm not hurting my departure angles at all.
Um, and it's, I'm happy to see if it stays settled in properly this time.
And is it fluid opening?
I know that when we were on trail hero X, it was starting to like
dig in on the swing.
And so it was like, there was a point at which you actually had to then go and
lift the pin back up so you could open it fully.
It is operating smoothly right now.
I would imagine as time goes on and as it just kind of wears a wear path into that ramp
from the pin that it'll start digging in there again.
You just got to file it down and keep making it'll self clear and eventually
have it's own little working path.
Gotcha.
So I wonder if a Delran thing or something would be
Oh, like a little UHMW or Delran pad for it to slide on instead of the metal.
That's an interesting idea.
Yeah.
Or it'll dig in faster.
All right.
Just got to keep it lubed.
Lots of lubed.
Jimmy answered.
It's answered life.
Just spit on it before you open.
Another answer to life.
All right.
So that's the swing out.
I think the swing out is done.
It just takes going out and wheeling with everything fully loaded to see if it'll
settle in and if we need to readjust again.
So that's done.
So the next step for Fiona is shock tuning with Phil shock Jesus.
He owes me a shock tuning.
So I'm going to take it up there and spend a weekend and kind of get things dialed in.
I think the shocks are pretty well dialed in.
We've talked about this.
It's mainly tuning the springs on the coil overs and getting the correct length springs,
spring rates and setting up the height, not the height, where the slider stops,
the jam nuts on the coil over for where the both springs no longer act.
And it's just now the bottom spring kind of thing.
So preload.
It's not preload.
That's the top hat that you're turning down.
It's the slider that allows the two springs to slide up and down and act together with the
two different spring rates, which gives you the overall spring rate.
You can tighten that down so that as the shock is coming up and entering its compression
zone or zones, depending on what type of shock you have, the spring, the top spring,
which is usually your lower spring rate stops working.
Yes.
And your bottom spring, which is usually a much higher spring rate starts working.
So as you start hitting different ride zones in your shock, you can have your springs
now all of a sudden drastically change your spring rate.
So it helps the rebound aspect of your shocks during those different ride zones.
You can really tune it in and set it properly for what you're looking to do with your vehicle.
So that's what Phil is a genius at, and that's what I'm going for on that.
So that's on the to-do list.
Let's see. The steering is on the to-do list.
Yes.
And you know Lauren, right?
Yes.
Race car driver extraordinaire now.
Lauren, he came by the warehouse yesterday to pick up some more flight gear.
We're sponsoring him and his team.
And so I told him we need to interview him.
Yes, we do. I sat down and talked to him for maybe an hour while he was here,
and he has some really fun stories from him and Lee out at the big sky.
So anyways.
And he raced or was the co-pilot in a class 11, I think, too?
Oh, really? I didn't know that, which is the VW bugs.
Gotcha. Okay.
Yes. So I think an interview with Lauren is coming on the horizon here.
But Lauren said that he was having some really bad power steering issues on his car.
And as soon as he switched over to the radio dynamics pressure relief return,
special valve that Eric has at radio dynamics, he said it fixed all the problems.
Okay. Nice.
And he said it sound like he was having similar problems to what I'm experiencing on Fiona.
Okay.
So I'm like, that's cool. I haven't found anybody yet that specifically was having
similar issues, moved to that valve and have it solved.
Have it kind of solved.
So I think it's very encouraging.
So I think that'll be the next step after the shock tuning
to get in touch with Eric at radio dynamics and go down that path of the steering.
And then after that, I think Fiona is going to be set.
Like where, I don't know how to word this without sounding like a dick.
Where you want it?
Where I want it and where I expect it should be for a $50,000 show vehicle from a
off-road car builder.
You still have the gatekeeper lights, right?
I have not put those on yet.
Right.
But yes, I do have them the knuckle lights for the super duty knuckles to put on.
And those are some Baja S2s to go on the gatekeeper mounts.
Oh, S2s.
Okay.
Pretty sure they're S1s.
They might be S1s.
That's correct.
Because the S2s were going to be in the...
Put them in your bump.
I put the small squadron pros in the bumper and then the S2s went up high in the rear for
the chase lights.
I have another set of S2s then that might be the knuckle lights.
Oh, okay.
So anyways, I got to look at that and see that.
But I need to get those lights put on.
I did just get a Baja design single rock light to go in that rear hatch.
Okay.
The rear hatch light mount from Lumberjack Engineering.
So now that I have that, I can get that plugged in and wired up and set up in the rear hatch.
So there'll be plenty of light back there.
I'll see if I can do that before Rubathon because it would be nice to have that light
for Rubathon.
Yes.
If not, not a big deal.
I got the Divos, which always does a fantastic job at camp lighting.
So after kind of all that's done, oh, I have a siren to put on too.
I still haven't put on.
Oh, man.
That's like the most important upgrade, Jimmy.
Get any radios yet?
Radio geek?
I haven't got radios yet.
I'm depending too much on the Starlink.
I'm becoming dependent on Elon.
It would be nice to have a mount for the Starlink rather than just flopping around on the dashboard.
I need to fix that.
So let's see.
The next step is to look at the valve body in the transmission.
Lee reached out to Cruiser and Company.
I think it's the company that's called that imports them into Colorado.
And they sell out of Colorado and these valve bodies come in from wholesale transmissions
in Australia.
Lee reached out and talked to the owner because Lee knows everybody in the Land Cruiser world.
And so he reached out to, I think the owner's name was John and had a discussion about these
valve bodies.
And apparently John owns more flight gear and loves it.
Oh, really?
So now I'm like, oh, okay.
I'll let me call John.
I'll talk with him.
We can chat and just BS about random business stuff in the offered industry.
And also talk to him about these valve bodies and the torque converter lockups.
So let's get them on the podcast.
Right.
So that'll probably be another path too because I've had people reaching out that are like,
I didn't know these things existed for the fourth gen forerunners.
And yeah, so we'll get some really cool information I think about automatic transmission
valve bodies and torque converter lockups.
So I just need to reach out to him.
Lee said that he was talking to him yesterday from when we're recording.
So if I get time, I'll call him the day.
If not, I'll call him tomorrow.
So that's really it.
Once the valve body is done on Fiona, I think Fiona is going to be, oh, I need to get the
rear diff done.
The rear diff needs to be redone.
That's in there too.
Probably before I go to shock tuning.
Yes, that's probably a good idea.
That one is just a ticking time bomb.
Jason was like, yeah, there's three different patterns run on this ring gear right now
because of the crush sleeve being crushed.
So it's a ticking time bomb.
You need to.
And so once soon as Jason's back from vacation,
Fiona, I'll be going over there to get that rear diff redone.
So rear diff, shock tuning, steering, and then a valve body transmission, torque converter
lockup.
And then I think Fiona's going to be pretty damn well set for a while
based on how I really want Fiona set up.
Cool.
So I'm excited.
We're coming.
We're coming to a complete path forward.
Yes.
With what I know wants to get, I want to get done and need done on it.
And then optional stuff in the future will be as the the e-brakes, the electric parking
brakes, the same ones from gatekeeper.
Is it gatekeeper off road?
No.
Somebody else.
It's the ones that will metal cloak has and unleash four by four has on all of his vehicles.
He's installing them on every vehicle he gets as now with a super duty rear axle.
So yeah, we'll be doing that at some point in the future too, but that's not like a super tight
and super needed timeline at the moment.
So, right, right.
Cool.
Yeah.
So how was camping then?
Camping was great.
We went up to, it did a big trip.
We started in Sacramento and went up to lava beds.
National park.
Okay.
National monument technically, but it's all managed by the national park system.
So lava beds is a really neat little area north of Lassen.
And I didn't realize how close to the Oregon border it is.
I would pull up, I pulled up onyx at one point to be like, all right, let's,
I think I was hiding a token.
Okay.
And I was like, holy shit, the Oregon border is right there.
Well, you weren't above Shasta.
Yeah, I was.
You were?
Yep.
Interesting.
Yep.
So it's not that close to Lassen then.
It was about a two hour drive to get to Lassen.
Yeah.
But then how far from Lassen to lava beds?
No, sorry, from two to two and a half.
We went to lava beds first and then came down to Lassen.
So from lava beds to Lassen was about two and a half, three hours.
From lava beds to Lassen was two and a half hours.
About, yeah.
Okay.
So yeah.
And then it's about two hours from Lassen to Sacramento.
Yeah, 22 and a half.
Yeah.
It took us about six hours to get up to the campsite at Lava Beds National Park.
Wow.
Okay.
So yeah, that's, yeah, you're out there.
So we were up there.
So I would, I would venture to say as the crow flies, we were maybe
60, 70 miles from the Oregon border.
Dang.
Yeah.
And how far from Nevada?
Nevada, we're probably a good 150, 200 miles.
Okay.
So you're still a little inland.
Still a little inland.
But yeah, we're kind of right up at Lava Beds is right up in that corner of
California that there's just nothing out there.
Are you off 89?
Yes.
Okay.
Yep.
Yeah.
We took 89 pretty much all the way up.
Wow.
Yeah.
So lava beds, not really my cup of tea.
It's just, A, it was really hot.
It was at the end of the heat wave.
So it was 100 plus degrees with dark lava rock everywhere and no shade cover at all
because nothing grows in lava rock.
No, not really.
So the saving grace was that one of the main activities in lava beds is to go hiking
through lava tubes.
Yes.
And so you could do a lot of spelunking in lava beds.
And I've always been very interested in spelunking, especially as a kid,
like a teenager.
I was so, I wanted to crawl through every fucking cave I could find, right?
Interesting.
Yeah.
But I'd never really got a ton of opportunities to do it.
It was always one of those I want to.
I really, really want to do this.
Never really had people in my family that also wanted to go crawl through craves.
And so as an adult and as I've gotten to learn about search and rescue horror stories
about people getting lost in caves, I'm like, I don't really have the drive to go spelunking
and crawling through caves anymore.
I'm already very directly challenged as it is.
If I don't have access to GPS, I am fucked.
I need a really long rope.
Exactly.
I need a cap six cable, 2000 3000 foot scat six cable to follow me down in there.
Anyways, and so we, we chose some caves that were very short, a max of like 500 feet long,
and we're very well marked and lit.
Right.
So it's their beginner caves.
Also, because as we learned going into the first cave,
Reed does really not like to be inside of a cave.
He's a two and a half year old that all of a sudden your world disappears
and it gets really cold all of a sudden and yeah, and small dark and enclosed.
And the roof is coming down on you in places and you have to kind of like crawl or duck
waddle to get through some areas.
He wasn't having it.
No.
So dealing with a very anxious toddler while trying to get through a cave while you're
duck waddling.
Yeah.
Not a lot of fun.
No.
It does not sound like it, but it was probably 70 high 60s in the cave.
Felt great in the caves.
God, I was just like, I just want to sit down here in the opening for the next five hours.
Yeah.
Wait till it cools down and turns dark outside.
Then I'll emerge.
I'll emerge, exactly.
That's exactly what I was trying to do.
So I loved the temperature of the caves and being down just kind of hanging out in them.
It was definitely a cool experience, pun intended.
But and hopefully by the kind of the end of the second cave we went to, he was relaxing a little
bit, but that cave had some spots in it where the roof had collapsed.
And so you had sunshine coming in every once in a while.
Got it.
So it was, it wasn't just a dark unknown abyss to a toddler.
You can see areas of sunlight coming in.
So he was doing a little bit better than that one.
What he really enjoyed was all the lizards everywhere.
Oh, cool.
Lizards, the picas, which are tiny little chipmunks, desert chipmunks essentially.
He loved watching those, pointing them out that they'd run away and hide.
And he'd be like, dad, lizards go hide.
So that became a thing that they were playing hide and seek with him.
And then he really enjoys riding the bike with that shotgun seat on it.
We did one bike ride at lava beds and I was like, I'm going to die.
It's 95 degrees.
I cannot ride a bike with a toddler on it 95 degrees.
And so we spent some time.
That's when we went down into the caves, the tubes, and then had lunch and left.
So overall lava beds is not my jam.
But if you like exploring caves and spelunking desert,
it's a different type of desert life.
Yeah.
Because there's no desert ground.
It's all pumice and lava rock, right?
So if you like that kind of thing and like learning about volcanic activity and geology,
lava beds is a pretty cool spot.
It's not my jam.
Yeah.
I think lava tubes are kind of cool.
You know, it's like one of those things like cool.
I've done it.
Yeah.
And that's kind of how I am too.
The secretary loved it.
Oh, good.
It's like one of her top favorite activities now.
And she really, really wants to go back when he's older and go on like spelunking trips
where you need knee pads and helmets and you're going to be crawling through some tight crevices.
I'm like, sure, I'll go.
Whatever.
It's a fun, still a fun time.
I didn't not have a good time.
I would just rather be hanging out something at Spider Lake or a Barrett Lake or something.
Yeah.
Or another lake.
Another lake.
I need water if it's going to be hot out.
Yes.
So anyways, that was lava beds.
Let's see next from there.
We went down to a campsite that was kind of halfway between lava beds and Lassen.
Okay.
I'm called Rush Creek campsite.
So you found water?
We found some water and I was a good time too because I was getting very grumpy.
I was overheating.
My body just shuts down and when you have to deal with a toddler while your body's
shutting down, you lose patience very quickly.
And so I told when we arrived, there's a little creek there.
I told the secretary, hey, just watch him for 15 minutes.
I need to go cool down.
So I just stripped down and jumped in the creek because there was nobody else there.
We had the campsite all to ourselves.
It was really neat.
It's a pretty cool little campsite.
It reminds me a lot of high Sierra campsites, a lot of redwood in there, big trees.
But the big difference from up north from what I experience in our high Sierra forests,
like El Dorado National Forest, Todd National Forest, is that all the trees are way healthier.
Really?
Yeah.
Why?
I've been getting more rain lately.
They've probably been getting more rain.
But typically because of my experience now with felling trees and understanding what
hazards trees are and what risk mitigation is when you are around trees.
It's like the first thing I do when I go into a campsite now is I mentally take note of where
the hazard trees are, which way they're leaning so that if they come down, I know which way they
are going to come down.
If I hear a loud creek pop sound, I know where I need to be looking, where I should be going to,
where the exit routes are.
And there wasn't really any of those in this campground.
It was really kind of cool.
So did they come through and clean them?
It was a very well-maintained campground.
And so I think that there's a combination of just a healthier forest there as well as
more maintenance.
Interesting.
The one big thing I did notice that really stood out was while driving around on the highways
up there, that north and north of Lassen, like around the Burnie Falls area and McLeod,
McLeod and Burnie Falls area, all the forests are way more maintained.
You can tell there's way more effort in the forest maintenance up there than there is down here.
There's a lot of trees.
The forests are thinned out.
There's very little fuel on the ground, on the grounds.
There's very healthy vegetation on the ground.
It's a very different feeling in those forests than the ones down here.
Yeah.
So I thought that was kind of a very interesting dichotomy to experience.
McLeod is where the assistance stepdad's from.
Gotcha.
That brings it more connections now.
I didn't realize how far up that was.
We've gone to McLeod a few times for random events.
It's a cool little city, too.
It is a pretty rad little city, yeah.
I remember driving through it many years ago before I knew the assistant to
hike Shasta on the southeast side of Shasta.
And we drove through and I'm like, wow, I want to stop here someday.
And then yeah, I ended up stopping there at one point.
But yeah, they have a ton of ties to that town.
That's cool.
But it's a really cool, like if anybody's passing through,
it's just a fun spot to stop off, get some food, relax.
There's a few different restaurants and a cute little downtown.
And then either stay there or pass through.
But it's cool.
Yep.
That was a neat little spot.
We tried to go to Bernie Falls that next day.
So the Rush Creek campground, only one group quote unquote came in.
It was two people on motorcycles.
Oh, wow.
And they took one of the campsites far away from us.
And that was the only people we saw there.
Weird.
Yeah.
And I was like, this is a really well maintained campground to have nobody here.
Yeah.
Well, you found recently, you found two campgrounds now that you've been
pretty much the only people at.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And normally you hear about like how over how packed all these camping spots are.
Yep.
And yeah.
So that's interesting.
I wonder if it's just a matter of like everybody wants to go to the national parks
and nobody wants to go out somewhere else.
I think that the more of the rhetoric around camping is very much being placed and put into
the national park and national forest systems, really national park systems, right?
Because when we went down to Lassen National Park, that was booked.
It was packed.
Sure.
Absolutely packed.
And it was, it was a very stark contrast to the camping we had done before that.
Yeah.
So I mean, even lava beds, lava beds wasn't packed, but I mean, there was probably about
50% capacity on a Wednesday.
Interesting.
Wednesday night.
And so this one granted it was a Thursday night.
So still a weekday, but like we only saw two people in the 36 hours we were there.
Wow.
So it was cool.
It's a neat little spot, a great little creek to lounge in.
You can't swim in it.
It's not deep enough, but you can sit down in it, lay just chill in it and
have some drinks for the afternoon.
But Thursday night, everything started cooling off and we started getting some
thunderstorms rolling in, which was amazing.
So Friday, we tried to go down to Bernie Falls.
Apparently, Bernie Falls has a new rule.
What's that?
If you want to come in on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, you have to make reservations.
Wow.
Or a holiday weekend, which this was all that.
Yeah.
And we didn't realize there's a new rule about that now.
Sure.
And so even though they were nowhere near capacity when we got there,
they turned us around and made us leave on a Friday.
So we didn't get to go see Bernie, Bernie Falls.
Bummer.
Instead, we went down to check out McLeod Falls.
Yeah.
Did you see the upper middle or lower?
All three.
Okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
We drove to all three spots rather than trying to hike the, I think,
two miles of hiking trail, two and a half with the top of that.
But yeah, and it's not an easy hike.
No, it's not.
We did see people though, because we started at the bottom.
Okay.
And then by the time we got to the top, we had lunch at the bottom.
So by the time we checked out the falls at the bottom, had lunch and then drove around,
checked out the middle ones, looked around to the middle ones, which is really impressive.
And then drove around to the top.
We hung out at the top for a little bit, because there's a little beach area before
you go hiking down to the top falls.
And we saw two different groups that had hiked that whole thing and came up as we were at
the top falls that we saw down at the bottom falls.
Yeah.
The bottom falls is nice.
Did you actually go down to the water and eat lunch down there?
There are some smaller picnic tables up top.
We stayed at the picnic tables up top in the viewing area.
Yeah.
And where there are people jumping off the rocks into the pool at the bottom.
There was not there, not at the lower.
There was people doing at the middle ones though.
Okay.
The middle falls.
Maybe I'm getting them confused.
But I think I've only been to the lower and upper.
Okay.
So I would need to see photos to clarify.
The middle is very different.
The middle falls is the lower is kind of a shoot, right?
Yeah.
A shoot comes down to a big pool.
To a big pool.
And really the access to the pool is a 15 foot rock ledge.
Yes.
Okay.
And then the middle falls is, it's more of a shower curtain style falls.
But it doesn't come in at the same direction of the river.
It comes in, the rock ledge makes a sharp 90 degree turn.
The water falls off right there.
And then it collects in the pool below.
And then the pool below drains out in the direction of the river.
So it's like,
Interesting.
Hey, I don't know if I've seen that one.
Yeah.
I think you would be very recognizable because of just how it comes down.
And all of a sudden the falls makes a 90 return,
falls off the mix 90 degree turn back and empties the pool.
Yeah.
It's like falls off a ledge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And then the upper falls is actually a fairly significant waterfall.
It's a very significant waterfall with a very narrow chute.
Yeah.
Especially compared to the other two.
The other two, 10 feet, or I don't know about the middle one,
but the lower ones, what 10?
10 to 12 feet.
Yeah.
Wide.
I think the top one would be like five to six feet wide,
but it's like a, it's a, it's a 50 fall, 40, 40, 50.
Yeah.
So anyways, McLeod was super cool.
Yeah.
And it was kind of like drizzling.
It was overcast, drizzling, cool.
I was like, this is perfect.
I'm in my flip flops, my shorts and t-shirt.
You need to move to Washington, Oregon.
I don't know why you live down here.
Because the secretary hates cold weather.
I deal with it.
I just have, I depend on air conditioning.
Yeah.
There was McLeod and there's the whole Shasta area.
It's such a beautiful geography and terrain area.
And the Shasta just like pokes out of the middle of nowhere.
Nowhere.
Yeah.
It's, there's no other mountain around it.
And you can look and wherever you're at,
you can look around and pretty much see it unless there's trees in your way.
But yeah, and it's fun because when you hike,
because I've summited Shasta 232 or three times.
And when you're up there, you just get to look out at everything.
Because there's nothing around you that's that high.
And one of the times I summited, I was like, what is that?
And I'm like looking out in the distance and you can see lesson.
Oh yeah.
So it's pretty cool.
And there's a spot near Redding where you're pretty close,
fairly close to Lassen and you can see Lassen and you look out in the distance
and you can see Shasta.
So it, but yeah, I really like that area.
It's Shasta city is a lot of fun.
There's like a city of Shastina, which is kind of interesting.
There's a few lakes around there that are a lot of good and fun to go to.
And some good wakeboarding Shasta Lake is amazing.
And like two or like three weeks or something like that,
we're doing our Shasta camping trip.
And so we'll be up in that area again.
Yeah.
So, but yeah, and McLeod's really cool.
And there's, there's a lot of really cool spots up there that is off the beaten path.
A lot of people don't go to.
So yeah, it's neat.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed the Shasta area part of the trip.
Cool.
Shasta, McLeod, Burnie area.
So that was really cool.
After that, let's say we went down to Lassen National Park for Friday night.
Okay.
And so we stayed at the main campground of Manzanita Lake.
I think it's called Lassen.
That's where we stayed.
Okay.
Yeah.
Pretty cool little campground right on the lake, general store.
They had soft serve ice cream.
And so that was where we really had plans to use the bikes
and bike around with Reed and go explore more on the bikes.
Went to the little museum, the Lassen Museum there, the visitor center.
And spent two nights there.
Okay.
So that was kind of set up camp and base camp there
and then rode around and explored around on the bikes for a couple of days.
And then came on home on Sunday.
Nice.
So did you go to, did you drive up to like the base parking area for the hike up Shasta?
We Lassen.
Yes.
Thank you.
Lassen.
Yes.
So after on our way home Sunday, we drove through the park from the north side down to the south side.
We drove all the way down.
Just drove all the way down.
So we stopped at the, there's a couple of lakes right below that parking area.
Helen's Lake and Emerald Lake.
Yeah.
So we stopped at Helen's Lake and got some pictures.
There may be a token there and used the restroom, got to play in the snow a little bit with Reed.
Just kind of relaxed for a little bit there.
Trevor Clark said that he couldn't go get one of the tokens because it was still snowed over.
So you have a token up there too?
Well, there's one at the bum gardener, bum something, lava or mud pits.
Okay.
There's one out there.
Okay.
Cool.
Nice.
I put one near the Soutan, Soutan, Soutan, Soutan.
Sulphur pots.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So we didn't go on any of the main hikes because we had a two and a half year old.
But like if there was anything directly off the road driving through the park,
we kind of stopped to check some of those out.
Cool.
So yeah, it was a fun.
I think Lassen National Park is really neat.
It's not very pretty right now because it had a big fire go through.
I don't know how long ago, but like everything in that park is just toothpick trees.
That was the, I mean, when I was there that it was, what was it?
We talked about it and I can't remember what it was now, but like half of the park is burnt.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, but I mean there's, and it's funny because you're driving down the road and like
the road was the obvious.
That was another really cool thing that I got from the trip.
Right.
Like one side is completely burnt and the other side is completely healthy and thriving.
And it's like, yeah, we need roads.
Yes.
Roads make fire breaks.
Anybody who denies that is not just not the eyes open.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
But it was very obvious.
And there was a bunch of times when I was like driving down a straight away and on one side,
it's all dead.
The other side, it's all live.
And I'm like, this is such a perfect junction to position to show the value of roads with
massive fires right now.
Yeah.
And I couldn't get my phone out to take a picture in time on each time I tried it.
Yeah, we did a hike to some pond that had a sulfur boiling through it, this boiling pond.
And I ran into the firefighters out there.
Oh, okay.
And that's when I was talking to them about the forest service and everything that was going on
and how they fought the fire out there.
And they were just so adamant about how important roads were.
Yeah.
But that hike would have been absolutely gorgeous, except the fire rolled right through parts of
that.
And so you're just walking through these stretches where you're just boiling hot
and no shade cover or anything.
And then you get to a section where there's a bunch of trees.
So yeah, but yeah, it's still important, not just fire breaks, but ingress and safety
for firefighters.
Yeah.
I mean, if they don't have routes in and out of fire areas, I mean, that's,
it's a huge risk on their lives.
For sure.
Yeah.
It's a, I think Lassen is a very underrated state park.
I agree.
I think so too.
Yeah.
I think not enough people give it credit.
And it's like the furthest west volcanic thing that there is.
And the next thing over is like Yellowstone.
Okay.
So if anybody's interested in anything volcanic, then you have to go to Lassen.
Yeah, on the West Coast.
On the West Coast.
And it's gorgeous.
It's like a pretty area.
There's lots to do there.
There's a really interesting geothermic things happening out there.
And, you know, and it's a pretty area.
I mean, there's lots of lakes, like Manzanita Lakes, an interesting lake.
I mean, it's not, it was caught.
Did you follow up on any of that?
It was like, it wasn't ever a lake.
And then the volcanic eruption happened.
And then it created a natural dam.
And then now it's a lake.
That's like what happened with a Navajo Lake.
Yeah, exactly.
Did you know that Lake Tahoe was formed that same way?
No, I did not.
Lake Tahoe is formed because of lava flows that damned up sections of it.
And that caused the whole thing to fill in.
Interesting.
I always thought that Lake Tahoe was a giant caldera.
Yeah.
Which supposedly is not true.
Well, it's a lava flow that damned up this whole area and created Lake Tahoe.
And I've always been fascinated about the Truckee River.
Okay.
I think it's the Truckee because it flows out of Tahoe east, northeast.
Yeah, that's weird.
Right.
When you look at watersheds and how watersheds work.
And you go, this lake is flowing east out of this year in Nevada.
Where the hell does that river go?
Into the Colorado, I guess, eventually.
It goes up to Pyramid.
Really?
Yeah.
And then I don't know where it goes from there.
But that's what I was looking at.
I'm like, where does this river go when I started falling?
Yeah, it heads up to Pyramid Lake in Nevada.
Okay.
I'm like, weird.
It goes up into the Great Basin then maybe with the Salt Lake.
Yeah.
Maybe.
I'm not, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, maybe it flows over that way.
But yeah, that was, I thought that was really bizarre.
So there's some fun things like all around this area for sure.
Yeah.
I will say Lassen, I've been to Yellowstone before.
And Yellowstone has so much more, more, oh my God, what is it called?
What's the word I'm looking for?
Striking geothermic activity.
Yes.
Geothermal activity that I thought Lassen was pretty underwhelming.
Compared to Yellowstone, but I mean Yellowstone's the spot in the world to go to if you want to
see geothermal activity, right?
So, but if you want a taste of geothermal activity and start the grasp of the understanding of what
goes on with geothermal activity, Lassen's a great educational spot to go and check some stuff out.
So if you would have had the opportunity and if it was available to you, I don't know if it was
snowed in to go out to those other sulfur beds and stuff that were available.
People were hiking it.
Oh, cool.
That one has a little bit of color and stuff and like the lava pits and the like the sulfur
lake was, you know, had all the different like dark weird blues and yellows in it.
Okay.
Those are cool.
Yeah.
But that's the only spot that we saw that had that where, yes, Yellowstone's.
Yellowstone's, I'm not sure.
It's an amazing thing and it has like different styles of whatever it is, you know, and 10-fold
what Lassen has.
Yeah.
But Lassen being two hours away from us.
Yes.
I'm like, okay.
As much as you get to.
And it's really, I mean, it's a neat, there's not, I don't remember, I mean, as much as Yellowstone
is in Montana and Wyoming, I think it's in Wyoming.
I mean, I don't remember it being, I remember it being in nature and being out there.
It's been a long time since I've been there.
But there was something about the mountain of Lassen that may stand out more than kind.
It was a different thing.
Well, Yellowstone is a giant caldera.
Yeah.
Right.
So there is no mountain there.
And it's a giant, technically a hole in the ground that giant volcano ready to pop.
But it's a giant volcano, actually, whereas Lassen is a, I forget, it's not a cinder cone,
the other style of volcano.
And it's just, it's a very striking appearing appearance difference there.
And all, I think all three volcanoes you can see at Lassen.
Oh, okay.
All three styles, the cinder cone and whatever they were, Adam all down a year ago.
It was, it was a, I really liked it.
And it was a good trip for our family.
Yeah.
So I agree.
Good trip for the family.
It was really fun getting read out there.
It was interesting.
It was fun living out of the Lance for five days.
Oh, cool.
I really did enjoy that.
The power system in the Lance, the solar and the batteries is doing amazing.
I think we tested it enough where I can move on to stage two of the power system,
which is putting in a 4,000 watt inverter to run 110 volt stuff and tying that into the
internal 110 volt circuit and cutting off that circuit from shore power.
So that when I hook up to shore power, all that shore power is doing
is going to be recharging the batteries.
Sure.
That makes sense.
So that's step two, step three is get rid of the 110 volt air conditioning system
and put in a 12 volt air conditioning system.
So it just runs directly off the batteries and then doesn't have to run off the inverter.
Okay.
So yeah, that sounds like a fun project.
Yeah.
I talked with Lauren while he was here.
He has a 12 volt system in his RV and he says he has two of them.
And one of them is a heat pump.
And the other one is your normal compressor style AC system.
He said the heat pump one is way better, way more efficient, keeps up way easier.
Cool.
So I need to find a 12 volt heat pump RV AC system now.
Okay.
Yeah.
If anybody knows of one.
Yeah.
Reach out to us either a snail trail four by four on Instagram, four by four Toyota
Tyler on Instagram or the Discord is a great way to get in contact with us.
Yep.
So the Lance did great.
The power system was awesome.
Very, very happy with it.
The batteries are all very happy as well.
Cool.
At the, let's see, just before going to bed, I checked the battery system
and the first battery in the line, because I have all mine hooked up in parallel, but
from battery to battery rather than all to a bus bar, the way it should be in parallel.
And which means the internal resistances of the batteries means that as you go down the line,
there's less and less usable capacity out of the batteries.
So the first battery was at 94% right before going to bed.
So that's having lights on some music playing in the background, that kind of stuff.
I had that.
We had the kids monitor plugged in as well.
So 94%, the one in the very back battery down the line was at 78%.
So not too much of a difference.
It's definitely a lot better than it was.
Like it used to be like at 90% upfront and then like 30 to 40% in the back.
So I've kind of doubled the efficiency by being able to run
a better solar setup that actually reaches like 14.2, 14.3 volts during the day.
So it's a high enough voltage to actually charge everything.
Yeah. Charge and run.
Right. Charge and run stuff.
So yeah, I think it's really good.
We'll be moving on to step two and three for the Lance, Lance systems.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
That pretty much does it for my stuff.
Great trip, but I have another one coming up this week.
So I'm only home for a couple of days and I have to get caught up on working everything
and then head on back out for Rubathon.
So getting everything turned around and I'll have the kid for four days all by myself.
All by myself.
I'll be traveling with Lisa and Nick DeLuca and their kids and Jimmy Lee.
So I'm a good support system and people to help me with them.
My game plan has changed just because of the short week.
And so I'm thinking about cruising in on Thursday with you guys.
Oh, cool. Okay.
Just because I mean, I can't leave tomorrow morning and try to get the podcasts out
and I'm picking up panels today, hopefully before I leave here or when I leave here.
And I just have some back orders I need to fulfill.
You notice just all these things and it's like, I can't leave tomorrow morning,
which is Wednesday morning to go meet Lee and Dave because I just have too much stuff to do.
So I'm hoping fingers crossed that I can get, I have to get the panels out and I have to get
the podcasts done at least Thursdays and Fridays so that I can wheel out with you guys on Thursday
morning.
Yeah.
What time are you thinking about leaving in the morning?
I'm going to leave my house by 4.30 a.m.
My goal is to be at Chevron Fresh Pond at 6 a.m. when they open.
You're going to go that way?
Yeah.
Okay. Well then, all right.
Yeah, we'll talk more off air, but my game plans to meet up with you guys at Loon and Wheelan.
If you want to drive up together, I can go down, go through Georgetown, stop at Wartons instead.
If you want to go slow, Bobcat's not the fastest, but yeah, we'll talk.
We'll figure it out.
That I will loop in, see what next up to.
So yeah, let's see.
So I had my, did you have anything else?
Nope.
Okay.
So I had my annual summer solstice camping trip that we go to.
Yeah, this is a really fun trip.
I came out one year for it and it was a good time.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
I heard the river flow wasn't quite as high and Barking Dog wasn't really popping.
But yeah, it's just a great group of friends.
You know, it's some of my college mates.
And I've said it before in years past, but like we kind of weren't the best of friends in college.
We were two different groups that were both partiers and we both hosted our own parties.
And then competing parties kind of.
And they were in, they were on Fredericks Park two and we were Fredericks Park one, you know,
and we had different sides of kind of the housing area.
And a lot of people would go to their party or a lot of people would come to our party.
But occasionally if one of us wasn't having a party and the other one was,
which was not very often, which wasn't very often, or, you know, it was one of those like,
there's wait, there's no parties happening on our side with any of our friends.
Like that's weird.
Okay.
Let's go over to these guys's house or at least one of their FP2s got to be going off.
Yeah.
You know, so occasionally, like we crossed each other at parties a bunch and we sort of
just reconnected after college, you know, like, oh, you guys live up here too.
You know, like, I'm, yeah, I'm back up here also, you know.
And so we kind of just became talking and became friends, you know, just reacquainted.
And eventually we got invited.
I was, it was with, it was when Hawke and Ken's were kind of living with me.
Okay.
And they were much better friends with these guys.
And so I just got brought into the loop with them.
And it's been great.
I mean, they're, they're fantastic people.
They attract fantastic people.
They're, they're not hippies, but they're like a modern day style, you know.
And it's just, just chill, relaxed vibes or high, you know, it's just, it's just a great
atmosphere and it's a lot of fun.
And so most of the time it falls on Father's Day weekend.
And unfortunately slash semi-fortunately, we don't have the mini assistant.
And so the mini assistant doesn't get to come out and have fun with us.
But now we're on the flip side.
We're free.
We don't have a kid responsibility.
And so we kind of indulge a little bit more than we kind of, we would definitely would
if the mini assistant went around.
Okay.
But yeah, so we drove out there.
We wanted to go out Thursday, but we had some, some responsibility.
I can't remember what it was, but our plan was to head out there Thursday.
Didn't work out.
So we drove out there Friday and I was like, I got to watch the USA play Australia game.
So I watched the USA Australia game and then we left like at halftime, we hooked up the
trailer, you know, and did a stuff.
We were almost fully packed before the game started.
Halftime hooked the trailer up, more or less got it ready to go.
End of the game pretty much hopped in the trucks and left or truck and left.
And then, um, yeah, we found our parking spot, which pretty much at the entrance of their
camping kind of area, they've so many people now go that they've like almost half of the
campground is us.
It's crazy.
There was, there was 22 children or 23 children, something like that.
And, you know, two families.
And that was one family.
And then, you know, at 40 something adults or something like that.
So it was a big, big crowd this year.
A lot of fun.
And, uh, let's see the, I would say the highlights were as a silent disco because
they come around at 10 o'clock and they're like, quiet hours.
Like this is a, you know, this is the time for quiet hours.
They asked us to turn off.
We had like, uh, somebody was plugged into the shore power and they had like all these
Christmas lights that are all white up, just decorating our area.
The furthest point away from any of the other campers, you know, and they're like,
10 o'clock, you got to turn the lights off.
They're like, seriously, like, is this bothering?
Where's the next campground that is near us that this is bothering?
But we're just like, you know what, we love it here.
They don't want to bother them.
We'll follow the rules.
And so they ended up getting a silent disco this year so that
we could all throw our headphones on and the music's playing in the headphones
and we can all be dancing around, having a good time.
And there's three channels.
I was going to say, did you have the three different lights?
There was red, green and blue three channels.
One channel was sort of old school.
One channel was sort of hip hop, modern day kind of modern day rock.
Okay.
And then another one was like rap and EDM sort of mix.
And it was funny because the sum of like rap-
There was no metal EDM channel?
No.
Oh, come on.
Nor any country.
But it was funny because it was rap and EDM, right?
And then it was like old school and sort of newer school.
That one kind of made sense, right?
Like old school music like Fleetwood Mac up to some newer music.
And then there was the other one was sort of hip hop to new alternative rock.
And so it was like these weird mixes.
Yeah, it's a mix of weird blend of stuff.
Weird blend of stuff.
But what made it fun is like, oh, a rap song came on.
I'm not terribly into rap.
We change channel.
Yeah.
What's on the other channels?
And there's like kind of four options then to get to.
And so there was a lot of switching colors, a lot of,
and it's funny to watch somebody dancing the blue channel
and watching somebody dancing to the green channel.
Their dancing and rhythm is totally off from each other, right?
But they're having the best time of their life.
So that was, that was a lot of fun.
Those have always fascinated.
The technology side of it fascinates me, but then like,
I just want to people watch at one of those so bad.
That's what I didn't dance.
I don't think I dance at all.
The assistant, you know, was, as soon as they were pulled out,
she was like, when's that silent disco coming out?
Right?
Next day, she's like, my legs, my legs are so sore.
I'm like, you're going to dance tonight?
She's like, yeah, I am.
But yeah, so I had the headphones on, but I had like one ear off
so I could communicate with others.
And then I was listening to the music and then just sort of like,
oh, everybody went green.
Okay, I better see what's on green.
See what green is.
And the distance on them were really good.
Like the assistant's like, yeah, I went to the bathroom with them on.
And still going and it's like a hundred yards away.
I'm like, damn, okay.
But what's great about them is it's silent.
It's not like the music's playing out of the speaker.
You're not bugging everybody else in there, you know,
and everybody has headphones.
They're all somewhat in a line, you know, all having a good time.
So that was fun.
So Friday night was the pizza party.
There was like three or four pizza ovens out there.
You bring your own dough and bring some toppings.
And then it's sort of like, use everybody's toppings.
It's a free for all.
And then cook the pizzas and have a good time.
And then we pulled out our whiskies and some other people put out
some whiskies and we had a little tasting.
And that was a great night.
And that night we went harder than any of the on Friday night,
on Friday night, first night show, you know, and then a lot of recovery time.
Yeah.
Slow morning for sure.
Lot of river time that day, just hanging out in the river.
We, they bought these.
They're really cool.
And we, we should have bought some, but now we kind of are glad we didn't buy any,
but it's like this inflatable seat and it holds you quite high out of the water.
And it's a single thing, but then it has clasps on each of the,
to connect other seats together, to connect the next seat together.
Because they used to buy like a 10 person raft, you know, and that's like,
oh, that's fun.
But then who's going to store the raft?
Like what happens if it gets popped or banged around because the kids are playing on it,
you know, and then somebody brought up these seats that literally connect together.
And you can connect.
Like we had 15 of them, 20 of them connected together in like tied off in the,
like deeper into the river with one.
And then the other one was connected near shore.
And so it did this like loop.
And occasionally if the river kind of swayed, everybody came together or everybody swayed
really far apart.
And those are really cool.
So there was a lot of time sitting and lounging in those with the beverage in hand.
We did some floats where we'd go up the river with the life jacket and a floaty
or those seats.
And we just cruise down the river there towards barking dog.
It would be funny if they're barking down on one of those.
It would be.
And they're like, we're talking maybe class one or two little rapid.
Like it's nothing.
It's class one.
It's it's it's shallow there.
And that's why the water gets bumpy.
Yes.
But once you get into the takeout area where the campground is,
it's nice and deep and smooth and yeah, there's no rapid that we're in a netty.
Yeah, it's great.
And so the next night was the group photo and talent show.
And so I did dad jokes, of course.
Okay.
And the assistant did was throwing her flag because she got she was in color guard
back in high school.
And then when her union was on strike, the bunch of teachers played instruments
of play instruments.
And so they stored or started a band.
Okay.
And then the color she the assistant is like, they need a color guard.
And supposedly she still has her flag.
I don't know.
Okay.
I don't know why, but she does.
So she pulled the flag out of retirement and started throwing the flag during the union strike.
And then she was like, well, I can tell the story and do it at the talent show.
So she did a little bit of music at the talent show and twisted her flag around.
The winner of the talent show was this family, the Jeters, Johnny Jeter.
If any of you guys are WWE or WWF wrestling fans, apparently he was in wrestling.
Really?
Johnny Jeter.
Okay.
I'm not a wrestling guy.
The assistant's ex-husband is.
So the mini assistant said, oh, I got to hang out with Johnny Jeter to her dad.
And the dad was like, oh, my God.
I got to hang out with like a professional wrestler.
Nicest dude you'll ever meet.
Nice.
Like he's a big dude.
Fucking teddy bear.
Yeah.
He's so kind, so nice.
I don't know if it was like.
Well, that's supposedly John Cena too.
Is it?
He's just a humongous wall of a human being.
But just an absolute teddy bear with a hilarious dirty sense of humor.
Yeah.
So great.
He's a great guys.
So he, his family and well, the adults of that.
So Johnny and his wife and another couple that they know,
which were new to this event this year, or to the party this year,
did a ribbon dancing choreography to Celine Dion.
Wow.
Please tell me you recorded that.
The assistant had it.
My phone died.
My phone died.
That's right.
My phone died, died.
Yeah.
Like I was talking last week.
I was having problems and I reset it and things were going good.
At some point I went to charge my phone.
It went to full.
It died.
It went to like was dead.
I went to charge.
It went to a hundred percent.
I turned it on.
It went to boot up, log in, starting OS restart.
And it did that cycle like three times.
Okay.
And then when it went to restart, it never came back and tried to charge it,
tried to hold the button down, tried to do the up volume and power button at the same time,
to which does a formatting.
Did you try up, up, down, down, down, AB, AB, start?
Or select start.
I need two player.
No.
I mean, I tried as my, I was like, the phone was dying obviously.
So it was like, it died, died.
And so I didn't have a phone pretty much all weekend.
I didn't have a phone on Monday.
Here we are Tuesday.
My phone showed up.
I ordered it on Amazon, Amazon Prime.
Showed up and got it going this morning.
Nice.
But it, I'll be honest.
Kind of nice, huh?
Kind of nice.
Nope.
Not having a phone.
Yep.
Kind of nice.
There was a few things that was sort of a bummer.
That like just communication, like it's so much easier.
Communication with a cell phone is so easy.
I dropped off the assistant.
We were kind of on a time crunch.
So I dropped the assistant off at Kaiser so she could pick up a prescription.
And then I took the mini assistant to drop her off at theater.
And then I came back.
I'm like, I don't have a phone.
I don't know how to contact my wife to let her know where I am.
And it's not common sense now or to comment.
It's not in your habit to plan that beforehand, right?
You'll be like, Hey, I'm going to pull up.
I'm going to park in this general area.
Come out when you're done.
If you don't see me out there, I'll be there eventually or I'll,
I'll park and I'll meet you inside at these corner seats.
You know, that's out the window now.
You're like, I'll show up and I'll text you or I'll call you or whatever.
And so like we didn't do it.
And so like I parked, I hopped out.
I went to walk through the pharmacy area, right?
I didn't see her.
I went, I did a loop around the billy.
I didn't see her.
And I'm like, what the hell?
So I started like, I'm like, well, I'm just going to retrace my steps
because she's got to be around here somewhere.
I started walking back towards the car and then she comes out of the door.
And she's like, oh, you're here.
Good.
I'm like, where were you?
She's like, oh, I had to run to the bathroom.
You notice just like this.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just so this weird was very reliant on the technology now.
And it was nice to just be away for it for a little while.
Like I literally wish I didn't have to put apps on my phone.
Yeah.
Like I wish I could just be completely off of a lot of this stuff.
But business, like I felt bad because the link links,
well interview came out on Monday.
And I was like, I can't, I can't promote it.
Like I tried to log in on Instagram and it was like, I could only make a post.
You know what I'm like?
I want to make a story.
I want to do, you know, I was like, okay, well, I guess that's what I'm going to have to do.
But yeah, it's, everything isn't available as easy on a desktop.
But anyways, so yeah, I did, I have the, the assistant got the video long.
Okay.
Coming full back to it.
Assistant got the video of them dancing.
They're ribbon, ribbon dancing to this song.
Okay.
It was awesome.
Hands down.
Like it was hilarious and funny and amazing that they did all the choreography, full entire song.
And they, they, there was some great acts, but they definitely won.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
It was fun.
Let's see.
We were planning on staying until Monday.
This mini assistant was going to be at our dad's house all father's day.
And then we would have gotten her about noon on Monday, but then my dad was like,
Hey, what are we doing for father's day?
Let's do father's day dinner.
And so we're like, okay, well, if they were going to do a lunch thing, maybe we would have
gone home and came back, but since we're doing a dinner thing, let's just go home and unpack and
settle in and sleep in our beds.
And so we went back and did father's day with my dad and my brother and had a good time there.
And then pretty much came home.
Oh, we started watching spider noir.
Oh, we started watching that on a Sunday night.
It's, what's his name?
It's about Spider-Man and Spider-Man, Nicholas Cage.
Nicholas Cage plays Spider-Man, but he's Nicholas Cage's age.
And it's based in like the thirties.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And it's very...
That's interesting take on Spider-Man.
Yeah.
Well, it's funny because it's, he doesn't want to be Spider-Man anymore.
Okay.
He's done with it kind of.
He's like old and retired.
And, but now there's this guy trying to hire all these people with sort of superhero powers
to do kind of bad things.
Okay.
And so they're kind of, it's sort of like drawing amount of retirement.
I think I'm not that far into it.
But my parents were like, you got to watch this.
It's really good.
And it's the cinematic side of it is very cartoon book.
It's not a cartoon.
It's not animated.
Yeah.
But the way they kind of, the scenes that they show are very cartoonist, like some very close-ups.
Is it Sin City?
Did you ever watch that?
Kind of Sin City.
It's a very comic book feeling.
Yes.
But it's not, Sin City's more.
Gotcha.
It's not that far.
Okay.
You can also watch it in color or black and white.
Oh.
And so we're watching it in black and white.
Okay.
So it's kind of neat.
But there was a point at which the assistant's like, I want to see that in color.
And so we switched to color and it picked right up where we were.
Really?
Yeah.
And so we had to go back.
It wasn't two different titles to watch.
It was the same title that you could swap back and forth.
Interesting.
So we scrolled back 30 seconds and watched that scene in color and we're like, okay.
Back to back and white and moved on.
Yeah.
So that was, that was my weekend.
Summer Solstice camping weekend.
Always a great time.
Rubathon here in a matter of days, like we were kind of talking,
there's a lot going on this week for our short week that we have to cover to then go out and play on the Rubicon.
So I've got a few things I want to get done on Bobcat,
mainly just checking fluids and checking bolts.
I'm doing the once over before I hit the road.
Cool.
And then, yeah, I just got to do some packing and
see your role.
Sounds good.
I'm excited.
It should be a really fun trip.
I look forward to Rubathon.
It's a, it seems to be this, the group of guys only see this time of year.
Yeah.
Once a year, right?
So same with Cruz Moab, right?
It's like you only see these guys at the events.
So that was half the reason I went out early because a lot of the Cruz Moab guys came
to Rubathon and they were wheeling a little early.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I was able to keep up with or meet up with a bunch of them.
Cool.
Well, awesome.
I guess that does it for today's show.
Yeah.
If you guys have any feedback for us, give us a call 916-345-4744 is the voicemail line.
It's a Google voice does not ring on our end.
So it'll ring a little bit for you and then go straight to voicemail.
And we don't, we only check it when we sit down and record Friday's episodes.
So give a call anytime.
If you have like one of those shower thoughts, you're in the middle of a shower and you're
like, Oh my God, I gotta, I gotta tell the guys about this.
Give us a call in the middle of your shower.
It'd be fun.
It'd be a fun experience for everybody listening in.
So there's ways to get ahold of us as well through Discord.
There's Instagram.
There's emails.
There's kind of Facebook, not really anymore.
I don't know.
Anyways, Discord seems to be the pop and place right now.
So if you guys want to interact more with us offline, tell us about how your weekend
ventures were show all your trail dogs.
That's a very popular channel at the moment.
Come on over to Discord and say hi and see everything happening over there.
It's a lot of fun.
So anything else, man?
Yeah, I think that's it.
Sweet.
Then what do you got to end the episode with today?
Well, I was going to, you talked about your battery.
So I was going to just say that the battery and Taylor, the trailer, I think is what we've
named it, the little teardrop trailer we put the new battery in.
And I, we weren't even full 100% on the battery and we only went down to 50% over like three days.
Wow.
Yeah.
Nice.
So it worked out really well when we weren't being conservative and I didn't have a solar
panel on it.
So I was super happy.
No charging in it whatsoever.
Okay, damn.
And went down, yeah, to about 50%.
Wow.
Super stoked with that.
We also got to use the awning for the first time.
Oh, cool.
Nice.
Awesome.
Well, that does it then.
Don't forget everybody out there.
Keep crawling.
I got one for you.
Okay.
Do you know why it is so expensive to put air into tires?
Oh, why?
I feel like, I feel like this is going to be a very pointed and judgy joke right now.
I think everybody is going to laugh at you.
All right, ready?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's, it's because inflation.
Ah, okay.
Got it.
Yeah.
That's true.
The inflation master doesn't.
That's actually pretty.
I need to tell that to our AI bot on the website and make sure he knows that one.
Yeah.
I think I just gave you a new title, business title to the inflation master.
The inflator.
All right.
The chief inflator, CI chief inflation officer, maybe CIO.
All right.
Thank you.
That was good.
You're welcome.
About this episode
Hosts kick off with OnX Offroad trail planning, then bounce into camping weekend logistics and off-pavement realities—Lava Beds heat, cave visits, and Lassen campground stops. Between trip stories, they cover practical gear: Isco portable fridges, including angle behavior, compressor reset, and the VPL 45 Plus three-way door design. The conversation also touches on suspension and vehicle prep for upcoming Rubicon plans, plus community/trail maintenance and giveaway details.
Original notes
Tyler and Jimmy both go camping with their families, but to two totally different locations. Jimmy and the Assistant attend their annual Summer Solstice camping trip to Camp Lotus in Coloma. Tyler and family take a long Father’s Day weekend trip to CA State Lava Tubes and Lassen National Park. Both families have an absolute blast and enjoy the weather and some water.
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 GiveawayThis month’s giveaway is with Iceco Freezers. We are excited to work with and share their exciting new releases. One lucky winner has a chance to an ALP20 Fridge. Big thanks to Iceco for sponsoring this month’s giveaway. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Congrats to Johnny Freskie, you won the 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
Listener Discount Codes:SnailTrail4x4 –SnailTrail15 for 15% off SnailTrail4x4 Merch
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Shock Surplus – SNAILTRAIL4x4 to get $25 off any order!
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Show Music:
- Midroll Music – ComaStudio
- Outroll Music – Meizong Kumbang
Snail Trail 4x4 Offroad Podcast
Tyler and Jimmy: Off-Road Enthusiasts
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84:48