Category: Vehicles

Steph bought me some sheets today for Fathers Day and they’ve been washed and wrapped around my truck bed. I’m using plastic containers in the nooks and crannies to store stuff and the new rig is ready to travel. I’m still looking for a cargo carrier to mount on top and I’ll be working with my lock guy to get the back end secured, tomorrow.

Brian and I are heading up to Norris Hot Springs in separate vehicles next Friday for a camp-over and soak. Let the summer begin!

I drove down to Idaho Falls today and had a local foam company make me a custom bed for my truck. I stood there and watched while they cut two pieces of foam to my specifications (69″ x 41″) and glued them together. One is two-inch standard foam while the other is three-inch memory foam. The result is a sweet bed I can’t wait to sleep on!

I love my new topper, I can’t imagine I was considering other options, and now it’s time to have fun with it! I drove up to Valley Lumber this morning and had one of the boys look at my setup and make a recommendation. He said insulation would get the job done as far as providing a base to a foam bed, so I bought a piece. It’s really strong and light, and it cuts easily. I ended up with a bed base and a shelf, sweet!

Tomorrow I’m driving down to I.F. to a foam company who are cutting me a custom piece of memory foam to match the size of that base. Steph’s going to sew a cover for the thing and it will be awesome. Two people could sleep on it!

The reason I laid over in Logan, UT last night was so I could be in Hyde Park (just up the road) at 0915 this morning. I’ve been in email contact for a month now with a guy that deals in used truck toppers and canopies. His shop is in Hyde Park and while I was down in Laughlin I got a cryptic email stating that he had found me a topper.

From the motel last night, I sent him an email asking for a good time to show up and he replied 0915. That was his email response, 0915. This guy hasn’t communicated much other than short incomplete sentences and I felt like in was a drug deal. I had seen his shop from aerial map views and when I showed up this morning it was a real shop with toppers all over the place.

The guys name was Jim and I liked him. He sent his young assistant out to fetch my topper and the boy had it solidly installed on my truck within twenty minutes. It’s for a 1989 Ford Ranger (almost the same truck as mine) and was a bit larger than my old one, in great shape, with a rack on top as a bonus.

Our agreed upon price was $250 and as I pulled out my wallet he said cash?, I said yes and he said make it two, and I handed him a couple of Franklins. Deal done, no receipt, and I drove down the road with a great new topper that is destined to become my new camping home this summer. I love it!

Considering that dealers were quoting me $1600+ for a new one, I’m a happy camper, and I’m no longer homeless…

I’m thinking about picking up a temporary vehicle for my travels this summer until I can replace the canopy that flew off my travel truck into the Arizona desert last Spring Break. I found this beauty in Victor today, appears road ready, just needs a little work on the passenger side. But, since I never have passengers…

The ability to recognize red flags while conducting business transactions is a good thing to have. I’ve been contemplating a new canopy for my travel truck since the old one blew off in the Arizona desert over Spring Break and after a couple of high-priced local proposals I found an outfit in King County, WA.

This is my old stomping grounds and my son the auto body guy lives there so I thought I could get a canopy and have it installed in early June while I visit. I called them and talked to a lady who quoted me a decent price for a custom made aluminum canopy. I then gave her my email and asked her to send me a picture of the canopy because their website was challenged. (it sucks!) I heard her moan over the phone like she’d heard this way too often and I made a mental note. Red flag…

Several days later after no pictures arrived I emailed her, and this was her response: Jim, I'm glad you e-mailed me. Someone thought they would do me a" favor" and clean my desk area. I am missing notes I took on our conversation. My recollection is that we were discussing a smooth aluminum canopy. I will send you an estimate for that and we will go from there. Red flag…

Finally, I got some pictures and it looked pretty nice, mounted on a Ford Ranger:

I asked her to send me a photo of the inside and I got this:

It was sent from her phone so obviously she just walked out to her yard and took a shot of one from the outfit that makes them. These things are custom made by a local company and I know it’s aluminum and only weighs a hundred pounds and probably needs internal re-inforcement, but…

I could see me banging my head on those supports many times, the overall construction looked questionable and, red flag…

I called her yesterday to discuss a whole bunch of issues I had made a list of and got a message that the voicemail inbox I had reached was full and not accepting any more messages. Excuse me, there are no more red flags left, this deal is over and out…

Perhaps I need to explore other creative options for my truck bed…

The general theory of traction relativity while driving in the Rockies states that all-wheel drive Subarus are the best, followed by four-wheel drive, and then front-wheel drive, vehicles. Little rear-wheel drive trucks like mine don’t even fit in the equation.

My snow tires are top of the line Hankooks but I needed some weight over the rear end so I stopped into ACE and got four eighty pound sand bags. At five bucks a piece, it’s a great economical way to create 320lbs of traction.

I’m not sleeping back there and we can use the sand in the yard come Spring.

I knew the trip to christmas dinner had the potential of getting my little travel truck stuck so I threw in some goodies before I left. I already had the big old dead TV strapped down for weight, along with my big tools, but I wanted to be better prepared so I threw in my hand crank pulley thing, two shovels and the big floor jack.

I’ve also got a brand new tow strap I recently picked up, which is totally useless because it has no hooks on either end. I think I’ll run to Ace today… Oh, I’ve also got a huge jug of water back there, all of which has the benefit of adding weight over the rear differential of my little rear-drive truck. So far so good this winter, my Hankook snow tires are amazing, I can brake on a buck, and I haven’t been stuck once.

Quite frankly though, I can’t wait to pull all of that nonsense out of there, make up my bed, and hit the road this summer!

Update: I just picked up some heavy duty hooks to go with that tow strap:

Lucy is our 1987 Mazda 626 LX. The LX stands for luxury and that she has been with her power windows and electric sunroof. This vehicle has been in the family forever. I bought her from my sons mom many years ago after I wiped out on my motorcycle, and rejuvenated her with some major work.

This great old vehicle has played a pivotal role in my life. It continues to get Steph to work winter after winter and has almost 300,000 miles on her!

I’ve been struck lately by her fading paint, it’s almost like us humans losing our hair and going grey. Rust is happening everywhere and the power equipment that kept her windows up, is failing, but this bad-ass old girl keeps rocking on. (Click photo for more).

I used to drive a pretty swanky ride back in my days as a Metro Paratransit Supervisor in the south Seattle area.

I really don’t know what happened but over the years I kept accumulating stuff, and they finally took her out of service…

The brakes on my travel truck Jill have been getting progressively worse, to the point that I had to address them now. The most logical culprit was the brake master cylinder, the one remaining original hydraulic unit left in the engine compartment, as I’ve replaced all of the others since I bought her from Riley.

This truck is 24 years old and in vehicle years that makes her, really old. The part was rusted over and looked like crap so I took Jill to Sewell Auto here in Driggs and Sam installed a new one for me. He quoted me $60 for the part and $40 labor, a most workable arrangement, but something went wrong.

They still weren’t working properly so I gave Sam permission to dive into the rear components. I had another local outfit named Table Rock Auto do some major work on those brakes last year so I expected them to be fine. What he found was brake pads installed backward and mismatched auto-adjust rods that they probably pulled from one of the hundreds of junk cars littered around their place. Note to self, never go to a mechanic with a hand painted sign out by the side of the road. Sigh…

Sam and his brother have worked their shop here for thirty years and he did me right yesterday. The brakes are amazing now thanks to his knowledge and experience. I’ve got myself a new mechanic!

This is the current state of my wired travel cab. The new power converter only has the GPS plugged in so far and the three pronged power source has the CB, phone charger and inverter attached.

The three remaining powered USB’s are for the Tablet, GoPro and Stephs phone when she rides along, and the 120v charges the netbook.

All I need to do now is to clean off the winter dust, and wait for summer to roll around!

I hit a deer on my way home this afternoon. I was approaching Cottonwood Corner at 1530 on a dry clear road when three large healthy does darted across the road from my left, straight into my path. I hit my brakes and dodged two of them but one went airborne and tried to jump my truck. There was a loud sickening thump as she connected with my roof, right above my windshield.

I pulled over fully expecting to see a dead deer lying in the road. All I saw was nothing because my drivers side mirror was gone. I jumped out and the guy behind me pulled up and said she rolled over the top of my truck, landed on her feet, and kept on going. I walked back up the road, collected my shattered mirror and continued on home.

Hitting a deer has always been my second biggest concern driving on Ski Hill Road. Sliding out in the snow and ice, rolling my truck and dying is always the first concern. I dodged a large bullet today, the deer and my truck survived, minus two side mirrors that I assume got taken out with her feet, and a bent antenna which straightened right up.

As I’ve traveled around the last two summers and camped from my truck I’ve wished I had a compact canopy system that I could hook up to the side of the truck quickly. I’ve passed on some nice spots just because there was no shade.

The idea for one has been circulating around my summer scrambled brain for a while now and this is what I came up with today. The ingredients are: one tarp, medium size bungee cord hooks, some thin rope and five stakes.

I’ve created five lines exactly the same length with hooks on both ends. These are slung over the truck and hooked to whatever I can find on the bottom edge and then connected to the tarp grommets on the other side.

The stakes are driven into the ground and the outside tarp grommets are placed on the top of each. I have five more lines with a single hook which lock the tarp and the stake together with one loop and then attach to something. In this case it’s trees but tomorrow I buy five stakes that can be driven into the ground.

The tarp, lines, stakes and hammer can be wrapped together and ride in the back.

SlideShow (Canopy)

An attractive truck pulled up next to me today in the Broulim’s parking lot. The driver was a strapping young man that carried himself well as he strolled over to the store. I’m not sure if he was selling his product to the Broulim’s boys or picking up some lunch.

I’ve checked them out and they have a Facebook page and it looks like they are based over in Jackson. It’s lemonade, selling for about $1.50 a bottle, in exotic flavors.

Congratulations to an up-and-coming company and their fine vehicle!