continued:::::::::: MOJAVE ROAD TRIP - Mojave Preserve - An Adventure Through Time
Top hat of a camp and just before it got dark!
We get the food going!
We get the fire going:
We sit down to eat by the fire. Life has been good on this trip as we contemplate what
we have done so far. But we know tonight is our last night on the trail as tomorrow we should
complete the final section of trail.
Next morning:
We rise with the sun, but the sun decides to hide behind the clouds.
We are the first ones across Soda Dry Lake. It was interesting to me that the surface was not as
white as I had seen it before.
We had a chuckle... It's actually 10/29/2017 on this day...
Chuck-Bill has some time of Pumpkin Time Warp Machine.
This turns to this....
I like this part of the trail! I'm finally somewhat confident with the heavy ADV80 in the sand.
Cautious with confidence.
Then it turns back to this:
This is Shaw's Pass.
And the landscape changes once again:
The morning is quite and still...
These Falken Wild Peak's give me a lot of confidence!
continued::::::::::: MOJAVE ROAD TRIP - Mojave Preserve - An Adventure Through Time
The morning is still overcast, flat grey as we pass through the sand dune wash.
Its rather irie feeling but somehow beautiful at the same time.
This crow was sitting in a tree and it just made for the perfect image in the middle of the Mojave
wash. Note the "was sitting..."
upon spotting him, I had stop slowly, no sudden moves, open my door, open the driver side passenger door to retrieve
my camera, all while keeping an eye on that crow. As soon as I pull the camera up to my eye, he
leaps to the air and off he goes! Just like that! I told my wife that the bird said, "your not going to
shoot my photo that easy! Your going to have to work harder than that for my portrait!"
Here is the tree and setting that the crow was sitting in.
It would have made for a cool photo with him actually sitting in the tree... hehehehe
I will keep an eye out for him next time.
One land mark that I was keen to find, was the needle in the haystack:
It's this "No. 4" in the middle of the desert. It's near Basin Road on the Mojave Road. It is an
approximate western boundary of the Rasor Off-Highway Vehicle Area. See note #110.6 in your Mojave Road Guide book. From here we exit the wash area and head into Afton Canyon.
My buddy Dan of B&B Tank & Trailer Repair showed us this spot on one of our BB500/Yotamasters
trips.
continued:::::::::::: MOJAVE ROAD TRIP - Mojave Preserve - An Adventure Through Time
Sorry I've been detained and distracted from getting in here and finishing my Mojave Road post!
The enormity of it all... You feel very vulnerable to it all out here.. But being open to it all is apart
of gaining the confidence and experience of comfort with the way the world was.
But around the corner, some band had just obviously finished shooting a video or some PR photos,
reminding us that modern society too is intrigued with the vast beauty of the desert.
So much work went into this place on to be abandoned.
We finally load back up in the ADV80 and travel on down the Mojave wash to Afton Canyon:
Been through here several times... and my wife says, "hey check that out!"
I've never seen that before! Detail shots follow:
continued:::::::::::::: MOJAVE ROAD TRIP - Mojave Preserve - An Adventure Through Time
It's funny, you know the trip is close to coming to the end... We've done the majority and it's
almost like you want to call the kids and tell them we will be a week or so... But the wife has
recently taken on a new job that is well worth it, so we travel on and vow to do more trips.
We are about to drop back down into the Mojave wash and continue on.
I think the OG wagon trail is down in this wash to our left, but it's cabled off like a little presearve
but I don't think I would want to be in there if we could... looks a bit marshy.
We find the next "land mark" in the Mojave Road Guide!
Yep! An old heap of a abandoned pickup truck.
SO 80'S!
Why not stop for lunch because we will be popping out of the wash in a short for a little side trip.
For our side trip to seek out THE TRIANGLES. In the book it says to drive to the hill side and
scramble up. I see tracking running up in this canyon and use my deductive reasoning and find
a short but less steep scramble and we come up from the back side.
Up top:
It is very clear that this is a very obscure site that is suppose to be a prehistoric Indian location.
Luckily its cabled off as I'm sure this would be nothing more than donuts made from tire tracks!
While there is very little information about this, I simply say these "cleared spots" are from the
indian's who laid down for the night and didn't want rocks poking through their animal hide sleeping
pads.
We came from that way - had lunch right out there and went up the big canyon wash on the left.
We came, we saw and we carry on. We are going in this direction, once we get back down and
around - on to Camp Cady.
MOJAVE ROAD TRIP - Mojave Preserve - An Adventure Through Time
Through the wash, I'm looking for the most interesting lines through here.
We finally make it to Camp Cady location.
We hike down the old original wagon trail section towards the old camp site.
It's out in this section (I believe) but it is so grown over, we call it quits. There is another location
further up the wash but i am going to save that for another day.
This is pretty much the end... But I am not quite fully satisfied. I want to run the wash further
down to the highway, even though the original trail ran across the wash to the other side, it still
followed the wash down stream. So I figured I would pop out, back around the big fence area,
pop back down to the wash and drop in. Great idea in theory (of studying Google Maps Sat mode),
but I had to travel just a bit along the top edge before I found a drop down back to the wash.
It only ran for just a bit, but I was technically in the wash!
With tarmac ahead of us, I air up at this point. (Note the arch on top of the hill.
With the trail completed, I snap an image of the odometer:
We are 497-miles into this trip so far with a few more to go.
• 310-miles from our house to the Colorado River. (pavement)
• 98-miles from the Colorado River to The Mojave Historical Marker in Nipton, Ca. (dirt)
• 89-miles from The Mojave Historical Marker to Harvard Road. (dirt)
We drive to the top of the hill towards the 15FWY and we pull over to find these monuments.
HOME SWEET HOME...
651-total trip miles (187-dirt trail miles) and worth every ounce of oil leaked and gas burned!
THANK YOU YOTAMASTERS for keeping this old machine running!
MASSIVE THANK YOU DENNIS G. CASEBIER for a trip we will forever remember!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The ADV80 is favoring the no nonsense utilitarian lines of the FN Wheels Countersteer Type X wheel.
Lets go get these mounted up!
Back to Allen Tire Company in Costa Mesa. Yes, same place I've been going for years!
It's just a matter of swapping the Falken Wild Peak's from the steel wheels to the new wheels
and it's already looking good! Going to miss the steel wheel look, but the 3FE was paying the weight!
JANUARY 3-4, 2018 Anza Borrego and Ocotillo Wells
Just before getting the FN Wheels, hence you will see the ADV80 on the steel wheels, my wife and
I snuck off to the desert for a couple of days.
With it being winter time, the lower desert has warmer temperatures so we thought we would give
Anza Borrego and Ocotillo Wells a try. For some reason, I have not spent much time in that area
but I know there is a lot to explore there. Off we go!
With this, we will add a side trip into Palm Springs to catch the last night of the year of RoboLights.
What is Robolights?
Robolights is a psychological warfare on your senses wrapped in a holiday theme mixed with Transformers
and found objects all juxtapositioned against each other yet, working together. According to Google;
Robolights is a large, quirky yard with sculpture & light displays combining sci-fi & religious holiday themes. More info: https://californiathroughmylens.com/robolights-palm-springs
After spending a few hours here we tip towed on down highway 89 to Salton City and hung a left onto Boreggo Salton Sea Way. A few miles in, we find a place to pull off the highway and make camp.
Next mornings sun rise comes like clockwork. I'm up early to water the bushes.
Its quite the stark contrast to the sensory overload we had last night.
But this is truly what we came for!
We get up, make a quick breakfast, turn on the iPad and find that we are sitting right next to a
trail. I study the map for a little bit and see that we can make our way (all dirt) down to HWY 78.
We would cross through the Pumpkin Patch too!
On we go!
It's not even 9:00am and we are already into the canyon's of Anza Boreggo.
We eventually climb out and drop back into several other little canyons before dropping out onto
the plains.
continued: JANUARY 3-4, 2018 Anza Borrego and Ocotillo Wells
It's good that this area is protected with the fence around it, but same time it's good that further
up the hill there are a couple of trails weaving through more of these "pumpkins."
From this point just outside of Shell Reef, we can see the Ocotillo Airport and HWY78.
We aim and head straight to the airport not knowing that if we stayed on the road it would take
us to the Ocotillo Ranger Station. Oh well, we will be back as this is just our first trip!
HWY78 or Borrego Springs Road - heading towards Borrego Springs.
We are not alone...
By chance we've came upon the sculptures of Ricardo Breceda in theGalleta Meadows Estate. This art project was sponsored by Dennis Avery. There are 130 of these metal sculptures out here!
After escaping the jaws of steel, our next stop is Fonts Point or what the locals call Baby Grand Canyon:
We did a little bit of side trail exploring with a nice long lunch-nap thrown in before we started
our journey back home. But instead of going back home through Palm Springs, we would go out
through Julian to stop off for dinner and APPLE PIE!
Loved the look of the steel wheels on your truck but I also understand the weight compromise as a fellow 1992 FJ80 owner. Are you running spacers with these wheels? Seems like I remember you changing rear axle for full float and disc brakes so it probably is not apples to apples comparison since mine is still semi-float and drums on back.
NOT running spacers. The FN Wheels - Countersteer TypeX in 16" is +05 offset.
YES - I did switch to full float, but I don't think that I gained any width in the process. my donor axle is a '96.
I too personally like the steel wheel look!
As fellow 3FE owners, we are walking oxymorons in that we want looks that perform, beef that's light as air, the possibly impossible! hehehe
I want to commute daily on 37" XDL's, get 22-mpg and go up hills withOUT my 4-way flashers on!
In my dreams when I fall out of bed....
TAYLOR says: 27.6 pounds of pure steel. The FN Wheels Countersteer TypeX in 16" are 18-lbs each.
It's been interesting to feel the difference a little rotational mass loss makes!
Loved the look of the steel wheels on your truck but I also understand the weight compromise as a fellow 1992 FJ80 owner. Are you running spacers with these wheels? Seems like I remember you changing rear axle for full float and disc brakes so it probably is not apples to apples comparison since mine is still semi-float and drums on back.
Not that they have a 1991-92 full battery kit...
3FE owners are like children of the 80-Series family and we came before the family!
But that's a whole'nother story...
After a few days of battery juice box jumping it, I get he ADV80 over to Yotamasters for full
electrical inspection and diagnoses. The diagnoses is that the alternator is not charging at idle
and low RPM. My rig rarely see's any high RPM's unless its driving up a hill or playing in the sand.
My daily commute consist of neither!
Typically, to Eric of Yotamasters dismay, he can source an alternator for 1985 Toyota pickups from 8-different sources on any given day! But for the newer 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser, ONLY ONE WAS AVAILABLE THIS DAY IN ALL OF CORONA, CALIFORNIA.
With that I started talking about the 130-150amp Tacoma alternators that I've seen guys talking about here on mud. Forget his name, but I found my saved-thread and contacted him about the
bracket he made and sells to adapt the Tacoma alternator to 80-Series.
He quickly responded, but not available for us 91-92 3FE owners.
But for future research, Yotamasters brought in the Tacoma alternator so we can bench-compare.
The Yotamasters crew gets me sorted and on my way, ready for KOH2018!!!
Looks like the Tacoma one could fit with a shim and grinding down the long tab on the mounting bracket. What year/engine Tacoma is that from? I'm pretty sure I could make that work if or when I need an alternator for my 3f-e.
Finally getting that windshield replaced after a year of waiting.
The crack went from the bottom and climbed all the way to the top!
I took the ADV80 to a shop very close to my office.
This way, if I have any issue, I can just roll back in there to them.
I chose UNITED AUTO GLASS by two references and because they have a physical location I can
visit at a later date if there is an issue, such as leaking.
UNITED AUTO GLASS - 23812 Vía Fabricante, Mission Viejo, CA 92691
I draw up these four textures for a little graphic experiment.
I will use the existing M90 camouflage graphic and re-assign each color tone with one of the
hand drawn textures. It's going to be my own loose interpretation of other existing camo textures
dropped into the M90 camo for the full jungle-dazzle-bizarre camo-texture! And on top of that, I
am going to drop the color scheme back to the 1980's! 80's for the 80-Series! We get the file
sent off to Direct Edge Media as they do all kinds of print work for both myself and our company.
I take some packing paper to draw a template guide for the front and rear windows.
I use the template to cut the printed material for the front window.
Now its ready for installation.
It's not perfect, but it will pass the 100MPH test... Not that the ADV80 will ever reach that speed!
Remove the old graphic "leftovers" and add the new Jungle80M90 scraps.
Looks like a good spot to add the Magnaflow sticker!
More cowbell for the back window! Now we are ready for King of the Hammers 2018!!!
