Reunion 07 Expedition
Figured I would post up about the adventure I took with My Dad and Brother this summer. The plan was to take all back roads from Newport RI to just south of Ithaca NY for a family reunion the 3rd week end in July. This idea hit the planning stages around Christmas and amazingly enough we were able to pull it off.
So the lowdown. My Dad, Pete and Brother, Tony road there motor cycles and I provided support and shelter in my expedition ready fj62 land cruiser and CDN M101 ¼ ton trailer with roof top tent on top. Here is a link to the trailer
https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?p=2076689#post2076689
My Dad has a BMW Dakar 650 and my brother a Buell Blast.
So the plan was to drive back roads the whole way. My dad and I started off on Thursday July 18 from Newport RI and met up with my brother after winding our way through RI to the Conn. Boarder. From there we spent the day on mostly 2 lane roads winding our way across Conn. To we stopped for lunch in the North West corner of CT then headed into NY to spend the night in the Catskill Mountain’s.
Everything was going fine when we stopped for groceries about 6 miles short of our camp site. When I noticed a shimmy I got out and all my drivers’ side rear lug nuts were loose. So I jacked up the rear wheel in the parking lot (to some very strange looks) and got 4 tight but the last 2 snapped off.. argh… so we spied a nice high school parking lot across the street and Tony and I headed over to see what we could do while my Dad went and got us registered at the camp ground.
We got the trailer off and the wheel off and pulled apart. Luckily I had 6 spare wheel studs in my birfield kit but they were for an fj62 front not an fzj80 rear. So they were a bit longer and seemed to have more of a lip. We tried many different ways to gently get them in without a press luckily it was only about 5pm so we sent my Dad off with the hub to find a garage to press the studs. He came back an hour later with them pressed. We made some new friends in that my rig seemed to draw a lot of looks but we got to the camp site by 6pm good to go.
The camp site was second to none wow what a place it was I highly recommend camping at NY state parks lots of room nice facilities just beautiful. So we got the tent set up and ready for its first real use. The plan was my brother and I would share the roof top tent and my Dad slept in the back of the cruiser and plugged his breathing machine into one of my auxiliary outlets.
Our first night was a real test for the trailer and tent. It rained hard all night!!! By morning the inside wall of the tent were wet and getting ready to drip but I quickly discovered that I need to stake out the rain fly which would have kept the water from pooling but we had a decent night sleep and it was very comfortable. Only issue I had was climbing down the ladder in the morning with a full bladder. Argh
So we packed up camp, which took about an hour or so, and headed out. We zigzagged through the Catskill State park eventually dumping out on US-17 on the south side which weaves along the Beaver kill river and other rivers that form the heads of the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers but only after driving over every mountain pass we could beautiful country side.
We meandered along hitting a couple more showers and stopped at a ‘Granger Mountain’ and Sears to get some supplies and tools then headed on to Connecticut Hill my great uncles property , the site of the reunion a 50 acher wooded hillside camp about 10 miles south of Ithaca NY and our final destination.
My great Uncle Albert’s place is an amazing camp. Nothing is permanent due to tax issues but he has built a pond a grass tennis court and great tree houses and paths through the woods a great relaxing place. Enough trees to keep things cool and enough wind on the hill side to keep it all fresh.
We spent 2 nights there exploring the area and enjoying the company of family eating great food, swimming in waterfalls (nice way to get clean even if a bit chilly) and seeing all the places my Dad had lived as a boy. Then it was off to return home via somewhat the same way.
We like the camp ground of the first night so much we headed back there to a site my dad and I spied when we were looking for the showers our first night. Got our camp set up and showered and enjoyed the cool mountain air.
The next day I headed homeward while my brother and Dad headed up into Massachutesetes to ride for another day up in the Berkshire Mountains. That was the plan anyway we barely got out of camp when it started to pour. The storm seemed to follow me home and my brother and Dad made it only 2 hours riding before they got a hotel room. There last day was apparently a very nice ride.
I took route 44 across Conn. And then down to Newport. Mostly uneventful some beautiful old Mill towns and country side across the top of Conn.
Lessons Learned. The good
- The camping setup generally was very nice. It was nice to be up off the ground in the rain. And set up was fast and easy
- having dual batteries and a fridge was a must
- We bought a kelty sunshade that you can see in some of the pictures and found it to be worth its weigh in gold. I still wan to get or make a Hannibal awning. But for $170 the sun shade kept the down pour off our picnic table and our camp chairs.
- I bought a collapsible picnic table that the benches were separate. This was incredibly useful for eating, packing, and just arranging stuff.
Lessons learned the bad
- I think an awning off the side of the cruiser would be useful in the heavy rain.
- I don’t think I utilized the storage of the trailer as well as I could of
- I plan to build a flip up top for the trailer that the tent is affixed to. I liked being able to reach in and grab waters and other stuff but I want to move more of the dry stuff like tools in containers into the trailer.
- While the jerry cans on top of the rack look cool they sure do get heavy to get them up and down. Need to work on that.
- Need to get 3 more of the scepter cans boy are they nice.
- Need to switch back to a steel wheel the aluminum ones did not hold up to towing well.
For a shake down trip things went pretty well I spent alot of time getting the trailer ready and getting the fj62 ready for a 5 day hard trip and they both preformed better than expected. I personally was so wrapped up in getting the vehicles ready I didn’t plan my food all the well and got a fun stomach virus the last day but having done it once now I think I know how to plan for the next one. We are planning a border to Border on all dirt roads in Maine at some point and a border to border on class 6 roads in NH and or VT as well. My Dad is into the look distance outback style riding on his bike and my brother is not far behind. My brother took over a 100 pictures and as he is a professional photographer his pictures will be a bit better than mine but until I get my hands on them these will have to do
Figured I would post up about the adventure I took with My Dad and Brother this summer. The plan was to take all back roads from Newport RI to just south of Ithaca NY for a family reunion the 3rd week end in July. This idea hit the planning stages around Christmas and amazingly enough we were able to pull it off.
So the lowdown. My Dad, Pete and Brother, Tony road there motor cycles and I provided support and shelter in my expedition ready fj62 land cruiser and CDN M101 ¼ ton trailer with roof top tent on top. Here is a link to the trailer
https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?p=2076689#post2076689
My Dad has a BMW Dakar 650 and my brother a Buell Blast.
So the plan was to drive back roads the whole way. My dad and I started off on Thursday July 18 from Newport RI and met up with my brother after winding our way through RI to the Conn. Boarder. From there we spent the day on mostly 2 lane roads winding our way across Conn. To we stopped for lunch in the North West corner of CT then headed into NY to spend the night in the Catskill Mountain’s.
Everything was going fine when we stopped for groceries about 6 miles short of our camp site. When I noticed a shimmy I got out and all my drivers’ side rear lug nuts were loose. So I jacked up the rear wheel in the parking lot (to some very strange looks) and got 4 tight but the last 2 snapped off.. argh… so we spied a nice high school parking lot across the street and Tony and I headed over to see what we could do while my Dad went and got us registered at the camp ground.
We got the trailer off and the wheel off and pulled apart. Luckily I had 6 spare wheel studs in my birfield kit but they were for an fj62 front not an fzj80 rear. So they were a bit longer and seemed to have more of a lip. We tried many different ways to gently get them in without a press luckily it was only about 5pm so we sent my Dad off with the hub to find a garage to press the studs. He came back an hour later with them pressed. We made some new friends in that my rig seemed to draw a lot of looks but we got to the camp site by 6pm good to go.
The camp site was second to none wow what a place it was I highly recommend camping at NY state parks lots of room nice facilities just beautiful. So we got the tent set up and ready for its first real use. The plan was my brother and I would share the roof top tent and my Dad slept in the back of the cruiser and plugged his breathing machine into one of my auxiliary outlets.
Our first night was a real test for the trailer and tent. It rained hard all night!!! By morning the inside wall of the tent were wet and getting ready to drip but I quickly discovered that I need to stake out the rain fly which would have kept the water from pooling but we had a decent night sleep and it was very comfortable. Only issue I had was climbing down the ladder in the morning with a full bladder. Argh
So we packed up camp, which took about an hour or so, and headed out. We zigzagged through the Catskill State park eventually dumping out on US-17 on the south side which weaves along the Beaver kill river and other rivers that form the heads of the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers but only after driving over every mountain pass we could beautiful country side.
We meandered along hitting a couple more showers and stopped at a ‘Granger Mountain’ and Sears to get some supplies and tools then headed on to Connecticut Hill my great uncles property , the site of the reunion a 50 acher wooded hillside camp about 10 miles south of Ithaca NY and our final destination.
My great Uncle Albert’s place is an amazing camp. Nothing is permanent due to tax issues but he has built a pond a grass tennis court and great tree houses and paths through the woods a great relaxing place. Enough trees to keep things cool and enough wind on the hill side to keep it all fresh.
We spent 2 nights there exploring the area and enjoying the company of family eating great food, swimming in waterfalls (nice way to get clean even if a bit chilly) and seeing all the places my Dad had lived as a boy. Then it was off to return home via somewhat the same way.
We like the camp ground of the first night so much we headed back there to a site my dad and I spied when we were looking for the showers our first night. Got our camp set up and showered and enjoyed the cool mountain air.
The next day I headed homeward while my brother and Dad headed up into Massachutesetes to ride for another day up in the Berkshire Mountains. That was the plan anyway we barely got out of camp when it started to pour. The storm seemed to follow me home and my brother and Dad made it only 2 hours riding before they got a hotel room. There last day was apparently a very nice ride.
I took route 44 across Conn. And then down to Newport. Mostly uneventful some beautiful old Mill towns and country side across the top of Conn.
Lessons Learned. The good
- The camping setup generally was very nice. It was nice to be up off the ground in the rain. And set up was fast and easy
- having dual batteries and a fridge was a must
- We bought a kelty sunshade that you can see in some of the pictures and found it to be worth its weigh in gold. I still wan to get or make a Hannibal awning. But for $170 the sun shade kept the down pour off our picnic table and our camp chairs.
- I bought a collapsible picnic table that the benches were separate. This was incredibly useful for eating, packing, and just arranging stuff.
Lessons learned the bad
- I think an awning off the side of the cruiser would be useful in the heavy rain.
- I don’t think I utilized the storage of the trailer as well as I could of
- I plan to build a flip up top for the trailer that the tent is affixed to. I liked being able to reach in and grab waters and other stuff but I want to move more of the dry stuff like tools in containers into the trailer.
- While the jerry cans on top of the rack look cool they sure do get heavy to get them up and down. Need to work on that.
- Need to get 3 more of the scepter cans boy are they nice.
- Need to switch back to a steel wheel the aluminum ones did not hold up to towing well.
For a shake down trip things went pretty well I spent alot of time getting the trailer ready and getting the fj62 ready for a 5 day hard trip and they both preformed better than expected. I personally was so wrapped up in getting the vehicles ready I didn’t plan my food all the well and got a fun stomach virus the last day but having done it once now I think I know how to plan for the next one. We are planning a border to Border on all dirt roads in Maine at some point and a border to border on class 6 roads in NH and or VT as well. My Dad is into the look distance outback style riding on his bike and my brother is not far behind. My brother took over a 100 pictures and as he is a professional photographer his pictures will be a bit better than mine but until I get my hands on them these will have to do