Builds The Big Bad Rad Dad LX (Dissent) Build

[dubyahard]

Just. Can’t do it. The drive home would take 3+ days.


Haven’t used the RTT since We left Texas

This was my original dilemma: Had we planned a CO trip, I would have brought the roof cargo box instead of the RTT and left the crazy cantilevering basket at home.
Been seeking out cabins and vrbos.



i think we’ve decided to hit up Breck for a few days. Or Vail, or copper mountain?
Traveling during the CoCo has been a little odd. Seems like the towns themselves don’t really matter and it’s been more about the house/weather we can find. (Crested Butte was a ghost town)

Yeah, Tahoe is across two states. Too far.

If you go to Copper then you could cut south through Leadville and Buena Vista.

Last September we stayed in Silverton and drove to Ouray and back a couple times but we were towing a 25' travel trailer! I felt comfortable and planted but my wife and mother-in-law were sweatin!

 

[HFDPNL]

Just spent a week in Creede over New Years, it was also empty and we had the whole place to ourselves. My boss was at his condo in Breck during the same time and he said it was packed. Went with a friend who drove his LX470, but the wives didn’t give us enough leash to go get into trouble on the forest roads outside of town, but there’s plenty of exploring to be done....Lake City was also a ghost town.

 

[radman]

Left Crested Butte this morning and headed East. After 2 hours driving through the Gunnison National Forest area, we were at some place called Poncho Springs... our fork in the road.

We had been avoiding the decision up until we got there 1) turn south and head home or 2) go north towards Breck/copper

The kids wanted to go north, but the wife and I were wavering back and forth...

Don’t worry, We ended up YOLOing north. However, we still didn’t have a place to stay.

On the way to Breck, we got notification that there was 80+mph winds and sections of 285 were closed??

weird, so we diverted up through Buena Vista and Leadville.

If you go to Copper then you could cut south through Leadville and Buena Vista.

Was still a really windy ride, but I had recently purchased another set of mounts for the iKamper (i have it connected to 3 crossbars now), so my fear it it flying off was low.

Stopped at the highly rated “High Mountain Pies”, and it did not disappoint!

kids were too cold to get out of the car, and we didn’t feel like getting all the things on them... so we broke the ‘no eating in the rig’ rule in the biggest possible way!

We lucked out and found a sweet (1.4MM) house in Silverthorne for $300/nightQuite the change from the 80 year old cabin we left in CB.

This last leg of the trip will be less nature-y and more day tripping to Breck (gondola rides and coffee) and copper (tubing), and maybe Vail but everyone says it’s hoity-toity so I’m not sure if it’s worth the trip

 

[CharlieS]

Love to live vicariously through your awesome trip. We've been avoiding travel due to guidance about staying home during the pandemic. How's the world out there? Are people welcoming of out of town travelers? Do you have any quarantine/isolation rules you follow when going from place to place?

 

[04UZJ100]

Love to live vicariously through your awesome trip. We've been avoiding travel due to guidance about staying home during the pandemic. How's the world out there? Are people welcoming of out of town travelers? Do you have any quarantine/isolation rules you follow when going from place to place?

Don’t be afraid to make decisions for yourself. Get out there. Vacationing has been a blast, as had flying again! 3 vacations planned this year and air travel 3x a month.

 

[Tex68w]

I hate that the current state of affairs has people scared or unsure of travel. Get out there and enjoy yourselves people.

 

[TeCKis300]

Get out there, but be measured and be safe. For yourself, your family, and the community. We're on the cusp of the vaccine. Maybe there's people that have been fortunate, to not witness the tragedy. But having multiple acquaintances pass in recent times surely puts things in perspective. Colleague just lost his dad that came down with it. Only to then lose his sister a few weeks after, who had gone into the fire to help their father. Having many friends in the medical community... serving the country right now in war behind closed doors. They need our support to do the right thing more than ever.

 

[fj60eric]

Awesome adventures! I had to chuckle at the comments regarding the cold starts at -6. I'm in Granby, CO and had multiple mornings of -12 mornings last week so the cold start noises are commonplace. I've found my LX to be a trooper, even with the recent 5w20 oil the shop mistakenly put in. I vote you cut further north and hit the hot springs in Saratoga WY! +1 on skipping Vail.

 

[radman]

I never knew there we so many different types of snow. Apparently the Breck area has been waiting many weeks for fresh snow, and this morning we woke up to about .25” of the fluffiest, softest, and lightest stuff I’ve ever seen. Probably not good enough for the skiers, though.

How's the world out there? Are people welcoming of out of town travelers? Do you have any quarantine/isolation rules you follow when going from place to place?

It’s definitely been different.

few random covid thoughts.
- Harris County (Houston) has a .013% death rate.
- in our bubble, no one has died, and we don’t know anyone who has had family members who have passed away.
- my mother-in-law lives 5 houses down from us, and she’s categorized as high-risk.
- if it wasn’t for her, we probably would have opened our gates up by now.
- I’ve been working from home since March, and have been fortunate enough to have a very flexible schedule (hence the road trip).
- aside from all the people dying and the economy crumbling, we’ve loved being together as a family 24/7. I’m not sure I’ll ever get this much time with them again. When I retire, the kids will be punk teenagers and out of the house?
- the hotel on the way to Big Bend was the first time the family busted out of the bubble.
- we decided that we would be responsible, try to have a little fun, but also quarantine from my MIL when we got back.

- You never really know how clean a hotel/VRBO really is... trust but verify? I wipe down door handles, faucets, toilet seats in every new place we stay. Beyond that, we try to let the kids be kids.

- Other than that first hotel, we’ve been booking cabins/houses. I can’t remember if I’ve said this already, but the kids would have been happy at our $180/night cabin in Pagosa Springs. The cabin we found in Purgatory was on 130 acres and we could have stayed there for 2 weeks... but we had already booked the cabin in CB.

- I’m glad we kept traveling, but packing up has been the hardest part (I don’t think we have another stop in us.)

Speaking of the drive home...we have to take the 70 East to Denver, and Slee is only a 10 minute detour
I’m already (secretly) window shopping for all the things I want to pick up, but I need to see if they even have a storefront with Covid.

Another perk of going to Tahoe would have been trying to see the dudes at Dissent and having @benc inspect my handiwork, but that ship has sailed far away. Maybe next year?


Breckenridge:
I’ve never seen this place so busy. Other than everyone following the mask mandate, and limits on number of people allowed in the stores (our fav coffee shop converted into a walk up window), it was open season!

Back to the Rig:
I think I’m finally comfortable downshifting down steep grade. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving it in S and pulling back when I need to slow down.
I haven’t searched much on this, but how high do you let rpms go in 1st and 2nd gear? 3k?

mileage has been around 10-11 highway since Durango

I also forgot to swap out my windshield washer fluid, and it has been frozen for a week. Fortunately, it thawed out today and i ran it until it was empty. Doesn’t seem like the tank or anything got damaged...

 

[04UZJ100]

M

I never knew there we so many different types of snow. Apparently the Breck area has been waiting many weeks for fresh snow, and this morning we woke up to about .25” of the fluffiest, softest, and lightest stuff I’ve ever seen. Probably not good enough for the skiers, though.

View attachment 2555728





It’s definitely been different.

few random covid thoughts.
- Harris County (Houston) has a .013% death rate.
- in our bubble, no one has died, and we don’t know anyone who has had family members who have passed away.
- my mother-in-law lives 5 houses down from us, and she’s categorized as high-risk.
- if it wasn’t for her, we probably would have opened our gates up by now.
- I’ve been working from home since March, and have been fortunate enough to have a very flexible schedule (hence the road trip).
- aside from all the people dying and the economy crumbling, we’ve loved being together as a family 24/7. I’m not sure I’ll ever get this much time with them again. When I retire, the kids will be punk teenagers and out of the house?
- the hotel on the way to Big Bend was the first time the family busted out of the bubble.
- we decided that we would be responsible, try to have a little fun, but also quarantine from my MIL when we got back.

- You never really know how clean a hotel/VRBO really is... trust but verify? I wipe down door handles, faucets, toilet seats in every new place we stay. Beyond that, we try to let the kids be kids.

- Other than that first hotel, we’ve been booking cabins/houses. I can’t remember if I’ve said this already, but the kids would have been happy at our $180/night cabin in Pagosa Springs. The cabin we found in Purgatory was on 130 acres and we could have stayed there for 2 weeks... but we had already booked the cabin in CB.

- I’m glad we kept traveling, but packing up has been the hardest part (I don’t think we have another stop in us.)

Speaking of the drive home...we have to take the 70 East to Denver, and Slee is only a 10 minute detour
I’m already (secretly) window shopping for all the things I want to pick up, but I need to see if they even have a storefront with Covid.

Another perk of going to Tahoe would have been trying to see the dudes at Dissent and having @benc inspect my handiwork, but that ship has sailed far away. Maybe next year?


Breckenridge:
I’ve never seen this place so busy. Other than everyone following the mask mandate, and limits on number of people allowed in the stores (our fav coffee shop converted into a walk up window), it was open season!
View attachment 2555727View attachment 2555729

Back to the Rig:
I think I’m finally comfortable downshifting down steep grade. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving it in S and pulling back when I need to slow down.
I haven’t searched much on this, but how high do you let rpms go in 1st and 2nd gear? 3k?

mileage has been around 10-11 highway since Durango

I also forgot to swap out my windshield washer fluid, and it has been frozen for a week. Fortunately, it thawed out today and i ran it until it was empty. Doesn’t seem like the tank or anything got damaged...

When using the engine brake - I keep it at the 40-70% of redline mark. 3-4.5k ish.

 

[fj60eric]

Use caution when downshifting in icy conditions!

How are those tires doing in snowy/icy highway conditions?

 

[tincan45]

M

When using the engine brake - I keep it at the 40-70% of redline mark. 3-4.5k ish.

Am I the only one who has trouble getting used to engine braking on these rigs? More often then not, when I go to down shift, it refuses because speed it too high and I have to do a lot of manual braking anyway. I'm sure Toyota has a reason for this, but it seems unnatural.

 

[TeCKis300]

The more engine brake you want, the more RPM. Just like acceleration, engine braking can use the full spectrum of the RPM band, all the way to redline. The ECU won't allow you overspeed the engine at any point.

When fully laden with trailer in tow, I do use engine braking judiciously. Wouldn't be uncommon in the Rockies for me to see 5k+ RPM in second gear on very steep grades. Sometimes even grabbing 1st for those really really steep 8% grades on slower back mountain roads. Grabbing 1st is the only gear the ECU will not readily let the car into, even if it wouldn't result in overspeed. Have to be below 20mph. (on my 6-speed at least) I presume because of the significant gearing and resultant engine braking, there's a larger potential for the lurch to break traction with possible loss of control, especially in low traction weather situations.

Re-gearing my rig for larger tires made for hugely more engine braking, which was one of the more fortunate surprises.

 

[grinchy]

Re-gearing my rig for larger tires made for hugely more engine braking, which was one of the more fortunate surprises.

agree with this. Regearing is expensive, but one benefit includes being a total boss going up and down hills.

 

[dubyahard]

I also forgot to swap out my windshield washer fluid, and it has been frozen for a week. Fortunately, it thawed out today and i ran it until it was empty. Doesn’t seem like the tank or anything got damaged...

Those tanks hold like a gallon or something.

 

[radman]

Well, we finally threw in the towel.
We had extended our stay in Silverthorn (summit county) by a day so we could go snow tubing at Copper Mountain, but the house was booked up and couldn't extend beyond that.
The tubing was a great end the trip, and the kids loved it (the wife and I had fears that the 3yo was going to go flying out of the tube). If it were up to the kids, we would have stayed in the snow for several more weeks, but we didn’t want to overdo it (and repacking that rig had taken its toll on us).

I wish someone would have warned me that Denver was a crappy town . Downtown literally looked like a 3rd world country- countless buildings were boarded up, there was a 200+ homeless camp across from the capitol, and trash everywhere. Anyone know what’s going on?
However, I found great coffee and Pizza. I guess if you ever have to be in Denver, check out:
Coffee: sweetbloomcoffee.com
Pizza: bluepandenver.com
If you’re ever in Waco, Tx check out: pinewoodroasters.com

As much as I wanted to power through and drive all night, we ended up stopping in Amarillo for 8hrs of sleep (Figured the next day would have been spent sleeping anyway). Unfortunately had to unload the basket and restrap everything...

turned out to be exactly (almost) 1k miles home, with respectable hwy mpg at 13(ha!). I had been maintains 65-70 for most of the trip mostly due to the RTT, but i found myself hitting 75-80 on the much smoother TX roads. seems like 65 was getting me 14mpg, and I was down to 10-11mpg on the Co mountains.

I also killed a few extra minutes getting weighed when we got gas at a truck stop.
Both gas tanks were full (48gals), family was in the rig, but yeti was missing about 10-15lbs of food (oh, and on the way to Big Bend, there was an additional 50lbs of firewood in the trasharoo).


Add 175lbs for me = 8,295lbs (GVWR 7,385)

It was an amazing trip, and we’re glad to be back in own beds. Now the fun part of unpacking, cleaning out all the crumbs, and (maybe) washing the rig. This is, in fact, ih8mud!

total mile count: 3,005

 

[Tex68w]

Denver is a liberal s*** hole with ever increasing socialist policies and mindset, this is why it looks the way it does. All cities that fall into that trap end up this way, Austin isn't too far behind them with the homeless encampments.

 

[tbisaacs]

Aww man, can we keep politics off IH8MUD? I’m here for the cruisers.

 

[1world1love]

Looks like an amazing trip! It’s always tough to balance itineraries when you have the family in tow. There are always so many dirt roads you would love to go down, but on a long trip, sometimes it’s best to hit the highlights and call it a day. Looks like you guys packed a lot in but everybody looks in pretty good shape.

 

[1world1love]

Love to live vicariously through your awesome trip. We've been avoiding travel due to guidance about staying home during the pandemic. How's the world out there? Are people welcoming of out of town travelers? Do you have any quarantine/isolation rules you follow when going from place to place?

We went from SF to our house in TN In early November and just drove back last week. We stayed at hotels and Airbnb’s all the way. We were surprised that there were very few places we went through where people weren’t following guidelines. While we did not stop much, we did stay in a few hotels and got takeout a few times. No matter where we were, all the businesses seemed to require masking, and most people complied. There was an occasional fill-up where somebody was in the store without a mask, but we just avoided going inside. We used official rest stops for bio-breaks rather than gas stations and fast food places.

We avoided larger cities for the most part and took back roads. Even in podunk towns, most people were masked.

We stayed in a number of hotels, mostly Hilton, and they were all booking only half capacity and rooms had to be empty for 24 hours before the cleaners could even go in. The doors always had a seal on them once they had been sanitized, and things like the TV remotes were shrink wrapped so it looked like they had been sent out for cleaning and packaged up for each guest. (that cannot be cheap).

The only place where I felt uncomfortable was, surprisingly, in Flagstaff. There, we had reserved a room at a Marriott property - a very nice hotel - but when we arrived, the hotel was insanely busy and few people were wearing masks. The woman at the front desk said that they were booking at 100% capacity and that the hotel was completely full. To be fair, all of the front desk staff were very nice and seemed genuinely concerned for their own safety but seemed to indicate that they were powerless to address any of the issues.

We just said “no thanks” and left even though they could not issue a refund. We found another room at a different Marriott property where things were much better, but still not great. When I got home, I called Marriott and they happily refunded both rooms without hesitation.

I wouldn‘t discourage getting out and taking a trip, but I would say to just be smart and conscientious. Mask when appropriate and take into consideration your potential impact on the places you go, both positive and negative. Also, frankly, just avoid crowds just like you do at home. If you have to shop, do it early in the morning or other times when it is not busy. Keep your distance rom others. Just common sense stuff.