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Be careful when you look at the magical blue light. It might become a habit. 

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ToyBago Gets Hitched

I am currently on a 2 month road trip with my good friend from home, Alex. We decided to head west to do some dirtbiking/ outdoor activities and his brother gave the go ahead to take his 1992 Toyota winnebago (instagram profile: ) only problem was, it didn’t have a hitch for carrying the bikes. Not two to be discouraged, we did some formal and informal analyses on what adding a hitch might do to the frame and decided to add one. 

Originally we planned to cut up a hitch my dad offered from our old toyota sienna, but it was rather wide so we went with a donor jeep wrangler hitch instead. The end result was nicely sturdy. 

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Doing some work on the current project

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Final Cross Country Entry

It’s time to admit that I didn’t keep up with my entries. Really the time was a month after the trip ended and I hadn’t written any more, but better late than never... Since I’d like to move on to different projects (electric conversions anyone?) I’ll give a brief synopsis of the rest of the trip. 

When Jeffrey and I left the west coast it was a reluctant parting for me and a happy one for him. I always enjoy my time out there and find it hard to return to the fast paced, individualistic lifestyle of the east. We travelled up the left coast and stopped at Rainier, the North Cascades, Vancouver, and Bellingham WA. The best camping spot we had of the whole trip was in the North Cascades along a frigid ice melt stream shown here

When we poked up into Canada I decided to split off for a day while Jeffrey went skydiving, and then we reunited to head off towards Jasper and Banff National Parks of Canada. The mountains there were absolutely spectacular. The other spectacularity was the difficulty of the hikes we chose to do: a 6 mile 5,000 ft of elevation change doozy and a 17 mile out and back the next day. 

After our time in Canada, we dipped back down into the US to visit Glacier a second time. The hike that day was much shorter than our first time here, but we got great views of the valleys. 

Our next stop was a mistake: hiking in the middle of the plains in broad sunlight is not the most enjoyable, and that’s what Teddy Roosevelt National park has to offer. This was the first time we bailed on a hike because I was feeling nauseous from the sun. We continued on our way to an olive garden 2 hours from the park, where we feasted on soup, salad, and breadsticks and had a lovely time talking to the waitress and host about the trip and their lives. 

We plowed through miles for the next day, stopping at a county park in Illinois that was clearly marked for daytime use only. We “showered” in the river it was next to and then turned in for the night. At around 2AM we were woken up by the glare of headlights and a police officer walking up to the back of the truck. He politely informed us that the park was for day use only, but after looking at our licenses and hearing the brief, groggy description of our travels he let us off with a warning and best wishes. 

The next stop was one of my favorites. I had looked into electric motorcycle conversions online during a stint in the passenger seat and saw someone from Illinois that had converted a 1980′s FZ600. I shot him an email, hoping for the best but expecting nothing, but he responded and invited us to stop by for a visit. We showed up midafternoon and met the man, Francesco. He’s a very pleasant retired physics teacher and he happily went over the details of the build. To my surprise, after showing us around the bike he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. Of course I said yes!

The throttle response on the bike was superb, and riding without a clutch from 0-60 with only chain noise and motor whine is a completely different feeling from standard ICE bikes. I left Francescos house with a huge smile for hours and a steady stream of conversation about electric vehicles. 

The tail end of the trip was fun but fairly standard. We decided to make a beeline for home and stopped at Brendan’s again in Michigan to see him perform standup at a local bar. It was his first time and he was great. The other people not so much. The next day we plowed through the final 11 hour drive home, and that was it!

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Cross Country #17

It’s been a while since the trip and I never followed through with the rest of these posts. Maybe it’s a good thing because the smaller, less important details have mostly faded. It was the day before 4th of July and Jeffrey decided to call our friend Brendan, who we had visited in Michigan on the way out. Brendan was about to take a mandatory week off from his internship at GM, and decided to take a trip up to the top part of Michigan for some star-gazing and soul searching. Jeffrey thought this idea was terrible, and that it would be much better if Brendan flew out to Oregon for the week to visit us. “Jeffrey the tickets are too expensive” -Brendan “Brendan, how do you know how much they are… are you looking at them now?” “Yes…” And with that, he booked a flight for the same day into portland. We picked him up and hung out in Clatskanie for the week. Mike put him and Jeffrey to work digging out a hole for a new cider shed addition. We made a competition out of who could dig their hole out faster.

 For fourth of July we headed out to the coast and met up with my friend Kara from seaside. The fireworks were okay, but a little subdued from the cloudy weather.

Later we took Brendan out jetskiing. Jeffrey threw him off a few times, and we attempted to use the tube for some fun. Instead Jeffrey just ended up getting waterlogged. Later I was able to get up on a single ski behind the jetskiis, though. Those things have some power!

Jeffrey had to go back for a week for a science conference in the city but Brendan was still in town for a few days, so we made a lot of pizza in Aunt Mary’s wood fired brick oven and lazed around Clatskanie. Well, Brendan may have lazed a bit more than me- I was getting fidgety and decided to take on a bigger task that Aunt Mary had laid out of pouring the foundation for a little building next to the pizza shed.

Once it was done, Aunt Mary decided to check it out to feel out how much space there will be for beds and such. My timeline is off somewhere, because the foundation definitely took more than one day. I may have started it before Brendan left and then actually poured when he was gone. The day before he left we checked out a Portland rock gym that was pretty sweet.

For the next week Mike and I did chores around the property; like drinking cider and moving a truckload of empty kegs

Eventually Jeffrey came back, which I was excited about but also sad because it meant our time in Oregon was coming to a close.

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Cross Country Trip Entry #16

The west coast has a few things figured out: renewable energy development, drug laws, motorcycle lane-splitting, and the most important… Donuts! We spent our first day in Oregon going to Dungeon Donuts where Jeffrey experienced the wonder of maple glazed donuts for the first time. This place is new from last year and operates out of the bottom of a decommissioned church. The girls running the counter talked to us about our travels and made a custom apple filled maple glazed donut for me. It’s definitely my new favorite place, and the quality of their donuts is better than the old shop next to the local pot store. 

(photo taken from the Dungeon Donuts facebook page)

We putzed around for a bit and then went back to Aunt Mary’s house to do a few errands before heading out to Clatskanie. She had the next few days off from the clinic so we got to spend some time together and plan a little bit of what needed to be done on the property. My memory isn’t perfect, so the chronology of everything in Oregon might not be spot on, but as I recall the next day we poured a patio slab for Aunt Mary’s pizza shed where there had been brick work for the past few years waiting for concrete. Last summer when I was out west Mike and I poured part of the slab, but this year was about 1/3rd more concrete which meant lifting 1/3rd more 60 pound bags into the concrete mixer and splitting them open. It’s a tiring job, and by the end of lifting all the bags and inhaling concrete dust a dip in the river is always a welcome event. We mixed and poured a few batches until the slab had enough, and because I hadn’t poured concrete in a while the mixture was less than ideal. Then Mike showed me how to screed the pour and edge and hand trowel it until it’s very smooth. Once the slab had set we had a very nice smooth patio which was a great addition to the pizza shed. 

Jeffrey to my knowledge had never been Jet skiing, so once the concrete pouring was through we went out for a spin. He wasn’t there for part of the pour due to attempts to find a skydiving place with clear skies and high enough jump altitudes, though unfortunately this ended up being a lot of driving and no diving. We had a total blast on the jetski spraying each other with wake and jumping waves. At first I thought something was up since it was only getting to about 40mph and topping out, where the usual top speed was more like 55-60. Eventually I realized I had grabbed the “slow” key so we zipped back to the dock and swapped it out and then really had a good time.

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Cross Country Trip Entry #15

We slept in a Walmart parking lot again after driving through glacier. The road ahead was long, since we had decided to drive the rest of the way to Oregon in one day. To break up the 11 hour drive we picked a bouldering gym about 8 hours in and a Tractor Supply Co. store about 2 hours in for a replacement trailer spare. After driving for a bit and picking up a spare tire and wheel for around 80 bucks we grabbed donuts from the Krispy Kreme in the same parking lot. I was in a driving mood and Jeffrey had driven for quite a while some of the previous days so I took the wheel for the day. We put on one of the “Jumper” series audiobooks and drove until Spokane Washington. Well, actually we stopped first at a gas station advertising “The World’s best huckleberry shakes” I’m not sure if they were actually the world’s best but they were pretty darn good. In Spokane we settled on a gym called The Blocyard, that advertised very fair pricing and bouldering-only walls. The ambience was great from the first step inside. The dude behind the counter looked like a new age hippy and greeted us warmly and with the good news that Friday was college day. I heard this somewhat uninterestedly, since at the time I had no idea what day it was and I figured we wouldn’t be around on Friday. It was Friday. So, $5 richer than we would have been on another day, we put on our shoes and hit the walls. 

 The gym was nice, and this seems to be the trend on the west coast. Their walls looked very custom and the majority of them had a nice backward slope and high top outs. The best part of the gym, though, was undoubtedly their beautiful shop dog. Having not climbed in a while by this point, Jeffrey and I only stayed on the wall for an hour or so and then made use of their gym equipment to do some chest and tricep exercises. We left the gym feeling refreshed and excited to listen to the rest of Jumper. This was the second time of the trip we used climbing to break up a long drive, and it really seems to do the trick. The rest of the drive was smooth… and flat, because that’s what eastern Washington is: smooth and flat. 

It looks similar to Iowa with all the fields, but with more rolling hills. We drove into the darkness, unfortunately missing the Columbia River gorge to sunset. I hiked in the gorge a number of years ago with my friend Mario from high school when he came out to Oregon for a week, and it’s quite a beautiful area. At around 11PM we rolled into my Aunt Mary’s driveway in Battleground, Washington. In total the day had been about 11 hours of driving, but we were so into Jumper that we sat in the driveway for another 10 minutes to finish the chapter.

When we did go inside we were welcomed by good conversation and small excited dogs. Aunt Mary had work at her vet clinic the next day but still stayed up with us ‘til 2AM talking about all sorts of things. Finally Jeffrey and I dozed off upstairs ready to start the more relaxing portion of our trip. 

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Cross Country Trip Entry #14

We stayed the night in a random pullout just outside the entrance to the park. Originally we tried to go to a campsite on iOverlander but it was one of the very few times that we couldn’t find the site. Our intention for the next day was to do an 18 mile hike and then drive through Glacier and further west. We got up at our usual time of 7:45 and made a quick breakfast, thinking we would be on the trail early, but when we looked at the map our hike was about an hour south of our site. Adding to the travel time was the fact that Montana Department of Transportation must use summertime to repair all of the damage to the roads, so we ended up stuck in traffic in the middle of nowhere for 20 minutes waiting for the pilot car on a road construction area. The flagger stopped by our window and we chatted for a while talking about the local area and traveling and then we were on our way.

The hike starts near two medicine lake, and we had trouble finding a parking spot since the trailhead was actually in a campground with no RV day parking, so I backed the trailer up over the curb into a patch of gravel in the picnic area. Apparently the  Rangers frown on this, because when we returned for the day there was a warning ticket for 15 minutes after we left stating that there was quite a big fine for “parking offroad.” I made sure not to do it again, after scraping yet another sticky ticket off my window… By the time we started our hike it was the better part of 1PM and we were getting wary of the time and distance combination. This was set to be the longest hike either of us had done, with the next longest being a 14 mile hike in Acadia National park about a month prior. A sign on the trail board said “Bridge out 2.5 miles” and we decided that if the bridge was too difficult to cross and it seemed like we weren't making good enough time that we would turn around. 45 minutes into the hike we got to the “bridge” which was two sets of side by side beams with a center support in the middle of the creek it spanned. This center support had crumbled, probably from the high water during the early snowmelt, so the bridge sagged into the water onto a replacement support of piled up rocks. None of this really affected the bridge’s intended purpose of making the creek easier to cross, since the beams were still well enough out of the water and sturdy. So, we continued on as planned. This part of the country had been littered with “Grizzly Warning” signs, so for the first few miles I was quite nervous. These fears faded as usual when we didn't see a bear in the first hour and turned into enjoyment of the good exercise and fresh mountain air soon after.

We ran into another hiker with a backpack having lunch at the foot of a small waterfall and chatted about bear attacks in the area. Apparently the last one was many years ago by a bear chasing a rock climber down the mountain. The poor guy kept throwing snacks out of his pack to get it to stop but it had a hankering for human flesh. We kept going until Jeffrey noticed some people up ahead. I stupidly, and rather meanly, did my best bear noise impression, and then immediately realized that the family was within eyeshot and saw me making a fool of myself. We sheepishly walked past with a few pleasantries and continued up the trail, which was now heading up the side of the mountain rather than through the woods.

After a few hundred feet of climbing we crested onto the ridge and got a full on view of the surrounding scenery. The glacial lakes on both sides and snowy mountain tops were breathtaking. A small animal, which I now believe was a marmot but we referred to as a chinchilla at the time, did not appreciate our company and kept chasing us before popping down into the jagged cliff edges and chasing us again.

Further on up the trail the wind really started to pick up but the views continued to get even better. Jeffrey and I both found precarious ledges to get Lion King style photos on.

The descent was another long 9 miles, but it was almost all downhill and we got to do some more foot skiing and butt sliding on snowfields in the first part. Halfway through the return the idea of jumping into the snow-fed lake at the campground was brought up and we committed to it. Jeffrey ramped up his hiking speed in the last mile because his shoes were blistering and we were both ready for a swim, and we cruised back into the campground by a surprisingly early 7PM.

WHOO BOY that water was cold! The technique I started going with was adapted from Jeffrey’s skydiving jumps: You lean forward with “1” back with “2” and then run into the water on “3” . Tt works every time, even though sometimes your body resents it. This water was probably around 50 degrees, which is based off of multiple times later in the trip using our kitchen thermometer to measure our “shower” streams. The glacial water has the benefit of being super clean feeling and also waking you up quicker than even the best cup of coffee. After toweling off we had a dinner of Ramen with egg, mushroom and spinach and then hopped in the truck and drove to the west side of Glacier to sleep for the night.

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Cross Country Entry #13

Tire destruction

High speed, small tires and long distances usually culminate into some sort of inconvenient tire failure. Combining these three with bumpy dirt roads brings the probability even higher to “almost certain”. Our tire problems started at 10:41pm the night we left Yellowstone on the road to a campsite halfway between Yellowstone and Glacier National Park. Jeffrey was driving and the truck started making jittery sounds and feelings. “We should probably pull over” I said, and when we went back to the trailer to check it out we saw this:

What was most impressive was how well the rim had held up to driving with the remaining shreds of rubber. Jeffrey and I are pretty relaxed, so we took the event in stride laughing a bit at how shredded the tire was. I put up the emergency triangle I thought would probably never be used that my brother Andrew had sent me as a Christmas gift and went to work with the small screw jack from the truck’s tool kit. Jeffrey asked me why I hadn’t screwed the tire all the way off the ground and I pointed out how breaking the lugnuts free is much easier when you use the ground to keep the wheel from rotating. We got the old wheel off and swapped with the spare in no time.

We drove long into the night and when Jeffrey was close to falling asleep I swapped with him. At that point I was still listening to a Jack Reacher book on tape that Jeffrey didn’t like, so driving late at night wasn’t a problem. Our campsite for the night was in the middle of BLM land gated off by the cow grates that by now we’ve become accustomed to. We drove past the entrance once and then tentatively crossed the grated and drove down a rough double track trail to a lake with a fifth wheel camper parked adjacent. A little exploring turned up the official campsite with signs like “pay here” and “no camping outside of official campground” but it was 3AM and I figured I just read the signs wrong so we went back next to the lake and the fifth wheel and made camp for the night.

The threat of bears had been quite clear in Yellowstone with signs saying how dangerous grizzlies can be and to store your food in smell proof containers. So when I woke up to the sound of some large animal scraping alongside the truck I immediately thought “Crap, bear!”. Peeking through the flap left me laughing and joking with Jeffrey.

The local cow herd must have been curious about the new silver bull that showed up in their pasture and decided to come say hello. We said hello back, after I asked Jeffrey a few times “how the heck do I get them to leave?” and then made omlettes for breakfast.

The rest of the drive up to Glacier was fairly long, but finally Jeffrey and I were listening to the same audiobook and thoroughly enjoying it, so the drive went faster than with just music. At the entrance to Glacier Jeffrey bought bear spray. 50 stinking bucks for some pepper spray! The people who manufacture that stuff must make a fortune on all the scared tourists.

We drove up going to the sun road after dropping the trailer and had a nice chat with a fellow New Yorker at one of the turnouts and then stopped at the visitor center for a hike. Our hike went up a big snow plain to lost lake. It was a standard touristy hike but we did get to see a mountain goat and do some foot skiing on the way back.

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Out of chronological order again, but dang western Montana is gorgeous.

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Cross country Trip entry #12

The next day was a rest day. We had been itching to see the new incredibles movie, and I was still sick and tired from the previous day’s hike. So we headed to Livingston, Montana with the truck, leaving the bike trailer locked up in the BLM site. The first stop was a Verizon store to replace my dying IPhone 5s. It treated me very well over the 4.5 years of ownership, even if I can’t say the same from me to it.

After the standard hassle of getting a new phone-a shiny (and very breakable) iPhone 8, we went to a local soup restaurant with mouthwatering cornbread and then headed to the park so I could take a nap. Later we saw Incredibles 2, which was a great movie and left us feeling refreshed and like real people again.

The next day we did a much better and longer hike up a mountain and back down again and then into a valley on a trail labeled “steepest switchbacks in Yellowstone” to a waterfall.

The 8 mile hike ended up checking in at 12 miles after the addition of the waterfall, and we headed out of the park exhausted and ready for our next destination, Glacier National Park.

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RIP Jeffrey’s vegetarianism

June 11, 2018- July 7, 2018

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Banff National Park. Entry #11 I suppose, but this is out of order. (I’m behind on writing... whoops!)

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Cross Country Tip Entry #10

Yellowstone wasn’t our type of park. It took us 3 hours to drive from our previous campsite to the east entrance and then another two hours to get into the park. This in itself was not a great sign, but we found a small hike that went near a nice waterfall that made things better. In the parking lot we met a man from the Czech Republic who had been traveling the US for months on a Suzuki V-strom. We chatted for a bit about his adventures and different motorcycles and exchanged info to try to meet up sometime during our stay.

After that we headed back to the car and towards the old faithful visitor center to get some camping information. I saw a sign that said “next eruption estimated at 6:29 PM” and looked down at my watch. “6:29!” I said and took off running towards the geyser with Jeffrey in tow. There, hundreds of people’s cell phones were watching the geyser burble and froth. It ended up being another 15 minutes before the geyser actually erupted, but it was worth the wait.

We visited the ranger station to see if camping in our soft sided canopy was allowed at the campsites in the park. It was, but all of the campgrounds were full, as predicted. iOverlander showed a BLM campground just outside the north entrance with great reviews that was only an hour and a half away so we opted for that rather than paying for a campsite elsewhere. The site was beautiful and just to the side of the Yellowstone river with a mountain backdrop, picnic table and pit toilets. We made up camp and went to bed with plans for a hike the next day. The plan was to spend 3 full days in Yellowstone since it was so highly rated by everyone we talked to.

The hike was about 8 miles-a shortened version of what Jeffrey originally picked because I was feeling very under the weather. We ran into a group coming the other direction that recognized my Stony Brook Ultimate frisbee shirt and asked if I went there. It turned out that he was one of the founders of the team that helped pick their name, Panic. The end of our hike was a steaming mound of white rock with bubbling water in various crevices.

On the way back we played hiker’s leap frog with a couple that both work in the park, one as an animal wrangler and one as a facility manager.

As an FYI, these events happened around June 27th. My entries are lagging hugely, since the events of the trip have been so busy.

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Cross country Trip Entry #9

Jeffrey ran from the trail through a boulder field and soon lost the bobcat. Unfortunately he also lost the trail and to find it he had to head back towards the big cat. After half an hour he found it and started the trek back. He crossed the streams (rivers, really) again and along the way looked up and saw a baby moose ambling along. Shortly after he saw its mother looking warily at him. As he jogged away the mother followed in a similar direction but eventually left him alone.

As he was telling me all of this my discovery about why my motorcycle wouldn’t function properly seemed less and less exciting, but we exchanged the rest of our stories and then had dinner in the parking lot.

The road down from the hike was long with the trailer bouncing all around through the dirt potholes. Eventually we made it back to the main canyon road; the scenery even at night going through the canyon was still fantastic. Jeffrey drove for a while but ended up swapping when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. I drove until the same thing happened to me and then pulled off on a random side road and happened to see a BLM trailhead parking area. BLM land seems to have very few rules and I assumed no one would mind if we parked there so we made quick camp and stayed the night.

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Cross country trip entry #8

We ended up staying in a Walmart that night past the black hills. Truthfully the only reason I remember is from google maps timeline feature since it’s been a while. Most of the trip details are still fresh, but we’ve slept in so many different places that they tend to blur together. We headed from Walmart towards Yellowstone with the intention of knocking out the whole 9 hour drive in one day. Looking at the map we saw “Bighorn National Forest” and a rite that went directly through it and one around it that was about 15 minutes faster. “Why not?” Was our basic response, so we picked the slower route.

Holy views, Batman. We didn’t expect what we got, that’s for sure. Bighorn National forest ramps up fairly slowly from the east as you rise to over 9,000 feet in the course of an hour or so. Then, all of a sudden, you break into Tensleep Canyon and huge, beautiful cliff faces stare you in the face. What was supposed to be a 45 minute drive ended up taking two and a half hours, and we had to keep picking our jaws up off the floor at the views.

Through the canyon exit we were still in a daze from all the unexpected sights. I didn’t get any spectacular photos because I was driving, but we saved the dash cam footage a few times to look at later.

Outside the canyon we stopped at a gas station and had a talk about whether we should stay on schedule or go back to bighorn to explore. It was frustrating mostly because our arguments weren’t as much between each other as they were between two ideologies of the trip: explore everything but spend little time at each place vs. explore less but see each place more. After a strained conversation we decided to go back for the afternoon. I would ride and Jeffrey would hike.

The riding was fantastic. Double track that wound up into the mountains and dissapeared combined with open single track through high altitude meadows and a smattering of “baby head” rocks and hill climbs. At first I thought my bike was misbehaving because twisting the throttle didn’t even come close to raising the front wheel. After about half an hour, though, I realized suddenly “Altitude!” My bike is carbureted, so the air/fuel mixture is hard set for a specific altitude. When you ride in the less dense air at 9,000 feet you not only get less air, but the ratio of 14:1 air/fuel that is typical for a healthy engine is thrown off. Hence the sluggishness.

I rode until 7 and had seen Jeffrey off into the wilderness at around 3 for a ten mile hike. When I got back he was nowhere to be found and thoughts of helicopter rescue and search teams drifted through my head. We definitely wouldn’t be splitting up again. A few minutes after I got back, though, he walked into the parking lot and gave me a big hug. “We’re never splitting up like that again!” He said. Funny how great minds think alike...!

We spent the next 20 minutes recounting our independent adventures. His hike had turned out to be more troublesome than expected, though perhaps that’s not so surprising since the trailguide had said the best time to do it was late July-August. The rivers had been flowing high from snowmelt so he had to hike upstream a few hundred feet to cross, and even then had to take off his shoes and walk through. On top of that there were no trail markers at all and the trail wasn’t well traveled. Eventually he reached the end of the hike and spent some time looking around at the scenery. “Oh, look at that little fluffy thing” he pulled out binoculars “Oh, look at that bigger little fluffy thing hey it’s a bobcat and it’s coming towards me”