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Adventures with Big Blue

Overview Gallery Discussion
snowdriver said:
I like the trip reports,I should do them as well,but you do such a good job at them,afraid mine would suck
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I think that's just in your head. Personally, I think my reports suck. I'm not great at photography, I usually just point the camera out the windshield and click every few miles. I don't write up enough to really explain each shot, I just post a short paragraph about each highlight of the trip and move on. If you need more proof, look at how little traffic these threads get. It's not like I have the whole internet lined up asking for more. It's pretty much just a journal for myself, to help me remember all the cool stuff we've done.

So I say just get out there and start writing things. Whether or not it sucks, you'll enjoy having the record. And I for one will read along and enjoy hearing about stuff out in your area. I've seen very little of the West coast, so I'm sure you could get my attention pretty easily. Even the little things that seem normal to you may be really cool to someone 1000 miles away. I've stopped taking pictures of local trees and lighthouses and Lake Michigan, because they're all normal to me. And then I post up here and I realize that not everyone gets to see such things. You might think the Cascades are normal, but I've never seen them, and it's not likely that I will in the near future.

So go ahead and post!

P.S. - be sure to tag me or I might not stumble across it for a long time. :rolleyes:
 
Phil513 said:
hahaha. I like where his truck is going. I just want his truck, well, going.
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It will be neat when it is. But the time required to build a rig is one reason why I'm firmly against tearing this truck apart until I have a replacement for it. Because going truckless for the next decade just isn't my style. :haha:


Next up...camping rig. Well, someday. :rolleyes: :haha:
 
campfire said:
It will be neat when it is. But the time required to build a rig is one reason why I'm firmly against tearing this truck apart until I have a replacement for it. Because going truckless for the next decade just isn't my style. :haha:


Next up...camping rig. Well, someday. :rolleyes: :haha:
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As you know (gears) thats how I'm doing mine. Stages while I use it. I wan't to cover as much territory as I can, while I build it.
 
Phil513 said:
As you know (gears) thats how I'm doing mine. Stages while I use it. I wan't to cover as much territory as I can, while I build it.
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The camping Suburban was following a staged approach, too, until the tranny blew and I decided to take up building a house instead. Haven't wanted to clear enough project time to redo the tranny yet. Too many other things I'd rather be doing.

But camping out in the rain again this week is providing motivation to get the silly thing done before next season. :haha:
 
more great trip details Ethan....thanks for taking the time to put it together!
I went to find the cut river bridge one time on my bike....never did get to it!
Maybe in August I will!
great shot of the Mac as your climbing towards the highpoint!
 
Camper shell.




Though for the life of me, I've never seen a camper shell for an 8 ft stepside.
 
76zimmer said:
more great trip details Ethan....thanks for taking the time to put it together!
I went to find the cut river bridge one time on my bike....never did get to it!
Maybe in August I will!
great shot of the Mac as your climbing towards the highpoint!
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US-2, about half way between St. Ignace and Naubinway. Not hard to find (it's well marked), but super easy to miss if you don't know it's there. From the road it looks like just another bridge, it's not apparent how deep the gorge is unless you stop and look over the edge.

Stock photo.

cut-river-bridge.jpg



The US-2 route is your shortest path to the meeting point next month, so it should just be a matter of stopping at the right place. And that would keep you away from the Seney stretch. :wink1: :haha:


https://www.google.com/maps/place/c...ved=0ahUKEwjr5OOIs4XOAhVERSYKHbhyBk8Q_BIIfDAN
 
The Griff said:
Camper shell.




Though for the life of me, I've never seen a camper shell for an 8 ft stepside.
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My folks had a home-built camper on there 40 years ago. But it's long-gone, and they always said that the 4' bed felt a lot smaller than 6' beds. That's a lot of lost area, in a place that's already pretty small. And the spare tire keeps me from using a standard narrow slide-in.

It's just not the right truck for a slide-in. It even has a sticker in the glovebox telling me so. :rolleyes:

I can very easily pick up a better pickup. Or stick with the Suburban idea. Still flipping coins, could go either way. :thinking:
 
Oh, your talking about a CAMPER camper. I've got a 1964 8 ft Alaskan that my dad restored and we took around Lake Superior twice, The guy we got it from said it was used in a 1966 stepside C20 for almost 10 years straight before he got it.

It's also part of the reason I want to find a K20, So I can put it in there, as right now I've got the Blazer (That wont work) the Silver Dodge (Short bed half ton) and the red Cummins (Flatbed)
 
The Griff said:
Oh, your talking about a CAMPER camper. I've got a 1964 8 ft Alaskan that my dad restored and we took around Lake Superior twice, The guy we got it from said it was used in a 1966 stepside C20 for almost 10 years straight before he got it.

It's also part of the reason I want to find a K20, So I can put it in there, as right now I've got the Blazer (That wont work) the Silver Dodge (Short bed half ton) and the red Cummins (Flatbed)
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Meh. Neither myself nor my wife are sure what we want. Ideas range from having just a simple stuff hauler to building a platform bed to doing a full slide-in camper (we've even thought about using a Chalet). Really not sure which idea to follow next. It's not going to be Big Blue, for multiple reasons. Too narrow, no bed access from the cab, spare tire in the way, etc.


Here are some of the different combinations we've run in the last few years...


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And the ever popular DD. Cramped and not great offroad. But it is cheap and reliable. :dunno:

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All of these have had good and bad aspects. And all of them had room for improvement.

I also have this '93 K2500 6.5/NV4500 rig that my dad keeps trying to pawn off on me. Not in great shape, but nearly free, and certainly up to camper duty.

IMGP4772.JPG


If I ran a truck camper I'd want to remove the back cab wall to allow access. Not willing to chop up Big Blue, but the '93 is in rough enough shape that nobody would cry if I did a camping conversion. If I just rock the Suburban, the lack of height makes it harder to do things inside the vehicle besides sleeping (I'm thinking of cooking and bathroom duties). Last year this didn't bother me at all, but this year I realized that having a portable toilet would make potty training a whole lot easier. :thinking:

Not much interested in a trailer, that would be a liability when overlanding. And I can't use it while moving.
 
campfire said:
The next time we tried something different. I hitched up my trailer and we camped out in that. The trailer is a combination of leftover pieces from rebuilding Big Blue. So Big Blue is one of the few trucks out there that gets to pull its own rear end behind it. :rolleyes:

It rained again, and this arrangement proved to be an improvement over tenting. But, as I sat dry in the topper looking at the distance between me and the cab, I decided that having access between the two areas would be a worthwhile investment. This is when and why we started talking about getting a Suburban. Because mad dashes through the rain to get between 2 dry places just seemed silly.

The rain did lift, however, and we enjoyed the rest of our time here.

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Not much for amenities, but it was nice enough to prove its point.

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Waaayyyyyyy back in the day ('76-'77ish) dad would rent a camper shell for the family trip to PawPaws house in WVa. My 2 brothers and I would ride in the back all the way there, some 500 miles. My asthma was really bad back then, and all of PawPaws bedding was feather stuffed. I was/am highly allergic to feathers so I would sleep in the bed of the truck. It was way cool when it rained. The noise would put me right to sleep. Still does to this day...

Good times, good memories. America was a lot less uptight then...
 
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