Are we gone yet?

The lease with the couple from Boston, friends of friends, who are renting our house as they (and their 7 month old baby) get settled into a new job in San Francisco is finalized. Going away dinners and happy hours are on everyone’s calendars. I even finished my buy-10-get-one-free punch card at the cafe down the hill. We sleep each night with a Lonely Planet on the bedside table, pages still warm from the now extinguished bulb of the reading lamp. We’re ready to be on the road.

It’s a rainy San Francisco Saturday, a week and a half before we plan to be packed up and heading south, and there’s not much to do besides break out the dueling laptops.

After a few completely unnecessary but nonetheless productive web site tweaks (including adding a third column to the right side of the site layout with quick links to deeper spots in the blog), I decided to consolidate the sections on books, travel blogs and web forums onto a single resource page to make some space in the sidebar. While there, I figured I’d click a few links and check in on some of the other travelers who have been informational and inspirational to us in planning the trip.

Coincidentally, I got an email from Luis from Lost World Expedition, one of the blogs that’s been the most helpful and entertaining, earlier in the week saying he’d flown in from Panama and was in San Francisco. The next day, I met Luis, Christian (2aroundtheworld), and Espen and Malin (unURBAN Adventures) for lunch at Crissy Field. Fun to get together with some people who had done similar trips or who we might see along the way. We talked about the usual – gear, trucks, budget and security. It was good to hear that 99% of stories people were hearing about robberies etc were the result of particularly poor decision making – driving at night, camping in random spots, being flashy. I asked Luis whether they were tending to accumulate stuff along the way or get rid of stuff. He said it felt like they were a hot air balloon running out of fuel the way they were jettisoning unneeded weight over the side! Good to know when fighting the pre-departure pack-creep.

Double D-licious Griddle Banana Cups

My two favorite parts about camp cooking are griddles and anything made of silicone. Before you re-read that sentence too many times, lemme explain.

We’ve found our griddle (first a full size we’d lay across both Coleman Exponent stoves and now a deep walled one burner version) to be great for single pan, fajita-style meals. Cook up some chicken or fish then throw in some onions and veggie and pretty much anything else you want to take on some of the grilled, BBQ flavor. Best part is when you’re done, give a quick wipe and call the rest “seasoning.”

And silicone’s just a miracle material (stay focused, “gentlemen”). Flexible. Nothing sticks to it. Doesn’t retain odor. We’ve used the squishy bowls for backpacking and even found a video about using them for camp stove baking. We tried it out on some cornbread up on a trip this summer in the Desolation Wilderness.





So while registering for wedding presents at Crate & Barrel, when we saw these little silcone cupcake cups, I had to combine my two favorite things and try something out on the home stove before we hit the road. Note: I ended up getting mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I started with Ann’s “goto” banana bread recipe, added some shavings from a chocolate bar, and heated up the griddle. I knew it was meant to be when all 12 cupcake cups fit perfectly in my makeshift dutch oven griddle. I doled out equal portions and covered as best I could to “bake.”




About 25 minutes later, they’d risen and a test showed they were well-cooked throughout.In fact, in some cases, the silicone had caused the cups to swell and bulge tantalizingly out of their constraints. Okay, that last sentence was my fault…

 

Should be fun to experiment with the griddle baking idea on cornbread, biscuits, cupcakes and whatever else.

Better safe than sorry…

Our general approach to the security of our belongings on this trip has been to 1) not make ourselves an obvious target, 2) make it as inconvenient as possible to take things, and 3) not bring anything we couldn’t bear to lose.

But, even in light of number three above, we will have a laptop and some electronics equipment that we’d really rather not part with. So, taking a tip from number 2, I’ve been doing some thinking about how to bolt some kind of “safe” into the truck.

First research led me to the Sentry and First Alert fire safes but they’re incredibly heavy and their fireproof walls are so thick you lose all your internal storage. A little overkill. My next thought was an ammo can that could be bolted in but dealing with the swing open lid and finding one that would fit both laptops seemed cumbersome.

Finally, a web search led me to the DormVault. Obviously intended for college kids to bolt to their bunks for secure storage of laptops (or more importantly so their roommates don’t bogart their stash), this steel clamshell was just the shape and size I was imagining.

 

We do! We did! We’re married!

Does throwing a wedding and inviting 100 of our closest family and friends count as trip planning? Well, it definitely counts as an “Adventure of Dave and Ann” so here are a few pics if anyone’s interested…

 

Global Graffiti: Geotagging Photos from GPX files

I often find myself reconstructing a trip by looking back through the unedited pictures. It could be stuff like random shots out the window of a moving car or gas stations, stuff that wouldn’t make an album or blog post, but they help refresh the memories of the trip and recreate it in my mind. And now that we’re using our GPS to navigate, the track logs it automatically stores are a great way to get an overview of the route. So why not have the best of both worlds? Use the GPS tracks to geotag the photos and be able to see all the memories exactly where they happened on the route.

Converting GPS Tracks to Routes to view in Google Maps

For the ADVODNA GPS Track Viewer to display tracks recorded by our GPS (a Zumo 660) or for them to be be viewed in any other Google Maps-based app, tracks need to be converted to routes. The Google API only understands Routes, not Tracks. To do this, I use a very handy little program called GPSBabel. 

Settings:

Input File: 2010-04-15 Baja Tracks.gpx
Format: GPX XML

Filters –> Miscellaneous –> Transform: Tracks –> Routes: Check “delete” (removes tracks from converted file)

Filters –> Routes & Tracks –> Simplify: Limit to 1000 Points (note: each point seems to be about 1kb of resulting file size)

Output File: 2010-04-15 Baja Converted Routes.gpx
Format: GPX XML

Converted file looks like this:

2010-04-15 Baja Converted Routes.gpx

It’s a dangerous world out there…

No, I’m not talking about the steady flow of reports about decapitated bodies being hung from bridges in Acapulco or inmates being armed and released from Mexican prisons to carryout executions, those all seem to be pretty well isolated to those somehow involved with one of the warring drug cartels. I’m talking about the four car windows (two on the Xterra) we’ve had smashed right outside our front door, the two stolen cars recovered across the street, and the two broad daylight muggings in the open space near the house. Add to that the shootings in the “civil gang injunction zone” five blocks away on the other side of Caesar Chavez, the crossfire shooting of a German tourist in Union Square, and the news that Oakland (15 minutes away across the Bay) is the fifth most dangerous city in the US, and you start to wonder whether anywhere we’re going is really more dangerous than where we live.

Ramblewriter – Great source for borders, shipping and stories

Every time I get on the ExPo or search for something related to this trip I find a new blog filled with valuable trip info and inspiring stories. This time I found Ramblewriter, a 20-something couple just back from a drive to Argentina in a Toyota 4Runner. Along the way, they’ve compiled very detailed descriptions of each border crossing (complete with step-by-step instructions) and great info on the ins and outs of shipping across the Darien Gap which should be extremely helpful to us. All of their info is well tagged and I found that scanning the categories on the right side was a great way to dig into something interesting.

I also really like their use of video in their blog. Using short clips with a narration of where they are and what they’re experiencing, compiled videos covering a segment of the trip (funny how jerky video can look so good with the right music) and a neat feature, interviews with other travelers, I thought they really gave a good feeling for their life on the road.

Their most recent post has them eloping to Vegas to get married. Congrats to them and I encourage you to check out their blog at http://ramblewriter.com/.

Find out about new blog posts via Twitter, Facebook or RSS

I just spent a little too much time figuring out how to beat the social networking world into submission. Do I set up a Facebook group or fan page? Do I update from Facebook to Twitter or Twitter to Facebook? Or from Blogger to Twitter or Blogger to Facebook? Or Faceblog to Twitbook? 

In the end, here’s how we set it up. Windows Live Writer (or any editor) posts to Blogger which publishes an RSS feed that is picked up by TwitterFeed which posts it to our Facebook fan page and Twitter account. Of course, people can also just subscribe to the RSS feed directly if they are prone to that kind of thing. So if you’re interested, check out the side bar on the web site and click the one you want. And yes, Mom, I will figure out a way to do an update by plain old email as well…

And, by the time I figured out how to do all this and had sent 20 test posts, we already had a follower (thanks, Walker).

We went white

After spending some time reading through recent posts and referring to sites like those in our Other Travelers section for info, Ann made the proclamation that while she preferred the look of the black background with light text for the blog, black text on white was just easier to read. She may have been implying that my writing was making her head hurt, but I took it as a request to flip the color scheme. Despite extensive customization of our template, Google’s Blogger platform makes this pretty easy to do and within a half hour or so we had the new format you see now. Better?

Hoopty Whoopsy

Spent the weekend up in Tahoe doing a little wedding planning but also wanted to take the truck out to get the tires dirty. I’ve been exploring some of the fire roads around Truckee on the motorcycle but wanted to get a better feel of what the Xterra could do. After a closed gate 3.5 miles in on the M6 road, Mt. Watson was no longer a possibility so we headed across I-80 to the Prosser Dam OHV.

It was a dreary day with a intermittent spatter of rain drops on the windshield, but the views up to the last snow of the season were clear. We followed signs to the Prosser Pits area where we’d played around riding 2up on the bike and remembered a nice little descent with a small water crossing. We walked down to check it out. Let me be clear; this little section would be NOTHING for regular four wheelers but we thought it looked exciting. (I also have another thing to say; I had to look up this site to confirm the correct use of a semicolon. Nailed it!)

Strawberry Shake(down)

This is how future overlanders party. In our defense, our M.O. for the past 9 years or so of attending the Strawberry Music Festival has been “shanty-chic.” None of these Walmart expanding shelters or Burning Man geodesic domes for us. Just the biggest poly tarps we can find and a new method each year to get the ropes suspending them up as high in the trees as possible. Techniques used in the past include weighed tree-climber’s throw bags, sling shots, and 8’ diameter helium weather balloons though we often attribute their height to “trained monkeys” when questioned by passers-by. This year, the Thursday forecast called for snow so some actual attention was paid to weather protection in addition to the refugee-camp look we typically strive for.

The telescoping poles from Cabela’s worked great, particularly with a borrowed MEC Guides Tarp. Need to spend a little time figuring out the best awning set up then I’m planning on picking one of these up. It stood up to an accumulation of heavy slush on Thursday night. And sitting in the beach chair, you can see our 26 Watt Brunton foldable solar panel. Despite not getting much sun the first couple days, it kept up with the draw of the Engel fridge and the truck started right up after 4 days parked.  Propane heaters and cooler were great for a festival but won’t come on the trip.

Colorado TrackPads

You know when you get on an online tear, madly clicking link after link, delving deeper and deeper into a topic, refining your search again and again until you can barely remember where you started or how you got there? Well, I went off on one of those the other day trying to tick an item off of my trip prep checklist. That entry simply read “traction aid.”

Not to long ago, Overland Journal did a test of a variety of traction aids ranging from sand ladders to boards covered in nuts and bolts to inflatable bags. The solutions varied in price from a couple hundred bucks on up to a thousand or so. They put together a great video documenting the tests. Of course, the full review is in the magazine.

What’s in your drawers?

Jeeeeez, I mean your storage drawers! After seeing some great ideas in a thread on The ExPo, I started sketching and listing equipment, taking measurements and before long had a general plan for a unit that would completely fill the cargo area behind the seats of the Xterra. The design was based around two Action Packer storage boxes and the Engel 17 fridge and featured two tables that would slide out from beneath it for food cooking and food prep. Behind the ActionPackers would be an area for our personal gear (clothes, etc) accessible by folding forward the rear seats.

In addition to keeping things organized and accessible, the unit would be fully lockable and keep everything out of sight of curious eyes. As a compromise between weight and strength, I opted to build the unit out of 1/2” plywood but with plenty of support from the various dividers.

Shrock Work

The idea was to add a rear spare tire carrier so we’d have a backup in case of a two flat day. Research on the ClubXterra web site pointed towards two options, the Shrockworks and the Calmini. To me, the Schrock just looked a little more beefy and specifically mentioned a locking latch which I figured would create an extra layer of inconvenience for a would-be thief to work through before they’d get into the back of the truck (swing out tire, rear hatch, and locked storage unit inside).

Ordering an $800, 200 lb item over the internet is a strange feeling. “Okay, I know my card’s gonna be charged and then I guess they have it figured out how to get this huge thing to me.” Sure enough, after 12 weeks, our new bumper and spare tire carrier arrived in two large boxes, each of which I could barely move myself. I set aside an afternoon for the installation and laid all the parts out behind the truck, but the first order of business was removing the factory trailer hitch and bumper. I was worn out after even that step.

[Sorry for the image quality, these are actually screen captures from a video I ran with the idea of putting together a timelapse of the installation]

 

Fourteen Months Across the Globe

Just when I think I’ve settled in to do some work, I get an instant message from Ann with a link to a town in Mexico that’s a sister city to her hometown of Lexington, MA. Someone had posted something about Lexington on Facebook and that led to a Wikipedia search which yielded the information about sister cities which lead to more searches which led to finding yet another great blog about a trip similar to ours and an hour sucked into the computer.

Paul and Laura left in November of 2006 to drive a 1970 VW bus south into Mexico and back. From there (I’ve yet to find the part about whether they’d planned to continue overland but changed their minds), they flew to Southeast Asia, on to Egypt, overlanded through Africa, and continued on to South America.

A lot of detailed and entertaining writing and I’m sure some valuable nuggets of info in here for us. Just need to take the time to read through it all and maybe get in touch with them for some insight.

Check it out at http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/itsgotime/the_trip/tpod.html

ADVODNA GPS Track Viewer

We’ve already established that I’m a little geeky. I think taking way too many pictures and videos and recording GPS tracks is fun and I’ve found it very helpful in planning this trip when other people have done the same. With that in mind, I started looking the other day into how to display GPS information stored in .gpx files in Google Maps.

A Google search came up with several samples of people doing similar things and I settled on this one to blatantly steal. In my own defense, there were several others with a lot of the same code which leads me to believe they all cannibalized a Google Maps API sample somewhere. I set out to build my own hybrid that did exactly what I wanted.

When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange…

After the slow speed blow out (never quite happened actually) of the front left tire, we’ve been driving around with the spare on. You may also remember that we ordered an extra rim to mount on the Schrockworks rear bumper and tire carrier. Well, we figured it was time for a trip to the local tire shop.

At Larkin Brothers in SF, we showed them the warped wheel and after several assurances that the General Grabbers we no more likely to do this than any other brand, we agreed that we needed two new tires, one replacement and one for the extra rim. I started to hand the guy the keys to the truck to which he responded, “Just leave the extra rim and the warped tire and take your car. You can pick up the wheels with new tires on ‘em in a couple hours.” It’s clear that he sized me and Ann up right away as the type who were no strangers to mounting a few tires. Pshhh…

After some further thought, I realized that it’d be best to have the two new tires on the rear (drive) axle. But, if we were going to take off the spare, we might as well move the two tires currently on the rear up to the front as a pair since they’d been wearing together. Yup, that meant a changing all four tires.

We put together a little video for your enjoyment…

Splotter? Twot? Spacebook? Spottus Updates?

Some new news on the GPS front. Apparently, DeLorme and SPOT have announced a partnership that will allow freeform 48 character text messages to be sent wirelessly from a new DeLorme GPS device, the PN-60w, to a new SPOT device called a Satellite Communicator and then relayed through the GlobalStar satellite network. Assuming these messages could be delivered as emails, it would be easy to use them to update social networking accounts like Twitter or Facebook or to make blog posts. The new devices are scheduled for release in May 2010.

Info from http://www.trailspace.com/articles/2010/01/07/send-text-messages-from-almost-anywhere-on-earth.html

Lost World Expedition

I just came across a couple from Humbolt who are about 6 months into essentially the exact trip we’re planning. They’re driving a Landcruiser with roof top tent and seem to making pretty much the same decisions we would about when to camp vs. spring for a motel, how to avoid the tourist traps, and when to chose the adventure or play it safe. Great writing and pictures on their blog are giving us a preview of what we have to look forward to. Check it out at http://lostworldexpedition.com/