Foot Pegs, JUST too late...

I recently had the doors off for about a week, but just put everything back on in anticipation of a lot of rain we're suppose to be getting.  Wouldn't you know, the next delivery day after I put it all back on I got my foot pegs.  :-/  For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, when you take the doors off your Jeep one of the most amazing pleasures in life is to cruise around with your foot hanging out of the car, preferably bare foot at highway speeds.  You can get foot pegs to rest your foot or leg on that hook onto the door hinges.  Like this...

http://www.skidrowoffroad.com

 

 

Just set your foot on it and away you go!  So I'm glad I got them, but now there's rain in the forecast for the rest of the week.  Next week I'll be in Florida (probably won't be posting btw).  After that who knows?  So I'm not sure when I'll be able to use them.  Oh well.

In other news, my wife and I almost ate it.  We were driving home when we passed an unkept dirt road that I've always wanted to explore.  Keep in mind what I said above, it's been raining here quite a bit lately.  But it looked pretty flat and mundane, so we decided to check it out and I didn't bother with 4 wheel drive.  It was all a mistake, and almost a BIG mistake.  The dirt was more like quick sand it turned out with all the rain we'd been having.  I lost nearly all traction after about 20 feet.  I don't exactly have mud tires (far from it) and they got absolutely CAKED with mud.  So we're in 2 wheel drive, and then traction control started kicking in.  It keeps you from giving too much gas and spinning the tires, and it resulted in us traveling at about 1 mph, slipping left and right, steering wheel did no good, we were barely missing trees, almost slid off a little hill slope that probably would have rolled us had we gone over at the wrong angle, it was a mess!  haha  I wanted to pop it into 4WD but didn't want to take my foot off the gas long enough to do it.  We made it to a paved alleyway - FINALLY - and decided we'd either never try mud again (I'm not interested in mud tires) or at least put the thing in 4WD before trying even boring looking dirt roads after 2 weeks of epic, flooding rains.

Jeep Wave Count: Still coming...

SPIDERWEBSHADE

So I've bought a few things for the Jeep so far, but nothing has been as satisfying (yet) as the new SpiderWebShade.  This thing is awesome!  For the uninitiated, it's a mesh cover you elastic-band to the top of your Jeep to give you some shade with the top down.  Behold...

Outside

Inside

The temperature difference in full sun is remarkable.  I mean, don't expect a 20 degree difference, but it really is very nice compared to full sun.  The main complaint I've heard about these things is that it doesn't feel like you still have the top off; the SpiderWebShade still "feels like a roof."  Well, yeah kinda, but not really.  You can see through it (see the trees in the second pic?) and it feels very "open air" (the doors being off probably helps that I guess...).  My wife said it felt like being under a camping pavilion or something.  haha

Anyway, 3 big cheers for this thing.  Easy to install, good lookin, and functional. Don't expect it to keep the rain out though!  It started raining (kind of hard actually) and the water came through like nothing was there.  It was actually kind of nice.

Another story:  The other day I was runnin TDDO (top down doors off) and it started raining H-A-R-D.  I can't recall ever being out in rain this hard, I couldn't see anything through my windshield with the wipers going full blast, the wind was ridiculous whipping me all around, it was nuts!  Thankfully I was on the highway and managed to keep up about 50+ mph and didn't get too wet.  Mostly I had water blow in from the sides.  I didn't get much from the top.  If I'd slowed down another 10mph I'd probably still be swimming though.

Jeep Wave Count: I'm keeping up, really, I just need to review my dumb notes.  I'll post it eventually.

More Stuff - Cab Cover

I told you.  I told you.  I can't save money.  :(

Other side of that coin:  I got some AWESOME STUFF!!!!@#WEFQ#$^WA%H#%

I finally, FINALLY pulled the trigger on a yellow SpiderWebShade.  This guy.  I of course don't have it yet to show you, but this is a pic I totally pirated off their website (not my Jeep):

http://www.spiderwebshade.com

The coolest thing about them in my opinion (aside from the fun colors) is that you don't have to remove it to put the top back up.  So now I'll essentially have a yellow headliner all the time!  Yay yellow!

Before I tell you my next purchase, let me 'splain.  Rain was in the forecast for Wednesday, but it ended up raining (pretty hard actually) on Tuesday.  I currently have the top down and doors off and I didn't feel like scrambling to put them all back on, it's supposed to be pretty clear for the rest of the week.  Anyway, I had another option- get a cab cover.  I'd been wanting one since Go Topless Day anyway (keep sand and possible rain and junk out of the Jeep overnight), but now I wanted one RIGHT AWAY.  So I went to 4 Wheel Parts (I'll probably post on them later) and got one.  But I broke my rule, it's made by Stupidbilt.  I would link to it, but I'm not completely sold on it yet and don't want to lead anyone astray.

Overall it fits pretty good, and honestly if I didn't have doors-off removable side mirrors or running boards it would probably fit perfectly.  As it is though, the mirror brackets prevent the side of the cover from completely covering the doorway, and the rails limit my bottom bracket placement options.  The end result is a gap between the cover and body at the doorway.

So this cover will keep the rain out of the big areas I'm pretty sure.  The fabric itself is rated as "water resistant", not "water proof", but man, it's pretty thick and plasticy.  That said, it probably won't be a bad idea to hit it with some water sealer for tents or something.  Also, without the top on, the middle of the top of the cover sags down quite a bit.  I could totally see water pooling.  I think if it came down to it I would put the top up, put the cover on, and at least have protection over the open windows and the majority of the doorways.

That said, look at that gap!  Again, it's not really the cover's fault, it's the mirror bracket placement and there's not much to do about it.  Perhaps I could move the mirrors to the lower position (the bottom two bolts in the pic), but I played with that when I first put the mirrors on and it didn't work extremely well.  I don't want to just remove them all together, even "temporarily".  It's not a HUGE gap, and it is a Jeep after all...  The cover is really more of an emergency flooding mitigation tool anyway, I didn't expect an airtight seal or anything.  But what about that eyelet hole?  Seriously?  What's that thing all about?

Jeep Wave Count:  Still need to tally.  :-/

Latest Purchases!

Well, I don't have them yet, but I did pay for them and they're on the way!

1)  Foot pegs.  I like running doors off and have been disappointed in the "fun" level of my foot/leg placement options.  So I picked up these guys.

2)  Soft top boot.  I also like putting the soft top down and, mostly just for looks, I got this guy.  Well, not only for looks.  When you put the soft top down, the fabric hangs into the trunk space.  You have about 2 inches of storage space before you have to start messing with the fabric to move it out of the way.  Not too bad, but when you're loading an arm-full of junk at 1am in a dark street (no trunk light) it's kink of a pain.  This boot wraps around the fabric and zips shut, so I'll essentially have more easily-accessible trunk space while the top is down.  This as opposed to what I've read anyway about the Smittybilt boot (this stupid guy), and we all know how I feel about Smittybilt anyway.  So here's the Rugged Ridge awesomeness (fingers crossed) that I picked up:

So there you have it.  So much for my lift savings...  Honestly though, there's a heck of a lot more I want that I could have bought and didn't, so I consider it a victorious savings day!  ...Right?

Jeep Wave Count:  Need to tally, not sure.  :-/

Window Tint

I think I've wiped out on the blog here.  My intent was to update every Mon, Wed, Fri, and I still hold to that as being ideal, but I've had trouble making it happen.  It's kind of been like a New Years resolution.  I think about 1 month of having kept up more or less as planned is actually pretty good.

I will continue to post though, and my new commitment is at least once per week on no particular day.  For this week's installment, I got my windows tinted!  Here's the guy putting it on.

Not my best photographic work ever, but you can see him working on the passenger side window.  The driver side had already been done.  I don't have any good pics of what it actually looks like now but I'll try to get one up.

I generally like it ok.  I do have a couple... not complaints, just mentionings. whatevs.  The total cost for both front windows was under $40, so you kind of get what you pay for and honestly they look just fine.  That said, my "mentionings":

• The color is grey.  Perhaps that's ok, but the tinted window kits for the rear windows I've seen online for Jeeps look like they come in amber.  I do intend to eventually get a tinted window kit for the back windows, and if they ARE in fact amber (and they might not even be) I'll have grey up front and amber in back.  That's dumb.
• There are tiny pieces of dirt that bubble out the tint film.  They're really REALLY small and toward the lower corner of the driver side (that's all I've discovered so far anyway), but still, I want PERFECTION!  haha  Well, I did only pay $40 so I'm not going to complain really.  
• They're not as dark as I'd hoped.  There are laws that govern how dark tint can be, and I believe the law is 35%.  I was told my tint is 31%.  So it COULD be a smidge darker, but oh well.  

 Honestly overall I'm totally fine with it.  I think it looks pretty good and I can perceive a difference now in the temperature and incoming light.

Still saving for the lift...

Jeep Wave Count: 58

Got Money...

No you can't that away from me.  NIN kick, sorry.

My birthday recently passed and I got some buckaroos.  I'm trying to save it for a lift (IT'S SO HARD!!!) and I'm about half-way there.  But I'm getting to the point where I'm like "well, maybe if I just spend a little..."  So I'll probably be broke by this time next week.  With no lift.

One thing I think I'm going to go ahead and do is tint the windows.  Another thing I might like to do is get some light-weight full doors for highway-travelling to places I'll ultimately want to take the doors off at.  Like Topless Day for instance - all the rain and junk kept me from leaving the doors at home and driving all the way to Galveston.  If I'd had the light-weight doors, I could have just thrown them in the back once I got there.

Anyway, sorry for the boring posts.  This is just kind of my Jeep diary and perhaps someone is able to find amusement in it.  haha

In other news we recently visited Austin during the crazy floods and rain storms.  We managed to stay pretty dry actually, we didn't get flooded at all.  But other places in the city did.  The only flooding I actually got to see was at Barton Springs pool.  First is a picture I found on the web from about the same angle, second is the one I took this weekend.

http://www.texasoutside.com/bartonpool.htm

 

 

 

May 25, 2015

 Crazy.  On the way home the rain finally stopped for a while and the sky looked nuts.  I've seen red skies in West Texas during and after dust storms, but this was just after rain.  I'm not a scientist, I don't know why it looked this way.  haha  But it looked like you had amber-tinted glasses on or something. 

Anyway, that's not Jeep stuff, just interesting.  To me anyway. 

Jeep Wave Count: 54

Crystal Beach Go Topless Day 2015 - Pics!

Ok, sorry it's taken so long, been really busy at work n junk.  Here are some pics from Topless Day 2015 at Crystal Beach!

We left on Friday afternoon to head to the beach.  I took the back seats out for the trip (first time for that!) and we managed to get quite a bit of stuff in the Jeep with plenty of room to spare!

As we headed to Galveston it started raining.  I really wanted to take top down / doors off for the trip so we wouldn't have them to mess with on Topless Day, but rain was in the forecast (we were only hoping it wouldn't rain all weekend!) so we left it on.  We did have to keep the doors on (didn't want to try to lay them in the tent or anything once we got there) but we did manage to take the top off.  Anyway, on our way into Galveston we had a lovely rainbow to greet us!

I thought this was funny.  Our Garmin showed us as being in the water (we were on the Bolivar Ferry).

We started seeing Jeeps in Galveston and many more once we got to the Ferry.  We stopped for some last minute supplies and saw some tricked out Jeeps at the store as well.  We started getting excited!  So we finally get to the beach and ... nothing.  Well, nothing much anyway.  A few Jeeps here and there cruising up and down the beach, but not the huge spectacle we expected.  We drove down a ways, decided there was nothing going on, then turned back and headed the other way looking for a good camping spot - one that was flat and fairly far from the water.  Then, we, uh, found it!

Those hammocks are hanging off a thing that connects to a tow hitch.  Totally getting one of those.

We found the party.  These pics don't really do it any justice at all, it was absolutely nuts.  Jeeps parked on top of Jeeps, people standing around getting wasted, you had to be really careful not to run over anyone!  To my knowledge no one did get run over for the entire event, which is both good and a little surprising.

We made our way through the madness and down a little ways and found a great camping spot.  We set up our tent, again as always while in the dark (though we had a lantern this time!), and built a fire.  We were better prepared on that front as well (as opposed to my last beach camping post).

Better fire this time!

Here is our tent set up in the daylight.  We had a nice little canopy shelter we picked up that we absolutely love.  It gave us a nice place to sit in the shade and watch the oncoming madness.

So what is Topless Day all about?  Jeeps.  It's like a parade!  We sat back and watched Jeeps cruise back and forth for hours.  And hours.  And hours.  All day and most if not all night Jeeps just parade back and forth.  Here are some pics for you.

It was really awesome to see all the tricked out Jeeps.  My wife and I got some ideas as to what we want to do with ours, and she's come around to concede that we need a lift!  Yay!  haha  There was a guy selling flags and we bought one, so we did trick our rather stock Jeep out a little for the event.

It's hard to describe how many Jeeps were there.  Forecasts were for 2000-4000 Jeeps.  I would say there were probably about 5 miles worth of Jeeps parked really close to each other side by side in two or sometimes 3 rows.  It was pretty crazy.

Don't know if you can tell but it goes back as far as you could see - and this was just in one direction

So in addition to watching the Jeep parade we got to go swimming, met some cool people, and generally just lazed about the beach.  It was a lot of fun and we intend to go back for sure.  Next time with a more personalized Jeep to show off hopefully!

Night time didn't stop the insanity.  In fact it bumped it up several notches.  My wife and I aren't partiers, so maybe we're not really cut out for the Jeep community because they all seem to be.  And then some.  They're crazy!  There were several fights and drunken stupors to be witnessed.  Oh, and one other observation, they enjoy horrendous music.  If there's one negative thing to be said about Topless Day, it's that the music that blasts out of every other Jeep is full of nasty lyrics and, well, just sucks to be honest.  There was one song in particular that you would recognize if you heard it, and it was particularly popular.  We literally heard it like 20 times or more.  It became a joke to us.  It was the SAME SONG.  Over and over different Jeeps would be blasting this freaking song!  haha  AHHH!!!!  I had to turn on some metal every now and then to just clear my head.  haha

Anyway, night time.  With the night also came all the awesome lighting that people have added to their Jeeps.  Crazy headlights, KCs, halos, LED illumination, you name it.  It was pretty awesome.  Here are some horrible night time cell phone pics.

I hadn't mentioned it yet but there was this little water channel across the "road" that you had to cross to get to "the party" and, further down the beach, our camp site.  It started when we showed up to be about, oh, maybe 1.5 feet deep.  There was one point when, top down, I decided to gun it through.  It had increased in depth to maybe around 2 feet or so and I hit it going, well, too fast.  Water shot up and POURED into the car.  I mean the seats, us, the back, the carpet, the radio, everything was wet!  I thought it was pretty funny, but my wife was, well, pretty upset about it.  I'd gotten water all over her and she just didn't see the humor in it.  Oh well.  Sorry honey.  :(  I won't do it again.

On Saturday night one of the attractions was to either participate in or just watch people gunning it through the pit or stopping mid-way through to burn out and dig the hole deeper.  People were getting stuck, people were losing axles trying to pull each other out, it was nuts.  My wife and I just looked at each other and marveled at how "different" this experience was for both of us.  haha  More bad cell phone pics.

My wife and I finally decided we'd had about enough and made our way back to our tent for a campfire and some smores.  Check this sucker out.

mmmmmmmmmm

We went to bed at, oh, midnight or so completely exhausted, gritty from the sand, and rather sunburned as well.  Time for a good night's sleep....

BOOM!  WHAT WAS THAT?!?

I looked out of our little tent window and noticed that our canopy cover was, uh, gone.  I got out and quickly noticed that the tide had come WAY up, all the way to the tent, had saturated the ground, loosened the pegs, and "bye canopy!"  We'd just BOUGHT that darn thing! This was at about 3:30 in the morning.  I jumped up and out and noticed that the canopy didn't make it too far (thank goodness).  I was able to recover it.  I broke it down, put it up, and tried to figure out what I was going to do about everything else.  We still had out chairs, our tent, coolers, junk here and there, it was a total mess.  Here's how far the water came up.

Keep in mind we started the weekend at least, oh, 100 feet or more from the waterline.  The ground got saturated enough to loosen our tent pegs as well and I had to get creative to keep our tent from blowing away.  Here's what my handiwork looked like after the sun came up.

 Gotta love bungies!  I bungied the tent to the car in 4 different places.  It worked though, we didn't blow away.

Since everything was wet and half-put up anyway we decided to take out pretty early.  We got everything packed up and cruised the beach a couple more times to see who was left and it was like night and day.  4000 Jeeps one day, about 50 the next.  We were pretty surprised to see how well most people cleaned up after themselves.  It was like nothing had happened.

Here we are on the Ferry back to Galveston.

sanded

We finally made it to civilization and ate at our favorite place in Galveston, the Gumbo Diner.  We polished off a fun and eventful weekend with a huge bowl of seafood gumbo.

Looking forward to next year!  Now to get a lift, bigger tires, halo lights, seat covers, a flag holder, ........

Jeep Wave Count: 54