Completed: Palm Wash & Calcite Mine Trail, Anza Borrego, CA

[The Roadie]

Shakedown cruise for the RTT, and shockingly enough, Mrs. Roadie insisted on going as long as I promised it would not be freezing. Forecast was for 75 high, 50 low, so she packed up. Problem was, I neglected to check for wind, and a front was coming through and the peak gusts were 50 MPH! Ick. Subsides after 3AM, but sleeping before that was difficult for the rain fly flapping. We deployed for practice and packed up the changing room because of the wind, and had to use rocks to hold down the tent overhang lines because I forgot to pack my sand stakes or corkscrews, and the sand was too loose for regular stakes. 100 pound rocks worked fine.

Met my company owner out there with his built Jeep, but he's mostly a backpacker, so the picture of his tent is minimalist.

After the wind blew through, we were treated to the best visibility I have ever had in the area I'd been to over a dozen times - 100+ miles. And perfect hiking temperature, so we went into a short slot canyon I hadn't seen mentioned before in the usual hiking guides.

There has to be a calendar-worthy shot in here somewhere.











Life hangs on in the most difficult places





New kitchen table stove shelf thingie







My boss' car camping table.





I am NOT HAPPY with this wind....













Sandstone loves to flake off and fall in blocks. Don't camp under overhangs.

[The Roadie]

More pics:







Calcite crystals, the reason for the mine road. These were used in WW2 bombsights because of their unique optical qualities. (birefringence, if you want to Google to learn more)

[The Roadie]

[Trail X]

Nice looking trip Bill. Glad you got the lady to come along.

I know what you mean about wind... One of the TECOREs we camped with 40-50mph gusts. However the noise from the flapping tent material kept waking me up.

That is an unexpected issue with RTTs... can't hide behind the vehicle in a wind storm.

[The Roadie]

The unexpected good news was that it didn't sway more than about 1/2". I've been in worse earthquakes than that.

[dirty anton]

very nice!

[Hpimichael02]

How were the new tires ? As you expected or better in the sand?

[bgwolfpack]

A great little trip!

The RTT looks awesome on your truck. BTW how long does it take to set up and take down?

Curious, are the roadiemobiles front springs getting soft? The front seems lower then in the past.

[The Roadie]

General Grabber tires are awesome. No issues at all except the red lettering appliques peel off after a tiny bit of abuse. No better proof that they're for mall crawlers. (The appliques, not the tires.)

RTT takes under 5 minutes to pull the cover off and open and use. If you don't try to also install the changing room. For solo trips, I wouldn't even carry it. I don't camp near folks who would be offended by my descending the ladder without a changing room. Mrs. Roadie can change up top, but that's a little bit too much rolling around for me with a recovering cracked rib.

Very observant about the front springs. I'm using Teebes' loaner struts since my Icons aren't reinstalled yet. Long story for another thread. I would have used my takeoff struts from before the Icons except I loaned them to Teebes after he had some sagged springs. Icons coming back soon.

[fishsticks]

Nice pics... I'm jealous of your sun exposure. We're still waiting up here.