A Guy A Girl and a Trail: Adventures in a 4Runner Limited

congrats on the retirement, this is an awesome place year round

 

Congratulations!

 

"The only thing that doesn't compute for me is that this topic comes up on a 4runner forum instead of a Prius forum. lmao."

You need to get out more!! Not all conservatives are ignorant red-necks! I used to hunt (until my knee got too racked up), fly fish, ocean fish, overland, etc.

 

I'm sure the Indians felt the same way!

 

Get out? I just got back from working three weeks in Singapore, I fish, shoot clays and travel extensively riding trails with side by sides in the midwest, rockies and south west so far. Conservative? I am one. Disagree with your portrayal of farmers? Yep. The vast majority are excellent stewards. Are there bad apples in the bunch? Of course. Just like all other professions. Btw, it never crossed my mind that you were a conservative or to call you a name to run you down. Enjoy your retirement sir.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm jealous. I'm giving the states a few more years, then I'm most likely off to live the rest of my life in Thailand or the Philippines.

 

Over the windshield and roof rack mounted light bars are super popular but usually incorrectly utilized. The "correct" application for lights mounted up high is a very narrow beam spotlight pattern for far reaching light, typically for high speed driving, but what typically gets mounted up there is some kind of combination beam with wide or flood patterns. The result is scattered light, which can be ok when mounted down low, but causes significant glare when mounted up high. If you're lighting up your own hood (and potentially windshield) the glare from the light is causing your eyes to adjust and it's reducing your night vision. Think about when you're in an extremely dark environment and the light from your gauges seems blindingly bright. That's what you're doing with your high mounted light bar. If you're after form over function and you just want it to look cool, you do you. If you want the most out of your lighting Baja Designs has a great YouTube video explaining light zones and ideal applications for them.

This is dash cam video from a couple weekends ago. It’s a pair of Baja Designs Squadron Pro amber driving/combo in the foglight location with a pair Baja Designs S2 Pro amber wide cornering lights as ditch lights in action. It's amazing what a couple of properly utilized small lights can do.

 

Most loss is through leaky valves and joints and evaporation, both from canals and fields. How many farmers spray their fields at night? And how many during the day (when it is hot) ? Recycling runoff (or not) leads to selenium build ups that will cause birth defects in livestock, humans, and especially waterfowl. Look at the West Hills area of the San Joaquin/Sacramento valleys. I don't drink even the iced tea from those areas=just bottled juices or bottled water! Granted a large percentage of the population increase may be from California (Any data to back that up?) but they aren't the only ones. When we left Cali in 2000, we were welcomed in eastern WA because the Cali immigrants were recognized as realizing just how screwed up their state had become. Unfortunately, the "bad" Californians discovered Seattle and Portland and things started going downhill.

BTW: I'm sure the Native Americans had been there a lot longer!

 

Wonderful setup! Love this

 

How did the Rado molle storage system workout?
One came up on FB marketplace locally... I was going to buy the Finn Fab version but hard to argue with the price he's asking.

 

In my opinion, for my use, I don’t like them. The only reason we have them is because we use the hell out of the shelf. The shelf is one of my favorite mods ever, the racks are empty and encroach on tote space while only providing mounting for the shelf.

That said, no complaints with Rado.

 

Also I should try updating this thread again from time to time. It’s been a minute.

 

Yes, it has!

I don't think I've seen anything from you on IG lately either.

 

It's been winter. I’ve been all over. Since the fall we’ve gone to Florida, South Africa twice, Paris, Atlanta, California, Curacao, and Minnesota, plus we just got back from Mexico this Friday. I might be heading to Sweden in the next few weeks.

But the 4Runner has just been sitting and waiting for camping season.