Mountain Views, Wilton, NH

Sometimes, exploring the roads and trails close to home can be as fulfilling as extended trips in distant places. We decided to spend this Labor Day weekend close to home as my wife has quite a lot of studying to do for her classes. It was looking to be a beautiful day, not many clouds, a bit breezy and mild temperatures. It’s been awhile since we did any exploring on our local roads, and it still amazes me how much we can discover. Just down the road from us, is a well groomed class VI road that has some great views.

Sam Greele monument

A little ways in is a marker, erected around 1838. It reads:

“Killed on this spot by the fall of a tree, 25th Sept., 1798. A monument of filial piety to paternal affection”

It is the spot where one Capt. Sam Greele, a Town Selectman during the birth of the Town, was struck by a dead tree while riding to a town meeting. He fell from his horse and was killed. The monument was erected by his sons in 1838, and still stands, well cared for, today. It is surrounded by a small wrought iron fence, decorated with flowers and ribbons. This old byway at one time must have been the major thorough fare to the town. Hard to believe and envision now, with a two lane blacktop with a 50 mph speed limit not 2 miles away.

Road maintained? or not?

We spent the better part of 3 hours driving rather aimlessly, enjoying looking at old homes in various states of upkeep. Our county is full of old gravel roads, some unmaintained, some well maintained, that bring back to the past. Back when homes were built with doorsteps practically within arms reach of the edge of the road. We travel the roads, much slower than the posted limit in order to keep the dust cloud trailing us to a minimum. Wave to the people tending their gardens, or walking on the side of the road, to those also out enjoying a beautiful late summers afternoon.
Drives like this, spending time in the quiet back roads of New England, always make me wonder if I would have lived the simpler life well. I forever find myself wishing my life would slow down… too many emails that demand instant replies, on demand music… on demand TV. But then, I find myself seeking out information about distant travel, or searching for pdf’s to diagram the part of my truck I’m trying to fix and I realize that it’s a great time we live in. So much to see, and so much to learn. But for an afternoon, we can be back in time.

A view towards the East

No doubt about it, Vermont has some of the finest forestry to observe. Early summer, yes it’ll be buggy, provides mild temperatures during the day and cool temperatures at night. The perfect time to explore the ancient highways of the Green Mountain State.

Meeting up at the old potato plantation of one of our friends during the late evening on a Friday, friends and family gathered around a roaring campfire to settle in and prepare for two, much anticipated, days of back country travel.

For this trip I asked my friend Tim if I could be a passenger so that I’d be able to spend time filming the trip. So for the next two days I got to travel in one of the coolest trucks I’ve encountered, a Land Rover Lightweight. It’s old, smells, smokes and makes a ton of noise. But, it oozes character. It pretty much rides like it’s sprung with rocks instead of springs, has a few too many holes where metal should be and tops out around 55 mph. But it didn’t find an obstacle it couldn’t overcome. During that ride I vowed that I would find one of these gems to come and live in my garage.

We had quite an eclectic collection of vehicles with us. A couple of newer Jeep Rubicons, a few Land Rover Defenders and older Series trucks, a smattering of Jeep Cherokees, Land Cruisers and Tacomas.

The trails are pleasant. Ranging from dense undergrowth that needed to be bushwacked to get through, to tall pines that you passed on a bed of needles.There were the slippery mud slopes littered with large damp boulders, and fender deep mud bogs that became winch fests to get through. An obstacle would provide a couple of hours worth of work to get through, then coming through to the other side, we’d be rewarded with a pristine stream, complete with a cascading waterfall, on the other side. The perfect spot to break open the fridge and eat lunch by. Complete with an old wooden bridge that you would swear could not hold the weight of the vehicles. But yet, they do, and probably have done so for a hundred and fifty years.

I’ll be looking forward to next year, another trip through the Jungles of Southern Vermont, tales from an Ol’ Plantation, and the sights of flowing waterfalls.

The Vermont Expedition Society has developed a tradition over the last few years of having a New Year’s Day trail run first thing on New Year’s Day. Having missed the last couple of runs, I wanted to make it a point to be sure to attend this one.

The day started bright and early (well, dark and early) as Jacob and I got up at 5am to meet Peter V. at Brattleboro, VT by 8am. It was cold… like 3 below when we left in the dark. We made it to Vermont with a little time to spare so I made sure I re-filled at Dunkin’ Donuts. Peter arrived and we caravaned south into Ma.

Met up with the rest of the early morning crew and headed pff to the trail. There was a pretty good snow covering (6 or so inches), and 3 or more inch ice covering the waterways.

The going was pretty quick, even with the cold. My picture taking duties were severely limited. For some great shots, look here.

On October 23, 2008 the Vermont Expedition Society gathered in Northern Vermont on the border with Quebec to begin it’s 4-day, 335 mile trek to Massachusetts. What makes this trip special, is that over 170 miles of it are on trails.
By utilizing unmaintained town highways, or class IV roads, the club hopes to draw attention to the possibilities that these venues give to the public for recreation.

I had the pleasure this year to ride along with Jason Merrill, the Executive Chef at The Hanover Inn in New Hampshire. He offered me the co-pilots seat in his rig for the trip, with the plan for he and I to fuel saturday night with some fare we’d brought in. Due to family obligations (and Jason’s work obligations) we’d both missed the first day. We met up with the group late night on saturday. The plan was to meet them at Camp VTXS (Vermont Expedition Society), but the weather that day had put them so far behind in time that we were forced to change plans and meet them at the VTXS Flophouse a few towns over.

sorry for the pic quality… it was POURING!

We spent our time warming the place up and heating up dinner. Jason made his fantastic chili for the crew (30 quarts for 15 people!)

I busied myself with the heat, and making sure the desserts I brought were set up. The crew finally rolled in about 8:30pm. after a 15 or 16 hour day on the trail. We all ate very well thanks to Jason and hit the beds.

The next day started with Brian discovering a leak of ATF into the radiator. He and Chris T. headed off into the morning to patch it up. We made out way on to a great day of trails. And marvelled at Brian completing a radiator tear-down, a trip to Concord, NH from Woodstock, VT and back, and a radiator install in something like 4 hours. The trip alone is around 3! We made great time and arrived at our bed down right on schedule.

A good nights rest had us waking to the final day. After a coffee and food run the group was off on our way. We managed to dig up some nice challenging terrain, along with some really great views. We finished our day and the trip on the border of Massachusetts right about 5pm.

It was a great trip and I really look forward to it next year with all new towns and roads to explore.

It was raining pretty hard, and cold. The lights started flickering and my wife and I knew what was coming. luckily we had enough time to fill the tubs with water before the power went out. Every year we say we should buy a generator…

Power went out, and man did the trees come down. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before. In the woods behind our house, it sounded like little grenades going off. You hear the tops of the trees coming off and the crash of them hitting the ground 40 or 50 feet down.

Jacob and I went out to see what was going on in town. Most of the roads were impassable because of the trees and all the power lines that had fallen. Having the truck I drive made me feel secure knowing I could get my family somewhere if I really needed to. I saw some people in smaller cars trying to navigate through… and they just couldn’t.

It seems we weren’t the only people looking for a generator either… stores had waiting lists 70 or 80 names long for deliveries of 20 generators… and of course the entrepreneurs kept springing up on the sides of the road selling generators out of uhauls for a 30% markup. My wife and son spent the time in a hotel. I stayed home to take care of the dogs and birds… thankfully the gas fireplace works when the power is out. It got chilly, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t manage. We found a generator 5 days in… and I got a lesson in home wiring as I fitted it up. It’s a nice feeling now knowing it’s there. If there’s a problem again, we can live comfortably here until power is restored again. Well, Jacob will miss watching spongebob…

First I removed all of the front clip:

And yes, there’s some stuff hanging down that’s going to be moved. Here you can see where my old tow hook brackets mounted. One tug and they bent:

While I was taking care of this, I decided to add a additional transmission cooler to the system. With our travel plans for the future, and the addition of a trailer, it made sense. I mounted it in front of the condenser, towards the siede where the mechanical fan is:

Here you can see where I plumbed it into the return line to the transmission:

Continued in part 2..

For now, this is what I’ve finished up with:

Still to come is mounting the new firestone NDT’s:

It’s down to the bare frame now:

A bunch of surface rust mainly, nothing rotted through. I’ll be putting a completely new spring set-up in.The old springs, shackles and such would only come out with a cutting wheel. Looks like I’ve got a few days of grinding ahead of me. After grinding, the frame will be coated in POR15, then painted in a chassis coat… probably black. Just because.

The parts bin is growing:

The two biggest areas of concern for me (besides rust of course!), is that the lunette has been cut off and had a 1 7/8 hitch welded over it. Not such a bad thing, except they also welded the lunette into the recepticle. My two options are to find a new lunette housing (preferred), or just cut off the remaining length of lunette and use the upper lunette mount. My hold backs to that are that a) it will look bad and b) the upper mount will probably give me difficulty in height for my hitch.

The other “modification” was to cut the rear panel out and replace it with a slide in tailgate. To make matters worse, the individual also welded angle iron to brace the sides. Unfortunately, he also welded them to the frame. So getting the tub off will require a bit of cutting. I’m still planning on how to attack that issue. I don’t mind a tailgate, I just would like it to come down and function as a table of sorts.
Check back for more progress!