March 1998 Campfire Tales

by Larry Heck of

PASS PATROL

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OUTLAW BUYS A ZIPPER

The word was out. Outlaw was on the prowl for a truck. The March trip was only a few weeks away and all he had in the driveway was that old tired Rocky known as Mighty Mouse. One more Utah trip just might be more than that little guy could handle. Back at the Pass Patrol hideout, Outlaw was leaning back in his official presidential chair with his feet propped up on the desk and the “for-sale-ads” stretched out across his lap. His hat was pulled down over his eyes and there was a low rumbling sound filling the room. Then he rumbled just a little too loud causing the calendar to fall off the wall and knock over his Pepsi which poured into his shoe and rudely brought him out of a deep sleep just as he was dreaming up a great ending to a really boring story.

As Outlaw bent over to wipe up the spilled liquid, he noticed it had splattered onto the for-sale-ads under the Ford column. Once he found his glasses under the donut sack, he put them on and looked to see where the soda had splattered. “Hmmmm! 1990 Ford Bronco II. $4500. At Golden Ford. Why shucks fire! That’s gotta be a sign from the lord almighty!”

Outlaw rushed out to Mighty Mouse and fired him up for a ride to Golden. He met a nice young lady named Doriene Howe and she handed him the keys for a test drive. She hadn’t heard of Outlaw and didn’t know about his driving so she hopped into the passenger seat to ride along. Actually, she handled it pretty well. He only got her to scream once as they roared up I-70 to the Buffalo overlook, stirred up a little dust on a sideroad, and ended up back at Golden Ford with no new dents or scratches.

Outlaw decided he liked the little truck. The only problem was that its too short to sleep in. “Guess I’ll have to fix the zipper in my tent. ... Zipper! ... Hmmmm! I like that. We’ll call him Zipper!”

Then came the hard part. Outlaw only had $500 and that was just a little short of the asking price. Doriene told Outlaw to go on back to the hideout and she’ed give him a call if she could slip some kinda deal past the boss. She found a bank that would loan Outlaw $3,100 on the truck and she convinced the boss that the best way to get Outlaw outta their way was to take his $500 and lock the gate behind him.

And that’s the honest to dog-goned truth. Every word of it. Anyway that’s the way I remember it. Outlaw wound up with Zipper and fully intended to take him on the March trip. Then the dangest thing happened. When Outlaw got Zipper back to the hideout, there was a carrier pigeon sitting on Mighty Mouse’s light bar with a message from Isuzu. Seems the boss kinda liked the volume six book and all those great shots of Trigger so he sent one of the wranglers out to the Isuzu Corral and lassoed a sturdy stallion named Silver. “Funny how things happen. One day I ain’t got nothin’ to drive and the next day I got two.” And that’s the truth!

Hi Yo Silver

It’s no secret within Pass Patrol that Isuzu builds their trucks with 4wheeling in mind. The test track we take vehicles to for exercise has only been conquered so far by two sport utility vehicles and one pickup. The two sport utilities were the Isuzu Trooper and the Isuzu Rodeo. The pickup was the Nissan Frontier.

When I use the word conquered, it comes with some qualifying limitations. The test is simple. I put the vehicle into 4 wheel low at the bottom of the hill, set the speed at just above idle, and aim for the top. There are three obstacles to overcome. Each one is progressively more demanding than the one before it. So far, all the vehicles have made it past the first two, but that third one is a dilly. No doubt, all of them could make it by simply adding a little speed, but that’s not the test. I figure that if you pay twenty plus thousand bucks for a good looking vehicle, you won’t be real anxious to take a chance on scratching it. That means I assume you would go very slowing. So slowly that I even stop once on the way through to see if all the wheels are still on the ground. In every case except for the ones mentioned above, the left rear and the right front left the ground and forward motion halted. Each vehicle is given several chances to make the climb at idle speed, each time hitting the obstacle at a slightly different angle just in case that makes a difference. In the case of the two Isuzu vehicles, there was one specific approach where they could get up without spinning a tire. The Trooper had more clearance than the Rodeo and also has a new feature called Torque on Demand (TOD). I’ll let your friendly salesman tell you what that actually does. All we need to know, is it climbs really well.

Silver, pictured above, is a 1998 Rodeo. In case you haven’t noticed, the Rodeo has been completely redesigned which included a whole new suspension system with coil springs in the rear. The improvements are quickly noticed during a test drive.

The problem I have now is finding a way to mount a winch on Silver. This is not going to be easy. My friends at Warn and at Hella both tell me they don’t have anything that will work. Maybe by the next issue, I’ll have some better news, but so far, this looks like it will be a fully custom job.

Hi Yo Silver ... Away!

Street Atlas 5.0 with TripMate

DeLorme sent a software package to me last fall called Street Atlas 5.0 and Phone Search USA. It included a GPS receiver called TripMate. The idea is to plug the receiver into a Laptop and let the program do all your trip planning. For some reason, last fall, I couldn’t get it to talk to my laptop. I recently reloaded all my software on the laptop and decided to try this system again. It loaded easily and I must say, “I was very impressed!” First of all, Street Atlas has the capability of planning a route by the shortest path, the quickest path, or you can cause it to take just about any path you want by designating stops. It will tell you how far it is between the start and finish and how long it will take to get between the two points. You can even define how fast you intend to drive on various types of highways and roads. It will use your choices in the formula as it plots the route. All that activity can be done before leaving home and you can even print out a detailed strip map to take with you, but if you have a laptop, printing out the map is a waste of time.

The first step is to plug TripMate into the laptop. TripMate is nothing more than a GPS receiver specifically designed to communicate with Street Atlas. Select GPS, then INITIALIZE GPS. It is critical that you have the correct state and local time entered. If they are wrong, your system will never find all the satellites. Even when it is configured correctly, there were times we had to restart initialize to get the satellites locked. Once Street Atlas loads everything it needs from the satellites, it does an excellent job of tracking them.

The "Monitor GPS" menu shows satellite status

Now click GPS, then MONITOR GPS. You will find out instantly if TripMate is talking to your laptop. NO FIX means it has found TripMate but has not locked onto the satellites. You will see the satellite data being displayed at the bottom of the window as TripMate begins calculating your position. Be patient, especially the first time you initialize. Our first load took more than fifteen minutes. After that, restarting from power-up took between two minutes and six minutes, but we had some trouble figuring out how to make that work at first. The trick is, don't reinitialize unless you have moved to another state since the last time you used the system. Go directly to MONITOR GPS and the system should lock in your position quickly. If you select Initialize, Street Allas resets everything and starts over which can take a long time. You don’t have to sit and wait for it to load so long as you have someone else who can operate the computer while you are driving. It will continue loading while you begin the trip. Once it has a fix, it will display the map for the area you are in and put a green arrow at the spot where you are located. A voice from within the program will tell you where you are and when your next turn is. If it doesn’t do that, you have probably turned off the automatic pan feature so just turn it back on. You’ll find it under the GPS tab.

The yellow arrows show your position and your route as you go

While in Los Angeles, I used it to find every location I wanted to visit. For example, I entered the address for 4WD&SU magazine, closed the lid on the laptop, and put it in the passenger seat. The system, kept track of where I was and instructed me on which way to go fifty-nine seconds before every turn. It was like having a co-pilot who could actually read a map.

I have been to Los Angeles a lot of times and every visit before this one was a nightmare. Always before, the trip was a continuous battle with maps. With this system, I just entered in the address, asked it to plot the quickest route, and listened to the instructions. If I had doubts about what I heard, I could just raise the lid on the laptop and instantly see the map with the planned route highlighted and my exact position on the route. One glance was all it took

Okay, I guess it’s only fair to mention a few weaknesses I found. The voice directions go by the compass. That means, if you are going to turn north, that’s what it says. It may tell you to turn north on Highway 10. Even though that highway goes north, the street signs may give you the choice of East or West Highway 10 with no mention of which one goes north. That’s one of those times, when I raised the lid for a quick glance at the screen. It’s easy to see if you are supposed to go right or left.

It also gets access ramps confused some times. A few times it told me to get off at the exit in fifty nine seconds and turn left on a particular street. In reality, I had to get off at that exit and turn right on an access street, then turn left on the street I wanted. Once again, a quick glance at the screen was all it took to determine my next move.

Once you get into the outback, the program gets a little less helpful but still came through on a limited basis. On the way back, I stopped in Kanab, Utah to visit with some BLM rangers. They told me a good place to camp nearby was at the sand dunes. When I got back in the car, I raised the lid on the laptop and scanned the area for those sand dunes. All the major dirt roads going to it were on the screen but had no numbers. With a click, I programmed a stop at the point where the first road intersected with the highway. I set another stop at the sand dunes. I asked it to plot the quickest route and it did so. From that point, the program gave me verbal instructions as I proceeded to the sand dunes. It simply said, “Turn left on local road in 59 seconds”. That sure beats driving down the highway and wondering which dirt road is the right one. No doubt you can do the same thing with other GPS systems but TripMate’s instructions are verbal. No taking your eyes off the road.

I also used the TripMate on several other major dirt roads and it worked just as well. Once you get away from the major roads, it looses much of its value. If the road is not on the CD, the display you get is an arrow going across a blank screen. It does still plot the correct GPS position in relationship to other major landmarks so you can zoom out for a bigger screen and see your position in relation to those major landmarks. Using that method, you can also determine how far you are from the nearest, road, highway, river, town, or other mapped location.

In addition to its trip plotting capabilities, Street Atlas 5.0 has a lot more great uses. For one thing, it can find any address you are interested in, anywhere in the USA. If you put our address in the search, it will find the block this address is in and place a marker there. You can search by zip code, phone number, or specific address. For example, people often place an order on my phone system from a city I never heard of. In that case, I probably don’t know how to spell it. I can enter the zip code into Street Atlas and it will find the city for me so I can see how it’s spelled. If I am curious, I can ask it to show me exactly where the caller lives.

The package also came with Phone Search USA 3.0. Having phone search is like having the phone books for every city in the USA in your car. For example, lets say you drive into Denver and you need a part for your vehicle. Phone search can find and display every auto dealer, auto parts store, or junk yard in the city along with phone number and address. From that list, you can select as many as you like for it to plot on a map for you. Once you decide which one you want to go to, you can set that one as the finish and tell the program to begin its trip from your current location. The trip will be plotted for you and you will begin receiving verbal instructions on how to get from where to are to the parts store. Even if you are passing through a huge city the size of Denver and you have never even been to the state before, you can accomplish all that in about ten minutes time while parked at a rest area many miles from town. Or if you have a copilot, he or she can accomplish all that while you’re going 75 mph down I-70.

I have seen TripMate with Street Atlas 5.0 advertised on sale for less than $200 including the 12 volt adapter kit. If you travel, its worth every penny.

Street Alas USA with TripMate and Phone Search gets high marks from us.

Happy Trails.

GONE CAMPIN!

This is the time of year when cabin fever starts setting in with a vengeance. We get a few days of warm temperatures and bright sunshine and we’re in big trouble. Sometimes, a simple drive to Utah with a few camping spots along the way will be enough to relieve some of the pain.

For example, if someone were to pull out of Denver about dark on Friday night, they could be in Rifle long before bedtime. If you take the Rifle exit and turn on Highway 13 North toward Meeker, you are only a few miles from one of Outlaw’s hideouts. It the one known as Roan Cliffs Camp simply because it is at the entrance to some beautiful country named Roan Cliffs. At the north edge of town, between mile posts 4 & 5, just past the intersection for Highway 325, turn left on the dirt road that crosses the creek beside a huge pipe. From the turnoff, it is 3.8 miles to Roan Cliffs Camp with a view of the entire valley. Outlaw frequently uses that spot as a stop over when going across country. There is still some snow up there but enough has melted around the firerings to set up some tents.

If you get out of Denver a little earlier, you might make it all the way to Thompson Springs at exit 185 in Utah. From that exit, you are only 3.5 miles from another of Outlaw’s hideouts and only 5 miles from the ghost town of Sego. To get there, just drive through Thompson Springs, cross the railroad tracks, and follow the signs to Sego Canyon. That campsite even has an outhouse, some ancient Indian writings, and an occasional visit from the local bear population.

Of course the Sego Camp is a lot warmer than the Roan Cliffs Camp, but either one will get you out of town and on your way to busting up that cabin fever.

Happy Trails!

RECALL RANCHO RELAY RODS

We received notice from Tenneco Automotive that a Rancho brand relay rod that was manufactured between March 1994 and March 1995 is being recalled. The relay rod in question is incorporated in a suspension system manufactured for replacement use on Chevy or GMC 1/2 - ton, four-wheel drive, six-lug pickup trucks for the model years 1988 through 1997. The defective rod could lead to loss of steering control. If you think you might have one of these rods, call 1-800-521-6754

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