Cymon's Weekend Warrior and MFD Thread

[Cymon]

12/31/16 - 1/4/17

Finally got around to posting this…only a week late!

My wife and I love the mountains! We love winter sports, skiing, skating, snowboarding…but we live in f-ing Florida (for now). So we had the opportunity during this road trip to go up to Smuggler’s Notch, VT over the winter holidays. Since we were already in Maryland visiting family it was only another 9.5-hour road trip north…with two kids…and my mother in law. Did I mention I like snow?

Anyway we wanted to get my 4-year-old daughter up on skis and Smuggler’s is known for having one of the best kids programs, and is rated the best family ski areas on the East Coast, so that pretty much dictated the resort for us. This is in addition to the fact that the ski package there is like half of what you would pay at Stowe or Killington.

So we decided to head up on the 30th even though our reservations where from December 31st through the 3rd of January. We stayed just North of Albany (about a 5.5 hour drive) at a Residence Inn near the Airport to split up the drive and get up to Smugglers early on New Years eve for all of the family fun (My mother in law had some sort of rewards that got us a full condo room for under $100). The main reason why I mention this is that we ate that night at the Plaza 7 Market (kind of like an indoor market/strip mall) in Lantham, NY. The food places in this place were awesome…a must try if you are in the area.

We woke up early the next morning and drove the rest of the way up to Vermont, getting in around noon. They had just received over a foot of snow a two days before and it was beautiful!

 

[Cymon]

I also got to use my light bar and wiper-deicer more in the 4 days we were up in Vermont then I have in the year and a half of 4runner ownership combined.

 

[Cymon]

1/4/2017

We left on January 4th to drive back to Maryland. We got a couple inches of snow the night we left so I took some pictures of the Village before we left. I also drove up some of the mountain on some virgin snow and sneak onto a couple trails that are used for lift/emergency access. My only complaint is that the 4runner again is so capable stock (even with the crappy tires) that I still can’t convince the wife to replace them yet. Maybe for its 30,000-mile celebration in a few months.

In regards to the resort…if you have a young family and like to ski this is one of the top resorts I have ever been to for Families. The staff is top notch, extremely helpful and polite. They have kids activities all day every day (my son who is only 2 wasn’t able to ski, so he did the daytime activities like arts and crafts and watching a magician with my mother-in law). The ski school and instructors were fantastic. My daughter was making it down the bunny slope and turning by the end of the 2nd day. They have kids and adult entertainment every night, and they are putting in as of March a “Fun Zone” that includes a Ninja warrior course…wtf!
Although it has all of these amenities it still gives the old school, small ski-village, family owned and run vibe, not that of a large high-end resort.

The skiing itself was pretty good, especially for the East Coast. The terrain was varied and spread-out. Late in the season it would likely be really good as the snow coverage would open up way more of their tree skiing and glades (which I guess they are known for). The one negative is that it does not have one high-speed lift, or even a quad chair for that matter (all old-school doubles), so the lifts are long. The advantage of this is that most people go to Stowe instead, so the lines are never long and it spreads out the skiers/snowboarders on the mountains. I never encountered a crowded trail in 3 days of a holiday ski week, and that includes the beginner’s slopes.

 

[Cymon]

On the way back we stopped for breakfast in a cool little town called Vergennes, VT. I would move here in an instant. The little coffee shop in town named “3 Squares Café” was Phenomenal!

 

[Cymon]

1/6-1/7/2017

The original plan was for us to drive back to Florida starting early on Saturday January 7th, getting us in around midnight. But since the forecast was calling for an epic winter storm through Virginia and the Carolinas on Friday night into Saturday we decided to head back a day early. We said our goodbyes and started the 18-hour trek home at 1:30pm. Here is a pic of our normal food stop, the dog and me eat out in the cold while the wife takes the kids inside to eat at Chick-fil-A and play in the indoor play area for a few minutes.

We missed most of the storm and only encountered rain from about Rocky Mount, N.C. all of the way through Jacksonville. We started at 28 degrees in Columbia, Maryland and when we arrived at 7:00a.m. the next morning in South Florida it was a humid 78 degrees. Also rinsed the salt off with my make-shift Home-depot undercarriage wash system!

Back to sweating, can’t wait for the next trip North in June after school lets out!

 

[Titanpat57]

On the way back we stopped for breakfast in a cool little town called Vergennes, VT. I would move here in an instant. The little coffee shop in town named “3 Squares Café” was Phenomenal!

We have to get you up here for the Vermont Overland Rally....lots of fun!

Shhhhh...and some damn nice squatchin' as well!

 

[Cymon]

We have to get you up here for the Vermont Overland Rally....lots of fun!

Shhhhh...and some damn nice squatchin' as well!

That would be awesome!

I read about the incident you have pictured in my son's book. If I recall it's called the " [MENTION=65614]Antman[/MENTION] encounter". Evidently he was camping when a family of squatches walked by and heard him telling some story about "not enough lube" or something and they haven't heard from him since. I didn't know they actually had an artist's rendering of the encounter.

 

[Antman]

We have to get you up here for the Vermont Overland Rally....lots of fun!

Shhhhh...and some damn nice squatchin' as well!

Idiot.

 

[Cymon]

Upgraded Recovery Gear

Got around to upgrading my snatch/kinetic recovery strap and added some soft shackles. I am really impressed with the quality of this stuff from Southeast Overland.

Now I need to upgrade the tires so these may not be as necessary.

 

[Albacore]

Thanks for all the posts and info on your build. We just bought a 2016 4Runner last week. I wanted to swap the tires immediately. Good to know that they are pretty capable.

 

[Cymon]

Thanks for all the posts and info on your build. We just bought a 2016 4Runner last week. I wanted to swap the tires immediately. Good to know that they are pretty capable.

Yes, very...even with the crappy Dunlops. The best piece of advice I received was to drive it stock for a while, have fun with it and then see what your needs may be. I haven't encountered much it couldn't handle with the stock suspension, just have to be smarter in moderate off road terrain and learn to pick good lines. I can say at stock height my skids do get a little more work then the lifted guys I ride with but that's what they are there for :lookout:

 

[lojack323]

I saw that you installed the RCI sliders back in August last year. Any issues with your kid using them to get in and out other than the grip tape you added? Like yours my 3 and 1 year olds use my running boards to get in out so I too was thinking about something with a step plate. But I like the design of the RCI ones.

Love how your truck has turned out. It's pretty much what my end game has been for our sr5, pending approval from the boss of course lol.

 

[Cymon]

I saw that you installed the RCI sliders back in August last year. Any issues with your kid using them to get in and out other than the grip tape you added? Like yours my 3 and 1 year olds use my running boards to get in out so I too was thinking about something with a step plate. But I like the design of the RCI ones.

Love how your truck has turned out. It's pretty much what my end game has been for our sr5, pending approval from the boss of course lol.

I honestly have been more then impressed with how well the sliders have been working as steps. At stock height they are higher but no more difficult for my kids to climb and use to get in then they would have on the first rung of a latter at a playground (wihich is none). My daughter would be the first to complain about it but she does just fine with them, and my son who is now 2 has been starting to climb on it as well. I could see someone with a 3" lift and having kids have more of an issue.

In reality kids as you know can climb up and down and into things we would never expect. This is why I have a hard time with people saying their kids can't get into the vehicle with sliders but my son could climb out of his crib with 2' walls when he was 18 months old...now wives on the other hand are a different story lol (although she now likes them better then the running boards as well).


Love your signature by the way, I can certainly relate!

 

[lojack323]

I honestly have been more then impressed with how well the sliders have been working as steps. At stock height they are higher but no more difficult for my kids to climb and use to get in then they would have on the first rung of a latter at a playground (wihich is none). My daughter would be the first to complain about it but she does just fine with them, and my son who is now 2 has been starting to climb on it as well. I could see someone with a 3" lift and having kids have more of an issue.

In reality kids as you know can climb up and down and into things we would never expect. This is why I have a hard time with people saying their kids can't get into the vehicle with sliders but my son could climb out of his crib with 2' walls when he was 18 months old...now wives on the other hand are a different story lol (although she now likes them better then the running boards as well).


Love your signature by the way, I can certainly relate!

I'm excited to hear that about the sliders. I was all for getting them last year until my oldest (then 2) started climbing in by himself so I decided to put it off and look at other options.

I enjoyed reading your build thread and I like how you emphasized adding mods/equipment based on what you do with the truck versus some of the "buy all the things!" ones lol (don't get me wrong, I would totally buy all the things if I could). Now that we finally got my wife a new vehicle, and it's the main family hauler, we have a little more freedom to have fun with the truck. Our off highway driving has been mostly maintained dirt roads when going camping or hiking since I couldn't risk jacking something up lol.

When we first got the 4Runner, I was asked more than a few times "what's the first thing you did to the truck?" I removed the rear head rests to fit the two car seats better. I'm not sure if that's considered a mod though. #dadlife

 

[Cymon]

Overlanding Seaworld 3/23/17-3/25/17

So after the very entertaining thread about an Overlanding article, I thought I’d share about our trip to Seaworld.

Our family decided to do an “Overlanding” trip up to Seaworld this last weekend. It took about 3 hours of prep for the trip, including packing bathing suits, flip flops, sunscreen and strollers. I did make sure my recovery gear was in the vehicle making it a full-fledged “Overlanding” trip. We left on Friday the 23rd of April at about 4:00 pm. It was supposed to take about 3.5 hours from our house but due to an accident on the Turnpike it ended up taking about 4. We needed a place to eat before setting up camp at the Renaissance Marriott across the street from Seaworld. Since this was an “epic” adventure we checked on Yelp for a local place and ended up at this Latin American restaurant in an industrial park about 10 minutes from our “camp site”. The restaurant was called “Tropical Cabana” and was definitely a local’s hangout (as we were the only non-latino people in the place and we were getting glances on our arrival inside like “are these people lost?”). Glad we stumbled on the place because the food was authentic and fantastic. They also had a selection of local micro-brew cervezas! (I know I’m not supposed to drink micro-brews as I own and SR5, not a TRD Pro, but I couldn’t resist.)

We ended up at our camp site (the hotel) at around 9:00 pm. It took about 20 minutes to set-up camp as our bellman was a little slow. The accommodations were fantastic. This is not just a hotel but a resort, perfect for adults and families, and the AAA rate was only $134 a night. If you need a place to stay in Orlando, definitely look into this place, you won’t be disappointed.

After a few beverages and finally getting the kids to sleep at around 11:00 we turned in for the night. Got up early the next morning and hiked across the parking lot (literally 300-400 yards) and went to Seaworld. The kids had a blast and they were having a food and beer festival where you could buy a sampler pass and literally eat and drink your way around the park.

 

[Cymon]

Overlanding Seaworld 3/23/17-3/25/17

We ended up back at the hotel at around 7:00pm, just in time to change and get down to the pool, where they were showing a movie for the kids, while the adults could watch the Sweet 16 games at the poolside bar.

Crashed hard after a long day, woke-up the next morning and went to the best all-inclusive breakfast buffet I’ve personally ever encountered. I mean, when you can get made-to-order eggs-benedict that is a next level buffet.

After completely gorging ourselves we went to the hotel pool/water park to tire the kids out for the ride home. After a couple of hours we decided to get on the road. This time we decided to take all backroads to Lake Okeechobee. We were going to try a couple of powerline trails that [MENTION=119302]4RunnerAquasport[/MENTION] suggested, but there were cops stationed near the entrance so that was a no-go. Likely do to idiots ruining the trail system by mudding on the land off of the trail. Anyway we stayed on paved roads all of the way down to Okeechobee and stopped to eat at “Tin Fish”. This was another little gem of a restaurant, although we found out later that it is a 12 restaurant chain with most locations in SoCal. My son enjoyed playing on their fake alligator.

Now the “Overlanding” part of the trip:

We took the 2-lane highway around the lake to the Southern tip. From here I mapped out canal and trail roads that should have linked us to I75 or Route 27 through Holey Land and Everglades Wildlife Management Areas. What we found instead of beautiful estuaries were canal roads next to the farmland that has destroyed the Everglades natural habitat, although we did spot what we believed to be a water moccossain crossing the road and an Alligator right in the lilly pads on the bank of the canal.

After about an hour on unpaved canal roads and trails we ran into a locked gate for a water treatment facility. We then had to backtrack to find access across the farmland (most of which was gated) to SR27. After another 45 minutes of “exploring” we had sight of the road to get us home, but as we approached the exit, another locked gate.
I refused to be defeated, as this was an “Overlanding” trip so we found our way up to the Domino Foods factory, whose farms are ruining all of the habitat of the Everglades, and escaped out of their trucking entrance. All in all we had about a 2.5 hour detour and logged about 50 miles off-road.

All in all this was a great “Overlanding” adventure. If you would like a detailed map of the road/trails we mapped and cataloged PM me (or you can go to google maps LOL). We had a great time and of course the 4runner was perfect for all of our intended uses.

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

Alligator is just a stick dude

 

[Cymon]

Alligator is just a stick dude

Lol! That's what I thought at first too. Crappy cell phone pic. We actually stayed there long enough to see it submerge and reappear.

 

[Saker]

Nice Overlanding Adventure Chris!

BTW, I think what you have pictured is not a water moccasin, but as Diamond-backed Water Snake....
They get quite large and are common here too!

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

Lol! That's what I thought at first too. Crappy cell phone pic. We actually stayed there long enough to see it submerge and reappear.

lol thats cause a turtle was sittin on the other end of the stick f*^$in w you