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“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” -Steve Jobs, Address at Stanford University, 2005 Moshe and I went for a ride at 5:15AM Tuesday morning. Here’s the route:
Here’s the graph:
The hill in the middle is the 14% grade South Mountain. I was happy to be able to climb it without standing up! I enjoyed riding first thing in the morning. The temperature would reach 100 or so later in the day, but at 5AM it was in the high 70s, albeit muggy. Since our Odyssey is no more, I had to make modifications to our newly-purchaed 2007 Kia Sorento to get it ready for towing. I installed the same transmission cooler I had installed in the van. I hung it off the horn’s mount points:
This picture was taken standing on the driver’s side. The two breakers for the charge line and the brake controller are on the left:
More wiring. Charge line, brake line, and power line for brake controller. The white wire is the signal wire for the transmission temperature gauge:
Installed a hitch and 7-way wiring harness. The Sorento has a modular connector that plugs into an adapter that provides turn and brake signals. I had to splice into the drivers side rear light cluster to get a reverse line. The brake control and charge lines came down from the engine compartment and run along the bottom of the chassis:
This picture is taken looking up under the car. The front of the Sorento is to the left. The red thing right of center is the inline transmission fluid temperature sensor. It’s mounted on the supply hose from the transmission. From there, the fluid is routed to the bottom-most hose (the one with the reddish coating), which is the supply line for the radiator’s transmission cooler. From there, the fluid is given to the factory cooler (the next hose up, with the black clip). The third from the bottom is the return from the factory transmission cooler, and it’s routed to the upper right hose on the temperature bypass (the blue thing – this is needed so that we don’t turn the transmission fluid to molasses in the winter). The fluid then leaves the upper left of the bypass, goes to the new transmission cooler, and returns via the lower left. The lower right connector then returns to the transmission. After attaching the two left connectors, I realized I could get the hoses on much farther if I first coated the barb with a bit of transmission fluid as a lubricant. Oh well, it seems to be OK even though they’re not pushed on all the way. The temperature sensor’s ground wire is attached by nylon cable tie to the surface of the sensor. It’s the white wire that goes to the bottom of the frame. Note the second cable tie for strain relief.
Here’s the temperate gauge mounted on the dash: The brake controller, mounted to the change tray:
It’s a ton of work! I hope we have this vehicle for a long time! We went up to Mongaup Pond for Memorial day weekend. All the new systems in the RV worked well, except for a propane leak in the connection for the new catalytic heater. Once I tightened it up, it was fine. Trish relaxing in camp:
On Sunday we went kayaking on the pond:
Followed by a ride around the campground:
After lunch, I went for a mountain bike ride. The climb out of the Mongaup basin was tough, with grades exceeding 20% in spots:
Hodge Pond:
Old wagon wheels:
At one point the trail suddenly enters a thick, canopied forest:
Frick Pond:
This grave marker is a bit off the trail near Frick pond: Here’s the newspaper article from 1933:
Mechel and Baila at the beach on Mongaup pond:
On Monday we went fishing on the Willowemoc, but we didn’t catch anything: We decided to test the new SUV on the same “road” we rode last summer:
At one point we saw a fawn struggling to get across the road. Trish moved it to the shoulder and we cut open a water bottle for it. It was pretty weak, so it probably didn’t survive:
Here we are breaking camp:
What a great weekend! When we went to Green Mountain to look for dispersed camping locations, some of the roads were pretty bad, and I wondered if we could get the RV up there. After seeing this video, I have no fear: Ah, September of 2003. We had just purchased a new ‘03 Odyssey. We were so excited:
In early March, our van met its end on route 21 in Passaic: The van was a total loss, so we had to find a new vehicle. The van was great, but its 3500-pound towing limit was strained by our RV and luggage. Since we tend to camp at state parks and other areas that have unimproved roads, We decided to replace the van with a used 2007 4-wheel drive vehicle with more ground clearance. In the end, we looked at the Nissan Pathfinder, the Toyota 4Runner, and the Kia Sorrento. All three are truck based SUVs with a 5,000 pound towing rating. We eliminated the Pathfinder because it requires premium gasoline, leaving the 4Runner and the Sorento. The Sorento was $6000 less than the 4Runner, and Kia’s warranty gives us coverage through Summer of 2013, so that’s what we purchased:
I’ve been spending a good bit of time outfitting the Sorento with the same towing gear that I installed in the Odyssey back in the day. The Sorento’s 3.8 Liter V6 seems to shrug off the Trailmanor in a way that the Odyssey couldn’t. From the Thataway Blog: When you get right down to it camping has nothing to do with where you sleep and change your clothes. It doesn’t matter if you get your milk out of a fridge or an ice chest or whether you cook over a campfire, a Coleman stove or in a microwave/convection oven in your Mini Winnie. Camping is just being away from home free to do what you like because you left your guilt bag behind. It’s the people you’re with, the deeply gratifying thoughtful and funny conversations with family and good friends you never seem to have enough time for. It’s eyes that sparkle just because you’re all together and the stress is gone. Camping is unleashing your spirit and letting it run joyously free like a dog chasing gulls on a beach. And when you go home, as you must, your heart is happy knowing you’ll do it again. Looking at vehicle prices online. I see a few I like, and when I click on the any of their listings, I see down in the fine print "PRICES BASED ON $1995 CASH/TRADE DOWN PAYAMENT". So basically, they list price "X" on autotrader.com or kbb.com, but the actual asking price is X + $2000. If you’re trying to pull a fast one on pricing, why would I trust you enough to actually buy a car from you? We are looking at buying a mid-sized SUV, so I started doing a bit of research. I found two models, both with similar EPA gas mileage numbers. I then found out that one of them, the Nissan Pathfinder, requires premium gasoline. All the car sites just give the EPA numbers, and don’t say what grade of gas was used for the test, so I went to the EPA’s own website. Sure enough, the Pathfinder was tested with Premium gas. Being that Premium gas is on average 11% more expensive than standard unleaded, the Pathfinder’s 16MPG becomes 14.4MPG when accounting for the higher cost of the fuel! I suspect very few people realize that this is an issue. We unwittingly switched laundry detergents after Passover to Tide X2 Clean Breeze detergent. The first day I wore clothes washed in it, I developed a skin rash so severe that a steroid shot only held it at bay for 12 hours or so. The itching was so bad, it was just awful. Once we rewashed all of my clothes, I was fine. I always knew I was a sensitive guy. |
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