It isn’t easy to start a new wandering era. First you have to get stuff with which to wander. Then you have to put it all together. I’ve had almost two years of excuses and illness and pandemic and forest fires to buy stuff. Now I have lots of stuff. It’s putting it all together that’s the tricky part.
So I took the day off to get ready; ready for the trip, ready for the new era. Once I get all the stuff together and organized, it’ll be easier to get out of town. But the first trip is always hard.
The first thing I did to Brother Blue was put a roof rack on him (Rhinorack Pioneer). That happened over a year ago. Mostly I wanted the rack for hauling long stuff home from the hardware store, should the need arise. But it’s certainly helpful for car camping. Jeep camping? I refuse to call what I’m doing overlanding.
Now I start my prep by putting Rotopax gas cans, a shovel, and a pair of traction boards on the rack. For what I intend to do in Death Valley, I don’t think I’ll need spare gas or traction boards. But as a matter of habit I want them with me. Call it paranoia if you want.
I’ve bought brackets for both the Rotopaxs and the traction boards, but I’ve never actually put them on the roof rack before. The traction board bracket goes up easily enough, although there’s a bit of assembly required. It’s the Rotopaxs that give me the problem. I had a plan. I swear I did. It was all clear enough in my head. The problem is when I went to execute the plan, I essentially performed a Three Stooges routine in solo.
The Rotopax bracket is actually one of the standard cargo racks that Rotopax sells. I have two.
To hold stuff to the room rack, Rhinorack uses rectangular aluminum parts about an inch and a half long and a half inch wide. These are drilled to accept a screw. I have a beefy set that are used for tie-down eyelets. The aluminum parts are thick and heavy and I was planning on using them to hold the Rotopax brackets to the roof rack. Except now I realize I don’t have the right screws. And even if I did, they would never fit through the holes in the Rotopax brackets.
I head off to the hardware store where I discover I can get the right size screw, except way too long and way too thick. I spend a long time in the hardware aisle looking at screws, looking at what I have, thinking about what I need. I could kill myself. I should have done this last weekend. Somehow it just didn’t happen.
What would be helpful would be if I could find the aluminum rectangular thing tapped in a smaller screw size. I don’t even know what to call it. I stop a harried store employee and ask him if they sell stuff that like. I can’t see his face for his Covid mask, but his eyes peer at me wide and confused. He tells me he never saw anything like it before. He’s alarmed. Demands to know where I got it. Insists that they don’t sell anything like it, never have, never will. Then he rushes off to do hardware store things.
I look at the part in my hand, and I remember internet discussion threads in which people opine that what Rhinorack wants for things like this is way too much money. I scrape my foggy memory. They said you just have to go to some other department. I ponder this for a minute. I think it had something to do with electrical for some reason. Strut-something. Or something-strut. I dig out my phone and do a vague google search. Superstrut pops up. And Unistrut. I show my phone to another harried employee. “Do you have this?” He waves frantically off into the warehouse sized store, eyes wide above his mask. “Aisle three,” he mumbles before rushing off.
Aisle three. At the end. A spot maybe three feet long. It’s there. And parts, including something called a steel spring nut that’s close enough, except the spring is in the way. $5 for 5. The internet is right, Rhinorack charges a lot for the material.
I still have grocery shopping to do. And packing. And loading the Jeep. It’s 2:00. The day is wearing on. Maybe I should just leave the Rotopaxs behind, meaning no spare gas.
I am genetically incapable of this. I won’t do that on even a freeway-based road trip.
This sets me off on an entirely unfortunate mission that involves screws and Dremels and drilling and hammering and two trips to the hardware store. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that I could have done the job cheaper and quicker if I wasn’t so tired, had spent last weekend focused on this, hadn’t been so distracted.
In the end I get the Rotopaxs up on the roof rack. it works but I’m bothered by what I’ve done. I’ve assembled the whole thing in exactly the same way that Rhinorack shows on their website, only I spent maybe $10 (and a bunch of time) to do what they charge $23 (and no time) to do. But Rotopax cans have detents right where the screws heads are, and I’m pretty sure these are making contact. I don’t have time to mess with it, but it bothers me. How much rubbing is there going to be? I have no time for creeping elegance. I let it go and get on with everything else.
Grocery store, packing, clothes, tent, sleeping bags….. the stuff comes together from all corners of the house, is sorted, assembled, organized, and loaded. Except for a half hour for dinner, it takes me until past 9 pm to get Brother Blue put together. I’m stumbling around, wanting a nap. I’m making three trips when one would do. Maybe I’m making excuses. Maybe I just shouldn’t go. It’s all taking way too much time. If I’m going to wander routinely, this has to happen faster. Way, way, faster.
But at last I’m ready. Death Valley is more than 8 hours away and I want to get there well before dark. The alarm clock is going off at 5 am. I get to bed. I’ve a long day driving ahead of me.