March 13 – Phoenix to Payson

And we’re back on the road! We got “most” of what we needed taken care of during our extended stay in Phoenix, but it’s time to hit the road. I can’t speak for everyone in the family, but I’m itching to have more new experiences and see new places. We cleaned up grandma’s, packed up the van, and set out only an hour later than we had planned (pretty good for us). Our destination for the day was Payson Arizona. At less than 100 miles from Phoenix, it was a good length to get reacquainted with our seats and ease into the traveling routine.

I had a appointment to meet up with a family and trial a modified Lipsync device to enable easier access to an iPad. The appointment was a few hours as we tried to work out some bugs and get the device and iPad to communicate effectively. In the end, it just wasn’t a good solution and so I made plans to redesign the existing interface and gave them a tour of our van.

It was later than planned when the trial was completed so instead of heading for the Mogollon Rim to camp in a wilderness spot, we drove a couple miles to Walmart where we setup for the night.

DIY Traction Boards

Traction boards made from milk crates, 550 cord, and carabiners .

Anyone following our journey thus far knows that I like to go off the beaten path, and as we’ve found out, sometimes that leads to a pause in our forward momentum. Our last “stuck” (thanks Drew for the pull) lead to our desire to get some traction boards to help get ourselves unstuck.

The industry standard are Maxtrax. They’re targeted at serious off roaders and Continue reading “DIY Traction Boards”