When The Turtle V stops, our primary means of transportation will be walking. During our 28-day John Muir Trail trek,, we discovered La Sportiva boots, and Superfeet Insoles. No more blisters and no re-occurrences of the painful Plantar Fasciitis that can quickly ruin any hike. Unlike even the best out-of-the-box insoles, the Superfeet can be taken out, washed and used for years, prolonging the life of footwear that may not be replaceable on the road.

Walking along the trails of the Cinque Terre in Italy or hiking the John Muir Trail, there’s no place for second-class boots and insoles.

Even Monika who is very blister prone loves her La Sportivas.

La Sportiva and Superfeet keep our feet comfortable and healthy on the road.

Blisters can ruin a hike. La Sportiva are like wearing slippers but with the support needed for carrying a heavy pack.

Hiking the JMT introduced us to the quality of La Sportiva boots and Superfeet Insoles.

Storage in a small expedition camper like The Turtle V is critical. Clothes for four seasons, medical supplies, camera equipment, computers, tools and spare parts, food—it’s a long list, whether it’s for three days or three years. In addition to the Weatherguard box on the front rack, we needed more storage for light equipment and winter clothes. All of the manufactured boxes we looked at like Zarges and Alu-Box were too small or bottomless pits. In the end, we had Van Dyke Fabrication in Rocklin, CA design and build a custom aluminum locking weatherproof box just the size we needed. It securely bolts to our Yakima rack system. Let the packing begin!

Our custom aluminum storage box was designed and built by Van Dyke Fabrication. It securely bolts to our Yakima rack system.

Winter clothes and other bulky lightweight equipment will fill the new Van Dyke box.

Our front rack and Weatherguard storage box is very useful for odd size equipment that we need to access frequently.

Some things would never see a flea market. With an acre of property, there are plenty of places to hide stuff. Pallets, dead dishwashers, paint buckets, wine barrel rings—a 13-year collection that tipped the scales at the local recycle yard just under 1/2 a ton.

We trucked half a ton of real junk to the local recycle yard. Clean house. Clean yard. Yes, we are moving and getting ready to drive away.

It is positively amazing how much really valuable “stuff” you can accumulate in 13 years. (Yes, that’s how long it has been since our three-year Trans-Eurasian expedition across all of Russia and around the World.) This was good stuff. The local flea market was the answer. For eight hours we bargained with the masses wanting a watchacallit that costs $200 for $35. It didn’t happened but we did make a lot of people happy that they got such a steal.

It is positively amazing how much really valuable “stuff” you can accumulate in 13 years.

The first few hours at the local flea market were hectic and the bargaining and haggling were fierce.

Moving from one house to another house is difficult, but you mark a big box “kitchen”, fill it, move it to the new house and unpack it in the kitchen. Moving a fully furnished home into a pile of boxes for what may be three to five years is interesting. Our “home” is now rented. We have a property manager and a part-time gardener and great neighbors who will keep an eye on the place. Our new renter is prefect and loves the house and gardens as we have. We have moved into our guesthouse. The Turtle V, parked in the garage, has a full kitchen so we are sort of camping out. Yes, we are moving.

Carpets, furniture, paintings and lots of treasures, everything had to go into the garage and storeroom.

Morning coffee in the disaster zone. Was this our living room, our bedroom, our patio, our garden, or all of the above?

Have we left yet? Not quite, but have we moved? Yes, and what a move it was. When we drove away from our “small house” in Nevada City, Calif. the last time, headed for Siberia, it was just that, a “small house”. Now, having lived in it for several years, it became a “home”, with stuff. Lots of stuff!! Furniture, rugs, paintings, and a hundreds treasures collected over 40 years of travel. Our good friend, Jack Wardlow, helped us engineer and build shelves in our storage room off the new garage, designed to fit specific size boxes, including the always popular and available banana boxes. Now they are filled and labeled, so when we come back (if we come back) we can find all that stuff.

Our good friend, Jack Wardlow, helped us engineer and build shelves in our storage room.

Shelves were designed to fit specific size boxes. Like our expedition camper, no space can be wasted.

A day’s drive north from Lee Power Steering in Sun Valley, we stopped at the Hellwig facilities in Visalia to have our Heavy-Duty Sway Bars and Hellwig Air Suspension bags checked.

Everything looked fine, but for long-term reliability, the sway bar bushings were changed and new Hellwig drop-arms with replaceable bushings were installed.

New Contitech bags were fitted and a small heat shield was added on the driver’s side to deflect the exhaust from our two Espar heaters.

Later at the Ken Imler Diesel Performance shop where much of our final preparation mechanical work is done, a full set of new Rancho RS9000XL Shocks was installed. Rears are set to #4 and the dual fronts are run at their lightest setting.

The bushings on our Heavy-Duty Hellwig Sway Bars were changed and lubricated.

The new Hellwig drop-arms for their Heavy-Duty Sway Bars have replaceable bushings for easier on-the-road maintenance.

It’s a luxury to have the people who engineer the product actually install the product.

The big hydraulic lift at the Hellwig factory made it easy to service suspension components.

New Hellwig drop-arms with replaceable bushings were installed.

New Contitech bags were fitted and air lines to our Extreme Outback air compressor system were installed. We can now adjust the air pressure from the cab.

The Hellwig Contitech Air Suspension allowed us to remove three leaves from our National Spring packs for a softer ride.

Rancho RS9000XL Shocks have proven to be the most reliable we have tried.

Using dual Rancho RS9000XL Shocks on the front eliminates the overheating problem that a single shock might experience.

It’s always nice to have the truck off the ground when suspension work is being done.

Mark Hellwig, owner of Hellwig Suspension products, joined us for an official send-off photo.

Following our brief stop at MagnaFlow Performance Exhaust, we continued up the California coast to Huntington Beach for a visit to the Dynatrac headquarters and factory. Dynatrac has been an important sponsor since they introduced their Free-Spin Heavy-Duty Front Hub & Bearing Kit which replaced the problematic factory unit-bearing on all Ford 4X4 Super Duty trucks. In addition to checking all the tolerances on our spindles and the components of the Free-Spin Hub, all bearings and seals were replaced with quality Spicer and Timkin parts. Our Dynatrac Ball Joints and DynaLoc Pro 60 Manual  Locking Hubs were inspected for any possible problems.

The technicians at Dynatrac inspected our spindles for any minor flaws or unusual wear.

The Dynatrac Free-Spin heavy-duty front hub and bearing kits eliminated the problem of the problematic factory unit-bearing.

As a precaution all the seals and bearings on our hubs were replaced with quality Timken and Spicer products.

The inner-axle seals and bearings are often overlooked when front hubs are serviced.

Our Dynatrac ball joints can be rebuilt in the field without any special equipment.

Heading north from San Diego, our next stop was the huge R&D facilities of MagnaFlow Performance Exhaust (www.magnaflow.com). We have relied on MagnaFlow’s quality and expertise since The Turtle V was first built. We needed a custom exhaust that would give us the best performance, be high up out of harm’s way, exit to the back for a quieter ride, and be at a slight angle to keep water out and exhaust flowing down. After our massive tire blowout in Baja, there had been a slight rattle where the tailpipe was too close to the spring hanger. Up on the rack, the problem was quickly solved, and all hangers and joints were inspected.

A slight rattle on the spring was fixed by adjusting the angle of the rear tailpipe section.

A little snip-and-tuck on the last bend in the tailpipe was made on the MagnaFlow operating table, a painless in-and-out operation.

Having a rack that will lift a 15,000 lb truck makes exhaust work go quickly and cleanly.

As we returned from the 2012 Overland Expo, there were several of our sponsors we visited to make final mechanical checks on The Turtle V before we head east to ship to Europe for the beginning of The Trans-Eurasian Odyssey. Our first stop was National Spring in El Cajon, Calif. (www.nationalsprings.com) They have been designing our springs for many years. Bill Rounds gave the system a once over and checked all the shackle bolts & bushings. New Rancho 9000XL shocks were installed and we were given a clean bill of health. (www.gorancho.com)

A few days later we were at the Hellwig facilities in Visalia, Calif. (www.hellwigproducts.com) where our rear air suspension bags were inspected and new bushing were installed in the heavy-duty Hellwig sway control bars. Hellwig’s new end-links with replaceable bushings were used.

Bill Rounds gave the system a once over and checked all the shackle bolts & bushings.

National Spring had recently rebuilt all our spring packs so we stopped for a final check-up.

New Rancho 9000XL shocks were installed all around.

Hellwig air bags are an important part of our rear suspension.

At Hellwig bolts were checked and bushings on our sway bars were replaced.

As a precaution, new bushing on our front and rear Hellwig BigWig sway bars were replaced.

It’s always easier to see any possible problems with the truck up in the air at the Hellwig shop.

Mark Hellwig gave us a proper send-off and wished us good luck during our visit at the factory.