I just finished installing my snowboard rack. It’s night and raining so I can’t seem to take a very good photo of the truck. Yes, I put the rack on in the rain… I wanted to see if it was going to fit the same on the new truck. A lot has changed between the 2000 model Xterra and the 2006 – but the size of the rails on the roof rack is not one of those things.
This thing is different from my old Xterra – some good and some bad. The new truck has 261hp where my old one had 170hp. The entire truck is just slightly larger, but it feels huge to me. I thought the original Xterra was the perfect size. I feel like I’m riding higher, and I kind of like that. I had an ARB bullbar on my old truck, I miss it. The new one is an automatic where the old one had a manual transmission. Honestly, I still think I prefer a manual, but they’re hard to find in 4×4 models. I was looking for white and ended up buying a black one. The new one will have a hitch, so that’s pretty sweet. It does seem easier to find places to put stuff in the new one.
Anyway, this will be it’s first big trip. I’m still trying to decide on the tires. They’re kinda crappy but I don’t know if I can afford to trade them in. I only get $50 a tire trade in value! However, I did slip on the rain today going around a corner. I kinda sorta went fast on purpose to see if the tires would grip like my old truck. I lost traction in the front on a hard turn and slipped maybe a foot before it grabbed again. The stock BFG Rugged Trails just don’t grab like the BFG All Terrains do.
Maybe some day I’ll mod this one up. I’d love to add rock sliders, heavy bumpers, a small lift, big tires, wench, gps, cb, mp3 player, window tint, rain guards, a spoiler, and all kindas of stuff I honestly don’t really need. They sure look purdy all fixed up tho:
SnowTripping
So, I was really frustrated with the web cams on the Steamboat website. It didn’t load well on Firefox and all I wanted was to see some pictures. I tried it out on Opera with much better results. That’s when I found out what all the extra overhead was about. You can actually manipulate their webcams! Push a little button and you can adjust where the camera is pointed for a limited amount of time. If someone else is driving, you get put into a queue. It just almost works too! The feedback has a lot of latency, so it’s really difficult to use. However, the idea of controlling a camera about a thousand miles away is pretty nifty. On the flip side, it sure is annoying when someone ELSE has control of the camera!
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I usually try to post about snowboarding, but I thought this picture was worth sharing. We had a fog this morning when I got up. It’s winter here right now – the middle of December. For anyone not from Texas, our weather patterns are extreme and varied. The Rocky Mountains push cold air down through the country into Texas while the Gulf of Mexico pushes warm air in. The mix we get in the middle can be kind of chaotic. Today’s high is 75F (about 24C). It fell below freezing just recently and no one knows what it will be like in two weeks.
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It would seem that I’m headed to Steamboat Springs, CO! I’ve heard about Steamboat for years, and now I’m finally going to get to check it out. It’s the place Wil from 120DaysOfPowder.com ran off to. Just watch his videos for a while and you’ll get all fuzzy warm inside dreaming about the powder drenched descents.
Now that I’ve got another trip planned, I’m back in the gym. My last gym day was 11/21 – the day before we left on the Winter Park trip. If you count the trip as exercise (and it was!) then that’s just over 2 weeks of slacking. In those two weeks, I’ve consume more food than I like to think about. I guess my metabolism is high, because I can’t seem to get full. Tonight I got on the scale to see if all the consumption had done damage. I weighed in at 171lbs – I think I was 172lbs when I left for Winter Park. Go me!
I don’t really have a fitness ‘program’, but I’ve developed some habits. For a bit more information on snowboarding fitness programs, you can check out the fitness post on hitting kickers. He’s also got a few other exercise related posts. There are also a few snowboarding fitness posts on about.com. I might try detailing my own routine in a future post.
Enough about fitness, I’m excited to talk about something else – methods of travel. That is, specifically in relation to the upcoming Steamboat trip. I’m going with someone I should probably call out as my bestest friend in the universe. She really wants to fly there. Best tickets we can find last minute are around $450 and airport transfer is around $40. I want to drive. This is, in part, because fuel costs will run about $300 – saving us at least $700. It’s also because, tonight I decided I need to trade my Xterra in. We’ve had this long thread about the perfect snowtripping vehicle on DallasSnowboarders.com. I posted every vehicle I would consider owning and have been researching them all. At the end of it all, I can’t find another vehicle that seems to best the Xterra in total package. So, I think I’ll get another one. I think taking a road trip to Steamboat Springs is an excellent way to break in my new ride.
SnowTripping
Just got an e-mail from the good folks at Whistler… They had something interesting to say:
“The month of November will go down in history books in Whistler as the snowiest November ever with 4 metres or 13 feet 6 inches of snowfall!”
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Here’s a video from the Winter Park trip for Thanksgiving 2006…
SnowTripping, Trip Video Montages, Videos
I posted pictures from our trip to Winter Park over on DallasSnowboarders.com. Our photo album isn’t the most intuitive software around, but they’re there regardless. Enjoy.
SnowTripping
