Hello everyone! I'm Terry from Covington, Va and I'm a novice by all accounts. I've been camping, I'm a member of a local off-road club and we've taken weekend camping trips to places like Uwharrie, NC and Harlan, KY and tent camped but that was just me and a buddy in his F150 truggy and what we could strap to the bed. Cooking hot dogs over fires and eating pop-tarts for breakfast. However, the wife and I both enjoy camping and traveling and with 3 kids, are wanting to get them outside and enjoy the world around us more.
So, the vehicle is a 2007 Xterra S. Stock right now but some mods to come as budget allows. My wife started back to school in the fall and that's kinda cramped our budget for unnecessary vehicle mods. Not a bad start, bought it from a friend with a rebuilt transmission (SMOD) and have been doing some general maintenance to it as we go. It's my DD and I have a dedicated wheeler already (double locked K5 Blazer on 35s, clocked t-case, almost flat belly, still working on shifter/exhaust) so the Xterra will stay pretty mild.
I picked up my 3rd week of vacation at work this year (8 years) and we've decided to spend that week on the road visiting people and places we've been saying we would for a while now. I'll get into more detail about that later though. I was on ExPo but I didn't find it that nurturing to novices and found out about this forum and thought I'd give it a shot.
I'm in industrial Instrumentation as a profession at the local paper mill and grew up on a farm with a GM trained ASE certified mechanic and industrial maintenance worker for a Dad. I'm also a Ham, KJ4TOZ, as well as a general tinkerer. Hope to learn a lot and be of some use around here in the future.