Bundutec Odyssey

[Lighthawk]

After 14 years with our 08 FWC Hawk we have moved on to a flatbed camper.
Longtime WTW members may remember our various trip reports with our first gen Tundra/Hawk.
As retirement approaches, we decided we were still firmly in the truck camper family, yet wanted more room and amentities.

In 2021 I ordered a RAM 3500 Tradesman to replace my first gen 06 Tundra. We were lucky and beat the COVID supply chain problems. The FWC Hawk fit perfectly, but we weren't done. Meanwhile we did some great trips, including High Rock Canyon, Death Valley, Black Rock desert and up to our Grouse Ridge hideaways.

In January 2022 we installed an OEV Alumna flatbed working with KP Pawley of Zero Declination in Reno. I bolted down our Hawk, and this was our camping rig for two seasons.

After a decade with a Hawk we were ready to get a flatbed camper, and visited the FWC Woodland factory in 2021 to check out their Hawk flatbed model. We liked the underbed storage and larger cabin, but were priced out when adding options like solar/lithium. We also consulted with ATC, and other builders about what could be done. We looked into Bundutec and visited a neighbor who had a custom hardshell version.

We placed the order May 2023 with a 14 month lead time. We continued to camp with the Hawk bolted down for another year.

My 2023 winter project removed the backseat and built a 5 ply birch platform with access to below, L track, EVA boat decking and a removable dog bed.

June 2024 the camper is ready! I unbolted the FWC Hawk from our flatbed and we took off for a nine day road trip to Iowa.
We stayed in hotels in Salt Lake City, UT and Ogallala, NE. We just missed the catastrophic floods and the Missouri River was running high.


We checked into our last motel at Waterloo, ID a few miles from Bundutec HQ, exhausted from 1800 miles of driving.

The next day was a big one! We checked out and were at Bundutec at 8am to get our new Odyssey!

 

[Lighthawk]

Here she comes!

Bundutec is a dog friendly shop, and Callie joined the tribe.

We went out for some Waterloo pizza for our first outing, then spent the night camped next to Bundutec. We enjoyed our Truma heater/hot water and took showers with the attached QuickPitch shower tent.

I woke to torrential rain with the nearby creek rising, and a dead truck battery.
It seems we may be left the inverter running all night, and Bundutec installed a kill switch. I now am pretty careful to flip the resettable 80A breaker to off (open) under the hood when we are camped overnight.

Our first destination was Emerson, NE where SR's dad grew up. When she was young her parents would pack up the family and do road trips to visit family back there. SR was able to revisit some of her old haunts.

The landscapes were populated with huge windmills deployed in vast armies across the cornfields as far as the eye could see. We first saw them in Wyoming, but Iowa and Nebraska have a much larger population. They were fascinating, and helped me understand the dominant wind direction as I piloted our big box across the sand hills of Nebraska.

We stayed at Willow Creek SRA for a quiet night, and using the google, we headed south on a straight line gravel road to 275, west of Norfolk. Our destination was the Medicine Bow Mtns, in Wyoming, 575 miles and nine and a half hours of driving. We were getting used to long distance driving.

When I was an active rock climber I always wanted to visit Vedawoo, so we stopped to stretch our legs.

We had reserved a camp spot in the Medicine Bow NF, near Elk Mountain where there's an ongoing legal battle for public access across the touching corners of checker board land ownership legacy of the railroads.

The weather was interesting

Our night was uneventful until 530am when I heard a mosquito buzzing, and another, and another! We turned on the lights and began a bloody battle, killing dozens of the thirty buggers. I used a portable Makita vacuum and sucked up half the container full. I looked over my shoulder at one point and there were two dozen perched on the fabric popup wall eyeing me. Where we they coming from?? I stuffed cheese cloth into the Truma intake, guessing they were being sucked inside, but that wasn't it.

We got the heck out of there and went on a gravel drive heading south.
We walked a historical rail splitting camp looking at old log cabins, and I cast my fisherman's eye over creeks in high snowmelt condition. We took another short hike and decided the mosquitos were too fierce for our taste and left a day early, seeking a high, dry place with big views and no mosquitos.

We re-provisioned in Saratoga at the grocery store where the attached liquor establishment offered 32 oz. margarita slurpies. The guy in front of me bought two!

We found a great spot south of Green River, where we had had breakfast on our way out, heading south toward Flaming Gorge. We had 100 mile views over the vast landscape all the way to the Uinta Mountains.

SR found a six pack of budwiser beer in the bottle and they weren't bad!

It's pretty cool that without lift panels you can have open screens on all sides.
The top lifts and descends via electric rams with a push button. Dropping the top involves putting the Maxxaire on high exhaust, to suck in the tent walls as the top drops. Works like a charm.

We still had another two days of travel, and were off to visit the Ruby Mountains of Nevada which was a first for both of us.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

That is a cool camper! I like everything about it except the mosquitoes! Where were they getting in?

 

[Lighthawk]

Next installment, Sagebrush....

 

[fish more]

Very nice camper Andy !!! I like all the windows, a surround view.

 

[ski3pin]

Very nice camper Andy !!! I like all the windows, a surround view.

We noticed that - with envy - right away!

Beautiful setup!

 

[pvstoy]

Congratulations Andy! You'll start new adventures with excitement.

with the attached QuickPitch shower tent.

The company was happy to sell me one, enjoying the easy use of it.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Andy that's a nice upgrade. Keep us posted.
Thanks for the pictures.
Frank

 

[Lighthawk]

The mystery of the mob of mosquitos was solved. As I lay in bed with all the windows zipped I felt a steady breeze coming from the corner near my head.
The tent fabric has a reinforced edge that tucks into a channel at the top, except where it didn't.

It was a simple trick to work the fabric into the channel.

We hit the road and were off to the Ruby Mountains!

Driving towards Elko we began running into and running over hoards of mormon crickets. The right side of the highway was brown with their smashed bodies. Why do millions of crickets cross the road? I do not know.

Neither of us had been to the Ruby Mountains, a giant massif of 11,000 peaks lush with aspens and rushing trout streams above the dry Nevada desert. We had reserved a spot in the Thomas Canyon CG where each spot was private due to the dense aspen groves. Fortunately the campground was above beyond the boundary of the 2018 fire that burned 5000 acres.

We were impressed, and have since returned for another trip.

I'm in a struggle with Adobe Lightroom Classic that I haven't been able to solve yet, so these are mostly phone snaps.

We call the new rig the "Big Truck" for short. I'm looking to sell the Tundra/Hawk as most of you know.

 

[ski3pin]

Nice "Big Truck"! Enjoy it for many many years to come.

 

[goinoregon]

Thx for the trip report, and camper info. sounds like u have the camper/truck thing dialed in, or getting there

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Thanks nice camp space.
Oh the crickets are crossing the road ,wait for it,to get to the other side.
Frank

 

[pvstoy]

Crickets... run over as many as you can . You'll find them eating the ones that did not make it.

 

[SunMan]

Congrats on the new rig Andy and Susan! Hope to see it in person somewhere down the road this winter.