Nonsense Thread

[MR E30 325is]

Absolutely agree. For an upcoming trip, I looked, but Airbnb stuff just doesn't seem worth it anymore. The rules and expectations don't make sense for the price.. better off paying for a boring room and saving that extra money for the area you wanted to explore in the first place.

Funny story. For that Washington trip I did with my girlfriend last year, one of our overnight accommodations was a tree house. Neat right? It looked fine in the pictures, and the price reflected the expectations. Nothing extravagant.
The listing said it was in an encampment off the grid. We were okay with that, we wanted something different. It said there would be a dirt road to get there, but nothing crazy; the listing said that their Civic makes the drive no problem.
I'm thinking, okay, I've done dirt roads with my lowered car. It's lower than stock but usable on any normal roads. I don't have to clench my cheeks for every dip in the road.

My girlfriend is the one that books the spot. She's given directions for the location, naturally. I don't look them over because hey, how bad can it be.
It's getting late at night. We're in the closest city to get a few supplies before heading out to the tree house/camp site. I forgot to bring a bottle of propane for our stove, oops. Checked 3 stores, none have any. Fudge. So we decide to eat like kings at McDonald's. By the time we're done, it's nearing 11PM. We should have already been there, but it is what it is.

Up the highway, into the forest. Over the hills, through the woods. This is taking a while. There's the turn-off, finally. 2-3 miles of paved road, great. Make a left at this checkpoint, and begin the dirt road.
Fellas, this was no simple dirt road. This was every crevice on the earth, condensed into the 6-gruuuueling-miles long journey deep into the forest. Bushes could brush my hand when out the window. Birds yelled at me to turn off the lights. Holes to China kept trying to steal my tires. The only thing missing was a desperate tow truck driver waiting for me to make a call. I was constantly feathering the clutch, and once in a while could make it into second gear. Some areas were wide enough for two cars, which I utilized to zig-zag around every untrustworthy pit in the "road." But sure, your average Civic could make it, if you didn't give a flying f ck about it.

And then, towards the end, you get, to, the river. A large vehicle could forge this. My dainty 2WD Tacoma could cross it as the water level was low and relatively weak. But my E30 could not. And frankly neither could a Civic. But fear not, there was a bridge!
A bridge, one that had stone approaches and the bare minimum of metal slats, spaced 3 inches apart, spanning the 20-foot crossing.
It wasn't the little bridge that had me worried. I walked it. I almost slipped and died on it. I wasn't concerned about the integrity of the bridge, at all. I was concerned about the immediate grade up to the bridge, from level, to like 20 degrees, straight back to level, within a span of maybe 10 feet. I drove up to it, and knew I was going to scrape and scrape and scrape. I knew I would destroy my oil pan if I hadn't already. I knew I would beach it. I would destroy the exhaust system I just built, and it would pull all the new exhaust studs right out of the head. So I said no. We're not doing this. We're not going one more mile after this bridge (the camp site was only a hundred yards from the bridge, so I'm told) but I wasn't going to try and angle it, or anything to make this work. No way.

So I drive in reverse for as long as I need to until there's enough space for me to make a 6-point turn. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the forest, in the middle of Northern California. I crawl my way back, keeping an eye on my engine temp (because that's been a problem), looking for the safest path between the trees. For 6 goddamn more miles. Waiting for any crazy person to come up and kill us, because of how easy that could have been.
But here we are, we made it. Off the dirt, then back on the highway. Past midnight now. Now what? Still in the middle of nowhere, still no cell signal. Actually there's finally enough signal for the map to load. Okay... closest civilization is back down the way we came. It's counter productive, but the next town ahead is about twice the distance with no guarantees of accommodations. Honestly, nowhere will be a guarantee, but it's late and I'm tired, so back down, about 30 minutes, to the closest city.

My girl falls asleep once we hit the highway. I wake her up once we're close to town, and have her call a few spots for a vacancy. One's open. We show up. The only room left is their jacuzzi room. I've never heard of that! It's outside the room, right? No, it's right next to the bed! Wow, living in luxury here. A hundred-some bucks later, and we're not sleeping in the car for a second night. (Yeah the first night didn't go well either lol).
No we didn't use the jacuzzi.

The host took days to respond, and didn't understand why we didn't show up. Eventually Airbnb refunded our money.

My girlfriend still wants to stay in a tree house one day. I guess the story's not over yet.

I deal with this kind of thing semi-frequently. People online will often say "passenger car" friendly/capable when describing some remote trailhead for a hike or a canyon. If we can, we want to take the Prius, it's faster and it gets 5x the gas mileage of the truck. But we learned our lesson a couple times, that peoples description of a road that any passenger car can go down is not precise whatsoever.

We've been on some 'passenger car friendly' roads in the truck and I couldn't believe any sane person would describe it as being car friendly. Haha. We are clearly in truck territory, maybe even lifted/armored truck territory.

People must not give a flying fuck about their cars.

[AceAndrew777]

We soon realized that our land has been hijacked to grow weed by the Mexicans..


We called the Sherriff and they basically said it's a huge problem and they're gonna be a while until they can do anything out there since they're basically a cartel army.

That's wild. The fact that this is happening in our literal backyard and there's little/no immediate recourse being done. What on earth is happening?

[DEV0 E30]

We called the Sherriff and they basically said it's a huge problem and they're gonna be a while until they can do anything out there since they're basically a cartel army.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-11/illegal-marijuana-grows-have-overrun-the-california-desert

Some pics from the land of their grow op.

Jebus, that's brazen. Glad you gtfo'd and nothing bad happened.

[MrBurgundy]

That's wild. The fact that this is happening in our literal backyard and there's little/no immediate recourse being done. What on earth is happening?

That's the most frustrating part..

Literally armed Mexican nationals taking privately owned American land...

***sends more money to Ukraine***

The cops were like yeah, they've been shooting people, chasing people off these roads blah blah blah..

The deputy was like we have to get a search warrant because it's not fenced off.. LOL

BRUH.. It's shitty that something of this nature has to climb the bureaucratic ladder of doom.

It's a literal invasion...

[AceAndrew777]

A search warrant... are you kidding me?!

I've listened to the stories of those guys that would go down into central and Sourth America to destroy the drug operations .... now it's here, under our nose, and it's just crickets from the people we pay to protect us. .... just a little blown away right now.

[MrBurgundy]

A search warrant... are you kidding me?!

I've listened to the stories of those guys that would go down into central and Sourth America to destroy the drug operations .... now it's here, under our nose, and it's just crickets from the people we pay to protect us. .... just a little blown away right now.

Yeah, I was blown away as well.... I was so angry...

The deputy was super cool and tried to be as helpful as possible, but it's one of those counties where they have 2 deputies patrolling a massive area, so they can't even respond to calls out there because they're outnumbered... It's infuriating, to say the least.. He told me if they point a gun at you, do what you have to do, but that goes without saying. It was just alarming to hear PD even recommend that in a place like California.

I feel bad for law enforcement and obviously the people who are in my shoes too.

I have client who worked narc for 35 years and told him about what we found. He was not even surprised. He advised me to never go out there again.

Moral of the story- stay strapped, because if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time like we were, it can get ugly real fast and if you call 911, they're not gonna come.

[rturbo 930]

That's the most frustrating part..

Literally armed Mexican nationals taking privately owned American land...

***sends more money to Ukraine***

The cops were like yeah, they've been shooting people, chasing people off these roads blah blah blah..

The deputy was like we have to get a search warrant because it's not fenced off.. LOL

BRUH.. It's shitty that something of this nature has to climb the bureaucratic ladder of doom.

It's a literal invasion...

That's fucking wild. If only we had, say, a wall, or I don't know, maybe a team of guys who's job it is to patrol the border to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

[2mAn]

MrBurgundy You werent carrying any of your AR's?

[McGyver]

I have client who worked narc for 35 years and told him about what we found. He was not even surprised. He advised me to never go out there again.

That's absolutely insane! Your best advise is to not go out to your land ever again!?!?!

So what's your plan?

[MrBurgundy]

Jebus, that's brazen. Glad you gtfo'd and nothing bad happened.

Seriously, that could have gone way worse than it did.

That's fucking wild. If only we had, say, a wall, or I don't know, maybe a team of guys who's job it is to patrol the border to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Yup.. People don't get it, man. They live in their cities, or in some suburb. They have no concept of what's happening and they hinder the ability for our government to become something that's actually useful in the name of.... .....I don't even know anymore...

Even when it comes to the point of why people need the 2A.. At least I could have helped myself out there if things got bad..

Anyways, that's getting into some P&R shit.

Super sad..

I've been thinking about it and I've been noticing trucks with large water tanks driving in and out constantly.

I use the land to throw music events and we have about 500 people out there. My next one is April and we've already spent like 20k putting it together, so when we went out there the other week to make sure everything is okay and that's when we noticed this.

Anyways, the last event, we noticed the water truck guys who shuttle water to the other grows that are around the land were just kind of watching us and the event.

I think they intentionally set up another location on our land to keep that many people from going out there and reporting this shit.

That's just a speculation.

Anyways, now I have to scramble to find another venue..

[Optimator]

Even when it comes to the point of why people need the 2A.. At least I could have helped myself out there if things got bad..

Anyways, that's getting into some P&R shit.

Gotta love how California taxes legal marijuana growers to the point that at market lows, growers would sooner destroy their crops than to sell it to avoid the tax burden--a degradation in pricing power in part caused by a supply glut from these illegal growers. A part of the taxes levied on growers should be used to reduce these illegal ops, but I guess it's too much of an ask to have a government that serves the people.

There is nothing inherently political about defending your own life with an equal level of force. However, I doubt they were shooting directly at you, as I believe they'd rather warn you than kill you, as killing you may result in scrutiny that they don't want on their operation.

[varg]

There is nothing inherently political about defending your own life with an equal level of force. However, I doubt they were shooting directly at you, as I believe they'd rather warn you than kill you, as killing you may result in scrutiny that they don't want on their operation.

Doubt it. A dead guy buried in the desert is a lot less of a liability than a guy telling the DEA he got shot at when he found a pot farm on his land.

[bradmer]

Seriously, that could have gone way worse than it did.



Yup.. People don't get it, man. They live in their cities, or in some suburb. They have no concept of what's happening and they hinder the ability for our government to become something that's actually useful in the name of.... .....I don't even know anymore...

Even when it comes to the point of why people need the 2A.. At least I could have helped myself out there if things got bad..

Anyways, that's getting into some P&R shit.

Super sad..

I've been thinking about it and I've been noticing trucks with large water tanks driving in and out constantly.

I use the land to throw music events and we have about 500 people out there. My next one is April and we've already spent like 20k putting it together, so when we went out there the other week to make sure everything is okay and that's when we noticed this.

Anyways, the last event, we noticed the water truck guys who shuttle water to the other grows that are around the land were just kind of watching us and the event.

I think they intentionally set up another location on our land to keep that many people from going out there and reporting this shit.

That's just a speculation.

Anyways, now I have to scramble to find another venue..

Yours is an amazing story, I have heard about this kind of thing happening in the forest but have never seen pictures. Your photos of their shit are amazing, you would think the DEA would love to see them along with an address. Also agree with what others have said in that you were fortunate to have gotten out of there, its' not like they were going to have a conversation...those are the folks that are bringing in fentynal.

[roguetoaster]

Plot twist, this is burgs' weed farm.

[MrBurgundy]

Plot twist, this is burgs' weed farm.

Hit me up for all your outdoor high desert weed needs, boys.