These boots have rocketed up my list of all time favorite footwear. Lems is a small shoe company based in Boulder, hence the name of these boots. But let me explain a bit more. The Leather Boulder Boot is considered … Read More
Adventure: Where the Rubber Meets the Road. Or Trail
I’m not sure how you feel about the adventure tab here at Shifter, but let me say I believe this tab is perhaps the most critical of all. And I have a LOT of tabs people. Too many, probably. Too … Read More
Adventure: Death Valley Update
The shifting of transmissions, large and small, as they make their way up the eleven percent grade from the valley floor. The smart ones, the ones who have seen the light, move the slowest, heads aimed equally ahead and to … Read More
Adventure: Big Bend Ultra 30k
Well, I survived. The Big Bend Ultra 30k. My first race of any kind since I was in middle school. Training? Just enough to strain my left leg. So no, no real training. But, I went anyway, which is the … Read More
Adventure: The Freedom to Think
Another conversation with a creative searching for the path forward. The days of the well worn path are long gone. Now we find ourselves at the edge of the Sahara with tracks leading off in all directions. No clear destination. … Read More
Adventure: Across the White Sheet
Across the white sheet. Eight hundred and fifty miles. Think time. Alone but bursting with brainwaves. Searching, making notes and formalizing all those random things that end up being not so random. The land of Texans in fringe. Leather shawls … Read More
Adventure: California Training
Lots of activity here in the old OC. A mission on the horizon, so there is training to be done. If I haven’t said this before let me state it now. I’m not a runner. I was, way back in … Read More
Adventure: 2017, 4-door, Tacoma TRD Off Road Review
Well, as I approach my 32,000th mile I thought it time to give you a little feedback on my 2017 Tacoma TRD Off Road, 4-door pickup. Not my first dance with Toyota or the pickup for that matter. Our family’s … Read More
Adventure: Travels with Tacoma
I don’t want to be anywhere else. The West is being developing at an astonishing rate. If you too want to see this place you better go now because it won’t be long before vast swaths will be off-limits, gobbled … Read More
Adventure: Giving Thanks
Looking south toward the Sandias from Sun Mountain, Thanksgiving 2018 “You know,” a friend said. “I could have paid more in taxes, could have done more and would still have been okay.” “I saw a homeless guy earlier who had … Read More
Adventure: Driving West
For those of you who don’t know what it’s like to travel in the American West I wanted to provide you a few details of yesterday’s drive from Santa Fe to Costa Mesa. I’ve done this drive hundreds of times, … Read More
Adventure: Driving South
Storm clouds. Heavy, rolling thunder and standing pools near standing rock or the like. One, two, three, four, five, six times the baldy fourteeners rebelling out the landscape. Clear light butted by fringes of wispy vastness that only this region … Read More
Adventure: Driving North
A little business. Mixed emotions when I turn north. Into this place. This city. There is pain here, unforgettable. Moment of memory, so grand. Unrepeatable. And then. It ended. Summer night. Decades ago. Gunshots. Evil. The innocent, never supposed to … Read More
Adventure: New Mexico Training
My first time hiking Baldy alone, which was fantastic. Not that I don’t enjoy hiking with friends, I do, but working alone allows for the mental and physical games we play. I left the parking lot at 6:15AM but should … Read More
Adventure: “I’ll Walk for Food”
You might be asking “Milnor, what the Hell does a bunch of food have to do with adventure?” So insightful. Great question. Guess what? I’m going to tell you. My truck is currently sitting in the long-term parking lot in … Read More
Adventure: Tacoma Build
The Tacoma build is coming along nicely. Almost done actually. I know, I know, I’m never done, but I’m closer than you think. I’m not a total truck nut. Well, I am but it’s all about USING the truck that … Read More
Adventure: The Empire Strikes Back
The Inland Empire. Endless rivers of moist concrete. Lost bits of human ephemera. Traces where transient man used to be. Walking here is strike one. Motorists isolated in their metal coffins, clutching phones in sweaty hands, just try to make … Read More
Adventure: New Mexico Fly Fishing
Up early. Up north. Fires rage to the south, east and more north. Huge smoke plume through the bug streaked windshield but the white mushroom is moving in the other direction, for now. We are dry here, so dry that … Read More