More mods and gear

After the Olympic Peninsula, we bought a few new things and, most importantly, brought Ody in for a suspension upgrade. Then it was off to Hood River, OR for Adventure Van Expo!

Van Compass 4.3

After doing, admittedly, a small amount of research, we concluded that there were three primary options for the suspension upgrade: Agile Off Road, Van Compass, and – the newcomer – Evictus. Given our limited expectation to use Odysseus off road, we opted for the Van Compass 4.3 kit and found Northwest European Autoworks was an authorized dealer and could fit us in relatively quickly to do the upgrade.

Holy moly! Night and day difference on the highway. In fact, was driving on curvy 55mph roads at speed with little concern. Crosswinds – particularly on the interstate – were also noticeably reduced. Looking forward to seeing what other improvements we notice – particularly on forest roads.

Other gear

Extra storage/organization was one of the most needed features from our first trip. We immediately purchased a few bags from Overland Gear Guy and have seen huge improvements already.

• Three overhead storage containers w/ labels
  
  They’re nice from an organizational perspective but are probably the least necessary of the items we purchased.
  
• Seat back storage
  
  SO MUCH storage! It’s perfect for all the little things we previously kept in a backpack. And, yes, the seat still swivels with the bag on. Most importantly, it holds the laptop and iPads.
  
• Seat back trash can
  
  A quasi-impulse purchase. We needed something for trash and were thinking of doing something on the outside of the van. Noticed that we could get this bag and bin. We opted for the zipper close, and it’s actually quite large.
  
• Microwave plate storage bag
  We had found a temporary, but cumbersome, fix for the microwave turntable noise while driving (using the window covering for the flare to wrap it, but then needing it for use at night). This little bag can just permanently stay inside the microwave until we want to use it (which we haven’t even done yet).

Still have a couple of other to-dos, but they will come in time.