Outskirts Overland Podcast

Navigating Tornado Aftermath: Preparing for More Expo 2023

• Charlie Racinowski

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Mother Nature doesn't care about your overlanding plans. That's the harsh reality facing many attendees heading to More Expo 2023 this weekend in Springfield, Missouri, as tornadoes and severe storms have just swept through the region, toppling trees and flooding trails days before one of the Midwest's premier overlanding gatherings.

With winds reaching 70 mph and rainfall totaling four inches in some areas, the aftermath presents real challenges for those traveling to the event. Entire ash trees now lie in parking lots, rural roads have become obstacle courses, and the ground promises to remain soggy through the weekend. For overlanders driving in on trails, a chainsaw has suddenly become essential equipment alongside the standard recovery gear. This scenario perfectly illustrates what many experienced adventurers call "the ultimate equalizer" - no matter how well-equipped or prepared you might be, severe weather changes everything.

Despite these challenges, excitement remains high for More Expo. You'll find me at Booth 264 with Midwest Adventure Outfitters, armed with stickers, high fives, and readiness to discuss everything from vehicle builds to gear innovations. Between picking up my freshly serviced truck, attending a Blues playoff game, and preparing for a live podcast and afterparty, it's shaping up to be an intensely busy week - which is why I've decided to camp on-site rather than commute from elsewhere.

For those in the overlanding community, especially across the Midwest where we don't have an official Overland Expo event, More represents our best opportunity to connect, explore new gear, and separate innovative products from mere knockoffs. Content creators, vendors, and enthusiasts pour tremendous effort into making this gathering valuable for everyone involved. If you're attending, pack accordingly for the conditions, stay alert for weather changes, and remember that safety trumps adventure every time. Stop by to share your storm stories or discuss what you're most excited to see at the event!

Speaker 1:

The hey everybody, happy Monday. This is Charlie, with Outskirts, overland, as you can see, blues play tonight in their second playoff game. Unfortunately they're down one from Saturday, but I guess that doesn't matter. Today's, monday, the 21st, it's the week of more expo. I was going through the list yesterday of all the vendors at more and kind of looking through websites to see what there's, what's going to be there and different things. It's a ton of it's a ton, it's a ton, and that doesn't even touch. You know just what's going on outside. So so it's a big week. Week of Moore. You know today is the day after Easter. I didn't look at what national day it is, because the day after Easter and the Blues play a playoff game and it's the Monday of more Expo. That's enough, that's enough going on for me to be happy with what today is. It's also Monday, man, you know Monday, monday, but a busy, busy week for a lot of us. For me it is. Let's go get my truck on Wednesday, so I'm excited about that Thursday, going to the Blues home playoff game and then heading straight to more like late, late, slash, early, early. So hopefully that goes okay the whole way.

Speaker 1:

And man, the weather was freaking crazy. Yesterday we had a. So here I'm here in missouri, mid-missouri, and we had, uh, and there was quite a few tornadoes touched down around us and a lot of people were taking cover. There's been some damage some people's yards, houses, sheds, roofs, you know. A lot of stuff got messed up. By no means is it catastrophic. I haven't heard about, you know, taking the life of anyone, so any of them you know there was a lot of them, so that was that took up a lot of my day was kind of just keeping an eye on that because it was pretty, it was. It was pretty bad, um. So yeah, um, you know, put your thoughts out to all those affected and hope that everything you know works out okay as they, as they work toward rebuilding what they lost and different things, cars, you know, houses, sheds, belongings, anything that was affected. It was pretty crazy, honestly.

Speaker 1:

Today is opening day of turkey season here in Missouri, so I have seen an abnormal amount of trucks on the side of the road, you know, kind of in fields. I live out in the country, so trucks on the road in fields. I've seen two game wardens on my way to work. Now, that's crazy because, again, I live in a country. It's a big hunting community where I live, a huge hunting community and I think I've mentioned it before, but I bow hunt.

Speaker 1:

I am not turkey hunting or exposed this week. I am just too busy to be doing that. So, you know, understand, guys like I do care about you because that's something I could totally be doing and just not care. You know, just that's what I'm doing. Tough luck, you know, type thing. But I am, you know, I'm trying to take it serious. So I won't be turkey hunting.

Speaker 1:

But man, I have seen two game wardens say my drive to work is only like 10, 12 miles. So that's kind of crazy, that's really kind of crazy guys To see. Somebody just asked if I ever got a donation. No, I've never got a donation on anything or anything. I don't have anybody to make money with the podcast, but I appreciate you Donate, your kind words, I like that. So you had two game wardens. So I was like man, that's kind of crazy. And what stinks too is that because it rained so much, it's real overcast so the sun theoretically doesn't come out. So I'm sure all the hunters were kind of like dude, what the f? Because uh, there's no, you know, like it was late, that's all. And those turkeys are out. You know, in the morning you can't catch them in the afternoon, different things, but that doesn't particularly matter. I think we're supposed to get.

Speaker 1:

Uh yeah, johnny said he saw at least 15 turkeys on the trails. It was youth season, so no offense to any of our young hunters out there, but some turkeys were. You know, shooting a turkey with a shotgun is a little scary for a little guy or girl. So it's likely that those turkeys were already shot at and they were just trying to get the hell out of there. Um, I did not see a lot of young guys get turkeys. I heard of a lot of young guys, uh, getting scared and that happens. The same with goose hunting too. Like, shotguns are hard for little guys and girls. You know they're long, they're heavy, they kick and some people say, well, deer hunting, well, you can get a two, you can get a 240. Well, 243 and put it on a tripod and nobody's worse to wear. So I would assume those turkeys are moving and that's all which. If it was on the trails, that means they were at the public land, which is good for all the public landowners down there in arkansas.

Speaker 1:

But uh, yeah, it's opening day here in missouri. I don't know what it is in arkansas. I don't live in arkansas, I don't hunt in arkansas, so that's about what I know about that. So, yeah, it rained a ton four inches of rain in my house, but it's a week or more. I mean, what else can I say? I'm getting ready for that, packing, preparing, you know, and I'm busy, you know, two other days. So it's not just more, it's getting my truck, it's more, it's the blues playoff game. It's just a busy, it's just a very busy week.

Speaker 1:

It'll be good, though. It'll be good. I'm excited to go to more. It looks like it's supposed to be nice temperature Friday and Saturday. It does look like it might rain Friday. So that's, we'll see how that goes, but it looks like it's supposed to rain friday. I haven't put too much into it because I'm just trying to manifest that that doesn't happen. I just don't want it to. I just don't want that to happen.

Speaker 1:

Um booth, I think I'm at what is it? Booth 264 with Midwest Adventure Outfitters. It's an outdoor booth. So, again, I just really don't want it to rain at all. But if it does, I got a 270 awning and I mean I'll be okay. We've got a little canopy, we'll be fine. It just just less. It's just not ideal, that's all, but that's cool. I hope to see a ton of you guys there. I'll have stickers and high fives with me. Um, you know, be happy to talk to you guys about anything you want to talk about, whether it's stuff at the booth, whether it's my truck or your vehicle, or build out thoughts and different things. Um, it's what I'll be there for. So I'll be happy to talk to you guys and see you guys there. It'll be. It'll be a really fun time.

Speaker 1:

I have decided to camp there. I was gonna camp with my buddies off-site but given that I'm doing the live podcast in the after party, I just am going to want to get into bed. It's going to be super busy for me, so I'm just going to be camping at more, whether that's at the booth or in Northology's campground. I for sure have the ability to do both, so I may be even amongst some of you guys camping. I will try to let you guys know, kind of, where I'm at If you guys want to come by and look at the truck or maybe me after hours or before hours or whatever, because I'll still be.

Speaker 1:

You know, I still got to eat, I still got to sleep. I still, you know I'm not going to be. I mean, maybe I do party all night, who knows? I definitely can, but it doesn't matter. I like the idea of being able to stay up late, go to sleep, wake up in the morning and not have driving work Just because I'll be so busy. I'm not going as a consumer, so it's highly potential. I'm just wore the F out, just wore out. So there's all kinds of brands there. But man, if you guys are I've talked about it before If you guys are trailer people, there's gonna be a lot of trailers there.

Speaker 1:

X grid campers reached out to me and wanted to talk trailers. They'll be there, um, and obviously they listen to the podcast. So I will look forward to seeing you guys there. I would definitely come over and say, hey, see what we can work out to get you guys on the podcast or get some content together. I would love to. I'd love to learn more about trailers. Even though it's not my jam, obviously, it's some of my, it's some of my listeners jam, so I'd be happy to learn about trailers. I'm psyched that you guys will be there, since you guys have reached out to me. There's other trailer brands, brands, but they don't matter. X-ray campers will be there and that's the only one that you should care about, because that's how I roll. You scratch my back, I scratch your back, so that's just how it is.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, guys, I don't have a lot, just busy week, just busy. You know, spent the whole weekend. Was easter yesterday, you know, spent the whole weekend, kind of still, even so, getting ready for this week, doing everything I can do outside of the truck because it's not with me, so making sure that I got all the other stuff ready to go Clothes, you know clothes, podcasts stuff, influencer stuff, content lined out for the week. You know, kind of like my digital flyers going out, shout out to Benji for getting that done, just yeah, just getting getting every, getting all my ducks in a row so that when I get the truck on Wednesday, all I really got to do is probably to do is maybe, maybe not wash it. That's all I should have to do Throw my sleeping bags back in it, because I got some stuff here in the Subaru to go camping and that's it. I mean, that should be it. That should be all I got to do, which things never go as smoothly as we hope, but let's hope in this case, that they do. Okay, let's just let us pray. You know, like, let's hope they all go well.

Speaker 1:

For those of you guys coming to more, go ahead and shoot me a message or comment, or email me me, text me, whatever's going on. What are you guys most excited to check out? There's some new stuff that's gonna be there, uh, that I'm excited to look at. I'm not going to, you know, kind of uh, show my cards as far as that's concerned, because I want to go look at stuff. Holy mo, moly.

Speaker 1:

See, guys, this is what I'm talking about, though. Like, look at this. I told you guys it like tornadoed. Can you guys see that that's a freaking tree in the parking lot, like a whole ash tree? That's see, man, it was. Midwest is crazy, bro. The Midwest is crazy with this stuff Like this. I don't even where did this come from? What in the world? Just a whole ass tree. Dude, it was man, it was wild yesterday. Yesterday was wild, it was crazy. You could hear that tornado, you know, growling. It was freaking nuts. I did have one touchdown kind of near my house. Um, luckily it wasn't a big one and I wasn't in the path, so that's good. Do you have some? Uh, I mean, do you know, my house felt the effects of the high winds, but wild, dude wild.

Speaker 1:

Which brings me to another point. If you guys are doing the s'more to more any trails or anything and you're with a group, make sure somebody in that group's got a chainsaw. Because, again, I live in Missouri and Springfield, specifically in the surrounding areas Springfield, st Louis, kansas City, overland Park Park, like there's a bunch of ways you could come in this through the, you know, missouri, whatever it is backcountry Discovery route. Dude, there's gonna be like I got a tree in the freaking whole tree in the parking lot right here. They're gonna be down on rural roads and trails. So make sure somebody that's with you has got a chainsaw. If you don't have a chainsaw and you were saving money to buy some equipment, go ahead and do yourself a favor and get a chainsaw before you go, because it's going to rain again tomorrow, on Tuesday, and it might do the same thing.

Speaker 1:

Like we've been dealing with unprecedented like winds. I saw some stuff winds as high as 70 miles an hour yesterday, which again, uh, you know, if you guys are into I don't know that I'm into tornadoes, but like ef5 is the biggest tornado that's ever actually hit and that was in joplin, missouri. But the way that they measure tornadoes is like size, wind speed et cetera. Well, wind speed for like an EF3 is like 150 to 60 miles an hour. So I mean it was 70 mile an hour winds. So in, in the grand scheme of things, pretty little, you know, pretty little guy, but still 70 freaking miles an hour.

Speaker 1:

I mean I bet that I don't know, I didn't go. I mean I was in my bathroom, I was in the bathtub, so I don't know, I don't know, I didn't step out into it. I'm, I'm smarter than that. I've lived in here in the midwest for long enough to know like I've seen enough of it. I'm good. I'm not trying to get impaled by somebody's you know screwdriver they left in their driveway that flies through my face. I've seen a lot of weird stuff. So, but yeah, anyways.

Speaker 1:

So bring a chainsaw with you. It's going to be, you're going to want one. I mean I'm assuming you'll need one. Also, make sure you bring your rain gear. With the amount of rain we just caught, I'd have a hard time believing by Friday it's dry, unless we get some decent heat and like wind, without more rain. You know, like we need some heat and some rain to make it to dry it up, that's. I don't know if that's in the cards. It's gonna be decently warm today, but I don't know that it's in the cards to to get dry. I just don't. I mean, I'm like I'm here, I showed you guys the tree that's down on the like in this parking lot over here, but like parking lots are almost still flooded and it hasn't rained since. Excuse me, since, like I don't know, seven last night and it's 8, 30 in the morning, so 13 and a half hours the concrete's still wet. You know, humidity prize, I'm doing it, man.

Speaker 1:

Crazy weather is one of the crazier things when it comes to camping and overlanding, because it's kind of the thing you can't plan for. You know you can pack to be dressed for it, but like you never know what it's going to do, what it's going to, what destruction is going to cause, how that's going to affect your trip. You know, it's just, it comes, man, and it you don't have, you just got to deal with it. It's nuts. But yeah, weather's the ultimate equalizer, for real, you know they. They said that in the military a lot too. You know, like weather's the weather's the equalizer, you can't, you can't, you can't always be prepared for everything all the time. Just not possible. Yeah, more is coming. Tornadoes hit, lots of rain. More is in Springfield, missouri, which is two hours from where I live. So not far. I'm very aware that it got some severe weather yesterday. So make sure you guys just make sure you're prepared for the ground to be soggy, make sure you're prepared to cut down some trees if you're coming in on trails, you know, just be ready.

Speaker 1:

And some of you guys will be leaving soon on those discovery routes. I don't know how long they take to get to more expo, uh specifically, but I'd assume you guys aren't leaving on Thursday or Friday if you want to be there Thursday night or Friday morning. So just be careful, guys. Pay attention to checking your tires, pay attention to, you know, washouts, things like that. They won't be marked because they just happened. Be careful about that stuff, guys.

Speaker 1:

Other than that, I got nothing for you guys. I'll catch you guys tomorrow. Hopefully I have some new developments about my truck today that I could talk about tomorrow. I've still got some emails out to some companies and maybe I'll have some things to talk about with that. I've still got some emails out to some companies and maybe I'll have some things to talk about with that, but maybe not. You know, you never know Companies that I want to talk to you, like bring some information to you guys.

Speaker 1:

I think there is a couple of companies that are at this event, that will be at this event, that I've reached out to, that I think, have innovative stuff and I would like to hear from them, like why they innovated it the way they did. And you know kind of what, what went into that, what the engineering thought was, what the brainstorming thought was on that, because although I don't make gear for this hobby, I do appreciate people that are trying to kind of bring new stuff, and you know it's not a tenths of tenths of tenth. You know, like there's varying degrees of difference between a lot of them. It's not, you know, just because it's the same as something else doesn't make it the same as something else. People do it differently different materials, different ways to maintain it, different. You know, some stuff's just way more thought through. That's just all there is to it and some of the things I've seen. I think they're thought through.

Speaker 1:

You know I've been misled. You know marketing's misled me before, but hopefully I can get with some of these companies at more and just talk to them. You know, just a little bit like hey, what's up? Like let's what's going on, what's what's this about? Kind of thing brought you to think this was needed in the space. That's the kind of stuff I want to bring to you guys.

Speaker 1:

Also, I will, you know, converse with these companies. Like I don't think we need to do that. Like you know, I am a straight shooter, so I would also be like you know, why do you think the overlanding community wants this? If they got a, you know, canned answer I don't quite think is correct, I'm gonna target that is all. Like not in a bad way. Just like why do you think that? Where did you get that information? What research did you do? Stuff like that, see what's? There's a lot of stuff out there.

Speaker 1:

Guys, I'm gonna be real honest with you. Like they're just knocking off good products to make crappy products cheaper that are based on a good product and kind of piggyback marketing off the good one. That's just what it is. I mean, I think that's everywhere and everything. That's just. That's just how it. That's that's business that's manufactured. But when I see something that's not like anything else, that intrigues me and makes me feel like it's probably not a rebranded thing, that 16 other companies got made at the same warehouse and screen printed their logo on, so I'm happy about that. But yeah, that's it. I mean, I'm just rambling today. I'm going to be rambling until I can get through this week.

Speaker 1:

I don't think you guys even can understand unless you're kind of in the same situation. You're kind of in the same situation how big of a deal this is for networking and you know, talking to your, your listeners, talking to your fans, talking to your customers, it's just as stressful like it's not bad stress, nothing's bad stress, but nonetheless it's still a lot on the people that are going for those means. So it's a lot. So if you see us Saturday night, don't judge any of us based on the fact that we're just smoked, because it's probably been a month or more of just constant go, go, go, go, go, go go. Whether it's emails, communication, merchandise, you know Everybody's dealing with the stuff that's raising prices and you're getting price hikes on stuff you already even ordered, like stuff's more expensive before ships, even like it's just a, that stress we don't even you know that stress we've never had any other year. But whatever, we're all dealing with that. So just know we're all putting in a lot of work to make this good for you guys, make ourselves available for you guys, try and be as ready as we can for you guys and create a good experience for all of you that attend, as far as what we can provide. So hopefully you guys all understand that Nobody's taking it lightly. We're all taking it serious and we're trying to be ready to serve you guys the best we can.

Speaker 1:

This is probably the biggest event in the Midwest. The Midwest doesn't have an Overland expo, so more is that. You know I mean overland expo like overland expo, like as a company, like overland expo east, west, south, you know, north, northwest, um. We don't have one of those in the midwest and, quite frankly, pretty much all of your like a lot of your guys at least podcasters in the Overland space are from the Midwest Missouri, kansas, oklahoma, arkansas, like a lot of us, are from that area. So this is a big deal for all of us to make sure to get to see you guys, because people do travel from all over. So, anyways, have a good week guys.

Speaker 1:

Make sure you're staying safe, make sure you're thinking. Severe weather went through where you're going to go this weekend, if you're going to more Expo, if you guys are everywhere else, get out. I mean it looked like some snow up north happened, so hopefully that's getting to be the end of that for you guys up north, but because of that you might want to get out because it might be the last time you see it this year. Everybody else, just be safe, be thinking about you know, paying attention. Make sure you're not camping under trees, things like that. These winds are crazy, this weather is nuts. It doesn't mean you can't go camping, just pay attention, be careful. And I't mean you can't go camping, just pay attention, be careful. And I'll see you guys tomorrow and I hope to see all you guys on Friday and Saturday, so I'll catch you later.