Outskirts Overland Podcast
Welcome to the Outskirts Overland Podcast, your go-to source for all things overlanding! Hosted by a seasoned adventurer with over 15 years of experience, this podcast offers a genuine and down-to-earth exploration of the overlanding lifestyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting out, join us as we delve into the essentials of gear and equipment, share captivating stories from the road, and provide practical tips for your next adventure. Tune in for insightful interviews, expert advice, and a community of like-minded explorers who share a passion for discovering the world beyond the beaten path. Get ready to fuel your wanderlust and embark on unforgettable journeys with the Outskirts Overland Podcast!
Outskirts Overland Podcast
Pre-Cooling Your Camping Fridge: The Unknown tip
Ever faced the frustrating discovery of completely frozen food in your camping fridge? That's exactly what happened to a friend recently—and it's a common problem with an easy solution. In this rambling road chat, I share the essential practice of pre-cooling your camping cooler or fridge before trips, especially during hot weather. This simple step prevents thermostat malfunctions that can freeze everything solid while draining your battery.
The conversation meanders through personal updates, including my Subaru getting hit twice in one week (yes, twice!) and my weekend truck modifications. After some off-road adventures revealed the inconvenience of having compressor controls under the hood, I've rewired everything inside the cab. Now those lockers can engage with a simple click when I need them most—because sometimes you don't know you'll need them until you're already in a situation.
With Memorial Day weekend approaching, camping enthusiasts should be planning ahead. Popular sites fill quickly during holiday weekends, often by midday Saturday. My own weekend plans include the Savannah Bananas baseball show—think Harlem Globetrotters but for baseball—making my camping schedule tricky. Whether you're heading out for the holiday or just prepping for summer adventures, remember that proper equipment preparation, including pre-cooling your coolers, can make all the difference between a successful trip and a disappointing one.
Have you experienced camping fridge failures? Planning a Memorial Day adventure? Share your experiences and questions! And if you find these tips helpful, take a moment to rate and review the podcast—your support makes a tremendous difference.
Welcome to the World of Warcraft, episode 1 the Warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft, warcraft. Good morning guys. I forgot my mic this morning in the subaru I'm driving the truck, so sorry about that if it sounds kind of junk. Um, today is world plant a vegetable garden day. So, um, what that means to me is they've run out of days that something could be. Because world plant a vegetable garden day seems like and I'm sorry for you gardeners seems like a day we didn't really need to define and I'm sorry for you gardeners Seems like a day we didn't really need to define. I don't know. I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to take the truck to get aligned. I got this weekend was so busy. So Last week my car got hit. The Subaru got hit twice, so my bumper was all like jacked up and then it got hit above the rear window and it's got like a dent in it. So what the heck was going on last week? It's like super high winds and stuff, but the bumper was obviously somebody that swiped me in a parking lot, obviously freaking brand new car so that's tight anyways, so that's fun. I'm taking the truck to get aligned because it's I mean, it's been aligned forever and after my escapades a couple weekends ago it's definitely out of alignment. So it needs to get aligned. So I'm taking it today.
Speaker 1:But, just wild, I got my air compressor and my lockers wired up inside the truck. The lockers were wired up inside the truck, the lockers were wired up inside the truck, but the switch for the compressor was under the hood. I got that rewired up to where it is now in the cab with me because, again after my escapades a couple weekends ago, I realized a situation very well may occur where I'm not prepared and have the compressor, just have the compressor on, or I forget to put the compressor on and I need my lockers. Well, luckily I had it on, but it was, I mean, just luckily I had it on. I don't even know why I had it on, because I don't even know why I had it on, because I wasn't expecting to do anything insane, but it was on Whatever. But now I can just click it inside. I made a mount and it looks like absolute garbage, but the buttons, the switches, are there. I'll remake that mount.
Speaker 1:Eventually I wasn't really planning on doing it this weekend and then, I don't know, I just got a spurt of energy and decided that I was going to do that. So I threw those together, made a mount, you know, hastily, and moved on about it. Yesterday I got a message. So to talk about today. Yesterday I got a message from my friend, corey, and he had an issue with his fridge freezer this weekend where it was hot and it's hot, so this is relevant to anybody with a fridge. So it's hot outside and he's got a fridge freezer and he tried to let the fridge freezer cool itself down from the heat and it and it made his thermostat warm and then every then it, then it caused his bridge to run non-stop until it froze everything. This can happen, but it but.
Speaker 1:So if you don't ever want to and I've said this, I think I've said it before, if I haven't, I definitely say it in real conversation with folks you've got to pre-cool your cooler. So whether that's bringing it inside and open it up overnight before you go on a trip, I have two big igloo maxi cold or maxi cool, like super high performance, I don't know ice packs and they're huge and what I do is I throw those in the cooler and then that helps cool it down, you know, because you don't want your cooler, like the inside and the outside of your cooler are like both real hot and then, and then you've got this cooler trying to to essentially bring the temp down against a really hot temp. So you want to pre-cool your cooler. You know, cooler fridge whatever. Some people bring them inside and open them up overnight. Or bring them, bring them inside, open them up for a few hours and then turn them on, um, essentially plugged into the house, like plug them into that, excuse me, plug them into a plug in the house. So which is an option as well? I mean, mine has a tool but has a 110 plug at least I think all of them do. So they plug them into the house to cool them down so they don't have that issue. But you still got to open it to let it, let it cool itself. So make sure, as temps are getting hotter, they're hot now but like, just pre-cool your, pre-cool your fridge, or you could end up freezing everything and draining your battery because your fridge won't, won't regulate the temperature, because the thermostat got too hot, so the thermostat continues to think that it's hot, like the cooler's hot, even though it's frozen.
Speaker 1:This is something that's like not novel to me and this happens. I had a Dometic fridge previously and it did this exact thing too. But so, and I would. I'm not going to tell you guys it's a Dometic thing, because I did it once too, and it just happened to be a Dometic fridge. I did it once too, and then after that I started pre-cooling. I mean again, like I tell you guys all the time, like I don't know that I learn a lot of anything from any other way besides just epic failures. So I mean that's real. I mean I guess that's somewhat of an epic failure when all your stuff's frozen.
Speaker 1:Being frozen isn't as bad as going bad, but you still can't use it if it's frozen solid. So make sure you pre-cool your cooler so the fridge regulates really, so that you can uh. So make sure that you're getting the best out of your equipment. And the same thing with a regular cooler. Like, if you don't pre-cool, if you don't pre-cool your cooler, you're also going to melt ice at like a much more rapid rate. Like pre-cooling a cooler is a thing, and a lot of people just load that sucker up in the heat. Their cooler sits in the garage. It gets hot too, like it's. It is a real thing. Even if you have a super high performance cooler like a yeti or an arctic or whatever you know roto-molded cooler, it's still going to do it too, like you've got to cool those materials down before you throw ice in there, or the material itself cooling down is going to start to take some of your energy and potentially energy, and potentially, if you've got a fridge, the thermostat won't work right for you.
Speaker 1:So, um, that's my big topic. You know my big point of discussion for today. Uh, oh, my goodness, it was a crazy weekend. It was hot, it was, it was busy, super busy, super hot. It rained this morning. It's supposed to rain like all day, but if you guys can see, that's the sun on my hand, so it's not and it's 70, so that's good. Might be able to get some activity in today, a little bit of walking, get some walking on, you know, and walk on. But yeah, so I'm just taking the truck to drop it off. Nothing big going on.
Speaker 1:Last Friday I decided not to podcast because I podcasted Thursday and barely anybody listened to it, because my podcast with Benji on Newfound Overland also got released on Thursday. Podcast got listened to pretty much all weekend. So I did do that on purpose. It wasn't like happenstance, that's not some and before I've not released on Thursday when the podcast comes out with Benji. But I still did and I'll just have to work on that. That's like a once a month thing and I maybe just take one of the days of that week off. Whenever I podcast with him, whenever he's releasing it, I may take that day off, because I did notice that I was just going to get way ahead of you guys and I did that previously too. So I just need to manage that better and just hop on here the days that those are up and go. Hey, go on over there and listen to that one I was on and feed it, you know, helping us both out. But, guys, that's about what I got for today.
Speaker 1:It's Memorial Day, weekend's coming up, so it should be a big camping weekend. If you guys want to, let me know what trips you're doing, what you got going on, that'd be awesome. But I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to Savannah Bananas on Saturday night. If you don't know what that is, it's like I don't know. I keep telling people it's kind of like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. It's like kind of like trick baseball entertainment, more so than just baseball type thing, and they dance and they sing and it's like a whole thing. Me and my girlfriend are going. I follow them on social media. I think it's fun, I think it'll be fun, so we will uh, we'll be going on that Saturday, so I don't know what that lands us on.
Speaker 1:So Friday night with uncle camping, cause we're on baseball game Saturday, so we might go camping Sunday into Monday. I don't know. Um, it's really unlike me to not go camping, but like I don't really know what, I don't't know, I don't know where we'll go or because it's going to also be a popular weekend. So if you don't go, get a spot. If you don't want to snag a spot friday night, friday night slash saturday before midday, like you might not get one. It is a popular time and I've had a podcast before where I have not had issues camping on the over the holidays Memorial Day, you know, 4th of July I haven't had those issues.
Speaker 1:But but if I'm trying to get somewhere, like if I don't got the time to get somewhere, like out in the woods, like you're, more easy to access areas, I'm sure, or like you're, you're, you're places that anybody can go camp at, pretty much like a gravel road, you know, paved campsite stuff like that. Those are gonna be full this weekend for sure, and I'm not gonna drive six hours saturday morning. We'll get to a spot just to camp son or, excuse me, sund, sunday morning, just to camp Sunday night. So I've got a I don't know, I'll plan on this is me all the time. I'll plan for it this week. I mean, I've got five days to plan for it, but so I may go camp somewhere. Maybe I'll go camp Friday, maybe I'll go camp Friday night. I'll end it midday Saturday, because baseball game is not until Saturday night. Who knows, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm just talking to you guys out loud, like thinking, but I am taking my truck to get aligned. It hasn't been aligned in like too long and my tires are starting to wear. Not bad by any means, guys. It just made me think of it. I was checking my tires today and they're wearing a little bit. I've had them a year and I've rotated them multiple times in that year and the truck's been aligned multiple times in the year. Well, once in the year I usually get aligned every six months. But anyways, I was looking at the tread on the tires and thinking about how I need to rotate them and change the oil on the truck is a little over and I was like, huh, when's the last time I had an alignment? So I looked and I was like, man, I'll take it in this week, get it aligned, it's due. So that's what I'm doing nothing but I'm spectacular going on here. But yeah, guys, that's what I got.
Speaker 1:I'll catch you guys tomorrow. And it's a short one today, but I'll catch you guys tomorrow. Let me know what's going on, keep me updated. Go by and give the podcast a rating and a comment, leave a comment, review something. It helps me out a lot. I really appreciate it and I will catch you guys tomorrow Later.
