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
Stay Ready for the Road: Seasonal Overland Setup and Winter Camping Tips
The seasons are changing, and with cooler mornings upon us, it's the perfect time to dive into the essential gear maintenance that separates casual campers from seasoned overlanders.
Every experienced outdoor enthusiast knows the importance of a seasonal gear overhaul - that meticulous process where we clean, treat, and prepare our equipment for the challenges ahead. Throughout this episode, I walk through my comprehensive maintenance routine that keeps my setup ready for whatever Mother Nature throws my way. You'll hear how I treat my fleece gear with Nikwax for water resistance, properly maintain knives with the right oils (spoiler: it's never WD-40), and reorganize my entire vehicle for maximum efficiency.
One of the most valuable lessons I've learned over decades of overlanding is the power of staying packed and ready. Whether you have a dedicated overland vehicle or need to use storage tubs with your daily driver, maintaining a state of constant readiness eliminates the stress and forgotten items that plague last-minute adventures. I'll share my system that allows me to hit the road at a moment's notice without second-guessing my preparation.
The episode also dives into those small but crucial camping habits that dramatically improve comfort - from placing chairs under your vehicle at night to prevent morning dew, to positioning shoes in the footwell to warm up when you start your engine. Plus, I tackle the persistent challenge of keeping water from freezing during sub-zero winter camping adventures, a problem I'm determined to solve this season.
Ready to elevate your overlanding game with practical, field-tested knowledge? Listen now, and if you're planning to attend Overland America, use code OUTSKIRTS10 to save on your tickets!
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Outskirts Overland. Today is Monday, monday. Monday, it was a beautiful weekend, guys. Like the weekend was so freaking nice. I got out of camp in one night. It was so freaking nice I couldn't not do it really. But, uh, I, uh, man, it's just been, I don't even know what else to say. It's just been so nice. Right now it's 65 degrees this morning. That is, that is phenomenal, I uh, but it's colder. So what I do immediately is I went through my whole truck and went well, it's getting cooler. I should make sure I've got all the right stuff ready to go, packed, ready, cleaned.
Speaker 1:I went camping, I don't know when it was June maybe and I got caught in some rain, some pretty nasty, some nasty rain, and I, um, and anyways, and all my stuff got kind of muddy, but I am me, so I just left it muddy and it's been that way for the last couple months. It was early june, so june, all of june, all of july. But coming into winter I know that like all of my down stuff and fleece stuff and whatnot, it doesn't near work nearly as well if it's dirty, keeping you warm and stuff. So I went through and treated all my fleece and my kids fleece with uh, I feel like such a salesman. I make nothing from Nick wax, but they, they just make good stuff. Um, so I went through and treated all my fleece and kids fleece with the polar fleece, which what that does essentially is just a wash, and you wash your fleece and it now it's water resistant, which is great for the kids too, because the kids hate wearing bulky coats in car seats, so I always have fleece for them. But then they still don't get all wet and like hypothermic and stuff. You're not like, oh, the kids are going to die. You know Stuff like that. So it's just nice to have and get done. So it's all done, got it done, tested it, it's all water resistant. Again, it's perfect. I do that more like once a year.
Speaker 1:Um, I went through, washed, washed all my sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, pillowcases. I emptied out the truck and cleaned the truck, got some stuff out of there, reorganized some stuff, got everything out of there and reorganized it. Took all my knives out of my kitchen camp kitchen setup and sharpened all those, oiled them, put them back. Sharpened my splitting axe Oiled it, put it back. Sharpened my hatchet oiled it, put it back Like you guys get, get the get the gist here. Like I went through and serviced my stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, I have some like silky hand saws. If you don't know, a silky saw is like a foldable. It folds out like a pocket knife but it's long, probably two foot long, maybe longer than that even. You can get them in all kinds of lengths. But they're saws to saw, you know, logs to saw trees and logs hand saws. They had a little bit of rust on them so I wd-40 them and clean them. You know, clean them down. They're supposed to be stainless but naturally they go cutting through wood. So I'm sure some of that gets, gets convoluted, you know. So I went through and wd-40 those.
Speaker 1:I don't WD-40 my knives guys. So those of you listening and Michael Pruitt Pruitt Knives of Valor. He never told me but he would tell you. Wd-40 is not a good metal preservative or rust preventative for a knife. It'll work for a second, but to get rust off of the stainless steel stuff. I do use wd-40 for, um, for oiling my knives.
Speaker 1:What I use there's many things you can use. Just because I. I feel like I need to say this because I see people oil knives like it's gonna help with stuff that's not gonna help. Um, so you could use food grade mineral oil if you cook with the knife, or if you cook with the knife, if you cut food with the knife or if you care. I sometimes, depending on what knife it is, I'll use gun cleaning wipes, like CLP, which is a rust preventative, depending on the knife. I did not this time, so I'll get into that. I did not this time. Or you can get a regular like they make, like japanese knife oil, which is essentially a mineral oil. You could get a knife wax if that's what you're into. But anything that's silicone based is really where you want to go. Mineral oil or silicone based. I use just cheap from ace hardware. Three 3-in-1 oil is what I use. I put it on a rag and I wipe them down my knives. That I use a lot, a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1:I use bowstring wax, so I bow hunt I'm sure I've said that on here, but I'll heat up the blade just enough to where the wax will go on there. I use bowstring wax on that blade, my very used pocket knife, so it's a. My pocket knife is a. Zero tolerance is what it's called. That's the brand, zero tolerance and it's a I don't know. It's a very, very, very high quality pocket knife. My other pocket knife is a spider coat, also a super high quality knife. It's stainless though, so it doesn't. I just sharpen it. You know, I spit on it and we move, we move on.
Speaker 1:But my zero tolerance knife I do wax it with bowstring wax and I don't mean wax it like a car guys, I wax it like it's. It's the silicone based wax that they use for bowstrings. It's in like push out tube kind of like a, like a push pop, but it's a silicone-based wax that they use for bow strings. It's in a push-out tube kind of like a push-pop, but it's a little bigger than a. It pushes out like a push-pop but it's a little bigger than a chapstick, and I just rub it on there while the blade's a little warmer and then let it dry on there and move on. That has seemed to keep it pretty protected. So I have been using that method on that knife and that's kind of just a test to see if it works, type thing.
Speaker 1:But pretty standardly I use I use mineral oil like a food grade mineral oil, or I use three in one oil. That I get. You know, heck, you can even get it at some gas. I use three in one oil that I get. You know, heck, you can even get it at some gas stations just three in one oil. It comes in like a little metal thing I used to get I think it's called K, I think it's KLP knife oil. It's like high tech knife oil. I got it, but I have too many knives for something like that and none of them, I feel like, are fancy enough. I think that stuff's like 20 bucks. So I just use three in one. It has seemed to work for me and I wipe them down. You know I've said it a million times, guys. I was a marine.
Speaker 1:We clean guns like metal pieces, you know, religiously, like two times a week, three times a week, hours and hours and hours. So maintaining the knives is not something I forget to do. Making sure the metal is rust-free is not something that I forget to do, so I don't ever have it. You know I'm never using three in one oil and then not touching the knife for three months. You know what I mean. So I don't know if it's, if it's fantastic or not, but nonetheless, you don't want to use WD-40 to coat your knives to prevent rust. That's not going to work for you. You're going to still end up with a little.
Speaker 1:You could sharpen that out and that's not a big deal, but if you're not somebody that's familiar with sharpening knives, that's kind of a big deal. So, anyways, I sharpened everything, oiled it, got the rust off of some stuff that had rust on it, emptied out all my step 22 bags in my deck system, aired them out, looked at them, reorganized. I had a couple uh isobutane cans that were pretty well empty. So I took my little puncture tool, punctured them, threw them in the trash today so that they're empty, like empty empty. If you guys don't know what that is, you can look up uh camp fuel recycling tool and essentially all it is is it's a it looks like a can opener but it's got a sharp edge and it pokes a hole in your, in your camp propane or isobutane, so that all the fuel actually exits so that you can recycle them. It is not a nothing revolutionary or much of a big deal. A lot of places will throw a huge fit at you if you well not even throw a fit. They won't take it if you leave, if you don't have those holes in it, they won't take it. They won't take it with propane in it, on those disposables with propane or isobutane in them or butane in them. So you gotta, you've got to express that out like you got to get it out, um.
Speaker 1:So I went through and did all that. Some of those were kind kind of rusty but I got rid of three. I had three in there that were just like empty. Just I had places, got rid of those. I have two new ones on standby on the shelf. So I put those two where you know where two of those other three were. So I'm ready to go there and just just overall, just getting things situated for the weather getting colder. You know it's more than halfway through the year.
Speaker 1:I went through and cleaned, you know I washed shoes and scrubbed, you know just clean stuff, you know. Got sand out, vacuumed, cleaned all my truck seats and doors, and I mean my. My driver's door on my truck looked like somebody's, like I don't even know. Looks like somebody oozed down the side of it on the inside and outside. So I cleaned all that up. I'm assuming that's from mud and rain sitting on it, you know. So I got that cleaned up sitting on it, you know. So I got that cleaned up floor mats, all that stuff. So I just did a general cleaning and maintenance of my stuff aired out the uh, aired out the tent in the awning, you know, I just the previous weekend resealed and waterproofed those. So I'm, you know, and I just went camping this weekend as well too, too Saturday, friday, saturday. So obviously I used to those things and was happy with how they were performing. So, yeah, I mean I just maintained everything and got it ready for the next season.
Speaker 1:Now this is the topic I was going to talk about today is not just maintenance. I've talked about this. I don't think I've talked about it enough, but I have talked about it. My truck is packed all the time. This is two parts. My truck's packed all the time, but that isn't something that I do with a whole lot of labor. To make sense of this.
Speaker 1:Every time I go camping, I don't come back and rewash every single piece of equipment. I don't come back every time I camp and wash all the blankets and wash all the sleeping bags and rinse off the coats and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I do that with the truck because there's a lot of metal pieces on the truck and things that mud could interrupt, sand could interrupt. Exterior, exterior of the truck. I wash the interior. I clean the interior of the truck three times a year period, three times a year, sometime near Christmas, because I usually have more time off, sometime in April, may a year, sometime near christmas, because I usually have more time off sometime in april, may. And. And now the inside of the truck won't get cleaned again until around christmas from now and the reason that I don't read wash and do guys, that would take me I'd forget so much stuff. Not only would it take me forever, my water bill would be through the roof.
Speaker 1:But some of this stuff isn't made to be washed that much. Like I have down stuff. I have high-tech gear. It's not meant to be washed that much. So I try to not wash it like it's everyday clothing. You know. So whenever I'm camping I am am washing my blankets like my camp gear three, four times a year, unless something was to happen. Like I take marvin with me and marvin pees on something. Yeah, I'm not chilling with that in the truck for three months. I'm gonna watch that when I get home, you know like, and that that that happens. I have a dog like he. It happens okay, like if something like that was to happen.
Speaker 1:But something gets a little muddy or a little wet, I hang it out to dry, I pack it up, it stays in there until I wash it. Because if I wash all these you know nylons and downs and gore text and like if I wash it too much, I'm actually just wasting my money buying it. I might as well just buy towels. You know, like, if I'm gonna wash it that much, because I'm just like you're kind of ruining it if you wash it 10-15 times a year. Now, if you go camping twice a year, well, yeah, wash it when you're done. Whatever, you're probably doing more harm to potential mold and mildew to your stuff than you are washing it. So whatever there.
Speaker 1:But I don't wash everything every time, not even close, and whenever I do wash, when I do wash and I do clean, it's its whole own event. So so I write everything down and I check it off as I put it back in the truck. But I'm not doing onesies and twosies here and there every trip usually, because then I'll go Cause, like I said, what I started off this with is what I said is I keep the truck packed and I trust that I have it packed, so I'm not going back through the truck and checklist and everything. And I trust that I have it packed. So I'm not going back through the truck and checklist and everything. I put my camp bags in there. I have my camp clothes in it, like I just get in the truck and leave, like literally Like it's not.
Speaker 1:It takes me longer to get my kids in the car and the radio on what they want in my regular car than it takes me to leave and go camping. It takes me that little time. It takes me no time at all. I'm gone, but if I was to take stuff in and out all the time, I'm gonna forget something and potentially something important, and that's a bad day. So I just, you know, kiss, you know, keep it simple, stupid.
Speaker 1:So whenever I wash stuff, it's time to wash everything. It's all out, it all goes back in. I've got a list. Check it off as I put it back. You know. Check it off as I wash it. Check it off as I put it back you you know. Check it off as I wash it. Check it off as I put it back, you know, to make sure, not only I got everything on my list washed, so sometimes I got to go looking for stuff. I gotta be like, well, where actually? Where is that one blanket or this or that? And God only knows like I drive a freaking Toyota that sole purpose is overlanding and off-roading. Guys Like it's highly likely my I got a blanket or two that aren't where a blanket should be because I got them stuffed into something else that was rattling, like something was rattling. I'm shoving a blanket in there so it stops rattling, so it's no longer where the blankets went.
Speaker 1:Welcome to off-road vehicles like my truck. At times, you know, if you don't keep things compressed, sounds like a wagon. You know a lumber wagon. Just stuff rattles. Man, my poor dashboard, I'm pretty sure I need to go in and read. I don't even know. Maybe my dashboard, my dash, just had better days. It rattles too, but that's just. You know corrugated roads and what it is. I don't know what I don't. I don't know what you could do to prevent that. To be honest with you guys, now again, I have a Toyota, I don't have a Lexus, I don't have a Jeep. Maybe they're better, maybe they're worse, I don't know, but my truck, toyota's rattle it, stuff rattles, stuff makes noise.
Speaker 1:So the checklist to get it out matters a lot too, because a lot of times it's a lot of times there is a couple of things that aren't where I thought they would be and I have previously, before I made checklists, forgot something. Then I got it out and was like I told, like it's not the end of the world, something's a little muddy, like shake it off and move on, but at least that's me. It's camp here, it's supposed to. That's what it's for. I use it for what it's for. This is not, like you know, the Royal family's dinnerware, Like it's just camp gear. So I shake it off. It's not like the end of the world, but it does leave that onesies and twosies, like I said, I try to avoid, which would mean that I either have to take that out and try and remember to put that one thing back, or that one thing that I forgot just waits until the next cycle of cleanings in three or four months, both of which have happened. You know, I'm not saying I have a system of one or the other, but that is how I do things.
Speaker 1:So, in order to have the truck packed all the time, which I think is, by far and large, the best way to handle your camping equipment, whether you're so, whether you're so, whether you're like me and you have a vehicle that's dedicated to this and you have a daily driver, okay, like then, then leave the vehicle packed, like, leave the vehicle packed completely. But I've been doing this a long time. I have had, I have had, a daily driver outside of my camp rig, vehicle, truck, whatever you want to call it for like a year, like one year, one year out of 20 are doing this. So that lends me to be, like, you know, the person that's like rolling their eyes in the back when I say leave it packed. Well, charlie, I, you know I can't do that because x, y and z right, that's correct.
Speaker 1:I have about six of those yellow and black tubs that I got at lowe's and they're labeled sleeping gear, cooking gear, fire starting gear, like. So when it comes time to go camping, or did come time to go camping, I pull each tub out, I empty the tub completely, I put it in the vehicle, I go camping, but still, even then, stuff is not everywhere. Stuff is in the tubs that it's labeled to be in, and you know like. And when I get home I put it in a tub. It's labeled to be in. I don't take it inside, I don't wash it all, I don't, yeah, I don't take it inside, I don't wash it all, I don't repack it all. I don't do all this. I throw it in the tub. I put the tub under the shelf in the garage. When camping next week or two weeks comes around, I pull it out and put it back in the truck.
Speaker 1:But that's still packed. So I can pull out every tub. I'm not searching for stuff, I'm not rummaging through, I'm going. You know, here it is, this is the tub and I put it in the truck like it's packed. I don't ever second guess it. I just always put what was in the tub in the truck, naturally the stuff I could keep in the truck, even while driving kids around and doing daily driving activities.
Speaker 1:I keep what keeps stuff packed that I could keep packed activities. I keep what keep stuff packed that I could keep packed. I used to use a lot more under seat area, you know. I used to use a lot more compartmented area within the cab, but then I do now because I don't do that with the car anymore. But you do have to get more creative. When you're, when you have children, when you have a spouse and your your camping vehicle is your daily driver, you have to get more creative. You do. Um, I don't have to be as creative, it's way.
Speaker 1:That's why I saved the money to have a daily, because lots and lots of years of in and out of tubs I mean, I've worn more than one of those black tubs bottom of them out, just sliding them in and out of the freaking garage, just wearing holes in them, sliding them in and out. It's not a perfect system. It's a system and it works and it's cheap. You know, I wasn't going to spend a bunch of money on storing stuff in the garage and I didn't. If one wore out, I got another one. Hell guys, half the time I never even took it out of the tub it was in. I just shoved that tub in the new tub. I just stacked it in there. Welcome to Lazy McLazy. I wouldn't even dump it out of it. I just lift it up and throw it in the new tub. The lid will still latch and everything, and I just now have an extra lid and whatever. Moving on, shove it back where it went. So that's what I.
Speaker 1:You know, I did that this weekend, but I was thinking there's so many things and these are the reasons. My friends are like you got to get a podcast because I just think of stuff. You know, I just think of these things and and at this point I'm not thinking of it I thought of it who knows how many years ago but just like, yeah, I'm never gonna take this two things out that are potentially important things and then put those two things back. That's just not going to happen. That just isn't going to happen. I'm going to take it all out, do it all, put it back or it stays the way it was. You know I do.
Speaker 1:I do a very, very, very, very, very diligent job making sure anything that gets wet gets hung to dry. Um, but I do that at camp. I those my friends that listen to this. They will tell you in the summer specifically in the summer, because the summer is kind of the worst I will be the last one to leave camp because I will wait for the sun to come out to dry the dew off my stuff, because I'd rather just wait the hour for it to to dry itself before I drive home, then go home and and leave it to my memory. Maybe you guys have like super awesome dolphin memories, I don't know, maybe you do, I I don't. Okay, like, maybe you do, I don't. So I try to not leave too much stuff to chance and leave it to my own thought processes, cause guys, I'll mess it up, I'll forget, and now I got moldy stuff and musty stuff, so I just try to make sure that I get.
Speaker 1:If it needs aired out and it got wet, I do everything I can to fix that situation before I even pack up, before I am packed up, and for those of you that ask, like okay, so this or that happens, how do you do that? I will lay blankets across seats in the truck and turn the truck on at six in the morning and let it run a couple hours to dry something out in the truck. Like this is something I do with shoes, like that's just, and it's a thing I do, like it's. It's something that when you go camping with me, I'm like here's what you do with your shoes, here's what you do with the bladder, blah, blah, blah, blah, like.
Speaker 1:But every day I go camping and I take my shoes off, like I have camp slippers I guess you'd call them that go in the tent and go into like a little storage area in the tent. I take off my regular shoes. I put them in the floorboard of the driver's seat. You know if you were in. You know if you're on the driver's side, your shoes go in that side's floorboard. If you're in the passenger side, shoes go on that side's floorboard. It's very common in the morning that I start my truck In the winter specifically, I already have it set to floor heat and then it'll heat your shoes up while the truck's warming up, so that way when you put your shoes on you got warm shoes. The amount of people I've seen in the winter that just put their shoes under the car or the truck, it's like, bro, I don't know what you're doing, like that's not protected from shit and everything's harder and less pliable when it's cold for sure, and and that's just not a way I want to start my morning.
Speaker 1:I am not Type two. Fun is is is a type of fun where you suffer a little bit. Right, I can't weigh too much to waste any potential suffering on stuff I can prevent. There's enough stuff. That's inevitable suffering that I deal with. But there's some stuff that just doesn't make sense that people do.
Speaker 1:Another thing I do is my chairs. Guys, I bet you I don't know how many people do or don't know this do won't set on something that's covered. So every single night I take my chairs and I fold them up and I throw them under the truck, like literally under the truck. And the next morning when I get up, guess what? I don't have wet chairs Like these are just like simple things that I guess I don't know. I don't put them up like I don't put the chair up, like nothing like that. I just kind of use the right terminology here. You put it, you know, hastily, stuff, shove it together and throw it under the truck, literally just throw it under the truck, literally just throw it under the truck. Then you won't have a wet chair. It's not that hard.
Speaker 1:But a lot of people wake up in the morning, in the winters and different things, and they're like oh, my chairs, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean I'm not doing anything that cool. Like I'm kicking it under the truck keeps it from getting any freezing, rain or snow or anything like that. Like it just kind of keeps things. I mean it just kind of keeps things from getting jacked up. It's not like these are just little tips and tricks about stuff that I mean I'm sure tons of you guys know, and if you don't, awesome, I mean great, I've helped you, like perfect, you know, and we're going to get into water here come winter. We're going to get into water pretty hard Because water is something I still, after all these years, I still have not figured out water, and I'll explain this to you because I'm going to figure it out this year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, jerry cans, water bottles, whatever. However, you carry water in the winter, okay, you can heat it up in your jet boil and everything, but that's all, assuming that it's liquid. I still, and again, guys, I get this all the time. This is why I got a dual battery system. People say this to me all the time, like I'm, like I, and it's not insulting, I don't want it, they're not assaulting my intelligence, okay, but they say this to me all the time. They're like well, just put your power station in the car. Well, guys, your vehicle is going to get below freezing. It's below freezing in your vehicle, sitting the inside of your vehicle, so like.
Speaker 1:The reason I bring that to light is water is no different. You got your water outside. You got your water inside if it's cold enough. If it's, if the temperature is cold enough, it's gonna freeze and you got to make sure you're not. You got to. You know I put I brought this up before but I put all my like canned stuff in the fridge because that keeps it from freezing. And if you guys have ever had frozen cans like if you've read anything in a can that freezes, it explodes. Okay, I learned this.
Speaker 1:I moved to Lake Tahoe in 2010. The first winter there I had, you know I'd left an energy drink in there, didn't even never knew, I didn't know. Yep, poor old Dakota Smoked Full of energy drink and I was like damn, that thing freezes, it swells and explodes. Like that's how I learned that happens. So now I keep everything the cooler gets used in, cooler, whatever gets used in the winter too, because it keeps it from keeps up from freezing.
Speaker 1:But nonetheless, I haven't found a way to keep water from freezing in or outside the truck. So I've got a couple things that I want to try. I don't want to talk about them because they are kind of off the wall, not expensive or anything, just kind of nuts, kind of weird. You're gonna be like where, how'd you even come to that? And I'm gonna try them and see if they work and I'll let you guys know if they work.
Speaker 1:But in my experience, carrying water super tough in the winter, cold winter, you know, 40, 50 degree winter, 30 degree winter, even if it's 30 outside, like if the low is 28, you can probably put yourself in the truck and it'll be fine. It's not going to freeze gallons of water overnight at 28 in the truck. I'm not talking 28 guys. There's months of the year that maybe some of you guys don't camp. That's well below 20, that's well, that's below zero. I'm not talking about your october, 30 degrees, I'm talking about your and again, december isn't even usually a problem. I'm talking your january, february and early march, where it's cold, cold, cold. At least where I live is cold, cold, cold, cold. The negatives, the zeros, the below zeros. But I've got some ideas and that's going to happen. It happens every year. The weather gets there every year, like it's going to happen this year too and I'll try some things out to keep water from freezing Whenever I was detailing cars and I did mobile detailing in order to keep the water from freezing.
Speaker 1:You used to put isopropyl alcohol in it and that would enough. You know the right mixture of that would keep it from freezing. I'm not comfortable with the water I'm drinking having isopropyl alcohol in it. I'm not interested in adding something to the water to keep it from freezing in it. I'm not interested in adding something to the water to keep it from freezing. I'm going to try and find a way to insulate it just enough. Because, guys, 33 degrees isn't freezing, 32 is. So it just needs to be just that much warmer. Like seriously, it needs that degree or two. That's all it needs. And I think I can figure that out, and once I do, you guys will know. And once I do, you guys will know. But I haven't yet. So don't be too optimistic. It'll be this year, like it has been a lot of years, and I haven't. I still haven't figured it out.
Speaker 1:I've gotten thicker walled jerry cans or water receptacles. I've put water in the fridge. Naturally that works, but then you don't got it. I mean, then what do you do with your food? You leave your food out. Now it's frozen. Like you know, every solution potentially, every new thing potentially, creates a different problem. You know, down the road another way. So it is just like that with everything in this hobby.
Speaker 1:So I mean, outside of taking my now gene, like I fill up a now gene and, uh, in night I'll take a now gene. If even with the diesel heater, like you take a now gene bottle and I will fill that thing, I'll heat up some water in the jet boil and I'll put it in the now gene and I'll throw that now gene in the bottom of my sleeping bag. It's a good way to just keep you kind of warm. And then you also do have you know, you do have water for the next day, at least 32 ounces. You know that's one thing you do. I mean you could definitely take a bunch of water and put it in Nalgene bottles or any bottle you know, and throw it in the tent with you. But you can only do so much of that and I don't really feel like dragging three and five gallons of water up to the tent with me every night and again still all day it's going to.
Speaker 1:You know, I went camping one time this year where I'm pretty sure it didn't get above negative five One day. The coldest I ever camped was negative 20, and it was this year, and I didn't get out of the damn tent till like 11. My friends all got up and they went and did something and they were like, are you coming? And I was like no, freaking way. I moved, I put my face outside the window and it like hurt and I was like nope, not nope, I was like not doing this. It was negative, freaking 20. I think during the the day, the best it got was like negative eight, but that was a experience. But it hurt, like it was so cold, it hurt and it wasn't like I don't know, it was kind of windy, not really, though man, it was rough man, it was super rough.
Speaker 1:But you want to know the best thing about a real negative temperature like that if it's dry, the wood's dry so you can start a fire pretty easy. So that's nice. At least I'd take a negative, dry, negative 20 over a wet 15, positive 15 or any day, because it, because fires, fire changed the game for you. You start a fire at least, then you can. I hopped in and out of that tent so many times. Just get out, start a fire, watch it from the tent, get, get back in the tent, watch it from the tent. But yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1:Anyways, back to the point. I'm not talking about keeping water for freezing in late September, october, early November, really even all of November. I've never had a zero degree camp in November, and as hot as it's been this summer, you don't want it to be zero degrees that early, because acclimating to it is brutal too. You got to have a little bit of time. I mean, it's been a hundred and something here. So right now it's 73 and I want to have a coat on. You know it's going to get to negative 20. I don't want that to happen soon. I'll think I'm dying. So anyways, that's what I had going on this weekend, guys.
Speaker 1:There's some few tips and tricks. What's coming on, what's what's coming up, what's in front of us, what I'm thinking about, things I'm trying to figure out. If you guys have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to reach out to me. If you guys plan to go to overland of america or want to go to overland of america, or think about going overland of america, use code outskirts 10. It just saves you guys some money, like it doesn't do. It just saves you money and it lets them know that it saves you some money and it lets them know, like, hey, this guy actually did you know, did you know was a pole for us here at this expo, I guess. I mean, I assume that's why I have a code, I guess.
Speaker 1:But anyways, guys, I'll catch you guys later and, uh, enjoy, get out, enjoy this weather, man, if you're gonna take some days off of work, this little bit of this little bit of like cooler weather, man, I know sometimes you got planned, but, man, it'd be a great time. So, anyways, I'll catch you guys later in the week. Have a good one. I'll talk to you later.
