Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Gearing up for Western NC trip

In an effort to show my three readers that I am doing more than moping around and shoegazing  and that I have been productivehere is my summer outdoorsy adventure project. As I stated in an earlier entry this summer's current project is tearing out the jump seats of the truck in the crew area and making it a cargo area, it's been an ongoing thing,  I'm prob about 65% done. I cannot and will not claim credit for getting this far. B.I.L has done a majority of the woodwork in the truck's cargo area.

Although due to a wrong measurement on my part the action packer would not fit into the appropriate area. I drug out all the necessary tools and went to work on this problem. The braying of my jackass 10th grade high school woodshop teacher still ringing in my ears I set to work. It was not that hard it was moving and cutting some wood. Despite the high school shop teachers bias towards me in the past it all went back together correctly with minimal fuss. So FOAD Mr. Z! Now there is room for the action packer, jump bag and map books. I promise pics of this project will come soon.

What that leaves is building the main part of the project is the cabinet on the passengers side behind the passenger seat. Then of course covering all this stuff with the waterproof pack cloth I found at a local fabric store. I can hear someone out there now "Hey dude why don't you just stain all that shit and be done with it?" Well I thought on that and decided that since I am not the best woodworker and that there was going to be mistakes made on this little project that covering it would cover mistakes made and make it look a bit better. Let's face it in many ways I consider my truck home. My putting some durable manly pack waterproof pack cloth over the areas. BIL will help with most of that as well. The truck in the short term smells fantastic, just like fresh cut wood.

With that going on and with the end of July getting ever closer it's time to plan my "sorta annual" trip up to Western North Carolina. Last year was a bit of a disappointment with the near constant rain and being in pretty terrible shape because I was just too lazy to get off of my ass. The upside is that I scared a bear out of camp on my first day and drank copious amounts of beer. This year will hopefully be better, although I am greatly tempted to go to Pisgah and Dupont forests I decided to go 90 minutes or so outside of Asheville to Tsali. I've heard and read a great things about the area. I'll also day hike a small section of the Appalachian trail and poke into The Great Smoky Mountain National Park.Why am I planning so much for the trip? Well, I was really encouraged by my Nor Cal trip. Hiking Misty trail and carrying my buddy's day pack for 3/4 of the hike (which held a USELESS coffee pot and no water purification...sheez k-man!) I did a great deal of walking under gear in Nor Cal with nary a problem. I'll equate that to being in OK shape and having decent footwear.

I'm looking for all my gear which for some reason gets spread all over the damn place. I find it all eventually and add things here and there. This year I decided on a shower:

The reason why is that it's compact and last years dives into cold mountain streams although refreshing and very mountain man like was not as much fun as I would have imagined. I have had experience with solar showers as well, which lacked on the warmth. I've come to the conclusion that when you're on a trip of this nature having a cold washing experience is part of the adventure. I saw this thought it was nifty and was able to find it in a local "outdoors man store"

I was told about this oudoorsman store by BIL. I went a small bit outta my way to one of these such places. It is a slick place and I did find what I was looking for which was the sea to summit pocket shower. I was a bit underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the place. Underwhelmed at the pandering more and more to the "redneck" lifestyle that is being marketed so much here in Georgia. I get it, it's America someone is out to make a dollar and I cannot fault someone for that. Just when I see something like this:

I just tend to shake my head in wonder. It's just that living here and be like that sometimes esp if you do not have the mindset already. Neat clothes sure, I could see myself buying some carhart pants there in the future. Just don't count on me rushing over there to buy realoak well patterned...everything in the future. Anyways the gear is going to be sorted and packed. I reckon I'' leave on a weekday to avoid the weekend crowds up that way in WNC.

That's about it for the moment. Thanks for reading.

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