July 14th, 2010 (treatise on truck camping and Henry Theroux.)).

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010: Had to leave the Super 8 after a week of living the easy life, met up with my friend Roger, who kindly let my truck/camper/trailer rig, deface his house for the past two weeks. Nice to get back in the wilderness, you youngsters can have your tents,

the truck camper is the way I like to do it. Everything needed is there, little unpacking, still trying to find a space for each thing but I'm learning, keep in mind, my idea of a truck camper is a small camper on a huge truck. Yes, I got to make a bed out of the benches each night, with no sleeper above the cab. I can shut my tailgate with the camper on as well. Small camper, but lots of interesting places to store things. I live in Bear country so cooking in the camper is really a bad idea. I use a portable butane camping stove which seems to use one small canister of butane every...... well I really don't know. Mine has lasted 20 camping trips and still has butane in it! The stove folds and fits in my front pocket (minus butane can, which is the size of a can of beans. I have one 24 oz stainless cooking pot for everything. I do keep a real glass for whiskey, and a metal coffee cup, and plastic spork, and thats the cooking kit. I have 5 or 6 pocket knives, which i eat with, including a large tactical fighting knife for protection, but i mainly dig holes in the dirt for human waste, before I started bringing the shovel. Actually, I have it timed, to where I can dirt bike it to the public "Loo", in a matter of 10 minutes, but still... For entertainment, I find my Sangean radio all I really need. I do get limited internet from the "celly", but the phone sucks unless you are in the mouth of the canyon where I don't camp. I also have books, and my "Baby Taylor", small sized (big sound) travel guitar. I love the tone and action so much, I never play my two other guitars much anymore. Food options are much better with a truck camper, as opposed to motorcycle or backpack camping. I have carry cans of stuff! I can carry an ice chest! I can carry two weeks worth of clothing and the correct clothing for any situation. I do love camping in a truck. As long as I bring a small trailer to carry luxuries like an old Honda 600 dirt bike, a shovel, a bicycle, a weeks worth of garbage. My computer was really tough to bring when motorcycle camping, because it weighs 5 pounds. I now need a 12 volt converter so the battery doesn't wear down so fast.

I also bring my two twin kerosene tin lanterns while truck camping. With camping on the bike, I can maybe bring a small flashlight and a candle, so I can lay on the forest floor, with thin walls of a tiny tent, and hope that the native bears, wolves, and lions, decide not to investigate the little bag I am sleeping in. The truck camper sits up safely high off the ground,

And wild animals are not an issue from 5 feet up past the strong metal of the truck bed walls. If anything should try to get in, I have a short, 12 gauge, riot gun, that can and would cut any intruder in half.... not to mention 7 of their friends. While camping in the tiny thin tent, all I carry is a knife and a small but loud air horn. I have camped in 0 degree weather in this camper, and had no problem staying warm all night. My small portable catalyst heater, which uses propane will keep the insides fairly warm, but one must be sure to crack your windows, so the stove doesn't use your oxygen. I plan to buy a low oxygen alarm for next winter, I don't mess around with dangers like this. I like the old 19th century chinese kerosene lanterns quite a bit. They will run off a small amount of lighter fluid, kerosene, citronella oil (keeps mosquitos away), or lamp oil. I have used these for years, before replacing them, five dollars is the cost at Walmart, apparently the rural Chinese folks make and use these modern wonders as well. I simply find them to be much easier and cheaper than modern camp lighting systems, many of which produce entirely too much light. These produce enough light to read, or see your path if walking, are wind proof, rain proof, don't need batteries ect.

So its back to camping for the next 6 nights, I really don't mind, still can get to the city and go swimming during the day, what more can one want?

The sense of personal self sufficiency is gained in putting everything you need to survive, in a small space, then spend night after night enjoying your freedom. Think of what destroys our freedom.... Bills, need of lots of cash, deadlines, forcibly having to donate all your time and wake at an insane hour, just to do something your tired of, is NOT LIVING. Before ya know it your fun days are past, your suffering from a string of stress related maladies, and you probably only have a few more years before the big heart attack hits, and your children are fighting over the ridiculously small nest-egg that you were going to try to retire on. I want to get out now, while I'm still alive. Maybe teach and save for a couple years, then buy a small piece of land somewhere. Get expenses low enough ($500), to work on the things that I want to do. But a 50 thousand dollar per year addiction is tough to break. But every time I manage to spend 5 days out in the woods, I get a little closer to breaking away. Read Henry David Theroux's "Walden" if you want to know where I get this philosophy from. The difference is that Theroux, was a young man and tryed to live the simple life. Young people need to "Take on that World", "Join the Army", "Get married and raise those kids", "Make milions of dollars before age 40", and other great things. Tired old guys like me, who already raised their kids, worked for 27 years straight, with nothing to show for it. Need to relax and do the "Walden" thing. Of course a truck camper is a freer existence than living in a cabin on a friends land near walden pond. I can change neighborhoods as often as I wish.