Awesome! Good luck dude! AWOL Bag Camping can be fun!

This is a great idea man.  You have inspired me to actually throw all of my gear into a pack, and begin assembling my BoB. =D

AWESOME MAN! I am so glad to hear that you are going to put your FRNs where your pie hole is, LOL! I can't wait to see this...

November 9, 2008.

10:19 AM.

Just got home.

I haven't reviewed the footage or the notes I took on my rite-in-the-rain notepad.  Just letting everyone know I got back alive.

Camping.  Stinks.

I mean, literally.  STINKS...holy CRAP it stinks.  It stinks like sweat, it stinks like smoke, it stinks like wet wood and rotting vegetation.

Before I sat down to type this, I had to strip off my clothing, and SHOWER...shave...do things that would allow me to look in the mirror before I could do anything.

I also had a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

Note to self:  Being on the Atkins diet is not fully compatible with BoB chow.

Note to self:  Using stuff out of your BoB without replacing it means that when you need it IN THE FIELD, you won't have it.

Note to self:  Remember when you used to carry the camp hatchet?  And you decided (after being told, of course) that it was unnecessary?  You lied.  Dumbass.

Note to self:  10.00 boots are worth what you paid for them...actually, slightly more.  They worked when your 40.00 boots didn't.  However, after today's hike, four eyelets popped out, making them also neigh-worthless,

Note to self:  40.00 boots work until the speed eyelets break.  Then they're nigh-worthless and you have to rely on your 10.00 bugout bag boots because you thought you'd be slick and wear "camp shoes" as your hiking boots, but you wanted hiking boots so you wore 40.00 chukka half-height boots as a "compromise."

Dumbass.

Note to self:  Cold is a matter of perception;  Back when you lived in Idaho, you did push-ups in sweats in the snow.  Guess what?  That was 20 years ago.  You've been enjoying the temperate climate of Florida for a decade, and "hey, it's 50 degrees outside" has two COMPLETELY different connotations, one when you're happily inside the climate control, and one when you're actually OUT IN IT without the long johns you thought you had packed in your BoB but took out one afternoon to replace them with better ones but NEVER DID.

Dumbass.

Yes, your current "Standard" is lighter, which is why you ADDED so much, like a full-size tent, and a self-inflating mattress pad to your kit, making it slightly difficult to pack in a clean, take-your-time environment, and an absolute NIGHTMARE in a dirty, cold, wet environment LIKE THIS MORNING.

Dumbass.  You are ATE UP with the Dumbass.

Oh yeah...2 liters of water may be juuust dandy when you're sitting at a campsite you DROVE to, that has running water so you can refill your Dasani bottles at your leisure...NOT so much when you're hiking 1.5 miles TO the campground, and 1.5 miles back to your CAR so you can DRIVE to a store miles away to BUY MORE WATER just so you can hike ANOTHER 1.5 miles BACK to CAMP WITH THOSE TWO GALLONS OF WATER.

Damn, you're learning a lot of things the hard way, aren't you?  And you're supposed to be the EXPERT.

Expert, Hah!  You're an EXPERT at DUMBASSEDNESS.

On the other hand, you did a few things right.

You know those cotton work gloves, the ones with the little grippy dots for gardening?  Lifesaver.  Good idea.

And the Mini-Maglite with the LED upgrade?  Star of the show.  You only had to change ONE set of batteries for ONE of the three you brought with you, and that was because you LEFT IT ON ALL NIGHT IN YOUR TENT while you tried to make a fire IN THE DARK the first night.

So, while you're STILL a dumbass, at least you had enough batteries with you to get yourself out of your own dumbassedness.

The Weather Radio:  Another excellent move, especially since once you set the time, it was your all-purpose radio, with weather all the time, a liquid-filled compass on the top, and temperature at the push of a button...so you KNEW how cold it was...all the time.

The Sewing Kit -- another almost-forgot, nearly-an-afterthought item that came in handy and you didn't even sew anything -- all you did was take a loop of thread, slip it through the lanyard hole on one of your mini-maglites, and use a carabiner to hang it from the roof of your tent -- voila, instant tent chandelier.  Bravo!

The Alcohol -- good idea, but you know, you should have remembered that you USED the 91 percent in your kit the last time you demo'd the pop can stove and REPLACED it before going OUT IN THE WOODS.  Dumbass.

All in all, your preps looked excellent on paper.  Except that about a quarter of your stuff you listed WASN'T THERE with you when you got there, and your logistics and packing are based upon a nice, clean environment, not a "get it all BACK in there, dirt, sand, mud, and all" environment.

That self-inflating mattress?  Worth its weight in gold.  You were only mildly uncomfortable instead of teeth-chattering miserable, like your cameraman.  Kept you up off the cold ground.

That fleece "car blanket" by Coleman that folds over and zips like a sleeping bag, that you USED for a sleeping bag?  That packs down into a little bitty crushable cylinder about eight inches on a side?  Again, worth its weight in gold.   Kept you warmer than you should have been.  Server help you if you tried your ORIGINAL plan with just your rain poncho.  That would have made this trip SUCK instead of being mildly uncomfortable.

Sure, the tent was big and heavy, but you had plenty of room for all your kit, more than your cameraman who made do with the 6x5 youth tent...on the other hand, HE didn't complain about deployment, packing it up, or packing it out, like YOU did.  Wuss.

And finally, you are NOT 17 years old anymore;  Not only is your body not as resilient as it was back then, you are TWO HUNDRED POUNDS HEAVIER than you once were.  When you sleep on your shoulder wrong in the cold, it feels terrible, like it's DISLOCATED, for the rest of the TRIP, and severely handicaps you.

So, to reiterate, OF THE KIT YOU BROUGHT, most of it worked as planned.  Your biggest problems were weight, and NOT Having the kit you THOUGHT you had, because you DIDN'T CHECK YOUR DAMN Bugout BAG BEFORE YOU LEFT, simply ASSUMING that BECAUSE you'd been PACKING it and UNPACKING it for DEMONSTRATIONS all the time, that you were confident everything was in there.

Guess what?  YOU WERE WROOONG!!!

Dumbass.

Sincerely, Me.


====================

And for the rest of you:

Yes, this was an eye opener.  No, I'm not a teenager anymore.  I'm in nowhere NEAR the shape I need to be in.  Truth is, a fat guy CAN do it, but it HURTS.  I am sore.  My feet hurt -- I avoided blisters by going from the broken boots to the BoB boots, but instead of blisters, it exacerbated my ingrown toenails (owie)...so pain was my constant companion.

I realize that a bugout on foot is a LOT rougher than driving...if you're on foot, and you're not USED to hiking with a pack, guess what?  You're several different flavors of screwed.  You can get by on a mile or two on sheer willpower alone...but by the time you stop, you will be tired, and short-tempered, and you WILL make mistakes.

One thing I learned years ago -- you make a LOT of mistakes when you're tired.  Something for safety reasons:  Always sheath your knife before manipulating branches -- Luckily, I learned that years and years ago.  But I found myself CONSCIOUSLY sheathing my knife between movements, between manipulations, or when I'd cut almost all the way through a semi-green sapling from a fresh deadfall for the fire.

Finally, I did attempt a bow-drill fire in the field...but when you're tired, and you're sore, and you're short-tempered, the motivation to actually do all the proper fire prep just for footage doesn't seem worth it.  It's easy to talk about it now, but when every movement out there HURT...the truth is, I made the bow, and my first drill--broke, so I made a second.  And then I realized how important it is to have something on the TOP of the drill to put your hand on so you don't drill through your hand while trying to make a coal.

Luckily, I scaveneged an empty can of vienna sausages from the nearby campsite of an inconsiderate camper who came before me, and used THAT...and that damn can got HOT.

On the other hand, I got smoke.  When you get smoke, you're only about six minutes away from a coal you can use.

But by then, I was so tired and mad, I said, "screw it, I've got a fire, and since Mr. Cameraman is asleep in his tent, I'm NOT going to wake him up just to get all this done;  I'm going to go to bed.

Good thing I did, too.  Because when you're used to about 78-85 degrees, 55 degrees is COLD.

And the disgust of putting on a sweaty cotton T-shirt in that kind of cold underscores the dumbassedness of not having my long johns to begin with.

It is going out in that that makes me realize how conscious I am of personal hygiene, my own and others'.

So, I'm home now.  In the next couple of days, interspersed with all the other stuff I do, I'll be posting on this thread little excerpts from my notes that I've forgotten to write here.  This is just to hit the high points.

And to let you all know, not only am I not perfect, but there sometimes is some detriment to listening to other "experts" when changing your basic survival supplies.  Doing it yourself under similar or even easier controlled conditions will tell you more than me sitting here all day typing about it.

S

Welcome back man!  I'm glad you're safe.

We're looking forward to some photos or video.

That sleeping bag wouldn't keep my dog warm in 50 Degree weather. 

One time I mountain biked way up into a camping area, set up camp... and realized I had forgotten my Therm-a-Rest.  In my Northface Cat's Meow I was freezing my butt off on a cool fall evening.

edit: that fleece would make a good bag liner

Scott, I spent the weekend piling up camping gear based on SK's AWOL Bag episodes / list.

Dude you seriously got me motivated to get this pack up and running, as well as to a test run myself.   

Thanks.  YOU HAVE INSPIRED ME.