Tag Archives: vehicles

Pretty cold

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I’m an advocate of ‘stay with the vehicle’ for those times when you wind up, for whatever reason, unable to proceed any further…could be snow, vehicle malfunction, bad gas, whatever…if you’re in the middle of nowhere and your vehicle cannot proceed the thing to do is stay with the vehicle. Don’t believe me? Search the blog using the tag ‘strandings’ and read what comes up.

Staying with the vehicle is easier if you have the necessary gear, and I like to think I keep the vehicle stocked with the necessary gear. So, when its 0-degrees out and the wind is howling, is that surplus military sleeping bag really going to keep you from losing toes, ears, fingers , and nose to frostbite? Assuming you survive?

Let’s find out.

I keep a military sleep system in the vehicle year-round. Its an okay system and the price is right – free at most military standdowns. I have a half dozen in storage. Are they actually warm down to 0 degrees? Well, last night was at zero so I decided to test it out. I rolled out the GI sleeping mat, laid out the sleep system..inner bag, out bag, bivvy sack…stripped down to socks, shorts and a t-shirt, and climbed in. First off all, that transition of several seconds from ‘fully dressed while standing outside in 0 degree weather’ to ‘partially dressed but huddled in a sleeping bag’ was…intense. Once in the bag it was huddle in a ball until things warmed up. And then….not bad. I basically cinched everything up so my nose and mouth poked through the hood of the bag and left it at that. I’m not going to say it was toasty, but it was warm enough I could fall asleep and it was, without a doubt, warm enough that I wouldnt lose body parts to frostbite.

While I was cocooned in the bag, I used my phone to entertain myself and see what the official weather was.. -1 with winds around 12-15mph. And there were gusts that I could feel rippling across the bivvy sack, which did a nice job of being windproof.

I suspected that the military sleep system would be adequate and it was. This was laying on the ground in an unprotected and open area. Used in a vehicle, which would offer some material benefits in terms of protection from the weather, the MSS should be pretty much ideal. Better bags out there? Absolutely..but the MSS come out cheap enough that you can have a couple in a vehicle and not break the bank.

Drawbacks? A tad snug. Bulky as hell, but since it’s just sitting in the truckbox that isn’t really an issue. but, more importantly, experiments like these give me faith in a piece of gear and thats got quite a value all on its own.

So, if all you keep in your rig is a couple blankets, or, worse, a ‘space blanket’, I invite you to wait for a nice, clear, bitterly cold night and try them out for a few hours. Its the kinds of experiment that costs nothing but can pay off some big dividends…especially next time you get stuck in your vehicle in the dead of winter.

Vacuum-sealed clothing after five years

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One of the tasks I performed the other day was reviewing and inspecting the various items I have stashed away in the vehicle for those unseen emergencies. Among all the items is a complete change of clothes. That stuff has been packed away, freezing and roasting, for the last several years and I figured it’d be a good idea to check on them and see how they’re doing.

Answer? They’re just fine. However, I did unpack the shirt and jeans and discover that the plastic bag had imparted a wierd smell to them. Not offensive, just odd…a vinyl-y plastic smell that, after a few hours in the open air, seemed to fade away. Other than that, clothing held up just fine…as I expected. I re-vacuum-sealed everything and put it away for the uncertain future.

Why the vacuum sealing? Well, biggest reason is because if you need a change of clothes somewhere other than home that means you probably got wet, messy, bloody, dirty, or some similar ugliness. That being the case, youre most definitely gonna want clean and dry clothes. And, of course, vacuum sealing also reduces the ‘footprint’ of the clothing by compressing everything down as much as possible. But, when you’ve had to change a tire on a slushy and wet roadway while freezing rain is soaking you through, that bit of vacuum sealing is going to seem more like a Nobel-worthy idea than it is overkill.

Other goodies in there stored equally as well, although I discarded and replaced all batteries just to be safe. And I I updated the spreadsheet I keep of this sort of thing to reflect any changes.

What do I keep around in the vehicle for emergencies? Well, you can get the links to that epic series of posts here.

And, in other news………

Vehicle stuff

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As I mentioned earlier, one of my regrets is that I didn’t take my FAK with me on my trip to Venus Jr. I was wondering if, in fact, I had in that FAK the items I would have needed for that particular episode…specifically, a non-adhesive dressing of some type, some rolled gauze, and some tape. Turns out, yes, I had all that in there. Cool. But then I figured I better double-check what might be lacking. As it turns out, I seem to have never gotten around to distributing burn jel into that particular kit. So, off to Amazon for Burn Jel…both the ‘ketchup packets’ of the stuff, individual dressings, and a bottle of the stuff.  I’ve used this product in the past for some kitchen accidents and it works wonderfully. In fact, I’ve had some burns bad enough to keep me awake at night and this stuff has made it so I can sleep.

This little episode of gear-inspection was also driven by the need for me to review, update, replenish, and re-gear my in-vehicle supplies. In the winter I try to keep a big ol’  Pelican case of winter survival gear in the vehicle ‘just in case’. But, during the summer-ish times there’s not as much need for that much bulk and mass taking up space. Since the summer stuff doesn’t require as much bulky clothing and sleepgear as winter, I use a medium size pack. Its the well-made and highly-recommended SpecOps Brand Recon Ruck.  Don’t let that MSRP fool you, they can be had for a lot less. I think I got mine on sale somewhere for around $80..but, that was a while ago. Anyway, the nice thing about it is that it can be used as a non-frame pack (like a Med. ALICE pack) but can also be used in conjunction with an ALICE frame, which are pretty ubiquitous and affordable. Yeah, the ALICE was supplanted by the MOLLE packs but this isn’t for humping the boonies, its for just keeping my gear in one place. Anyway, highly recommend.

The only real difference between the winter and summer gear is, as I said, bulky sleeping gear and extra clothing. I don’t carry extra water because SOP is to have a 5-gallon jerry can of the stuff on hand.

I live in one of the more densely populated parts of Montana, so sitting on a road somewhere and not seeing a soul for days at a time is fairly unheard of. However, I don’t plan to never stray from this part of Montana. Sometimes I like to go to gun shows in far and distant lands..like Kalispell, Butte, Helena, Billings, etc. And then there’s a much greater possibility that a vehicle issue might put you in a position to twiddle your thumbs for quite a while. But, between the standard vehicle gear and my Bag O’ Tricks, I like my odds.

And, of course, no matter the season the prevailing wisdom is Stay With The Vehicle. Or Else.
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Video – Adam Savage’s Land Cruiser

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You guys remember Adam Savage from Mythbusters? I’ve always kinda thought he was a closet survivalist. Anyway, years ago, he took a picture of his Toyota Land Cruiser and posted it online. He was unaware about the tags in the pictures data and wound up accidentally giving away his home address to the responsible, decent, unabusive people who populate the internet. Here’s an article about it.

BASICS-1-popupTurns out, Savage has a regular podcast series on YouTube where he talks about mostly ‘maker’ stuff but there are some excellent episodes about tools and techniques that would be useful to folks like us. The video I want to share with you is this one where he talks about how he’s fallen back in love with his Land Cruiser. He lists a few interesting mods he’s made to it.

I’ve always thought that one of the things, with a little tweaking here and there, would be a wonderful vehicle for those days when the zombies are uppity. You’re not gonna pass anything on the highway but you’ll climb hills that would freak a yak. And his is a diesel, too…how cool is that.

If I ever wind up making anything out of my life and getting some money put away, I’ll get one of these.

Article – Why Are The Feds Obsessed With Seizing These People’s Old Trucks?

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Jennifer Brinkley had a typical summer morning planned on July 15: get up, get dressed, and take her son to tennis practice. That changed when six body armor-clad Department of Homeland Security agents and local police officers showed up at her North Carolina home and blocked her driveway. They were there because of an arbitrary law promulgated 26 years ago to guard the prerogatives — and profits —of automakers and car dealers. Specifically, they were there to take Brinkley’s truck.

TL;DR version: the fedgoons nicked a bunch of peoples Land Rover Defenders because, according to the .gov, they were younger than the arbitrary 25-year-old threshold to import certain vehicles. (I know someone who, when he came to this country, was warmly welcomed at the customs port by having to surrender his motorcycle because it didnt meet US standards. Its a motorcycle…it’s inherently unsafe to begin with!)

I used to see a Defender around town here in Missoula. It was a light pink hue, so it was either a very faded red or an old military desert model. Haven’t seen it in a few years so perhaps it got taken too.

The two vehicles I’m most interested in are the Hilux, which isn’t imported to the US as that [although the US version was pretty close], and an old FJ with the impossible-to-find diesel engine. (Although somehow Adam Savage managed to get his hands on one.) However, it’s still rather annoying to think that theres a .gov agency somewhere wasting it’s time on this sort of nonsense. (As a sidebar, and interesting and equally nonsensical fiat is how diesel engines are rated… overseas the emissions standard for the diesel is how many miles you get out of a fixed amount of exhaust particulate, here its how much exhaust particulate you expel per gallon. In other words, if you have a diesel that spits out twice as much exhaust but gets fifty times the MPG it would be considered environmentally unsound, even though it is obviously tremendously more efficient and fuel efficient.)

I never much gave any thought to buying a Land Rover…I’ve heard too many bad things about British cars (and British food and guns), but if your tastes run in that direction and you find a nice Defender to tweak out into your BOV, you might wanna exercise some caution.

 

Day of bicycle stuff

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I usually ride my bike to the shop in the mornings. It just doesn’t make sense to spend the money on gas when I live relatively close to the shop and the dog seems to enjoy the exercise. My tire had been running low so i got out the pump to add some air to the tire and thats when things started to go wrong. For some reason I couldnt get the pump to latch onto the valve stem in a manner that let the air flow through the correct orifice. (There are two orifices on the pump…one for presta valves and one for schrader valves.) I spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and was drawing a blank. Now, when confronted with a puzzling situation like this I usually go for the process of elimination. I tried both tires and had the same problem. Reasonably, this means the problem is something to do with the pump rather than the tires. (The odds of both tires suddenly developing the same mysterious problem are pretty slim.) The problem obviously (to me) had to be the pump…either a problem with the pump itself or a problem in my application of it. Unfortunately, I do not have a spare pump for my bicycle to compare against.

Long story short: operator error on my part. I took the bike and pump to my local bike shop and asked the guy to check it out. He got the pump hooked up to the valve bo problem and promptly filled my tire. WTF? So I thanked him, watched him carefully, and then deflated my tire and tried it myself. Seemed to work this time. The error was in my trying to force the stem too deeply into the pump.

But, while I was at the bike shop I figured I should get another air pump. I wanted one to keep with the bike, which means a small, compact, lotsa-strokes unit. The guy who owns the bike shop is, surprise, a like-minded individual so he knew where I was coming from. “Here’s what I want: I need a pump that will fit in my bag, work on both valves, take abuse, be reliable, versatile and durable. If it gets wet or snowed on it won’t matter. Doesn’t have to mount to the frame, but it would be nice to have that option. I don’t care about the cost as long as it is end-of-the-world quality.”

He explained that while the smaller fit-in-your-bag pumps required more strokes than the longer mount-to-the-frame pumps, there is a greater risk of damage to the frame mounted pump if you take a tumble on your bike. I hadn’t thought of that. Originally I was looking at this pump (which I still may get as a tertiary-level spare) bit wound up ordering this one which is small enough to fit in either the bag on my bike or in any of my packs/bags. When it gets here I’ll deflate my tire and then time myself to see how long it takes to reinfalte using one of these little pumps.

Of course, a pump is pretty useless without the means to repair the tube so it can hold more air. A few more clicks of a mouse got me a bicycle multi tool, a patch kit, some tire levers and a few other goodies to get me back up and running. Still need to get a couple spare tubes, some Slime, and some other small parts but when it’s all done it should all fit into a small Maxpedition pouch I can mount on the bike or keep with my gear.

I do need to put together a comprehensive “at home” kit of tools and gear to keep the bicycles running, though. I got several very good books on bicycle maintenance and repair, I just need to go find a junked mountain bike and tear it apart and put it back together a few times.

While Im not a ‘Peak Oil’ person, there are times when being able to zip around the town and the hills quietly, quickly, and on pathways that motor vehicles cant navigate might be very useful. Last thing I need is to get stuck somewhere with a busted chain or flat tire, though. So…we prepare.