I have enjoyed reading so many cool stories of how you guys got started and some really cool family adventures and the father son hunting trips. I wish I could have done those things with my dad or my sons...
OK the following is my humble beginnings in camping and overlanding..
I loved watching Danial Boone and Davey Crockett as a kid I was 9 when I read the book "My Side of the Mountain" It was one of the few books I picked up and read nonstop to the end. I just wanted to live that life... So at 9 years old I started camping with friends at their house and them at mine... OK we really were a 1/2 mile out in the wilderness of South Florida on our own and our parents didn't know... We started on the ground then tents and later this led to building an elaborate tree house to camp in. We had one platform in a big oak tree that could sleep 5 or 6 kids with zip lines in case we wanted to leave in a hurry... It was inspired by the movie "Swiss Family Robinson" but not as fancy.. lol
By 14 most of us had dirt bikes so our weekend trips started getting farther and farther away from home. Gear was strapped to motorcycles and we had back packs too. I had a jungle hammock with a cover and mosquito netting it was good for keeping some of the bugs and water off and the best part was I never woke up in a mud puddle like several of my friends did. (It rains a lot in Florida) We would often hunt game and go fishing and tried to survive off the land. To be fair if you starve in the wilderness in So Flo you really can't be looking to hard. I learned what plants were edible and what to stay away from. We were all scouts so we had fun trying to build snares and other things to catch food. None of our parents ever went camping with us. If something had come up and they needed to find us they had no clue where we were... It was uncanny how most of us could hear my dad holler my name from what seemed like miles away.. (He was a rough and gruff football coach and principle) Yea nobody messed with big Chuck...
After high school in the 70's I did some camping courtesy of US Army in Germany then later with Uncle Sam's Miss guided Children (USMC) mostly in swamps or jungles. I actually did enjoy those times too... Some of our long range sleeping was actually underground sleeping in the day coming out at night after a few days our night vision was amazing..
My next bit of camping was done at Road Race tracks around the country in the 90's because racing was rather expensive and camping was a lot cheaper than hotels... With the money saved I could actually buy a new set of race tires for Daytona .. Our first year racing cost around $50,000 but, we did win $42,000 that year... None the less it was fun times.. This lasted 7 years and I finished this chapter in my life when I was 40.
In 2000 a motorcycle company brought me to California. When I wasn't working I was out rock climbing, back packing and mountain climbing. From 43 to 50 some years old I did a lot of camping in Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Alabama Hills and any where else we could find a wall of rock or something to climb. By 2008 to 2009 I spent at least 65 days a year camping in a tent or my Ford Explolder that was built into what I would later learn was an overlander. It had a platform with sleeping pad in the back with food, camping gear and of course a lot of rock climbing gear under the platform to support my habit of climbing an average of 3 days a week. It was a very cramped 2 door with 2 wheel drive.
In Nov. 2009 I ran into my old girlfriend and for Thanksgiving I did my last 3 day trip with some friends as a single man canoeing and camping on the Colorado River then a few weeks later in Dec. 2009 I got married... lol Not many climbing trips after that... lol Hey, I actually had more fun hanging out with my lame wife. (Well, she became lame because she took a bad fall while on a rock climbing trip with me four years earlier. Her calcaneus sort of exploded on impact when she fell into a 16 foot deep slot between rocks it also broke her thumb. But I must say she is a bad ass she never once cried during the 2 hour rescue getting her out and to the hospital or the next 4 hours waiting at the hospital...) OK back to the story...
By Jan.1st 2010 I was back in Florida (my wife stayed in So Cal) Yes we had been married a week... My mother was terminally ill and I had always promised she would not go to a retirement home and I would take care of her. So I took a year off from working and took her to see friends and relatives for the last time. We took a three week trip form Florida to Ohio and back visiting people. Later that year we flew out to Oregon to see my grand daughter her great grand daughter. Then 8 months later she had a stroke and was gone a couple weeks later. So I was back in Socal with my wife by Christmas 2010...
Mostly a lot of work and not too much camping... Til 2016 when I moved to Reno and started camping a little with my trusty Exploder again (Yes my wife was still in Socal) in 2018 after my wife came to live in Sparks with me I decided it was time to replace the Ford I had since 2004... I picked up a 2011 Tahoe 4x4 and we started camping a little then I got real crazy 4 inch lift, wheels, bigger tires, steel bumpers front and rear, a winch and 4.10 gears. Building my rig has become my hobby and filled my desire to design things. (I have worked in the Design/Engineering and fabrication field throughout my life) it is still a work in progress... OK I admit it is a little bit of and addiction... But I can stop any time..
I joined Overland bound of Reno last year they have been great!!! I love these people they are certainly great folks to do trips with and learn things from. This club has done workshops teaching things like recovery, navigational classes vehicle preparations, suggested packing lists for trips, first aid and even a trail repair stitching a tire with a gash in it.
My work has given us the opportunity to visit Utah for a few months last year we were just 80 miles from Moab and a 110 from Colorado so I did a lot of overland weekend travel there. After a few weeks back in Nevada I was sent to Arizona in time to go see overland Expo, I loved the timing of that... We lived there a couple months then back home to Nevada...
Now we are getting ready to move permanently in a few weeks to Arizona for our next chapter in our life and we look forward to new adventures down there.. And meeting some new overland bound members.
Ok. So that is my long winded story...
