Accessories That Make Overlanding More Fun!

Let’s take a break from organizing home spaces and talk about something that takes family fun to a whole new level, OVERLANDING! This is something that I hadn’t heard of until a few years ago, and had not even tried until this year but WOW! my family is ready to add this new way of “wheeling” to it’s list of fun activities!

So the gist of overlanding is that you pack your four wheeling rig with everything that you’ll need to head out into the wilderness for a night or two and set out! It sounded simple when I first heard of it but it actually took a bit more planning, than I first thought it would, to make sure we would survive the trip. Now that sounds a bit dramatic I know, but the closer we got to the trip I started worrying

about what could go wrong and if we had everything packed that we would need. I thought I’d share some of the things we learned and add some links to items that we found helpful or learned of as we did this with some more experienced guides. (Note: as an Amazon associate there are links in this post and I do get compensated for qualifying purchases.)

1. Weight – The first thing to remember is that you don’t really want to pack so much that your rig is too heavy to have fun with on the trail, so, keep it light!
2. Tools – You’ll need tools in case the vehicle breaks down out in the middle of the wilderness. This seems like an obvious addition but I’m embarrassed to say we have not always been prepared in this area when we’ve had a break down. My husband is an amazing mechanic and has done all the building of our rigs himself, but for some
3. reason we get out on the trail without proper tools. Think of flat tires, possibly a broken tie rod end or just over heating and some extra coolant needed.
4. Shelter – There are a variety of excellent options in this department. Of course you can stay out under the stars if you wish, and I’ve seen some pictures of amazing setups with hammocks, but there are also a variety of tent options. We weren’t prepared to spring for a roof top tent before our first overlanding trip, though those are really cool! We looked into options that kind of wrap the back of the vehicle so that you can set up right behind your rig and get into it without coming out of the tent and liked them for the fact that you don’t have to climb a ladder to get to bed. This time we ended up taking our trusty camping tent and just camped next to our vehicle but I’m still quite interested in the roof top variety of tents. One reason I like them is because they stow away nicely and are out of the way until you need them. We had the opportunity to see a couple of these in action this summer and I really like that option best! A down side to them is that they apparently don’t have room to store your sleeping bag and pillow in them. You still have to store those in the rig.
5. Food – It goes without saying that every time we go on a trip we need something to eat. Things you’ll need to think of on the overlanding trip are refrigeration and cooking. There are quite a few options for heating water on the trail from wood fired and propane stoves to other gas operated units. With keeping it light in mind we took a very small stove that attaches to the top of a small propane canister. This has room for one small kettle and is able to heat enough water for a package of Raman noodles or some other camping food that just needs warm water to re-hydrate. There are multiple options for refrigeration as well. Of course you could just not take anything that needs to be kept cold but you could go simple with food cooling and use a small cold chest with ice. There are also small refrigerators that plug into your lighter plug. We opted for the ice and cold chest this time.
6. Bedding – Staying warm at night is of utmost importance when you are camping in the northwestern United States as we are. Be sure that your sleeping bag is rated for a low enough temperature! There’s nothing more miserable than cold nights camping when you aren’t able to warm up your body! There are also hand and foot warmers that make the process of warming up cold hands and feet faster. I recommend having some of those along even if your sleeping bag is rated for sub zero temps.
7. Organization – I know, I seem to be obsessed with this idea but it helps to have everything organized in your four wheeling rig as well. My husband has found the Milwaukee Packout Boxes and loves them! They come in a variety of sizes and they stack and attach to each other with a bracket for the bottom ones that screws to the vehicle so that they won’t be bouncing around in the back of the rig while you’re climbing over rocks. They even have a cooler that fits and interlocks with them if you want to go that route to keep food cold.
8. Trash – Don’t forget the rules of the wilderness, pack it in pack it out! I’ve observed several four wheeling and overlanding rigs with bags that attach to the back of the spare tire on the rig for collecting trash in. I’ve decided this is the way I want to go with our rig and have included a link to my favorite bag in this article.

This past spring and summer we took four wheeling trips in our 1973 Toyota Landcruiser to St. George Utah and the mountains of central Washington State. We’ve taken the old Iron Pig to Moab Utah as well and have plans to head to the Rubicon and some trails in western Oregon in the near future. When you’re headed out on the trail the items you need will depend on your plans, whether it’s a day trip and you’re coming back to camp every night or whether you’re planning to make camp along the trail.

So, whether you’re overlanding in a Toyota like we are, a Jeep or some

other fun vehicle that you’ve built to take off the beaten path, remember to plan ahead and your trip will be so much more fun, safe and of course, more organized!

10 Things I Learned From Living In An RV

Tiny houses, remodeled buses and other small space living have become popular these days.  We lived in an RV before it was a millenial thing to do.  With husband, three children ages 4-11, two dogs and bravery we didn’t know we’d need we embarked on the journey.  We had purchased property, sold our home and moved most of our belongings into a storage unit when we took the final plunge and moved into a twenty three foot pull behind trailer.  It didn’t take long at all to realize that we had not planned well for this and it took us only five days to decide to trade in the RV for a newer bigger model.  We ended up living in the RV for a year and a half before we were able to get moved into our new home so it was well worth the money it cost to make the trade!  Here are a few things I learned about living in an RV from that experience.

1.  Planning ahead is essential if you want to be comfortable.  We did do some planning ahead.  We found an RV park that would let us camp there for a few months which turned out to be a great decision.  I have know several other families who lived in RV’s while building houses and several of them were parked in the mud and dust and not only did they have a hard time staying clean, they ended up ruining the RV in the process.  When we had a pole building built on our new property we moved our RV into it and that gave us a place to be that was clean and where we could have bicycles and tools etc. in out of the weather.
2.  You don’t need as much stuff to survive as you think you do.  As we were storing things away in a storage unit I put things in the RV that I thought I would need.  It turned out that with all the things I thought I needed to live there wasn’t room left for the people in the RV.  I had to pare down most of the things I had put in the RV and take them to the storage unit as well.  Think camping and you will be more likely to have the right amount of stuff.  We tend to have a lot more things in our homes than we really need.  In fact, as I unpacked the storage unit a couple of years later, I realized that I didn’t want or need many of the things that I had thought so essential when I packed them away.
3.   It’s not easy to home school in such a small space but it can be done.  I was home schooling two of my three children while we lived in the RV.  We had to take a lot more field trips to keep our sanity in tact and we had to have a very organized space to keep our supplies so that they didn’t take up all of the space we had but we did manage and don’t seem any worse for the experience.
4.   If you’re going to live in an RV, take a good look at the kitchen first.  When we got the new RV we didn’t really think a lot about the kitchen.  The selling factors to us for that particular RV were the triple bunks and the slide out.  Both things we hadn’t had in the older RV.  There is quite a difference in the kitchens that are available in different RVs, however.  Since that time we have looked at a lot of different units and some are definitely just weekend warriors while others have quite a lot of counter space available for actually preparing meals.  As we lived in our RV we began to really wish we had thought of that before we bought it.
5.   Related to the kitchen… Special diets are hard to keep up when you don’t have a good kitchen and don’t have much freezer space.  I have been a vegetarian most of my life and I try to feed my family wholesome home cooked foods, made from scratch, on a regular basis.  This became a lot harder while making due with the small kitchen.  I admit to eating a lot more frozen pizzas and pastas while we lived in the tight quarters of the RV.  It was a bit difficult to get back to “normal” when we moved out of it as well after forming some not so healthy habits.
6.   If you must live in an RV, make sure everyone has their own bed.  This need was made evident to us right away after moving into the older RV.  Our older one had bunks for two children but the third one had to sleep on the table turned into a bed at night.  It is not fun to put the table up and down every day to make it into a bed.  It’s easy, when living in these tight spaces, to make the table into a kind of office space and in our case school too.  What to do with the things that have taken up residence there while someone needs it as a bed at night is a dilemma that quickly gets old.  We were much more comfortable once we had the triple bunk where each child had their own space where bedding and toys could stay day and night.
7.   Slide outs are a life saver.  Living in a small space always takes extra patience whether you live with one or more people in it.  In our case there were five of us and we became firm believers in slide outs to add additional room for passing each other rather than just having a one butt hallway to get from one end of the RV to the other.  It also makes the entire area look more inviting and homey to be able to spread out a little.
8.   It’s no fun to go to town to dump so get a septic system as soon as possible.  After three months of living in an RV park we moved our operation to our property and tried out one month parking in the mud.  When the shop was finished we moved into it and that was so much better!  One of the main annoyances of that time was dumping the RV every few days.  It gets tiring to pack your things up so that you can move your home and then reorganize each time it comes back to it’s resting place.  We did find out that it’s possible to dump gray water down the toilet though.  As soon as we had a toilet and septic plumbed in we did do that regularly since we didn’t yet have running water hooked up from the well.  This made life a tiny bit easier and made a few less trips to town necessary for dumping.
9.   Water is ESSENTIAL!  For nearly a year we hauled our water in five gallon buckets from a kind friends home and syphoned it into our trailer in between town dump and refill runs.  It was easier to have it in the water tanks of the RV so that we could use it in the accustomed ways such as washing dishes and showering, etc.  It was soooo nice when we finally had running water coming to a sink right in our home!
10. . You can live in small spaces with minor inconveniences and still be happy!  When you are following your dreams and seeing them being fulfilled as you go, the small inconveniences of life become stepping stones to your success.  They can be annoying and can cause fights between the best of friends if you let them but it doesn’t have to end that way.  Many times, when we were tired and feeling a bit discouraged, my husband and I would look back on our project and say things like, “Just think! last year this time we didn’t even have a toilet!  Keep track of your progress, of  where you’ve been and where you’re going, it helps make it possible to enjoy the little successes along the way and keep going toward the goals you’ve set.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  Phil. 3:12 NKJV

A Six Year Old Pioneer

This morning as I was going about reclaiming my house after the kids left for school and putting things back in order when I stopped to read the newspaper that my husband had left on the kitchen counter.  Much to my happy surprise I saw that one of my young friends had written an article that was published in yesterday’s local newspaper.  She is currently living in a yurt and has written some of the things that she has learned from this experience.

This article excited me and maybe inspired me a little as well.  I went around the house hurrying to finish my current chores as ideas were reeling through my head.  I must confess that I haven’t actually finished all of my work but I feel compelled to get some of these ideas out of my head before they get lost in the daily activities of life.  I have decided to write a few posts about some of the non-conventional ways that I have lived.  The good the bad and the life lessons that have come from those experiences have served to help shape who I am today.

I was born to independent thinking parents who tended to move a LOT!  They had moved twenty times in the first ten years of their marriage!  This might have something to do with the fact that I have chosen to stay in the same area for the past nearly thirty years.  My parents also did not have a lot of money so they had to figure out how to make due and use the things that were available to them at the time.  When I was about five years of age my parents packed up our belongings and they, my little sister and I headed out for an adventure.  I don’t think my dad had a job lined up at the time and I know that my parents didn’t know where we were going to live long term but we headed to a town in north eastern Washington state and house sat for some relatives for a short time while they figured out what to do next.

My childish memories of that part of the “adventure” are minimal at best.  How they decided that they would purchase property out of town and what they would build on it I don’t know, but they did and my memories start to be much more vivid from then on.  From, who knows where, long logs showed up on our newly acquired property.  We had a fun family get together with a picnic and lots of relatives!  They all gathered around with special tools that they used to start pealing the bark off of those long straight logs.  I got to help some with this process but I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t much help.

Somewhere near this home sight there was a house that was in need of being torn down.  I remember that my parents made arrangements to work on that project and were able to salvage some of the lumber from that house to be used in building our new home.  After the logs had all been prepared and the lumber collected there came a day for a house raising.  This was so exciting!  The relatives all showed up again and after I’m sure a lot of work, but to me a lot of excitement, a little two story cabin began to take shape.

The plan was to make a pole building and for the siding they used the boards salvaged from the old house and planned to do a board and bat siding.  The cabin had a living room and kitchen on the main floor and two bedrooms on the second floor.  There was a sturdy ladder made to access the second floor and some book cases were set up in my parents bedroom, with a port-a-potty behind them, as the bathroom.  The kitchen was set up with a camp stove and a sink in a rough cabinet quickly made to hold it.  I don’t think there was any refrigeration at first.  We had lanterns to light up the evenings.

We quickly moved into this cabin though it was not yet finished.  It was summer time so there were no immediate worries, it was a great way to camp!  One of the first memories I have of the cabin was of a humming bird that flew in through the holes in the exterior walls.  The bats had not yet been installed between the boards and so there was about an inch of open space between each board.  My mom caught the humming bird in a jar, it was so small and beautiful, and took it back outside to release it back to the wild.

There was a spring a few miles down the road and we stopped their regularly with five gallon pickle buckets to get water.  I remember clearly that they were pickle buckets because as you can imagine they had a very familiar smell for some time.  Eventually the smell left them though and our water didn’t taste like pickles any more.  I was really very unaffected by this process.  I didn’t even imagine that it was taxing on my parents who were doing all of the bucket filling work.  This was all great fun to a six year old!

Photo: My little sister and I standing on the ladder that leads upstairs with the tub hanging on the wall beside us and the mattress fabric stapled to the wall behind.

That summer the bats were put up and a wood stove installed.  Our neighbors were kind enough to allow us to run a pipe the six hundred feet from their well to our house until we were able to get a well of our own drilled.  This put a stop to the need for getting water from the spring down the road.  The water pipe ran across the top of the ground and was black, so, due to the sun, we had hot water during the day and cold water at night.  We had a #3 galvanized tub to take baths in.  We would each take our turn on the kitchen floor in the tub, bathing.  It was just the right size for my sister and I to bathe in but not so for my parents.

Later that summer with well installed and the wiring done so that we now had power my mom was able to have a laundry right there at home!  It was a wringer washer outside the kitchen door but it was ours and we didn’t have to go to the laundry mat!  I’m sure she had clothes lines up to hang the clean wet clothes from but that part I don’t remember.

There were some nice people who had a shed full of quilted mattress fabric that had been used to make mattresses with.  They gave us a bunch of that and as winter drew near my mom went around the house stapling this fabric to the walls trying to keep the house warmer.  The wood stove worked hard but it was not able to keep the house warm.  My sister’s and my bedroom was upstairs on the opposite side of the house as the stove and I remember going to bed with our coats and stocking hats on.  We could lay there and watch the snow flakes waft in through the cracks in the roof.  As a six year old, the cares of the world and keeping a family warm and alive in this little cabin were far from my mind.  I felt that we were snug and cozy in our beds even though the snow flakes drifted in.

The winter baths were from water heated on the wood stove.  Sometimes we would bring snow in to melt in the pot on the stove.  On those long winter nights while we huddled near the fire waiting for bath water to warm my dad would read stories to my sister and I while we played with legos or colored.  There was no such thing as a cell phone or video game and we didn’t have a television.  We did have a radio and a record player and to this day the music on those records stirs happy memories in me when I hear it.

In the next spring and summer there were gardens and trees to be planted, a chicken house was built and chickens acquired to live in it and provide eggs.  I watched as my mom canned and preserved food and my dad built a root cellar and then it was time for me to start school.  We lived there in the little cabin for a couple of years before we were off on the next adventure.  Though a lot of time has passed and I have lived that adventurous life over again to some extent on several occasions as an adult, I will always treasure those memories of a six year old pioneer with no knowledge of the worry of life just the fun and adventure of living life to the fullest!

If you have the chance, get out and enjoy life!  God bless!