KRUMPn and BUMPn

Where are you and where are you going?
KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

Ultra Delayed Update
It only took me just under 2 months to come back with an update. Obviously markets have been a little frustrating, but honestly that feels like the least interesting part. I managed to take off in my truck later than expected (end of May). I've only spent around 8 days in it as a home on BLM/USFS/Free Campsites but it has definitely felt like a roller coaster. Emotions hit hard first ("WTF am I doing this kind of sucks" to "Hey this is kind of fun"). I'm not sure how long I'll be able to continue doing this but I'm going to try and stoke the "hey this is fun" feeling. I have a few Ideas for how to improve my setup and make the rough parts easier. The biggest obstacle so far has been poor sleep. It was starting to get better as the days went on. The feeling of being totally exposed feels like the biggest cause of this but it could be that I had been traveling way more than I had planned (initial plan was just bum around CO for a while, but my procrastination made it so I had to go to a wedding in ID before CO, so I wandered into OR accidentally for a good campsite, then back to southern ID, then Moab and then finally back to CO). Now that I'm in CO, I plan on bumming around the mountains and high desert for a while. I have quite a few friends out here to see so that will be nice as well.

Truck Updates
Set up costs have been a pain, but I feel like getting some of these changes in will make life more pleasant, and the cost is relatively negligible. My biggest change is changing from a 2 burner stove to a single burner. I rarely use 2 burners when cooking (even on a regular stove) and making this change would make unpacking and packing my kitchen tremendously easier since it would put everything in an easier to access and smaller cubby in the deck. I also have plans to add a cargo net to the ceiling to hold lighter items (sheets, towels, etc.) which should make access to the stuff under the deck much easier. Finally I want to add some wood "straps" to some of the inlets in the walls so common items (spices/herbs, toiletries, batteries/fans) easier to access without obstructing the deck cubbies. If anyone is curious I can get some pictures upload after I get this accomplished.

Truck Experiences
A couple of things that I have noticed while living in such a small space (something like 144 CUBIC feet).
  1. I'm way more comfortable inside the truck than I thought, which is counter to my goal of "spend most of my time outside).
  2. Sleeping has been the roughest part, but it's getting better. I think it was the combination of feeling exposed, being in a new mattress and being on alert from traveling so much. If this doesn't improve enough it is definitely a deal breaker, but I have high hopes. Surprisingly the fridge hasn't really been an issue. I think I remember @AxelHeyst mentioning fridge noise in his truck camper, which triggered me to put the fridge below the deck. This has reduced the noise significantly.
  3. Working out has become difficult, mostly because of self limiting. it feels weird to play with a kettlebell out in the open. I'm going to have to get used to this since I don't want my weight training to slip
  4. Cooking setup has become a chore. I think the updates listed above should help with this though. Also I still have a phobia of bears that has made me avoid some nice areas or fast when I go where bears a likely to be. I believe this has cause a little bit of weight loss that was not welcome.
  5. My electrical setup is surprisingly sufficient for what I have. I have a single 100ah battery and one 100 watt solar panel (as well as a back up folding one that I had from a previous build attempt). The battery also charges from the starter battery when the truck is running. However, I checked the battery today after sitting without the truck running for 4 days and it is still full. The only thing running off of it at this point is the fridge. The fans and lights run off of a USB battery pack, but that may change based on seeing the main battery do so well just on the one solar panel.
  6. As expected, I don't love "traveling." My plan was not to move constantly, but that's what's happened for the first week of this experience. I'm planning on staying in a single locale/region for much longer now that I'm where I intended to be. Hopefully this makes things simpler (and cheaper with these gas prices).
Short Term Goals
I have a couple things that I would like to accomplish (or at least start into) in the near term (the mobile farm may have to wait until I'm more comfortable with this lifestyle).
  1. Get some hobbies going again. I hit a rut with a bit of self diagnosed, mild depression and basically dropped a lot of my old hobbies. I'm thinking of picking up fishing and/or paddle boarding. A lot of camp sites are near water and it would be nice to do more than just stare at the water when I'm out there. Any suggestions for mobile friendly hobbies would be more than welcome!
  2. Try and find some sense of community. This one is going to be tougher I think. There are quite a few forums/clubs that cater to RV/van living so that will probably be my first place to seek this out. Does anybody else know a good place to seek out this kind of community IRL?
  3. Dip my toes into the dating scene after a long hiatus. Dating has never really been my thing and I have never really felt like I've been missing much. With this recent trip I am seeing why so many RVers/Liveaboard Sailors are couples. It seems to me at this point that it would be way more fun to share this with another person. Obviously if I start using some of the online options, the truck living thing is a first mentions since I would assume it's a deal breaker for like 90% of women. This seems like a great way to filter out people that wouldn't match well any way, so I see it as more of a plus.
Finances (I guess)
Definitely took a dive over the last couple months. Currently sitting at ~25.42x TTM. This is due to a combination of nearly doubling my average spending in May due to wedding expenses and having some dental work done. This month is looking better but not sub $1000 like I planned since I had an O2 sensor fail on me and unfortunately it's the only one that I can't get at, so I had to schedule the work be done at a shop. Add on to that the things that I'm going to pick up to finish out the truck and I'm probably sitting around my normal spending level. Not bad but a little disappointing.

Quick Bonus Story
I managed to run into a girl who go her little SUV stuck on some BLM trails in southern ID while attempting to turn around on a tight corner. Unfortunately I only had a shovel to help and couldn't get her unstuck. It looked like she needed a winch to get her out. Unfortunately she didn't have much money (CO -> OR for a job) so calling a rescue truck was out of the question. She decided to try and find some farmers nearby that would have the equipment to help the next morning. Add on to that, I ran into a wolf (or the largest coyote I've ever seen and I've seen plenty of coyote) while I was doing my business behind some bushes. I decided to move on after that incident, since I didn't really want to run into the rest of the pack. I left the girl, since she seemed like she could use it more than me (and this is the kind of giving that I would prefer to do rather than charity). I ran into her as she was talking with what appeared to be three generations of farmers and let her know what was going on and then boogied on out of there. Moral of the story: wolves scare the shit out of me and having plenty of save capital makes things WAY easier.

AxelHeyst
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by AxelHeyst »

In my experience, there's a big step up in comfort / satisfaction / ease that comes after a few weeks or months of the lifestyle. Partly it's practical improvements like finding the best way to stow your gear, or optimizing kitchen so food prep doesn't involve so much setup.

But also, right now, every single thing you do occupies your full attention because none of it is automatic yet. Everything requires decision after decision, including the most basic aspects of it. Throw on top of that the background anxiety of exposure (living your life in public lands), anda dash of predator fear, and your life is simply very mentally taxing.

Most of that mental tax will ease considerably over the coming weeks, as you just get used to sleeping in a small metal box out in the wilderness, and after month of not getting devoured by a wolf your brain will find something else to do. Your job right now is pretty much just to do your best and breathe through it.

Thanks for the update, it's really neat to hear your experiences and remember what the early days were like a bit. Once this feels normal, your sphere of freedom will be that much bigger.

KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 6:57 am
Ironically, the comfort aspect is something I was trying to "escape" in a way. Extreme comfort has put me in a lull in life and I know that times of struggle, while uncomfortable, have led to greater growth and satisfaction. However, there is a point were it stops being productive and puts you straight into survival mode like you say. It's great to have tasks to accomplish around this too. The building/fixing/optimizing really get's my brain excited. The only thing that worries me is once things become automatic, if I don't have new hobbies and/or community built up, I'll fall back into lazy/comfort mode. This may take more active pushing to prevent, but it is a concern in the back of my head. I guess worst case is I'm living similarly to what I was before, but in a cheaper and more interesting manner.

As far as freedom that comes with this, I had a glimpse of what this feels like (I think). Initially I was telling myself that I had to go up to the PNW, but every time I thought about it it stressed me out for some reason. It finally hit me that it felt like something I had to do rather than something I wanted to do (family and friends saying "You have to go see..." and the like). Once I accepted that I realized I didn't have to do anything. Screw everyone else's opinions. I wanted to be in CO so that's where I went.

Thanks for the reassurance, btw! I followed along with your little skirmishes in your truck and it was definitely an inspiration to stop playing around in the "what if" world and just push through and figure out what's needed after some experience. Did you have any luck expanding/finding community? If I remember right you were into climbing for a while which I'm sure helped. Feels like mutual hobbies are one of the keys to finding like minded people out and about.

AxelHeyst
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by AxelHeyst »

My life continues to be a delightful maelstrom of instability, so it's not really accurate to say that I solved the community/loneliness problem. But I have thoughts based on my experiences.

If you find yourself posting up in and spending most of your time in a particular area, even though you live in your truck, you're basically a local to that spot. You just live in the woods instead of on X street. Particularly in mountain towns in the west, it's almost not noteworthy that you live in a vehicle. Sometimes you're in town, sometimes your not. That's true of a lot of folks who live in those towns anyways. Yo where's Eric? Oh he's in Japan for a month. (He owns a house in town.) Hey I haven't seen Z in a while, he still around? Oh ya, but he's doing a season guiding in Nepal atm. (He lives in his Sprinter which he parks behind the morgue). In this circumstance, the 'how to' manual for building community is little different than if you rented an apartment.

If you find yourself bouncing around more, it's Traveler community game. Fast and intense, because you might not see this person ever again. This is cooking up some food on your tailgate in the parking lot after a paddle, striking up a conversation with the dude next parking spot over rolling out of his Outback, sharing a bowl, having a game of frisbee golf, meeting some of his other traveler friends for live music at the brewpub, and then never seeing them again. Travelers spot travelers quickly by the telltales: the reflectix in the windows, the "I'm not a local here but I'm not on vacation" vibe (people on vacation are tense and either angry or Getting! After! Having! Fun! Smilegoddammit!), the stickers, the patina of dust. Having spotted each other, nonverbally sussed out compatibility (have to be +/-1 on the gnar scale), making a connection is automatic if company is desired.

Some random advice/thoughts:
.Find the cool coffee shop and become a regular there. Most mountain towns have a community of crusty skater punks, and they only go to one of the coffee shops, and it's rarely the same place hordes of tourists go to. Find that one and hang out there. Don't pose (obviously), just choose to go to that one when you go to a coffee shop. (e.g. in Truckee it's Dark Horse. In Bishop its Black Sheep.) Find this shop in each of the towns you spend any time in. Always be nice to the baristas, tip well, and pay in cash. (this is multiple positive yield spending for this lifestyle. It's not about the coffee.)
.You might find yourself using the word 'hobby' less. Climbing, paddling, shredding the gnar, whatever, for most of the people in the mountains is What They Do. Everything else is arranged in their lives so they can do That Thing. But at the same time they don't take it seriously. I don't know, this is hard to articulate. Hobby implies tourist. You're not a tourist anymore. This is your life. What do you do with it? (There's a bumper sticker I saw in Truckee: "Your vacation is ruining my life.") You can connect with people at a deep level quickly if this is your perspective. If you know what's up with the local mtb trails, and people can tell this by how you talk about your feelings about the Huff flow trail vs. Downie shuttle run, you're getting invited the next time they go out on a Tuesday.
.But uh, sorry for that tangent, yes, broadly speaking having a Thing or two that you do is a quick way to hook into community, even if it's a transient community. You can even thing of serendipitous encounters. Get into paddling, be around a river long enough and know a few people, then maybe get an interest in guiding and do that a few days a week, and now you're a river guide, fully embedded in the community for the season.

AxelHeyst
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by AxelHeyst »

You might be knowledgeable on all that mountain culture voodoo stuff already, I just thought it worth getting out there anyway.
I'm super interested in pics on your rig. The kitchen indeed is the critical path for #trucklife ease, a topic I have some experience with. Lmk if you want any feedback on the setup.
I think it's an incredibly positive sign that you're already intuitive enough to Not do something you were Supposed to want to do (go to the PNW). It's your weird life, not anyone else's.
ETA: My entire first month on the road, I was lonely and scared and felt like a loser. It was worth it. The benefits on the other side of that were (are) totally worth it.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by mountainFrugal »

I would second everything that @AH has said on mountain town culture. There is a difference between being a tourist in a town doing hobbies and being a local from some other mountain town that is just visiting (in your case you live in all the mountain towns :)). Usually folks have 2-3 activities they enjoy spending time doing and all the outdoor social groups overlap and interact all the time. Coffee shops, brew pubs, and Trail head hangouts after X activity are the best places to shoot the shit. Ask for recommendations. In return, give a recommendation from a place you just were or some detail about the area you are currently in that you noticed and thought was cool. The tolerance for transience is high if you are a good human to everyone because folks will want a similar courtesy returned when they inevitably travel to another town to check out X sick feature for Y activity.

KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

Thanks @AxelHeyst and @mountainFrugal. I love the advice (and the tangents! Tangents are great. Keeps things interesting). I definitely am using hobby in the way you describe. It's probably just a hangover way of phrasing things from FTW. By hobbies I meant "the things I actually like/choose to do regardless of externalities. Looking up synonyms for hobby I found avocation, craft, obsession and specialty. I might just steal your phrasing @AxelHeyst and use "stoke" as a noun, ex. "what's your stoke, brew?"

I love the advice around staying in a single local and becoming a local, just out of the truck instead of traditional housing. This was kind of my plan with CO and AZ since I have a friend group in both (and AZ let's me escape he sub-zero mountain temps), but your advice/explanation has helped ease anxiety that exists about being on the edge of society. I am only mildly aware of mountain culture. I've hung around enough people living that life (my childhood heroes were the boat operators in Tahoe. You mean these guys just get to drive boats all day and then chill around the woods??? Sign me up) that I've picked up some stuff, but the detailed explanation is much better than trying to watch and pick up what's going down.

I have definitely been lucky enough to strike up conversations with a wide variety of folks so far. I've been trying to take the attitude of let this random person lead the conversation. If most people are like me they love to talk about the things that excite them and if you give them the chance you can see the happiness come through (I had a Walmart tech guy going on about his stargazing adventures and it was great!).

I'll try to get something together after I finish this round of improvements. I have some pictures but they are outdated (I had to modify the deck to fit the fridge below, it's not the prettiest but it cuts a lot of the rumble and noise) so I don't think they will be particularly useful. My original priorities were to have good food, good sleep and maintain a good workout routine. So fare on the food has come through, but the sleep is improving (I think, I've been in my buddies apartment while I got this O2 sensor figured out and I'll have a few nights with another friend so I'll find out for sure in a few days) and the workout routine is all mental to get it going.
mountainFrugal wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:12 pm
The tolerance for transience is high if you are a good human to everyone because folks will want a similar courtesy returned when they inevitably travel to another town to check out X sick feature for Y activity.
I'll add to this, I think this applies to all of life. I have known quite a few people who think the world is out to get them. The first thing I notice though is that they are assholes to everyone and think they are the center of everyone's world. I have never had this experience. A smile and kind hello goes a long way to improving any interaction AND if some one is genuinely rude/mean I try to maintain the attitude that they are having a bad day/slept poorly/overly stressed. There are definitely genuine assholes in this world, but you don't have to give them extra ammo.

KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

Also I got the O2 sensor fixed. I am glad I didn't try and take this on myself. They ended up taking the exhaust off since the sensor was seized so bad. Add to the fact that it is the sensor that is nearly impossible to reach without a lift and I think my truck may have been burnt to the ground by the time I was done. Luckily I know where all 4 of the other ones are and they are way easier to access, so hopefully if they fail I can anti-seize/torch the crap out of them and do those myself. I could only get quotes from this shop, Colorado Tire & Service ($336) and Midas ($875). Obviously I wen for the one that was less than half the price. They were very kind and kept to the quote price even though they had to do a couple hours of work rather than a half hour. Just in case anyone is roaming through Denver and has car trouble that's out of their wheel house.

shaz
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by shaz »

One more note about mountain town life in Colorado: most of the mountain towns are surrounded by National Forest. If you check around a ski town, you will probably find an area where people who are ski industry employees during the winter live/camp in the forest during the spring/summer/fall.

KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:01 pm
ETA: My entire first month on the road, I was lonely and scared and felt like a loser. It was worth it. The benefits on the other side of that were (are) totally worth it.
This has been my experience as well (at least the scared and feeling like a loser). Hopefully I realize the benefits like you did. Could you expand on what those benefits were?

Truck Life Failure
Unfortunately I caught COVID again which really wrecked up my plans of visiting some people. This time around was a complete joke. Felt like a normal cold with maybe a stronger fever. At the beginning I thought it was a hangover, after breaking my no drinking spell while visiting some friends (this reminded me why I pretty much stick to kava these days, the drunk feeling no longer feels fun). Probably the biggest downside was not keeping up with cooking, which caused me to lose around 15 lbs. I ended up retracing my steps to spend half a week resting at a familiar campsite. After which I tucked tail and headed back to my parent's place. Unfortunately I think I had packed too much stuff and was really struggling with the day to day of regular tasks. That and my birthday is coming up and I like to spend that with the family (although I may be using this as an excuse). I have ditched a couple of things that seemed extraneous. This includes 2-burner camp stove was more space and weight than it was worth compared to a single burner and I had a bunch of backpacking gear that, if I'm honest with myself, won't be used. I don't particularly like backpacking, even though I enjoy day hikes. After being at my parent's place for a while I have constantly had the thought of "why did I go back?" I may have rose colored glasses on about the past, but as much struggle as it was, it was more satisfying than the life I was living (and returned to). I never had any existential angst (i.e. wtf is the point of any of this) while out and exposed. I'm not sure if it's because it was more fulfilling or distracting, but at this point I don't really care because it's getting me out of a major rut. I fully intend to return to the truck life after my birthday. With less stuff and some planned improvements, As much as this is a failure, I hope it's just a stepping stone to something better. I think I may be able to break out of the old life orbit for good. As easy as it was, it was definitely not good for my mental health.

@shaz thanks for the tip. I'll have to strike up conversations with people more frequently. Not doing so is definitely something that is holding me back experience wise. I have been using FreeRoam to find spots, but I'm planning to incorporate FreeCampsites.net and MVU maps into my campsite searches in the future. There's so much empty space out there that it's not hard to find something (and only slightly harder to find something great). I fully intend to move towards AZ as the temps cool, but they seem to have a huge amount of BLM land so I don't think finding something should be too rough there either.

Finances
Well June sucked for me financially. I am up on spending (college friends sure like going out, the truck improvements cost more than I initially intended, and the extra driving around sure hurt for gas prices) and down on asset values. Luckily I feel like I over-saved/invested before I quit so I'm not too concerned at this point. I'm not sure I'm prepared to go back to software development at this point, so I'm going to try and stay calm, cool, and collected. Seeing a number under 25x TTM is not great though. Although that still gives me a 20+ year runway to figure something out if I feel the need.

Health
One upside of being around my parent's place is I am much more consistent with my workouts. This is something that I intend to focus on heavily when I get back out there. I view these workout's as my baseline for general health and everything else is gravy. I've been lifting 4x per week and I am trying to run at least a mile daily (more if I feel up to it). I think my biggest hurdle once I go back out is the fear of being out and alone while running trails/roads of unknown places. There is some level of excitement thought so ti's not all gloomy. Any of you trail runners have any suggestions for how to get over this? Luckily my mile mandate means I won't necessarily be far from camp.

theanimal
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by theanimal »

What's your fear of when your out running alone? If it concerns things like animals and people, you could run with bear spray. On trails with large scarier animals you could also make bear calls (just shouting things like HEYO or woop woop etc) or sing loudly to yourself. If you pass someone, you may get (or at least perceive) a strange look but people don't care and it significantly reduces the chance of surprise running into anything and gives you more confidence.

KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

@theanimal My biggest fear is probably injury. I'm not sure what the statistics, but with a history of injury I would guess my chances at a sprained ankle are much greater than human/animal confrontation. I'm thinking maybe carrying a splint and some hiking poles may soothe this? I'm probably too much in my head for the distance I'm talking too. I do carry bear spray when wondering around and would do the same when running. Making (light) noise is a good suggestion that I've tried to ingrain but I'm not sure it's automatic at this point.

mathiverse
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by mathiverse »

I don't know how remote your locations will be, but if you will be out of cell signal areas, you can look into getting a satellite communicator that will call Search and Rescue, report your location, and/or have text comms with friends/family who know you are somewhere remote and expect a check in at a certain time. The devices are normally a couple hundred dollars at most and they typically have a monthly fee. However, you are one button from calling for help if you are conscious when you get injured.

KRUMPn
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

@mathiverse I should have mentioned that I do have a Garmin inReach mini that I picked up on sale a while back. With these responses, I'm starting to feel like the fear is mostly psychological at this point and really I just need to go for a few runs to quiet that down. I've got all the equipment (other than splint and hiking pole(s)) that would make me feel relatively equipped to handle the issues I can foresee at this point. Just need to develop the skill of not being a wimp I guess.

theanimal
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by theanimal »

I think the more you go out the more comfortable you will get. Another thing that could help you is to take a Wilderness First Aid or Wilderness First Responder class at some point. That would give you some medical skills and more practice at finding solutions with limited materials. For the interim, on sections that you are particularly worried about you can text or call a friend/family member and give them a detailed plan of what you're doing. This is a good idea anyways if you're doing long distance, remote stuff. If they don't hear back from you after an extended period of time, then they can send the cavalry. Give yourself a decent buffer to account for any non-emergency unforeseen delays.

AxelHeyst
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by AxelHeyst »

I encourage you to view your first expedition not as a failure but as a shake-down cruise. :D

Particularly in a truck, but I found it true as well in Serenity, having too many things can be a major frustration. "It's better to have something and not need it..." is a bad strategy for micro-space living. "It's better to not have something, realize you need it, and then learn to calm down and live without it for a few days or weeks until you can get it. You'll have learned something about wants vs needs, delayed gratification, and creativity in the meantime" is a far more appropriate philosophy. So that's another 'reason' to be at your folks right now - dump some of the stuff you identified as unnecessary, tidy up your system, etc.

+1 on not wanting to backpack while living out of a truck. Trucklife is closer to backpacking than houselife as it is. The nice thing about backpacking to me is the contrast between a normal life in a cushy apartment with a coffee shop down the street, and the mountains and fresh air and etc. It's an escape, a break from the normal routine. But if your normal life is trucklife, backpacking is like a slightly more remote version of normal life, but you have to carry a heavy ass pack. There's no contrast, so no novelty, so why do it. I stopped carrying backpacking gear early on as well.

Random thought: do you or have you tried intermittent fasting? Besides the normal reasons for doing it, an extra bonus when trucklife is to reduce the number of times you have to futz with your kitchen setup.
KRUMPn wrote:
Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:16 pm
This has been my experience as well (at least the scared and feeling like a loser). Hopefully I realize the benefits like you did. Could you expand on what those benefits were?
The world seems more open to me. Before trucklife, my view of the world was a bunch of points on a map. There was a point at my apartment, my parents house, some friends houses, some campsites, and any airbnb that was available. The points represented shelter, safe places I could be and meet my needs for sleep, food, water, daily ablutions, etc. I was dependent on these points, and the services available at these points, to service my needs as a human. I could wander through the rest of the map, but at the end of each day it was important to get my meatself back to one of these points.

Most of these points were on grid, meaning, electricity and water and sewerage and etc were taken care of. On tap. The fridges had food in them, the stove went click click whoosh at the twist of a button. I knew this explicitly, which contributed to my sense of being dependent on The Grid.

After trucklife, the dots dissolved and instead the map is shaded in colors of red and green. Green is everywhere I can park that's chill. Red is anywhere that's not chill for me to park. I can rock up anwhere in green and live for weeks, and I've got all of my systems for taking care of basic human needs with me. I'm dependent not on daily access to those Points, but weekly or every other weekly access to a grocery store, gas stations if I'm moving through space a lot, and cafes for internet if necessary. My access to the things I'm dependent on has shot way up and super diversified.

This opening up of the world, to me, has been a pretty profound step in the direction of a sense of independence/self sufficiency, an undoing of The System's effect of making people feel helpless without it. Of course, in trucklife you're still very dependent on access to the goodies of industrial civilization, but my point is it's a step in a direction away and for me it kind of opened my eyes towards a path and a method for continuing down that path.

(This is something I'm struggling with as I'm traveling through Europe, I'm realizing. My world has regressed to points again, because I have no rig and no wildcamping gear, so I'm dependent on hosts, hostels, etc).

As you work through your fears of the remote places, you'll also feel like the world is more open because there will be less area that you're afraid of. At some point, you'll be with a friend out there who is new to the remote places and they'll be afraid about something and you'll remember that you were once too, but had forgotten entirely about it. This adds to the sense of the world being open.

You are resetting or recalibrating the kind of space you know you can live in and be tolerably comfortable. Most people think a studio apartment is intolerably small. You'll think a bambi airstream is palatial (omg I can stand up! Inside!). So for one thing, after trucklife, you're less likely to think blowing some of your stash on a large living space is a good idea. You'll also not be afraid of living in a small space again - in a sense, you're doing that stoic exercise of living rough and asking "Is this what I so feared?"

Along these lines, you'll appreciate the luxuries the first world has to offer more. I used to take normal houses for granted. I'm still grumpy about how crap modern houses are, but damn it's nice to come into a normal house every once in a while and take a shower and do laundry, make a pile of dishes cooking a big meal and then just stuff them in a machine. This is a serious source of joy that is inaccessible to most people because they're just used to it.

Trucklife cuts away many sources of distraction.
It's still possible to burrow into your bed and fart around on your phone or laptop, but it's way harder to distract your life away when you basically live outside. Once you've gotten over the hump of logistics and remoteness fears, your mind and body will start to relax and you'll have a sense of ease. Time will slow down. It'll be easier to sit with a coffee and stare at the mountains for two hours. Each day will seem like it has more hours in it.

It takes the magic out of nature.
This sounds like a bad thing, but hear me out. A lot of people who live in the cities or towns, they have that big contrast between city life and when they go to the mountains. They tend to romanticize "nature", and this contrast reinforces the idea that there is the human world and there is the natural world and the two worlds are not the same. When you live remote every night for months, you begin to realize that there are no fairies in the forest and that humans are a part of nature and everything eats and shits and dies. Living out there un-Disney-fies the world (ironically, in my case). It demystifies it at a shallow level, but then also opens the door for have a much deeper sense of enchantment with the entire world, whether you're deep in the woods or not, because you've dissolved this separation.

It forces you to spend more time with yourself
(particularly since you're solo), and the introspection can be incredibly rich. Hard, but rich, and worth it. You're already doing this hard but rich work of dealing with fears and anxieties about remote places, learning things like oh damn, I don't actually like backpacking anyways, do it? and - and this is a big one - building intuition around what you 'should' be doing and what you actually want to be doing.

I just wrote a lot of words, but I think my one-sentence summary is that trucklife cuts away a massive amount of extraneous stuff from your life and gives you an experience of the essential core of the world and yourself. You will be a changed person after it, assuming you lean in to the experience (which you clearly are) and don't impose yourself on it.

KRUMPn
Posts: 54
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:55 pm

Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

@AxelHeyst I guess I've been propagandized so much (maybe partially due to being a software developer) that a failure isn't the end, but just a bump in the road. I actually named my to-do list for improvements "Maiden Voyage Improvements" so I half expected to run into issues. I'm slowly adjusting back into the minimalism ways I had 5 years ago. I have made the comment frequently that if I really need something I can just buy it. Now I just need to live that statement instead of just paying lip service to it.

As for the backpacking stuff, I think it just took me a while to realize I'm not that person. Admitting that means an aspiration from long ago had to die, but it's kind of a weight lifted off my back. Excellent point about it being an escape though.

I have indeed been on the IF train for a long time. I never really ate breakfast so it was kind of the default. Unfortunately I find it too easy to carry this to the next level of actually fasting for 24 hour period, which is what caused the unintended weight loss. I think the big thing will be to get more organized with the meal prep. I used to cook big chunks of meat, potatoes/rice/lentils in bulk and then just combine them with some veggies in a frying pan for a quick meal.

This along with the trail running fear is making me think I just need to get out of my head and have more focused daily "goals" (I use that loosely since it's really just general life tasks). The last few years have really been a bumble through the day since everything was set to automatic. So I'll plan to to make a more focused effort on the problem areas above.

The world seems more open to me: Agree, and I would add that the world has become a lot bigger, as in I have realized how much open space there really is (especially out west).

You are resetting or recalibrating the kind of space you know you can live in and be tolerably comfortable: I agree and this was partially the point of going with the truck as the initial run. I figured if I can make this work anything else will be luxuriously large.

you'll appreciate the luxuries the first world has to offer more.: I've made jokes about how much easier life is with running water. I've long been adjusted to the temperature swings, but I definitely noticed everything was just easier when I'd stay with a buddy at their place.

Trucklife cuts away many sources of distraction.: This one has backfired on me. While it's true that the video games and kava fell out of favor (power and water restrictions being the main reason) I reverted back to having all the fixin's on my phone since I found out my plan no longer has hotspot. I'll have to push this back away because it definitely has caused a noticeable decrease in quality of life.

It takes the magic out of nature: YES. I have realized how harsh the Western US actually is. However, what was taken away in magic was returned in respect. Not only for the environment in general, but also for the people that lived out there before us, with none of the luxuries I have in the truck. Makes me realize how bad ass people had to be by default.

It forces you to spend more time with yourself: For better or worse, this was not a change for me. I was generally by myself all through COVID and I have no issues with it. Honestly, I benefit from forcing interaction, although that fits into the fear/anxiety category.

Thanks for the response. I think I have experienced a lot of these benefits (only mildly because the adjustment hasn't been fully completed), but I was having trouble putting it into words, other than I felt like there was something dope about the whole thing. Life became more real and the responsibility for everything in my life was put squarely back on me.

AxelHeyst
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Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by AxelHeyst »

Sounds like you're on the right track :).

+1 on backing away from the phone. In fact... I recommend some kind of detox where you lock it in a glove compartment for three days or so, while you're based out at a beautiful spot with no obligations or need to use nav. I've found experiences like that to be quite impactful. Ymmv, but consider it.

By spend more time with yourself I actually meant, spend time away from distractions. I can be alone, but not spending time with myself, if you know what I mean. So it's linked to the phone thing. And when I spend food quality time with myself, I feel stronger/more able/stoked on spending quality time with other humans. In fact I'll get creative about putting myself in situations to facilitate that.

shaz
Posts: 420
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by shaz »

I'm glad to hear you are thinking about how to take the lessons you've learned and try it again better. Overall it sounds like even the first try went well.

If you find yourself in the vicinity of the mountain towns and want to meet more people with similar interests, you could try getting a part time seasonal job. If you don't really need the money there are a lot of jobs that would let you meet people who live a low-cost lifestyle and enjoy being active outdoors. You would only need to pick up one or two shifts a week to insert yourself in the local culture. The types of jobs range from the obvious (restaurant staff, bartender, barista, whitewater raft guide ski lift operator, bike mechanic) to the less obvious (guy who rents out skates at the ice rink, Zamboni driver, ski waxer, shuttle bus driver). A lot of the mountain towns are very busy in the winter and summer and very quiet in the spring and fall. This means businesses are happy to hire people who are fine with a job that only last for a few months during the busy season and they are used to employees who want to work limited shifts. Your goal would just be to get known as a local so you hear about the cool free things to do and have a reason to interact with locals and get invited to go out and do fun things.

When I lived in Steamboat Springs there were a lot of trustafarians - young people with trust funds that provided enough money to live on as long as they lived a low-cost lifestyle. They would pick up shifts here and there when they needed extra cash. So it's not something that is considered weird or unacceptable. The point wouldn't be to make a lot of money or tie yourself down in a new less-lucrative career, the point would be to work as few hours as possible for a limited time in order to meet the right locals.

KRUMPn
Posts: 54
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:55 pm

Re: KRUMPn and BUMPn

Post by KRUMPn »

Update
Hello Friends!
I haven't posted in here for a while. A lot has happened (even though from the outside it would appear as if nothing has happened). I have left truck life behind for now (and possibly forever). I had a bit of a emotional break down as I went back to truck life, which led me to realize that it's not sustainable for me as a single person, especially since I lean towards introvert tendencies. The loneliness really got to me. Everything else about truck life was useful. Being out without grid services mad thing's much more real in a terrific way. It was just the constant movement and no roots that really ruined it for me. On the upside it has helped me to rediscover my Christian faith/heritage. It's taking some relearning and may end in a conversion, but it's been delightful to get out of the dumbed-down version that was given to me in my youth. Also, after diving deeper into that realm, everything that is going on with me and the world has seemed to click and I find myself with a much greater sense of general contentment (sustained happiness?). This leads me to believe that ERE as I was implementing it was not a great idea. I'm still on board with the frugality and systems design side of things, just not out of a truck anymore (and it may take plenty of time to come up with new plans for the future). I'm in the process of finding an apartment to use as a base for a while and then hopefully acquire some property soon after. Finances are dismal at best, but I feel like I'm living my old "money isn't that important" belief for real at this point. I'm not sure if I'll have too many more updates for a while since I have a lot of work to get things set up again, but I'll try to add things as they are fitting.

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