I’ll admit it: I’m a backyard tent camper.
We raised seven kids and now we’re doing the s’more thing with the grands. There has been no shortage of trying the great outdoor adventures in my experience.
Or maybe there has.
As the new web guy charged with running TrailTrailer.com (the website, not the company) I’m a bit challenged with the whole off-road outdoor adventure vibe thing we’ve got going here at Trail Trailer. I’m a babe in the woods, you could say.
You could also say I’m just not the 4×4, off-grid, drive-in-the-dust, sleep in a roof-top-tent type of guy. I like room service.
But I gotta tell ya: after absorbing this strange new world by watching our guys build trailers, interacting with a few adventurers passionate for this stuff, trolling social media for videos of people who do this with equipment like ours, I’m profoundly intrigued.
I could get into this.
~ Another Lifetime ~
After all, I’m an old-school photo guy. Years ago, in another lifetime, I spent my hours of leisure in the outdoors with my camera. You don’t get great pictures by staying on the road and I didn’t. I do know what that means.
I valued then, as I do still, nature’s beauty and being out in it. I love stars, hiking a decent trail, getting away from it all and even adventuring alone. I fish. I camp. I explore. Once in the blood I don’t think that ever leaves.
The outdoor cooking that I learned back in those days has remained a passion, too. I can smoke, grill and make-do with the best of them.
But life interrupted that leisure time. Family and career took that pastime away.
I still did outdoors. It just has been limited to quick runs up a local canyon to well-established campgrounds. Outdoor cooking has been limited to the outdoor just feet from my backdoor.
I realize I’ve lost that loving feeling when it comes to this stuff. And now I’m seeking my way back.
Of course, back in those days, I off-roaded in a ’74 Lincoln Continental.
Don’t laugh.
It was a sweet ride. And it went everywhere I pushed it, even off-road in Utah’s Kolob Canyon.
What’s the statute of limitations on illegally going somewhere I should not have been in a vehicle not designed or rated for that kind of thing?
I slept in that backseat and it was plenty comfortable. Foil dinners thrown together from a supply box stowed in that cavernous trunk were the best. For a kid in college, that was high living back in the day.
~ A New World to the Outdoors ~
What’s changed in the off-road world since my early days of exploring nature with my camera in my Lincoln?
Well, a lot, it seems.
Overlanding is what some call it these days. People who do it call themselves adventurers and off-grid explorers.
Confession: the first time I read that I thought I had tripped up on an extremist community. Survivalists. Those stuck to the idea that end-times mean eating beans out of a can in the back of a pick-up somewhere south of Pahrump.
I was wrong, of course. That isn’t what it means at all.
For the masses now overlanding is a lifestyle of sorts. That passion for the outdoors includes responsibly using it, sometimes going alone, and going further while outfitted well and ready for anything – all for the love of nature.
All of that speaks to me. Me! A web geek, and an old one at that. Go figger.
As an empty-nester now a return to the wild is mighty appealing.
Last year, for the first time ever, my wife suggested we “go camping”. I thought she was out of her mind.
For years, camping was Daddy-only duty. I took the older kids and she stayed home with the baby. To “go camping” meant nothing but work for me. From fixing the meals to setting up camp to fighting off bears and raccoons to enduring cries of “Daddy! Kill it!” – camping was hardly fun. Not to mention sleeping on the ground, getting cold, mosquitos, and camp bathrooms. Why would my wife want to do that again? With me? Alone without kids? Is she insane?
But we went anyway and it rained and everything got really wet and I fell on my backside and couldn’t get up and it was all as endless as a run-on sentence. But I still loved it. And I’ve been looking to, well…build on that experience.
I’m too old to do this again in a ’74 Lincoln. But…I’m young enough to just love this trailer idea. I’m digging that push button thing where a tent just appears on the roof and goes away just as fast. I’m loving the idea of a fully outfitted rig that can easily carry everything and go anywhere. I like the idea of heading out knowing that a final destination might arrive off the pavement and it could take a while to get there. I love that there will be sights to see I haven’t seen with a smidge of challenge on the trail.
Adventure travel. Yeah, I could get into that.
How lucky am I to have fallen in with a crowd with a knowledge and a passion for this like the team here at Trail Trailer? In coming to work for these guys I fear the worst: I’ve become not only an employee, but also a customer.
The Trail Trailer is my next level in adventure travel and I’m going there. I have to. The call of the wild, you know?
I’ve been watching, with no small amount of envy, the work of a guy who goes by the name of Adventure Taco online. It’s just him, his 2000 Toyota Tacoma and his cameras. To me this dude is living the dream. My dream. He gets out on the trail and takes photos in these outrageously beautiful remote locations. Then tells us all about it, mostly with images and videos. Seriously, check out this taco guy. His stuff is amazing. I want to be the Adventure Taco guy. With a Trail Trailer, of course.
Only I’ll also be accessing ghost towns, pioneer cemeteries and other obscure places of history because I’m a geek in those things too.
~ A Newbie Approach to Adventure ~
So what is a rookie off-road adventurer to do? Where do I begin?
First, I think it’s totally fine to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing. Confession is good for the soul and it’s absolutely great for drawing on the experience of those who do all this for real. I’m going to be tapping on a lot of shoulders. In all my research online I’ve seen plenty who have documented their journey into overlanding. I’m not the only fluffy soft city geek new to this.
(Or the oldest, I’ve learned. But that’s a topic for another day).
Here at Trail Trailer we work with adventurers who literally build their trailers from the ground up. It starts with a flatbed – a foundation for the modular components they want in a trailer. You pick your trailer mods to match your adventure style.
I think I’ll take that as a hint of how to begin. I will start with something foundational and just build from there. For me that means talking to people. People like Adventure Taco.
Yeah, I’ll start with that guy.
