Winter Wonderland

the 20 degree temperatures at night especially since my sleeping bag’s zero degree rating seems to be wishful thinking after all these years. The thermometer typically shows in the mid thirties when I finally give up and crawl out of the bag in the morning.

I never really thought about how much electricity is a huge factor in what happens after the sun goes down. It gets dark on my side of the mountain around 4pm so I usually start making my way off the property no later than 3pm. I usually head over to the Local Safeway to charge batteries and catch up on my email. Once that’s done though, there isn’t much to do. Back at base camp, there isn’t any heat, lights, TV, or internet. There isn’t even much radio to speak of except a Catholic and a top 10 classic rock station. I usually just give up and crawl into bed around 7pm and  read via headlamp. That lasts about 5 minutes before I fall asleep only to awaken a few hours later so I usually get a full night’s sleep in before I have to get up for a cold outhouse run. Cold enough to shake any chance of getting back to sleep once I crawl back into the bag. The annoying part is that it usually isn’t even midnight yet and I just lay there and hope I’ll fall asleep again before its time to really get

up and get going again. I usually don’t get back to sleep though so my day starts around 4:30 with an egg sandwich and a bottle of water. I putter around until daylight starts to break so I don’t make the commute to the property in the dark.

After my car got stuck on the dirt road to the property for 2 days, I started hiking in the 2 miles each morning with a backpack full of the days supplies. That did shorten the work day considerably. The frequency of no trespassing signs and fresh bear tracks along the trail had me looking for another option.

I noticed that the dirt road froze up over night and was drivable until the morning sun melted it into the slippery mess that makes driving impossible. Here is a link to the first time I got stuck. (yes, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time). With the road frozen, though, I was able to drive in my supplies for the day before parking the car a mile up the road to hike in without all the backpack weight.  That worked pretty well and I was able to make good use of my time on the property.

There is so much to do, it was a challenge to stick with just one project. I powered through the distractions and completed a rain/snow collection system so that I would have water for any concrete mixing that needs to be done next year. I was also able to get through the demo fun of the old trailer on the property so that I’ll have a place to sleep when I get back in the spring. Everything else can wait until I am able to bring back all of my tools back from my North Carolina storage unit.

So, TrippinWithDon is tripping again. Not the legal Washington pot kind of tripping but the free hotel waffles, truck stop coffee, Walmart Parking Lot sleeping type of tripping. During the break. I plan to work on an overall development plan for the property and put together Youtube videos for the work I have done so far. Subscribe to my channel and you should get alerted when the videos get posted.