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Old 08-22-2011, 02:52 PM
 
3,029 posts, read 4,986,779 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac_Muz View Post
Johnnytang, it seems you need to open a window to allow moist air to move out, more so in winter, less than 32 degress. A vapor barrier liner would stop body moisture from entering the bag(s) as well.

If the outter most top of the bag is ever showing moisture, or ICE, that is your own body's moisture condensing there. This is getting dampness in the bag fill, which isn't a great idea for long term camp mode sleeping.

You probably know staying dry in real cold the key.

I got a great lesson in this, when camped on Mt Adams in NH for 10 days in a Januaray of February trip. I have so many these trips blend now.

Anyway I don't bother with a tent anymore at -10 and colder, since it can't rain, and I don't need to be buried alive by snow. Been there done that, almost never woke up.

So basicly what I am trying to say is my vapor barrier liner blew a seam by my feet, and I missed seeing that. The end result was one morning I discovered my outter bag was frozen to my bivey sack, near my feet. I knew that was wrong! Tore the bag system apart and found the seam of the liner open, found the outter bag iced, and more ice on the bivey.

No big deal, as during breakfast i set all the stuff in the trees for the day opened up and inside out, to sublimate, and sewwed that seam back tight.

The good thing about -10 and colder is it's dry. And colder mostly means -40 below up there in winter, not counting any wind chill. Mt Adams is apx 14 miles north on the trail from Mt Washington, in NH.
Yes, I think the moisture is mostly my breath condensing on the bag. Unfortunately, I have no windows that open in the back of the van.

The only thing I remember about a day trip to Mt Washington was that I was eating frozen Tuna. Not some place I'd want to live.
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Old 08-22-2011, 02:53 PM
 
19,023 posts, read 25,917,807 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof View Post
I think a cheap Walmart sleeping bag would be good enough if MyVan stays in coastal Southern California (it can get colder inland). Be sure to feel the lining to see if it's a comfortable material. And mind Mac's advice about condensation.
I think I agree with that, but I wonder. Walmart stuff made of cloth tends to fall apart inside of 3 weeks.

Being a wrench, I learned to buy one good tool for a little more, because buying 3 or 4 cheap tools costs more than that.

A full syn fill bag rated to say 30 degrees, with a wick away liner you can wash easy, maybe 2 liners even, but I am a guy and i really don't care much about stink, should in theory keep her a tad too hot. That is unless she doesn't crack a window to exhange air.

I have spent time in my conversion van, maybe 90 days in Tn in the muggies, maybe 90 more in Arkansas in semi muggies, cooler a bit of snow, and what bugged me most was the moisture from the 2 of us, my wife, and me breathing.

If you ask me wet any time of year is plain nasty. It's humid here and the bed's bedding, the carpets feel damp, and I don't like it. This is a house.

At at that! I run a de-humidifier every day, and dump it out once a day.

I don't like growing mold specimens either. Leather gets these black, yellow and green growing thangs I don't like, cottons go nuts. I got a buddy who in 05 lost all his Mt Man suff to molds, and his house looks a lot like a cross between an Alaskan log cabin camp and a friggin castle. The castle part happend after his 2nd marriage

Sleeping 3 weeks locked up tight, and sealed in a van is a great way to make water. That water will get into everything inside the van that it can. May as well rain in there.

My van got parked and left in place, as I was on a mc tour, and only bought the van because I hit winter and riding a mc on black ice isn't a sport of mine, not on a Nomad, which is 100 pounds more than a Harley Road King, and longer. That isn't what I would call a dirt bike.

I paid or worked for the camp grounds I stayed at. One was 3 bucks a day, and for that I paid, but the other was 10 bucks a day, and for that I rebuilt the mens wash room and showers for 6 bucks an hour! LOL

6 bucks an hour is ok pay if you are in Ar and living down by the white river in a van

(Side tail) I came real close to getting real wet at that camp ground. I was new to trailering a bike, and disconnected the trailer from the van, so as to open the van's side doors and create a tarp awning for the side doors next to the pick in ick table

The time came to go for a wee day ride, and I FORGOT the trailer pods, and fired up the bike and began to back out. VERY WRONG

I began to roll the bike back and down the ramp, and all of a sudden the trailer pitched up and started to roll down hill, and just down hill was that white river I mmmentioned. I had presence of mind to click into 1st gear and ride back in the trailer, but I had a 5 th wheel on the trailer jack.

That slowed things down, and the trailer stopped in the sand road. I have no idea how I would have explained that to Progressive.

You can take it to the bank I won't ever forget to put the pods down again.
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Old 08-22-2011, 03:02 PM
 
19,023 posts, read 25,917,807 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by johnnytang24 View Post
Yes, I think the moisture is mostly my breath condensing on the bag. Unfortunately, I have no windows that open in the back of the van.

The only thing I remember about a day trip to Mt Washington was that I was eating frozen Tuna. Not some place I'd want to live.
Well I have packed a few beers, that froze solid upon opening bummer. The colder it is the better I like life. Dry air then. Breathing inside said bag is a sin around here in winter. Sleeping with your boots as a pillow makes a whole lot of sence too. My new boots can stay out, but not their inner liners.

Putting on a dry clean long-john top in the moring will really wake you up. Oh man do you know yer alive then, and a little miserable adding a layer of cloth that is - 40 below. But it doesn't last long.
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Old 08-22-2011, 09:48 PM
 
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,298 posts, read 14,135,741 times
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If you're in that kind of cold, you have to sleep with your propane canister if you use one to make coffee in the morning!

The low humidity is one of the best things about California. Not only is it less moldy out here, but there are fewer biting insects (usually), especially mosquitoes.
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Old 08-23-2011, 12:00 AM
 
Location: A Van in SoCal
145 posts, read 176,567 times
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Default SoCal Weather

SoCal is perfect for van living. If I was a guy, I'd prob just live under a bridge.

Anyway, a friend of mine has convinced me to rent storage rather than sell everything I own. I'm going to do it because perhaps this will just be temporary. Hard to say. I love saving money and I've always admired people who live simply.

Here's an article I bumped into tonite. So impressive! Can You Imagine A World Without Money? Well, This Lady Hasn't Used Any Money In 15 Years!

Thanks again, as always.
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Old 08-23-2011, 08:11 AM
 
19,023 posts, read 25,917,807 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof View Post
If you're in that kind of cold, you have to sleep with your propane canister if you use one to make coffee in the morning!

The low humidity is one of the best things about California. Not only is it less moldy out here, but there are fewer biting insects (usually), especially mosquitoes.
And that's why I don't run propane stoves, or even own one. At -40 in the wind I don't think you would finshish the boil for a cup of coffee.

Instead I sleep with upto 4 1 qt wide mouth nalgene bottles, 2 with tang, sugar and tea, which become slush inside my sleeping bag anyway, and 2 with drinking water from the year round springs.

With either a Seva Model 123. or my multi fuel msr stove I boil water. Which stove depends on the trip, as the seva is the smaller.
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Old 08-23-2011, 10:44 AM
 
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,298 posts, read 14,135,741 times
Reputation: 8104
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyVan View Post
SoCal is perfect for van living. If I was a guy, I'd prob just live under a bridge.

Anyway, a friend of mine has convinced me to rent storage rather than sell everything I own. I'm going to do it because perhaps this will just be temporary. Hard to say. I love saving money and I've always admired people who live simply.

Here's an article I bumped into tonite. So impressive! Can You Imagine A World Without Money? Well, This Lady Hasn't Used Any Money In 15 Years!

Thanks again, as always.
Have you heard of www.freecycle.org ?
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Old 08-23-2011, 01:41 PM
 
1,337 posts, read 1,518,380 times
Reputation: 656
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyVan View Post
Here's an article I bumped into tonite. So impressive! Can You Imagine A World Without Money? Well, This Lady Hasn't Used Any Money In 15 Years!

Thanks again, as always.
That reminds me of another two guys I read about a while back. I offer these link from time to time whenever the subject along these lines comes up:

Meet the Man Who Lives on Zero Dollars: Career + Money : Details

MEET THE MAN WHO LIVES ON ZERO DOLLARS: IN UTAH, A MODERN-DAY CAVEMAN HAS LIVED FOR THE BETTER PART OF A DECADE ON ZERO DOLLARS A DAY. PEOPLE USED TO THINK HE WAS CRAZY

BY CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM,PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK HEITHOFF



Daniel Suelo lives in a cave. Unlike the average American—wallowing in credit-card debt, clinging to a mortgage, terrified of the next downsizing at the office—he isn't worried about the economic crisis. That's because he figured out that the best way to stay solvent is to never be solvent in the first place. Nine years ago, in the autumn of 2000, Suelo decided to stop using money. He just quit it, like a bad drug habit.

His dwelling, hidden high in a canyon lined with waterfalls, is an hour by foot from the desert town of Moab, Utah, where people who know him are of two minds: He's either a latter-day prophet or an irredeemable hobo. Suelo's blog, which he maintains free at the Moab Public Library, suggests that he's both. "When I lived with money, I was always lacking," he writes. "Money represents lack. Money represents things in the past (debt) and things in the future (credit), but money never represents what is present."



[Snip] Click link to read rest of 4 page article.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42VYzWgxhaA - Moneyless in Moab (2006). He is a little too "new-age Zen" for my taste in the way he 'philosophizes,' but still the essence of what he is doing, I can appreciate.

---------------

The next one is about an old hermit (he died not long ago - last year, I think) who acquired the name "Dugout Dick." He was sort of a local folklore fixture in Idaho for decades, and people -sort of like us here on this forum- would go out to see him or the buildings he created over the decades.

He carved out a modest lifestyle for himself for the better part of six decades. I forget the details of the story which I used to have a good link about, but he started out for many years squatting on BLM land, and the BLM just pretty much left him alone. After some years, they realized it would not be practical to kick him off, so they just let him lease the land... and he's been living there ever since, all the while making new "dugout" houses every few years.

These "dugout" houses he carved into the mountainside aren't much to look at, and he scavenged all kinds of things to help make them.... but as can be seen from the video, this old guy definitely seems like he comes from a "different time," and so I figure he doesn't live by the same standards of luxury that many of us do today, so the dugout houses were a solid, livable shelter in his mind.


Diggin' Dugout Dick Full Movie - IMDb (<--- "Diggin' Dugout Dick" - Full Movie. This brief 15 minute documentary shows a few of his various buildings, has interviews of the history of it, etc...)



FDL Movie Night: Diggin’ Dugout Dick Brief article.


--------------

Dugout Dick - YouTube

Last edited by FreedomThroughAnarchism; 08-23-2011 at 03:07 PM..
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Old 08-23-2011, 03:04 PM
 
Location: Southern Illinois
10,364 posts, read 20,757,242 times
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Man this thread is making my fantasies go wild and glad I'm not alone in this. My fantasy lifestyle is somewhat like the goat lady in the movie and book Cold Mountain. Anyone remember her? She had a herd of goats and made plant medicines and was a healer. Anyway, loved Dugout Dick and i'm on my way to go get rid of some more stuff.
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Old 08-23-2011, 03:33 PM
 
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,298 posts, read 14,135,741 times
Reputation: 8104
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyVan View Post
.......Also, I am going to have an issue with clothes storage. Was looking at waterproof canvas bags that go on the top of the van but that might draw too much attention-it would look odd around here. There are more expensive units I could put on top but don't really want to spend the money (although I haven't researched yet). I REALLY want to keep most of my clothes though. I don't want to look or feel homeless or destitute!
You can simply use a lightweight dresser, but make sure the drawers don't easily fall off if you have to brake or turn quickly. Thrift shops often have something like this: South Shore Black 3-Drawer Chest - Walmart.com

You'd also want a headlamp, and perhaps a book light that can clamp onto the book: Walmart.com: Fulcrum Light-It Multiflex 3 LED Book Light: Camping

Walmart.com: Brinkmann 6 LED Pivoting Headlight: Camping
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