Car Camping / Trip Reports / Photos / Buildouts / “Overland” / Expedition Rigs Area (homeless?)

When you spend all day driving around a forest road and checking out every side trail and never really go anywhere

 

I think i like your forest roads more.

 

I'm pretty lucky... this was an old old road that's been semi deactivated... but when the place you live is 5 times the size of Texas and has hundreds and hundred and hundred of miles of Forrest roads to explore it makes it hard to want to ever go anywhere else

 

That sounds awesome. I feel lucky to have a few sizable (for PA) state forest within driving distance.

Since everyone loves pics!

 

@Bman4X5 when did you get a snorkel? I need to come by and see your rig

 

Love roads like that. Your pictures make me miss Idaho.

 

First time in the Anza-Borrego this weekend. Really awesome place, lots more to explore. Anyone else like to camp out there?

 

Camped there a while back with a TW group. You were there with Defcon and the Pelfreys right? Fun stuff?

 

A few months ago. Truck's really fast now. Come on by next time you're down this way.

 

Will do. Are you going to Overland Expo in Flagstaff?

 

No. Still teaching at that time.

 

Darn. We will have to make a trip sometime.

 

Very good. Yes. As much as possible. Love Anza-Borrego. Been camping out there for over 35 years.

 

Grew up riding motorcycles in Ocotillo, then moved on to "prerunner" style trucks when I got older. When I met my girlfriend, she had a job managing the golf courses in Borrego Springs and we had access to a house on the weekends. Needless to say, we spend almost every weekend there and would take the truck out and explore. Basically know the area like the back of my hand at this point. Haha.

Great place, biggest State park in California and always a lot of fun.

Matter of fact, heading out there this weekend.

 

I've only ever explored coyote canyon. Super fun. I want to go back and see more

 

Oh man, you're missing out!

Next time out, check out Fish Creek and SandStone Canyon

 

I did fish creek too! That was cool

 

For those of you who sleep in the bed of your truck rather than in a roof top/normal tent, what do you use for a mattress? I'm trying to find something that's as thin as possible to preserve head room, but still comfortable, and not too expensive (say, under $150 or so). Air mattresses aren't on the list, since they tend to be at least 8" thick and are cold in the winter.

I found this mattress at IKEA that I'm thinking will work well, but I want to see if anyone else has a better solution before I buy it.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20102074/

 

When car camping, either sleeping in the truck diagonally or in a larger tent on the ground, I have a very large 3" thick ALPS sleeping pad (the XL version of this). It doesn't pack down much, so it's no good away from the truck, but it's the best camping sleep surface I've ever used. Got mine for about a third of MSRP by watching Steep and Cheap. ALPS stuff comes up pretty regularly.

 

Lots use 3-4" mattress toppers. I needed a custom size and the cheapest thing was 4" foam from a fabric store. That works pretty well but once it compresses it's very firm, so I put a thermarest pad underneath that and it makes it so much more comfortable with minimal extra thickness. For just me, the foam was around $50, and I recently doubled the size, so now it is in the $100 range.

I also checked out a foam wholesaler and they had all different densities. Had I not already had half of the bed I would have bought from them because it was around the same price for the total size.