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

I know you said no air mattresses, but I have used a thermarest base camp sleeping pad in the bed of my truck and paired with a good 3 season sleeping bag and it was comfortable. That was inside a truck bed tent. It will be even better since I now have a canopy and sleeping platform. I'd avoid the more fragile lightweight backpacking pads. That Ikea mattress looks good though. The dimensions are very close to that of the long bed. It'll be a tight squeeze at the tailgate where it tapers.

 

Have been tossing this around too. I have been using a simple self-inflating backpacking pad but some research has led me toward

Therm-A-Rest NeoAir Dream Mattress

this.
Pricey, but from what I have heard the comfort is great, the noise, not so much.

 

You could look into "paco" pads, they're used by white water rafters mostly but theyre ~3" foam pads with a super heavy duty outer cover, same stuff that heavy duty fry bags are made of. They're super comfortable and shouldnt be too expensive

 

I use this mattress in the bed of my truck. Its very comfy and warm but it is a little too thick, doesn't leave much headroom. Positives though are its very easy to trim down to size so end up with a perfect fitting mattress, easy to remove the cover to wash it and its fairly cheap (free to me from a friend).

Here is the only photo I could dig up, there is a blanket covering it but you get the idea.

 

I'm wanting these to be in a oval or circle badge form and 3D of course.

Ok guys I need help deciding what to do here. I'm trying to start making EAF badges cause overlanding is hot as a pornstars ass right now so I'm hoping to make some of these for TW. Any ideas or suggestions would be great on what they should look like

 

Becoming more expo on the daily. Turned a bottle opener into an antenna mount. Super ghetto.

 

but functional.

 

Not sure yet! Haha. Apparently I need a 1/2" hole instead of 3/8" to make the antenna not ground. I may need to drill a bigger hole.

 

when i do sleep neck there I use a 4 season backpacking mattress pad. I have the factory bed mat too, so it's all flat,

Nice bracket for your 27 mega hurts.

I'm making an antenna bracket too. Nothing wrong with making your own.

 

I'm willing to bet it will be nicer than mine haha

 

I don't know about that. I think yours looks pretty good, I'd sport it on my rig.

My plan is to bend up some 16-gauge sheet I have in the garage, and hang it off the Yakima track for a scanner antenna.

I can work with metal... but it's slow, all I have are hand tools.

I hand made these nice clamps a while back, angle grinder, bench grinder, hammer, bench vice, and drill. lol

 

Haha It took me 20 minutes of grinding with a dremel tool.

 

I used to use a 2" memory foam mattress topper. Lay it out in the bed, put on your sheets blankets and pillows, roll it up. When you get to camp just unpack the stuff behind it, unroll, and sleep. When it was just me and my wife, it was fucking awesome. Now that I got kids and a short bed, it's ground tent for the family or tent cot when just me.

I recently got an REI 3.5" sleeping pad and that thing is awesome. I could easily sleep in the bed of the truck on that and it's a LOT lighter than the foam.

 

Showing up now?

 

Nope....

 

I use a 3" memory foam topper. It rolls up nicely which is why I like it. I then have 3 x 1"-ish self inflating mats that I put underneath the memory foam. You need some extra padding under memory foam because it compresses a lot.

I used a 4" RV mattress in my old truck, but it was a pain in the ass cause it didn't fold nicely or roll up at all.

 

It's been less then a week since the last outing, and heading back out this up coming weekend, but I got a serious case of the overlanding blues today....

 

Nice!

Our group has a trip set for the middle of May as well. Modified Mojave Road run.

 

Where is that?! Absolutely beautiful.