Sunday, March 1, 2020

First overnight in the Adventure Van

First overnight in the Adventure Van!!

 Leap year 2020 started with a great gravel bike ride up in Bent Creek Experimental Forest, just south of Asheville, NC.  I met Dave and Roy up there and we do a nice out and back.  Typically we do about 2 hours total.  It's a nice route with some good climbing and descending.  Mostly double track forest roads closed to vehicle traffic, although one nice climb is on a main forest road on which we'll occasionally encounter vehicle traffic. 

I was surprised when I looked at the weather Friday night to see Snow in the forecast for the area around Asheville.  Thus, as I drove up there I wasn't surprised to see a fair amount of snow.  The roads were wet for the drive, but not bad at all.  The parking lot on the other hand had a fair bit of ice. 

Here's a few photos of the ride:




Other than the ride being a bit messy, it was a lot of fun.  Cold, messy, but fun.  How messy?  How's this:

One of the great things about my new van is the water system has a nice hose that easily connects and allows me to clean up my bike before I put it back in the van.  I missed the opportunity to snap a photo before I put it in the van, but pretty big difference after spraying it down.
It's not clean as if I used soap and water but it didn't drip all that mess on my gear tray either!!

Before I could pack up for the camping trip, I decided to reconfigure my interior one last time.  Thursday when I got home from work it looked like this:





I was planning on taking my dog Gunner with me so I removed the jump seat.  I also re-positioned the folding table on the kitchen pod as well as moved the pod and the fridge.  Ended up looking like this:




Friday after work I started organizing my TrailKitchens compact camp kitchen by putting my stove, jetboil, butane, lighter and other kitchen essentials in there.  I looked at where to position it on the gear slide and decided that on the back side of the slide with the opening facing the passenger side was the best bet.  This allows me to access the inside storage by pulling out the gear slide.

I found out that I needed to reposition the camp kitchen after driving up for the ride - it had shifted a bit, so I changed the location of the rings to make it more secure.  It didn't slip after that change.

Once I got home from the ride it was a quick pack up of the van (most done Friday eve, just had to grab a few last things) and head south to Sedalia Campground in the Sumter National Forest.  Not far from Union, SC.  It was a nice little campground with several campsites and a group campsite along with a Palmetto trail parking area. 

It didn't take much to get set up for the evening - the big priority was to get a fire going!  Gunner wasn't much help.  ;)


I stared at the campfire for a few hours and burned about half my firewood.  Poor Gunner - he was very restless the whole time.  He barely even sat down, wandering about the campsite and occasionally coming over and resting his head in my lap.  I think he missed the house.  His bed was in the van, so I was hoping he'd be quick to settle once we climbed inside.  

Once the fire was out, I climbed in the van with Gunner and it was indeed nice and cozy!  I slept really well, the bed in there is super comfortable!  I think Gunner slept ok.  He didn't seem too restless and settled into his bed after sitting up for a bit while I finished my last beer. 

I did find that the heater made a bit of noise when it ran, not sure how I feel about that.  It may mean that unless the temperature is really going to be cold, I may use it only to warm up the van before climbing in my sleeping bag.  We'll see, that's part of why I took this trip.

In the morning I was hoping to catch a great sunrise like I've been seeing lately.  Unfortunately either I was too late or we just didn't have the atmospheric conditions to have the same great color as previous days.  This is about what I got for a sunrise shot:

It was time to get the camp kitchen set up so I could get some coffee and breakfast.  Had to get the fire going again first though, hard to enjoy camp coffee without a fire!  Once the fire was going, the jetboil made short work of boiling some water for the french press.  Camp coffee with a campfire is one of the great joys of life!


I enjoyed a very relaxing morning with the fire.  Gunner didn't really relax too much, although he did find some sunshine to stand around in for the morning.  I got things packed up, worked on the leg assignments for the upcoming Smoky Mountain Relay and headed home.

I think Gunner was plum wore out by the time we got home!  He's been sleeping on his bed ever since!  He barely got up to eat his dinner! 

Until the next adventure!!

JD