OPINION: Less Stuff, More Life

YOU'VE ALL SEEN US ...

We're the Travellers, the Campers and the Road Trippers, we're the RV'ers and the Overlanders ... 

We drive slowly and we change lanes slowly ... 'cause we hafta'. We're big, long, high and heavy. We're difficult to manoeuver and hard to corner, we're slow to climb hills and slower still to descend them, we're often over-loaded and ... we all trailer or haul TOYS!

Very few of us are on the road for extended periods of time to ...  'just sit and read a book'. Even the laziest of our crowd, will at the very least ... walk along a beach or trail or maybe even play a game of golf. Most of us are out here, on the road, to visit new places, meet some interesting folks, absorb local cultures / foods / drinks and atmosphere and to be active. 

I've seen some pretty amazing 'cargo's' that travellers, travel with. Mercedes Benz Unimog's and Mitsubishi Fuso's laden with kayaks and rough-road motorcycles loaded on front or rear receiver hitch platforms. Class A coaches towing off-road, fuel-enhanced, bullet-proofed, aluminum bodied Jeeps. A 4-person hot tub, hung off a telescopic hydraulic arm on the back of a Class A. I've seen F550's, towing Five-ers that tow boat trailers ... yup! However, the most outrageous rig I've seen (so far) was in Burns Lake, BC - a full-sized, commercial diesel bus, towing another 'cabless', full-sized bus, all colour coordinated ... musta' been close to 80' long. The cabless towed vehicle was the Toy Box and contained: motorcycles, an atv, a fishing boat, a couple of blow-up kayaks, some assorted support gear and accessories, and ..... w a i t  f o r  i t ... an airplane with fold-up wings. The interior was accessible from a drop down ramp at the butt end of the toy box that would make a military grade heavy equipment transport aircraft pale in comparison! 

Harley Davidson's & Gold Wings, scooters and bicycles, every manner of fishing boat, power boat and sail boat, TOAD's can be full-sized pickups or a Smart car, canoes / kayaks / rafts and SUP's ... bikes, bbq's, fuel cans, coolers, ladders, chairs and alltheother-whateverucancarrys!

OUR toys are all self-propelled. They're less expensive to purchase and to maintain. For us, this all translates into a healthier and more active lifestyle and lower up-front costs. We're minimalists. Now if we could just sell that 'darned house' and all the 'support stuff' we need to maintain it we'd have ... 

even LESS STUFF ... and even MORE LIFE

We don't need a utility, boat or toy trailer. The Ford could handle the towing requirements, but we prefer to stay short, in order to access more remote areas. Those longer and really large RV's often can't get to some of the nicer places and most end up resorting to a toad. 

All we need can be stored and transported on our campers' roof and in our trucks' back seat.

Kayaks or a Canoe

Folding Bikes store easily in transport bags.

With a couple of day packs we can carry everything we need for Cycling, Hiking or Fishing.

SCUBA & Snorkelling Gear

Any number of duffel bags, dry packs or barrel packs piled in the crew cab's rear seat, easily store all the accessories or supply we need for any activity or to support an extended Backcountry Paddling Trip.

I may eventually remove the Fords rear seat completely in order to squeeze out, every last, possible square inch of available space .............. pending Wry's approval, of course and ... FOREVER!

An F450 / F550 longbed, dually with a higher GVWR would be very nice ... then, we could haul more fishing tackle and bobbers, that nice camping beanie that good friend Cary gave me ...

... a couple of spare bicycle tubes, Heather's LOAFin Around camp slippers, my favourite signature / show paddle and an emergency case of Merlot for Wry!

Crusty ...