Saturday morning
no 10 am seminar this morning, but i did wake up earlier than i expected, so i rode down for the 9a.m. opening before the crowds of day visitors swarmed. The Bronco guys turned their music off around 10-10:30 last night, but they were "drunk" loud. I'm sure they thought they were being quiet when talking around their little propane campfire, but drinking makes you deaf.
Anyway, I ran into Jeff mid morning while walking around. I bought another 6 pack of roperollers from the Rollercam booth. And finally, I wrapped up the morning by getting a ridiculously overpriced burger after waiting in line 15 minutes and waiting another 20 for the burger to be ready. Burger was maybe ⅓ lb size? just cheese, no toppings, nothing else and it was $20. with a coke and tip closer to $30. should have just gone back to my truck to eat lunch, or better yet, gone to the taco or bbq trucks. NEVER get the fresh burger from a food truck when the line is long. They just can't keep up with the demand.
Spent the afternoon just hanging out by my truck. around 6:30 p.m. got a ping from Mark to come down to his truck to hang out.
Jeff stayed in his van so he could use is starlink to game with his friends. His old college group of friends have a weekly, Saturday night gaming session.
Mark and Teresa invited Chad from the Talsit booth over. Nice guy. retired from corporate life. first consulting then he did Bank stuff. math nerd. statistical analysis stuff.
anyhoo. The company he and a cofounder started make kitchen drawers like mine. I’m seriously considering commissioning him to make a metal version of my drawer setup. they do custom work too. I don’t want his sink because i do too much cold weather camping and things would freeze.
I’ll work on a Google sketchup of my drawer. to see what it’d cost to have him remake what I’ve done with wood. I’d have the same storage space but it could be much narrower if made out of metal. With my big wood drawer pullout. there’s 2.5” wasted on each side. ¼" aluminum with a full extension slide would only be ¾” on each side, so I'd gain at least 3.5" for my center aisle from that alone. Overall it’d weigh less, and he designed it so the box fully seals up to keep mice and dust out.
Might be worth the 3k or so to have him make me something.
Chad also told a nice story (ending wise), about the time he got separated from his dog (Delilah) that he had with him at the expo. A very sweet 8 year old (a Cur Mt dog?). Before the story he talked about Delilah didn't like his ex-wife (wife at the time) and would take only Her things and bury them in the backyard. Delilah was also a naughty puppy the first couple years, chewing up tons of moulding throughout the house.
Delilah and Chad's story...
They often go out on hikes together. On a particular hike in northern Kentucky, they got separated when a bad storm came out of nowhere. Chad searched and search, and it broke his heart, he had to go home because it was getting dark and he’d go hypothermic when he stopped moving, or worse yet, get lost himself. First thing next morning, he went back, and he was calling for her all over, nothing. Runs into a guy asking if he’d seen a dog, and the guy said yeah about ¼ mile back but on the other side of the river. The man had noticed her because he was bird watching and had binoculars.
Sure enough, there she was. He could barely see her white head sticking out of the bushes, because she was scared and wasn’t sure who he was. When she realized it was her Dad, she started squealing and yipping (she's a quiet dog too, first time he ever heard her make noises like that), but it was a cold, fast moving river and she wouldn’t cross back (there were water falls further upstream, so it was loud too)
Anyhoo, he decided to strip down to his skivies and swim across. he made the mistake of leaving his boots on; which filled with water and made it really hard to swim. about 2/3rds of the way over he had that thought, omg! am I going to drown? but he made it across.
A joyful reunion commenced, he rested for a bit, but it was time to cross back. This time though he tied his shoes around his neck, and got her back across the river far more easily.
He told the story really well, and you could hear the love for his dog in the story. It made the night. Heck, may have made the weekend..
Anyhoo, things were winding down, and it was getting late (for camping...~9:30p.m.) so i pedaled back up the hill talked with Patrick and Brian briefly and turned in.
Sunday morning
I did a last walk-through early in the morning. Found a good kindling knife with a nice plastic orange hilt and orange sheath, so hopefully I won't lose it, LOL.
At 10:00 a.m. I went back to the Storyteller Pavilion and attended a nice talk about driving up the gravel roads to the hydroelectric dams in Northern Quebec. Very remote, would be amazing for stargazing, only downside are the bugs and the extremely expensive gas you have to buy along the way. Triple normal prices in the middle.
After the class, Jeff and I went looking for a medical course but we think they skipped the Expo, and the expo folks didn't update the app. So I swung by Mark and Teresa's Booth one last time to Say Goodbye. Poor Mark look exhausted. SeaSucker owes them some serious swag. Teresa said they sold more stuff than the Seasucker people by a wide margin.
I mentioned the kitchen drawer thing earlier, but we didn’t talk Shop until the next day. Their drawer style is a little different but they also do custom projects, so I may hire them to make a metal version of my drawer. Here's their website https://www.talsit.net It would be lighter, narrower, and they have a hinged end plate with clamps to seal it shut and keep the dust out (and mice) when you’re driving around.. They use a high-end two burner propane based stove, Partner Steel, but I think I'd have them design it for a two burner Coleman white gas stove. I would hate to run out of propane in the middle of nowhere. Worst case you can burn gasoline in the Coleman stove until you can find the good white gas. it’s harder to use, but easier to find fuel when you really, really need it and that’s more important. Also, i can literally see how much fuel i have left, and with propane tanks it’s harder to know.
Talsit's default drawer design...
Went back to the truck, ate a quick lunch, and packed everything up. Then Jeff and I drove up to Shenandoah National Park to camp at Loft Mountain Campground for a couple nights. More on that later
Here are more photos from Saturday and Sunday.
This Bowlus trailer looks like an upside down boat/Airstream. It's crazy expensive too! 
A taxa cricket trailer. I think it was NASA engineers making this one. The cool thing is you can leave the roof down to sleep in it if you're somewhere noisy, like a Cracker Barrel.
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| a quick snap of the TV setup at the Storyteller Pavilion. this was the Northern Quebec talk |
another photo of the Talsit drawer. They're coming out with a 3 ft version and they'll make custom kitchen pullouts too. For me, I don't want the sink. I do too much camping when temps go below freezing overnight.
I took this photo so I'd remember to look them up later. An aluminum version of the Ez Up shelter. The metal expandable frame packs down smaller than an EZup, but it didn't feel that much lighter to me. https://www.compactshelter.com/