Overland Expo 2014

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Karen and Henrik

Last week, Karen and I attended, and presented at, the 2014 Overland Expo (OX14), which is, I believe, the largest gathering / expo for folks who “overland”. I translate overlanding into “vehicle-based travel to unusual places for unusual lengths of time”, but if you asked the attendees at OX14, you would probably get hundreds, if not thousands of different definitions.

Thanks to Bryan Appleby, who has been full-timing in his truck camper for the past 5 years, there was an area at the Expo where truck campers could gather.

Our Outfitter camper is tucked right behind the 4 other ones in the foreground

It was really fun to hang out with some other folks who not only have truck campers, but whose names I recognize from the rv.net truck camper forums (the largest online community for campers).

OX14 is a blend of a boy scout jamboree – a few thousand folks camped out in a field – with a gear porn expo, and a great “beer around the camp fire” camp ground. Although “real” camp fires were banned. But we had a camp fire anyway as one of the truck campers had brought along a propane fired “camp fire”. (See gear porn in previous sentence).

The vehicles, ’cause a lot of OX14 is about the vehicles, ranged from Mini’s to Unimogs, from $2,000 to $750,000+. A few examples:

Going minimalist style

The original overland vehicle – the Land Rover

Now we’re starting to talk serious – Unimogs

The “camp ground” road

(All pics above. btw, from Stan at Four Wheel Campers)

Now Karen and I were there to present lessons learned from our trip, to field test our ufyt dog bed (see previous post), and gather feedback on the ufyt system itself (maybe next year, we will exhibit), but mainly to present.

It’s interesting: out of the 7,000 people who attended, Karen and I may have the least amount of off-roading, gear head, “damn, that’s a nice suspension”, “what psi do you run your tires on washboarded roads”, “I can weld an axle together using nothing but a lizard and two dry sticks” knowledge. But. We belong to a rather small sub-set that have done long time overlanding on other continents. And we thought we had learned a few things we could pass along.

The presenters

Most of our presentation was about tips on how to reduce stress – overlanding in Paraguay can be stressful – a few simple tips help with the stress and increase the enjoyment. Despite being at the overlandig gear fest that OX14 is, we also tried to to communicate that it’s not about the gear (except for a ufyt System…), instead it’s about saying Yes and doing it. Speaking of stress: Karen was quite nervous before our first presentation; by our second presentation, she was so comfortable, so into the storytelling, I had to use a a shepherds staff to yank her off the stage…

For those who want to check it out, our presentation is here, but a word of warning: without the presenters, it may be terse.

A gorgeous drive there and back

Traveling with Girlie

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Karen and Henrik

As some of you may know, we acquired the world’s cutest and smartest puppy a few months ago – Girlie. Karen and I were presenting at the Overland Expo in Flagstaff, AZ, so time had come for Girlie’s first camping trip. And incidentally, a lengthy field trial of ufyt Systems’ dog bed option, in total we spent 35 hrs, driving 1,740 miles, with Girlie in her bed.

On our way down to Flagstaff, we camped at the Colorado National Monument and Canyonlands National Park, and drove through Monument Valley on our way to Flagstaff. On the way back, we visited Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon National Park, and camped at a little gem, the Highline State Park outside of Fruita. We are fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of the country, and be so close to incredible National Parks.

Girlie did quite well for her first trip, with some exceptions. As we wrote about in a previous post, Karen and I started a company, ufyt Systems, to develop and manufacture in-cab storage for pickup trucks – specifically well suited for truck campers.

Our normal ufyt Systems setup

One of the handy things about ufyt, is that it is modular, ie you can build the system that works for you. So for this trip, we replaced the two top boxes in the picture above with the ufyt dog bed (takes less than 10 minutes to do).

Girlie modeling the ufyt dog bed

The bed fit her well, and she immediately got comfortable and snoozed most of the time we were driving, though from time to time she would pop up and say Hi. And she loved the campgrounds. What dog wouldn’t? Plenty of new stuff to explore, dirt to roll in, cow patties to eat…

An experienced camper

The one exception to Girlie’s great camping behavior was when she was attacked by an atlas, or at least that’s her story. Karen and I were having lunch on our way back and left Girlie in the truck snoozing in her bed. When we returned, the truck was full of confetti, the remains of a 62-page DeLorme topo atlas of Utah…

Girlie chilling, upside down, in her bed

Bringing Girlie along does limit what we can do, National Parks do not allow dogs on the trails. Ah well, National Forests and State Parks, here we come. Girlie also takes up space in the camper, really not that much, but there isn’t much space to begin with, and she requires that we stop every two hours or so for a water and potty break. All in all, worth the trade-offs.

K & H & G

( And to our children – come camping with us, and you too may get a blog post ).

ufyt Systems

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Karen and Henrik

Karen and I have discussed numerous times what changes we will make when we head out for our next overlanding trip. What new cool gear will we purchase? What is the X that would have alleviated Y during our previous trip? Surprisingly enough, our list of new cool gear is surprisingly short:

Levelers – the things you put under the tires of the Casa to get it level. We managed fine by collecting rock, logs etc., to create ad hoc levelers, but it was pretty stupid not to spend the $31 and get the Lynx levelers at Walmart (we purchased a set when we got back to the US).

Lynx levelers

Portable grill – pretty handy to have a small Coleman style propane grill for fresh trout, shrimp, or Argentinian steaks. (Also purchased when we returned to the US).

Coleman grill

Safe, secure, organized in-cab storage – We had three minor issues with theft from the Casa: 1) while shipping the Casa to Buenos Aires, we had a console unit – for storing maps, GPS etc., – in the cab of the truck stolen. Our fault, we shouldn’t have left anything, repeat anything, in the cab. 2) The driver side rear window of our truck was smashed outside the dinosaur museum in Trelew, Argentina, and and the thieves snatched a day pack, see this post. 3) shipping the Casa back to Jacksonville, FL, someone stole the windshield adapter for our GPS. Again, never anything in the cab of the truck while shipping Ro/Ro.

The first two pieces of gear were no big deal, the third item was much more difficult. We had tried to buy an in-cab storage system before we left for South America, but it did not exist. And we looked hard. So we built our own (not proud of the first prototype…)

First in-cab storage prototype

My background is in high-tech startup companies, most of which required significant amounts of mechanical engineering. So, here is a classical startup situation: there is a need for a product (as in Karen and I wanted one…); the product does not exist; I know what it takes to design a great product. So, what did we do? Of course, started a company: ufyt Systems.