- Joined
- Dec 11, 2006
- Messages
- 1,659
I have never been to PWYP before and have never been highly interested in attending gatherings. But, for some reason riding my motorcycle to North Carolina from Michigan sounded like a really good idea this year. The fact that many good people that I had met previously were also planning on attending, really pushed me over the edge. Those people included Joe Flowers (aka Joezilla), Tim Stetzer, Spen Stelzer, Ethan Becker, and some others that I know I am forgetting. I also heard that Marty and Aggie Simon would be there, but I was trying to not get too excited about that and believe it when I saw it 
I cover a little bit of stuff in my video about the trip, and the ride. So, I will use text and pictures to cover the stuff I didn’t get to capture in video.
In my mind, I imagined stopping along the route both down and back and getting some video of amazing roads and views. Well, that didn’t happen. The roads were great, the scenery was great, and the ride was everything I was hoping for. The problem was, it always seemed like I was “in” the great view. If I would have taken photos or video, it would have been my motorcycles with trees as the background and a little bit of road…….not the picture I was looking for. If I did get a grand view or two, there was never a good spot to pull over. So, I was a little disasppointed at how well (or not so well) I was able to document the ride.
Upon arriving at Terrill’s property, the directions said “at the fork in the dirt road, cross the creek and continue to the camp.” Well, I didn’t know he actually meant “cross the creek” meant drive through it. Luckily is was nothing big, and I filmed me riding out of it, but it was still unexpected.
Upon riding into camp, right away I hear JoeZilla yelling at me, calling me by the wrong name Boy do I feel loved! I really don’t take it personally, because if you have met Joe, and know his attention span, the boy could hide his own Easter eggs.
I rode into camp, and started setting up. Most of that first day for me was setting up camp, cooking dinner, talking to old friends, and meeting new people. Also, a little bit of figuring out what I wanted to do tomorrow.
Camping ranged from a travel trailer, to backpacking tents, hammocks, your typical dome tents, and a montana canvas frame tent. There were people cooking on propane stoves, backpacking stoves, and many various ways of cooking on the fire. What I mean by that, is due to the nature of my travel method, I had to pack light. I brought three types of meals. No cook meals, warm up meals, and boiling water meals (stuff I dehyrdated). I brought a white gas stove just in case, and thankfully didn’t use it. So, I did my cooking with the fire, but all in a small billy can. JoeZilla baked clams on rocks (a totally different method of fire cooking) and the next night, used a grill over the fire for clams. A camp over was also cooking on the fire, but had those HUGE skillets that seem to be 30” in diameter or so in my memory. So, all I am saying is lots of different cooking styles for the fire too.
The setting for the camp is gorgeous. I rode in a different way than I rode out, and I can not imagine not having a fun time just getting there. But, once at Terrill’s property, it is gorgeous. We camped next to a small creek (which was my source of water), and a small pond. I catch each a bit on video. He has enough property that you can do some hiking, and get some good elevation changes, and I did get a chance to do that.
That is one of the things I am bummed that I didn’t get video of. On day two, Tim held a slingshot contest with some cool prizes. So, I participated and taped a bit of that. After lunch, Joe and I wanted to hike to the top of a mountain on Terrill’s property and of course he wanted to drag along ALL the kids from camp. Joe doesn’t walk 10 feet without sifting through leaves or looking under logs. He always finds some good bugs for the kids to look at and I didn’t take the camera on this trip because I am always weary about damaging stuff. But, he found a snake, two black widows, a countless black widow webs (after finding two, there wasn’t much point in doing the same thing over and over again).
Hopefully Joe will post a picture of the first black widow, because I took a really good photo of it with his camera. I left mine back at camp.
We found some fatwood to take back to camp, as it is not as common in this area as other places I have been. It is not hard to find, but not everywhere you look either. At the very top of the mountain, there was a shagbark hickory, so we harvested some of the loose bark for Joe to roast his clams on later. Shagbark is supposed to have a very high BTU content to weight ratio, and burns like coal. Later, it worked great and cooked his clams fast!
I made up a crane for my pot, since I was going to be using it again and again. A lot of wood had been scavenged for firewood, and I didn’t want to cut anything live, so I used the old bamboo that Joe had brough the previous year, and strung that together. I found one suitable stick for the hook, and although not my favority style of hook, it worked just fine.
There were lots of guns at this gathering. Terrill had a very organized “zombie” shoot. Most people participated in it, but I did not. I saw a few minutes of it, but did not get any videos or pictures.
I took along the Duluth Bushcrafter pack that I will be review for the Woodsmonkey Gear Section as seen in Self Reliance Illustrated. I have been carrying it a lot, and have been trying to drag it with me everywhere I go. Also, while there, I was given a one of the fairly new Mora Fire Knives for review for Woodsmonkey. As a knifemaker, I swore I wasn’t going to do any more knife reviews, but I like this little bugger.
The ride home was gorgeous. Unlike my freezing ride there, the temps were much warmer, and I was able to ride just in my armored jacket (no extra layers). It was long but worth it.
Finally, the measily bit of video that I took while on the trip.
Finally, if you are interested, here are the two videos:
[youtube]3uwZfV5QMd0[/youtube]
[youtube]obNKJCrnY8Y[/youtube]
Thanks for reading,
B
I cover a little bit of stuff in my video about the trip, and the ride. So, I will use text and pictures to cover the stuff I didn’t get to capture in video.
In my mind, I imagined stopping along the route both down and back and getting some video of amazing roads and views. Well, that didn’t happen. The roads were great, the scenery was great, and the ride was everything I was hoping for. The problem was, it always seemed like I was “in” the great view. If I would have taken photos or video, it would have been my motorcycles with trees as the background and a little bit of road…….not the picture I was looking for. If I did get a grand view or two, there was never a good spot to pull over. So, I was a little disasppointed at how well (or not so well) I was able to document the ride.
Upon arriving at Terrill’s property, the directions said “at the fork in the dirt road, cross the creek and continue to the camp.” Well, I didn’t know he actually meant “cross the creek” meant drive through it. Luckily is was nothing big, and I filmed me riding out of it, but it was still unexpected.
Upon riding into camp, right away I hear JoeZilla yelling at me, calling me by the wrong name
Boy do I feel loved! I really don’t take it personally, because if you have met Joe, and know his attention span, the boy could hide his own Easter eggs.I rode into camp, and started setting up. Most of that first day for me was setting up camp, cooking dinner, talking to old friends, and meeting new people. Also, a little bit of figuring out what I wanted to do tomorrow.
Camping ranged from a travel trailer, to backpacking tents, hammocks, your typical dome tents, and a montana canvas frame tent. There were people cooking on propane stoves, backpacking stoves, and many various ways of cooking on the fire. What I mean by that, is due to the nature of my travel method, I had to pack light. I brought three types of meals. No cook meals, warm up meals, and boiling water meals (stuff I dehyrdated). I brought a white gas stove just in case, and thankfully didn’t use it. So, I did my cooking with the fire, but all in a small billy can. JoeZilla baked clams on rocks (a totally different method of fire cooking) and the next night, used a grill over the fire for clams. A camp over was also cooking on the fire, but had those HUGE skillets that seem to be 30” in diameter or so in my memory. So, all I am saying is lots of different cooking styles for the fire too.
The setting for the camp is gorgeous. I rode in a different way than I rode out, and I can not imagine not having a fun time just getting there. But, once at Terrill’s property, it is gorgeous. We camped next to a small creek (which was my source of water), and a small pond. I catch each a bit on video. He has enough property that you can do some hiking, and get some good elevation changes, and I did get a chance to do that.
That is one of the things I am bummed that I didn’t get video of. On day two, Tim held a slingshot contest with some cool prizes. So, I participated and taped a bit of that. After lunch, Joe and I wanted to hike to the top of a mountain on Terrill’s property and of course he wanted to drag along ALL the kids from camp. Joe doesn’t walk 10 feet without sifting through leaves or looking under logs. He always finds some good bugs for the kids to look at and I didn’t take the camera on this trip because I am always weary about damaging stuff. But, he found a snake, two black widows, a countless black widow webs (after finding two, there wasn’t much point in doing the same thing over and over again).
Hopefully Joe will post a picture of the first black widow, because I took a really good photo of it with his camera. I left mine back at camp.
We found some fatwood to take back to camp, as it is not as common in this area as other places I have been. It is not hard to find, but not everywhere you look either. At the very top of the mountain, there was a shagbark hickory, so we harvested some of the loose bark for Joe to roast his clams on later. Shagbark is supposed to have a very high BTU content to weight ratio, and burns like coal. Later, it worked great and cooked his clams fast!
I made up a crane for my pot, since I was going to be using it again and again. A lot of wood had been scavenged for firewood, and I didn’t want to cut anything live, so I used the old bamboo that Joe had brough the previous year, and strung that together. I found one suitable stick for the hook, and although not my favority style of hook, it worked just fine.
There were lots of guns at this gathering. Terrill had a very organized “zombie” shoot. Most people participated in it, but I did not. I saw a few minutes of it, but did not get any videos or pictures.
I took along the Duluth Bushcrafter pack that I will be review for the Woodsmonkey Gear Section as seen in Self Reliance Illustrated. I have been carrying it a lot, and have been trying to drag it with me everywhere I go. Also, while there, I was given a one of the fairly new Mora Fire Knives for review for Woodsmonkey. As a knifemaker, I swore I wasn’t going to do any more knife reviews, but I like this little bugger.
The ride home was gorgeous. Unlike my freezing ride there, the temps were much warmer, and I was able to ride just in my armored jacket (no extra layers). It was long but worth it.
Finally, the measily bit of video that I took while on the trip.
Finally, if you are interested, here are the two videos:
[youtube]3uwZfV5QMd0[/youtube]
[youtube]obNKJCrnY8Y[/youtube]
Thanks for reading,
B
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