The Evolution of our Sleeping System. As you may know if you've read my other posts, I don't do sleeping hot. Seriously, my absolute favorite time to camp is in the dead of winter. I remember one little 4-wheeler camping trip, we slept in hammocks. I was in my down sleeping bag with my down under quilt. It was so cold that my contacts froze in the case! Seriously, it was in the low teens...and I slept for over 13 hours! We have camped in a tent and with hammocks, but we wanted something that didn't take a long time to set up. But first, some alterations had to be made to the Jeep GC.
We started by taking the back seat out of the Jeep. "Why?" you ask. "Don't you have a son?" you ask. Yes, but he's grown and can fend for himself! Actually, he prefers to drive his own Jeep Rubicon, so we don't need no stinkin' back seat! Besides, this helped with storage. We did not build a raised platform for a couple of reasons. First, the Jeep GC is not that tall on the inside anyway, and an elevated platform would make me feel like I was sleeping in a coffin. Second, with the spare tire on the swing-away bumper, the spare tire well in the back is a great place to store stuff like recovery equipment and extra tools. So we just built this simple platform and moved the rug from the back where it was coving the opening to the spare tire well up over the platform. BAM! Platform done!
We took off on our first sleep-in-the-Jeep camping trip late one afternoon. It was winter, so it got dark early. We drove on a forest road off of Highway 7 north of Jessieville, AR, found a camping spot, and pulled in. We inflated our ground pads (left over from backpacking and car camping days of sleeping on the ground), threw our sleeping bags in, and slept. Well, it wasn't quite that simple. As short as I am, it was a pain in the tuchus to crawl in the back on that platform and into that sleeping bag. And don't even get me started on how hard it was to pee in the middle of the night! However, it was a great night and a great weekend!
These photos are taken from that first night and the next morning. The first was taken with flash; the second, with just our solar-powered inflatable Luci lights. The pads are inflatable and have some heat reflectivity, and combined with these amazing Western Mountaineering down mummy bags (thank you Ouachita Outfitters in Hot Springs, AR) we were toasty warm and slept great.
There were two problems with the sleeping pad and sleeping bag system. First, to store them in their stuff sacks, we would have to take the time to deflate them and roll them back up. That does take several minutes. Second, if we wanted to get on the road and not have to continue to inflate and deflate, we had to store them so they would be out of the way and not get punctured. We added flat bungee cords to the roof and slid them up there. Great solution! The only problem was they had the nasty habit of sliding down in front of our faces when Dave braked. So, another solution was needed.
Enter the foam pad and sheets/comforter! In case you didn't notice, the first sleeping solution was used before we ever got the winch bumper, swing-away rear bumper, and roof rack. (Go ahead, look back at the pics. I'll wait.) All of our gear had to go in the back of the Jeep, so every night we had to put all of our gear in the front seats or under the Jeep, set up our sleeping solution, and do everything in reverse the next morning. Once we had our roof rack, much of our gear went on top, and we had room for this more semi-permanent sleeping system, complete with DIY screens on the windows and fans to help keep us cool in warmer weather. (We also added the vent visors so we could keep the windows partially open even if it were raining.) It was nice, but even at 5' 8", Dave could not stretch out in the back of the Jeep with the door closed, and it still was a pain in the rumpoid to get in the darn thing! We began to seriously consider a rooftop tent.
The problem with a rooftop tent is that we didn't want to take our gear off the roof rack to put the tent up there. We had our rack the way we wanted it with some things (i.e., the water tank and the gas cans) made specifically for that rack. We considered several possibilities and decided on this:
A Smittybilt Scout Trailer with a 23 Zero Walkabout King Sized Rooftop Tent...which we have not slept in because of (1) The Rona, (2) Dave's foot (turned out to be a torn ligament which requires surgery), (3) It's HOT, and (4) the Grand Canyon trip was cancelled due to The Rona! You guys will be learning about this setup as we do. I'll post more on this when I have something to write about...
Overlanding...perfect for social distancing.
Go play in the dirt!
~Julie
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