Preparation - Part 1

The launch date for my four-month-long, fly-fishing-oriented ramble through the four corners of the USA is May 20.  A great deal of preparation is in order.  Okay, it’s not exactly like Lewis and Clark forming the Corps of Discovery and outfitting for a multi-year adventure into the unknown.  Still, four months is a fairly long time to be on the road, and housing one’s self in a truck camper isn’t quite the same as staying at the Four Seasons – the latter is what I grew accustomed to during a 30-year career embedded in the high finance jet set.  I’m striving for a level of comfort midway between that of a hobo hopping trains and Jackie Onassis on Aristotle’s yacht.  Trish might say I'm trending toward the hobo end of the range.

As you know, I already have my Chevy Silverado 2500 and my Northstar camper.  The camper is well-appointed with a queen-sized bed, a refrigerator, a two-burner stove top, a shower and a toilet.  It’s amazing what Northstar can squeeze into a unit that slides into the back of a pick-up truck.  Lewis and Clark would have killed for a Chevy and a Northstar two centuries ago, provided there had been roads and gas stations.  I’ve also acquired some campfire cooking equipment, including an iron stand (for hanging pots) forged by my friend Jeff Carithers, and a small dutch oven and other tools and accoutrements to keep myself well-fed and well-rested.  The basic comforts are all there, but I’m trying not to stuff the camper with things I won't use.

Recently I bought aTrailex kayak/canoe trailer.  Because I will be fishing on a wide variety of waters, including in-shore saltwaters, rivers, ponds and lakes, a variety of boats are called for and I’m still trying to decide which combination of a kayak, a canoe and a pontoon boat I’m going to haul.  I may take all three.  Plus a bike so I can shuttle myself on river floats.  And of course a cargo box of some sort to hold paddles, lifejackets, fishing equipment and related items.   I’m still working on the trailer set-up, trying to figure out which arrangement works best without adding unnecessary weight.

Electronics!  First, there are the cameras, which are critical to my ability to document my journey and feed this blog – I’ll primarily use a 14 mega-pixel Canon with 35x zoom for stills and videos, and a GoPro for POV action videos.  The GoPro is waterproof and can be mounted on my head or on a boat or bike when I’m fishing, floating or doing anything else requiring a hands-free mode of recording video.  Communication equipment is vitally important - Trish and I will try to touch base every day while I’m traveling, if possible.  In addition to my Droid X smartphone, which contains a mobile 3G hotspot (sort of a mobile wi-fi) and an excellent GPS facility, I’ll have my Skype-and-webcam-equipped laptop PC, a back-up Tom Tom GPS, and the ultimate electronic wilderness safety device – a Spot.  My friend Dan Stephano told me about the Spot, which is a little hand-held unit that connects to satellites and periodically notifies selected people (primarily Trish) of my exact whereabouts.  The Spot also has an emergency button, so if a grizzly bear chews off my leg while I’m ten miles up on a mountain in the Yukon, I can summon the closest wilderness rescue team to helicopter me to a hospital.  I’m planning not to use the emergency button, but perhaps it will give Trish more peace of mind, knowing that I have it.  Finally, I’ll have no shortage of music options.  What’s a road trip without music?  I have an iPod Touch fully loaded with songs from CDs and iTunes, a Pandora app on my Droid X, and for good measure, an XM satellite radio unit in the Chevy.   For reading, I’ll carry a Kindle.  In addition to a bag of batteries and a variety of plugs that will enable the Chevy to keep most this stuff powered up, I’ll carry a portable battery starter/air compressor/USB power supply for emergency charging and tire maintenance.

Wow!  When I put all that stuff together in a list, I realize how ridiculous it seems.  But it could be worse.  I’m not taking a TV, for example.  Have you seen all the satellite dishes on RVs in campgrounds?  I won’t have one of those.  And I’ve resisted the siren call of the iPad.  I thought about taking a portable gas-driven generator, but I probably won’t.  In this digital age, there is no limit to the number of electronic gadgets seeking to enslave you.  I’ll try to deploy mine judiciously.  A key point of the trip is to have some quiet time – a period to reflect on my past and future and to focus on fly fishing and nature.  Henry David Thoreau would have been appalled by my approach, and Lewis and Clark may have been envious.  I’ll just try to apply the 80-20 rule that was drilled into me during my career and seems to apply to just about everything – that is, I'll spend 80% of my time engrossed in the activities that are the principal reasons for taking this journey, and 20% of my time connecting with the rest of the world.  That seems about the right balance.  What do you think?