05-29-2018, 04:20 AM
Living off the grid stories.
Ok, so I am being forced to retire, well kind of. My PTSD is pretty bad and I am not too much fun to be around unless some sort of action/drama is happening. Brass is pushing me to retire but I am far too connected and popular to push too hard. I decide it is better for me to pull the pin and retire and practice a little me and Zen and the Art of Nothing.
3 months of living in a cave with a folding solar panel to charge my phone, a kindle, and a laptop. Fish the pond in the morning, collect bullrushes for mashed potatoes and spend the afternoon in the sun typing a story or reading Non-Fiction. I can't read fiction when I am writing as I find myself stealing. I had packed in a seventy-pound pack with med supplies, dehydrated fruits and veggies, clothes, sleeping bags, and various incidentals. Spices, toiletries, a sat phone, two cell phones, and my little Mac computer and some other crap. My aim was 40 days of meditation and reflection. Enough to get into a habit and decompress.
The location was well known to me and three other hiking buddies. It will remain that way. About 300 miles of forestry roads and twenty miles of bush trails to get to the cave, as it has been named. The really nice thing about the cave is it comes with internal plumbing. Cut from Hardrock the opening is four feet in circumference. After about ten feet of egress, it opens up to the first room which is about 20 by 40 feet. The next room is achieved via a crack in the rear face of the first cave and contains a creek and a cauldron. Water flows out of the rear wall of this room and then out the side of the far wall. The water in the creek runs very quickly and any solid waste just disappears downstream. The cauldron is fed by an underground hot spring and the water fluctuates from a bathtub to hot tub temperatures. It is about 10 feet in circumference and limestone white on the sides and bottom. This room is usually always warm even in the winter. The main room has a secondary tunnel exit at the back of the wall opposite the crack. Some probing was done into this location a number of years ago. The person nomivolentold got into the tunnel about fifty feet until some screaming was heard and roped explorer was yanked out of the hole with a story about a large white spider. No one believed the spider tale told yet, none of the three has mustered the courage to explore further. The 'white spider den' hole was secured with mesh on the next visit. It remains secured to this day. The remainder of the cave has also been meshed with screens and nets over the years to discouraged mozies and other fictitious creatures from an entrance to the human part of the dwelling.
A number of years ago a wood plank floor was added and various sleeping bags, wool blankets, and unused things with insulating properties were stuffed below the floor. Five years before my trek and forced seclusion twenty gallons of expanding two-part foam and catalyst was humped up to the location. The various stuff had started to smell as it insulated less and rotted more. Plastic was laid down and nailed to the old floor. Some pink styrofoam style sheets arrived and these got installed around the door and three rolls of house wrap got added to the floor and as far up the walls as the supplies allowed. Then the twenty gallons got poured on the flat floor and catalyst was added. We evacuated quickly as the exothermic reaction happened. That warm summer evening was spent outside.
Two solar panels arrived with two d6 used tractor batteries of unknown origin. The panels were larger old house panels and were run in series and mounted on the mountain face. An MPPT charger of Chinese origin was attached to the paralleled D6 batteries and ropes of colourful led lights made their way onto the ceiling and walls via a common dimmer and on/off switch. The ability to change the colour was lost in this series mish mash insulation. The floor was reasonably levelled by the foam and the white spider kingdom was sealed forever. A series of posts were added down into the foam and a new checkered flag style vinyl floor attached to tightly spaced marine 2x4's. Stairs up from the entrance was added and a boot/mud room appeared a few years later. Stairs to the spa were added the following year and the spa room got an old 12-volt squirrel cage blower at the top of the crack. This proved to be too much for the old tractor batteries and these were replaced with sealed AGM D4's. An on-demand pump got added with the batteries and a white American style urinal and sink got placed in the far corner with a return line to the creek.
I brought some additional gear and prep supplies for the metal locked cabinet. The med supplies and the majority of the pack would remain at the cave as was the tradition. In heavy out lite.
Forty days of fishing and scavenging turned into sixty and sixty became ninety overnight. I had cell reception most of the time and could use my computer with a 3g signal. The sat would forever remain in the cave. Cooking takes place around the side near the lake. Care is taken to keep the entrance covered and out of prying eyes. A trapper series tent near the cooking location has never seen a person sleep in it. It is old and leaks but the facade has been effective when someone happens by.
With water/sanitation and long soaks it is amazing how living off the grid and away from the noise can refresh ones soul.
Then one day I got an offer to fly to Russia to drive the long way overland across Siberia.
I said ok, made my pick up call, and started packing.
Ok, so I am being forced to retire, well kind of. My PTSD is pretty bad and I am not too much fun to be around unless some sort of action/drama is happening. Brass is pushing me to retire but I am far too connected and popular to push too hard. I decide it is better for me to pull the pin and retire and practice a little me and Zen and the Art of Nothing.
3 months of living in a cave with a folding solar panel to charge my phone, a kindle, and a laptop. Fish the pond in the morning, collect bullrushes for mashed potatoes and spend the afternoon in the sun typing a story or reading Non-Fiction. I can't read fiction when I am writing as I find myself stealing. I had packed in a seventy-pound pack with med supplies, dehydrated fruits and veggies, clothes, sleeping bags, and various incidentals. Spices, toiletries, a sat phone, two cell phones, and my little Mac computer and some other crap. My aim was 40 days of meditation and reflection. Enough to get into a habit and decompress.
The location was well known to me and three other hiking buddies. It will remain that way. About 300 miles of forestry roads and twenty miles of bush trails to get to the cave, as it has been named. The really nice thing about the cave is it comes with internal plumbing. Cut from Hardrock the opening is four feet in circumference. After about ten feet of egress, it opens up to the first room which is about 20 by 40 feet. The next room is achieved via a crack in the rear face of the first cave and contains a creek and a cauldron. Water flows out of the rear wall of this room and then out the side of the far wall. The water in the creek runs very quickly and any solid waste just disappears downstream. The cauldron is fed by an underground hot spring and the water fluctuates from a bathtub to hot tub temperatures. It is about 10 feet in circumference and limestone white on the sides and bottom. This room is usually always warm even in the winter. The main room has a secondary tunnel exit at the back of the wall opposite the crack. Some probing was done into this location a number of years ago. The person nomivolentold got into the tunnel about fifty feet until some screaming was heard and roped explorer was yanked out of the hole with a story about a large white spider. No one believed the spider tale told yet, none of the three has mustered the courage to explore further. The 'white spider den' hole was secured with mesh on the next visit. It remains secured to this day. The remainder of the cave has also been meshed with screens and nets over the years to discouraged mozies and other fictitious creatures from an entrance to the human part of the dwelling.
A number of years ago a wood plank floor was added and various sleeping bags, wool blankets, and unused things with insulating properties were stuffed below the floor. Five years before my trek and forced seclusion twenty gallons of expanding two-part foam and catalyst was humped up to the location. The various stuff had started to smell as it insulated less and rotted more. Plastic was laid down and nailed to the old floor. Some pink styrofoam style sheets arrived and these got installed around the door and three rolls of house wrap got added to the floor and as far up the walls as the supplies allowed. Then the twenty gallons got poured on the flat floor and catalyst was added. We evacuated quickly as the exothermic reaction happened. That warm summer evening was spent outside.
Two solar panels arrived with two d6 used tractor batteries of unknown origin. The panels were larger old house panels and were run in series and mounted on the mountain face. An MPPT charger of Chinese origin was attached to the paralleled D6 batteries and ropes of colourful led lights made their way onto the ceiling and walls via a common dimmer and on/off switch. The ability to change the colour was lost in this series mish mash insulation. The floor was reasonably levelled by the foam and the white spider kingdom was sealed forever. A series of posts were added down into the foam and a new checkered flag style vinyl floor attached to tightly spaced marine 2x4's. Stairs up from the entrance was added and a boot/mud room appeared a few years later. Stairs to the spa were added the following year and the spa room got an old 12-volt squirrel cage blower at the top of the crack. This proved to be too much for the old tractor batteries and these were replaced with sealed AGM D4's. An on-demand pump got added with the batteries and a white American style urinal and sink got placed in the far corner with a return line to the creek.
I brought some additional gear and prep supplies for the metal locked cabinet. The med supplies and the majority of the pack would remain at the cave as was the tradition. In heavy out lite.
Forty days of fishing and scavenging turned into sixty and sixty became ninety overnight. I had cell reception most of the time and could use my computer with a 3g signal. The sat would forever remain in the cave. Cooking takes place around the side near the lake. Care is taken to keep the entrance covered and out of prying eyes. A trapper series tent near the cooking location has never seen a person sleep in it. It is old and leaks but the facade has been effective when someone happens by.
With water/sanitation and long soaks it is amazing how living off the grid and away from the noise can refresh ones soul.
Then one day I got an offer to fly to Russia to drive the long way overland across Siberia.
I said ok, made my pick up call, and started packing.
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