Six Nights Off Grid, When the Setup Became a System

By my fourth test camping trip, something had changed.

It wasn't just the equipment.

I trusted it more.

The earlier trips had taught me what my setup could do, where its weaknesses were and what I needed to change. I'd tested the power system, rearranged the van, improved the bed and learned how to manage the awning.

This time I wasn't heading into camp wondering whether everything would work.

I was arriving with six nights ahead of me and considerably more confidence in the equipment I'd chosen.

And that changed the trip.

Instead of spending my time testing every piece of equipment, I could finally let the equipment support what I'd gone camping to do.

One significant change was refrigeration.

I'd upgraded to an EUHOMY 31-quart 12V refrigerator/freezer, giving me considerably more cold-storage capacity than I'd had during my earlier tests.

For a longer stay, that mattered.

I could bring more food, keep it properly cold and stop treating refrigerator space like a game of Tetris every time I wanted something.

The refrigerator stayed plugged in overnight and became part of the normal electrical load on my Jackery Explorer 2000 v2.

Together with my Renogy 400W portable solar blanket, I now had a power and refrigeration system I could live with rather than continually experiment with.

And that became one of the biggest differences between this trip and the earlier ones.

One of the biggest differences between this trip and my earlier tests was how little time I spent thinking about electricity.

During my earlier three-night test, I watched the numbers closely. I moved the solar blanket, recorded percentages and wattage, and learned how the system behaved as sun and shade moved through a wooded campsite.

I needed to do that then.

This time, I didn't.

During six nights of camping, I put the Renogy 400W solar blanket out to harvest power only two times, for roughly an hour to an hour and a half each time.

Meanwhile, my larger EUHOMY 31-quart 12V refrigerator/freezer was part of my everyday setup.

When I left camp, my Jackery Explorer 2000 v2 still had approximately 50% of its battery remaining.

That number mattered.

But what mattered even more was the time I didn't spend producing it.

I wasn't constantly adjusting solar panels or watching the display. The power system was doing what I needed it to do without becoming the focus of my trip.

And that gave me something more valuable than another few percentage points of battery:

My time.

I could leave the campsite.

I took my e-bike out, visited the nature center and picnic area, took photographs, explored, and met other campers and park employees along the way.

That's a very different result from simply saying a power station lasted six nights.

The goal of my equipment isn't to give me something else to manage.

It's supposed to give me the freedom to go do something.

By Test #4, that's what it was doing.

I'd added mosquito netting around the awning to make the outdoor space more comfortable, but during this trip I discovered it could do another job.

On the side where the rain would blow in, the netting was doubled.

That turned out to be surprisingly effective.

The first layer caught much of the incoming rain before it reached the second layer. Together, the two layers created an effective barrier and helped keep the living area behind them protected.

And because the material was lightweight netting rather than a solid wall, it didn't become a big wind sail hanging from the awning.

That was important.

A solid tarp might have blocked more rain, but it also would have caught considerably more wind and transferred that force to the awning.

The doubled netting gave me something I hadn't originally planned on: a lightweight rain barrier that still allowed air to move through it.

That's exactly the kind of thing I look for when I test camp.

Sometimes equipment proves useful for the reason you bought it.

And sometimes you discover another use only because you're standing there in the rain watching what actually happens.

Earlier, I'd prepared the awning for rain and Mother Nature declined to cooperate with my experiment.

Not this time.

Rain was coming.

And one of the biggest lessons of Test #4 wasn't how quickly I could react to bad weather.

It was learning not to wait until I had to react.

I started preparing ahead of it.

Things I didn't need anymore were packed.

The e-bike was protected.

Equipment was organized.

I watched the weather and thought about what would be miserable to deal with if I waited until everything was wet.

Then I took the awning and netting down while I could do it on my terms instead of the rain's.

That's a different kind of preparedness.

Sometimes preparedness isn't having more equipment.

Sometimes it's looking at what's coming and making a decision early enough that it never becomes a problem.

Something interesting happened as departure got closer.

My campsite gradually got smaller.

The awning disappeared.

The netting disappeared.

Equipment went back where it belonged.

Things I wouldn't need again were packed.

But I still had everything necessary to live comfortably until departure.

I wasn't breaking camp all at once.

I was transitioning from camping to traveling.

That may sound like a small distinction.

When you're doing everything yourself, it isn't.

Another change had nothing to do with solar, refrigeration or weather.

I wasn't packing the van from scratch anymore.

Through the earlier test trips, I'd learned which things I used regularly and which things made sense to simply leave in the van.

Clothing, camping equipment and many of my everyday necessities already had a place and stayed there between trips. When it was time to go again, I wasn't carrying everything down two flights of stairs and trying to remember what I'd forgotten.

Most of the setup was already waiting for me.

I replenished what I'd used, added food and anything specific to that trip, and went.

Of course, clothing changes with the seasons. What stays in the van for summer isn't necessarily what I'll want when the Adirondack nights start getting colder. Seasonal camping means adjusting layers, bedding and weather-related gear as conditions change.

But that's an adjustment, not starting over.

And I think that's another reason Test #4 felt different.

The first trips were teaching me what belonged in my traveling cabin.

By the fourth trip, my traveling cabin already knew what it needed.

By departure morning, most of the work had already been done.

There wasn't a frantic teardown.

I wasn't wrestling with wet netting or trying to dry an awning before stuffing it somewhere.

I wasn't standing beside the van wondering how all this stuff had managed to fit inside six days earlier.

I knew where things went.

I packed the remaining pieces.

And I left.

Smoothly.

After four test trips, that may have been one of the most satisfying results I'd had.

I didn't head straight home.

I stopped at a smaller area near the lake.

The morning was quiet, and mist was hanging over the water and the mountains beyond it.

So I stopped.

And I took a photograph.

That photograph later became Misty Lake & Mountain, the opening image in my Back Roads Photography collection.

Looking back, I think that photograph tells the story of Test Camping #4 better than another equipment list could.

On the earlier trips, so much of my attention had been on the equipment.

Where's the sun?

What's the battery percentage?

Where should this go?

Can I put this up alone?

What should I change?

What happens if the weather turns?

Those questions mattered. They were how I got here.

But on that final morning, the equipment wasn't demanding my attention.

The refrigerator had done its job.

The power system had done its job.

The awning and mosquito netting had done their jobs.

I'd prepared for the rain.

I'd packed the van.

And departure had been easy.

That left me free to notice the mist over the lake.

Maybe that's when a collection of camping equipment finally becomes a system.

It stops being the trip.

It simply supports the trip.

I wasn't testing whether I could do this anymore.

I was simply doing it.