sleeping in the vehicle

Titans said:
Love this thread. Congrats on sleeping so well in your car, woohoo.... it looks like you had a great trip!
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It was really nice. Thanks for the pmags links, @Titans! Tons of details in there.

one of my most cherished backpacking memories is from sleeping in a well-used campsite on the Green a few years ago -- a mouse ran across my friend during the night and he screamed like a 6th-grade girl
 
I'm too lazy. When I choose to sleep in the car rather than setting up the tent, I just sleep in the front with the seat tipped all the way back. I've spent many a night in this gumby'd position and don't find it _that_ miserable. It's certainly not comfortable though either.

I just did a photography workshop in Death Valley with a desert rat named Michael Gordon. He said he never uses a tent - always sleeps on the ground. I asked about any critter stories and he said the only time anything happened...a palm beetle crawled in his ear and started digging. It was driving him nuts to the point they had to go to the ER. (his wife's a nurse and couldn't get it out) They poured some saline solution in and the beetle came right out. Moral of the story...carry saline solution if you're sleeping "under the stars".
 
ImNotDedYet said:
I'm too lazy. When I choose to sleep in the car rather than setting up the tent, I just sleep in the front with the seat tipped all the way back. I've spent many a night in this gumby'd position and don't find it _that_ miserable. It's certainly not comfortable though either.

I just did a photography workshop in Death Valley with a desert rat named Michael Gordon. He said he never uses a tent - always sleeps on the ground. I asked about any critter stories and he said the only time anything happened...a palm beetle crawled in his ear and started digging. It was driving him nuts to the point they had to go to the ER. (his wife's a nurse and couldn't get it out) They poured some saline solution in and the beetle came right out. Moral of the story...carry saline solution if you're sleeping "under the stars".
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I like doing same but was just hiking with a friend who got a scorpion sting down in the Bullfrog area and this didn't sound too fun!
 
I was camping out in Yellow Cat country and got up one night to take a pee and went back to bed in the back of my rig and settled in just to feel something crawling up my leg inside my longjohns. I went flying out and dropped my pants, about to have a heart attack, thinking it was a scorpion. It was a grasshopper.

I always name my camps and that became Grasshopper Camp. I hope to never camp at Scorpion Camp, wherever it might be.
 
Rockskipper said:
I was camping out in Yellow Cat country and got up one night to take a pee and went back to bed in the back of my rig and settled in just to feel something crawling up my leg inside my longjohns. I went flying out and dropped my pants, about to have a heart attack, thinking it was a scorpion. It was a grasshopper.

I always name my camps and that became Grasshopper Camp. I hope to never camp at Scorpion Camp, wherever it might be.
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I also like to name campsites, it's a great way to remember them after a few years have passed. but I do, in my google earth file, have at least a half dozen "super awesome best campsite" and then a handful of "cows and mud camping"
 
Titans said:
Sleeping with two people inside a car is a whole other challenge IMO. But @PaulMags has some great and refreshing articles about car camping with two:
https://pmags.com/toyota-tacoma-our-camping-setup
https://pmags.com/perma-camping-kit-what-the-heck-is-it
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Thanks for the shout!

Certainly easier to sack out in the back of the truck! The standard Tacoma bed makes for just enough room (lengthwise) for my 5'10" wife to comfortably sleep in the bed. (True to my family lineage, I do not have that issue! :D)

What helps us is we routinely sleep in a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2 with only 42" total of width. In other words, the space between the wheel wells of the Tacoma does not feel too constrictive. We sacked out in the back of the truck quite a few chilly evenings including one where it dropped to about 10F. We had the vents open on the truck camper shell to cut down on the condensation.

Once the weather warms up and the days get longer we enjoy tent camping again as our camping tent makes for some spacious sleeping.
 
Never mind - a sad cow story in Cap Reef but decided not to bum anyone out. Like Ed Abbey said, if you don't like cows in the backcountry, don't eat them.
 
I have a 2000 4Runner & have no problem. I always sleep in the vehicle. Just fit @ 5'8".Cooler & other food in the passenger side, cooking & xtra clothing in the drivers side. I'm pretty minimalist in the amount of gear I take.
 
Fun thread. A friend of mine has a 2017 4Runner and does the sleeping pad in the back and sticks his gear under the truck. It works for him but he’s about 5’9’’ ish.

I slept in the back of my outback a couple of times and it was miserable But I didn’t put much thought into it. I just laid my backpacking sleeping pard down.

Now I have a Tacoma with a topper. I went all out and built a sleeping platform but found it to be a hassle so now I just bring a thick foam pad. This is only when I’m on my own. I travel much lighter without the family so I can stick what gear I have in the cab.

On the subject of naming campsites. I spent a night at Redwell trailhead in GSENM. It was my first ever solo trip and the solitude and silence freaked me out. I always think of it as “Chicken Camp”.
 
donkiluminate said:
On the subject of naming campsites. I spent a night at Redwell trailhead in GSENM. It was my first ever solo trip and the solitude and silence freaked me out. I always think of it as “Chicken Camp”.
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I've not spent a ton of nights out there truly solo but can confirm that sounds (and lack thereof) take on a bit of a different interpretation when there's almost certainly nobody within X miles
 
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