Solo Truck Camping Deep in the Forest With my Dog / Campfire Cooking

Welcome back to this week's video. Now we're doing it again. Toby and I are checking out a remote lake up in northern Minnesota. It looks like there's a campsite here. I've never been here. Figured we'd check it out together. This is a really pretty drive. Oh, I gotta show you this spot. This is a nice one. I love campsites like this. The sandy soil is keeping the brush down. All the pine needles are making the ground too acidic for anything to grow. That's going to keep the bugs down. Someone left a chair by the fire pit. We can definitely get that cleaned out later tonight. And then there's a clothesline. Someone left a set of swimming trunks up there. Well, if they're large, I might get in the water later. They're Nikes too. Dry fits. Size medium. Maybe I'll leave them up here for a little while. See if anybody comes back for them. Man, that lake is beautiful. I've said it before. Eventually, I'm going to run out of these campsites. We've been doing this for over four years. Just when I think that I've found all of the good campsites, something like this pops up. I'm so lucky to live here. Toby's in the truck right now. Let's see if we can knock down these mosquitoes. They got bad quick. I know not everybody likes bug repellent, but folks here in Minnesota, they know my struggles. Well, let's check this out. Toilet. It's way up on a hill. This might be the best seat in the whole house. There it is. Itasca County Park System. The camper is way down there. I'm going to level out the camper as best as I can. And then I'll grab the shovel, dig out the fire pit. There's some firewood to stack. Looks like someone cut some up and they just left it in a pile. By the time we're done, it's going to feel like we've got our own million dollar lakefront property we didn't pay anything for. Well, at least for the next night. Anyways, let's get to work. Hardly any trash here at all. Next up, we're going to tackle that wood pile. I think before it gets too dark, we're going to start this fire. And I'm probably going to make something really simple tonight for supper. I just got some sausages. We're going to go right over the coals. It should light up with no problem. Even though this wood, it's a little bit wet because it's been raining out. Like, it seems like every day that fast fire is going to start this thing. No problem. A lot of people ask me where I get them gel blocks. And it used to be that they're only in a few select grocery stores. But you can pick them up on Amazon now. Maybe what I'll do is just throw a link in the description of the video. So you can pick some up. I've had some people pick up the Duralast ones, the little gel blocks. And I've picked them up before as well when I didn't have access to fast fires. It's just not the same at all. Everybody that has used these has told me that they are the best fire starters that they've ever used. No sponsored ad or anything like that. I buy them $5.99 a box. They're 36 cents a piece is what it breaks down to. I can't remember how many are in a box. But if you're ever swinging through Brainerd or Baxter, just go to Cub Foods. It's over by the barbecue equipment. There's sticks all over out here. I'm not even gonna have to burn any of my wood tonight. That's awesome. I've got a bacon cheddar brat and a jalapeno brat. They're gonna taste good after all this work we just did. They're from Cub too. I'll give you a tip. If you're ever in central Minnesota driving up north and you want to stop, get some really good meat. Stop at Theland's and Pears. Best butcher shop. Hands down. Those coals look just right. I think I'll toss a rock in there. We'll just put these like so. That'll work. Mint. Well I think those look pretty good. Tomorrow I'll actually make a decent meal. Tonight I'm just gonna get something in my stomach and I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning. You ready to go potty? Let's go. I might try and get the jump on the mosquitoes this morning. These coils work pretty good. It takes a bit to saturate the air with them but once they get going they do a pretty good job. I picked these up at Walmart. At the end of the season last year they had the boxes on sale. Four coils in a box for a buck. I think I bought like 20 boxes. I can't believe that I haven't been here before. The road ends not too bad but it is in the middle of nowhere. No cell phone service. Yesterday a family came down here on their ATVs and they were telling me about a few more spots up here. We'll definitely have to check them out. There's actually a viewer of the channel that told me about this spot. So I'm super thankful for that. The local told me that there's some awesome four-wheeler trails in this area. There's a gate blocking this one off. Hearing a ton of planes overhead. Wondering if this isn't like the main corridor between Duluth and Fargo. We're a little further north than that. And it looks like the gate is just blocking off people like me. Four-wheelers are still able to get around it. These radios really come in handy. Especially in times like these where I don't have any cell phone service up here. It would be nice to see the radar. That way I'd know when the rain's coming in. I do have that Garmin inReach. And if I went down by the lake I could probably connect to a satellite. Get the forecast that way. It costs you a little bit of money. Every time you do that it's kind of like sending out a text. And I'm only allotted so many text messages per month with the Garmin inReach. So them radios really come in handy. I've got a dilemma. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Come on Toby. I've been doing a little bit of maintenance on the truck. Getting it ready for maybe some upcoming road trips. And I broke a lug nut on the wheel stud. Tell me if you've ever had this problem before. So here are my lug nuts. And there's the stud. What happened is when I was removing the lug nuts to do a rotate and balance. This here snapped. So this acorn part is still held in the rim. I think what I'm going to have to do is take a drill bit. Drill right in the center of the wheel stud. I mean it's got to be perfect all the way through. I'll just have to keep increasing the drill bit larger and larger until I can drill out the threads on the wheel stud. Always something. Here's the next thing. You'll have to let me know what would you do about that chair and pair of shorts. Here's the reason I ask. I'm always trying to clean up campsites. Make them look better than when I first got there. There's been a couple of times where I'll take something home. Trash. Throw it in the garbage and people get upset with it. Give you an example. I was at a campsite maybe a year, year and a half ago. Where there was this commode right by the campsite. And there was a latrine at this campsite. There was a commode right next to the campsite. It was broken. Leg was busted off of it. Plastic was deteriorating. So I took it home. Threw it in the trash. I was surprised at the comments. People saying that wasn't yours. You shouldn't have touched it. Give you another example. There was a campsite Mandy and I went to and she helped me clean it up. At this campsite there was a cot. It was broken. It even looked like there was a body bag laying on top of this cot. The number of people that said that that wasn't my cot and I had no business taking it. I couldn't believe it. So now I'm wondering. What do I do with this chair and pair of shorts? I didn't feel bad throwing away the commode. I didn't feel bad throwing away the cot. Both of them were broken. The chair is still good and so are the shorts. It's very possible that it's just a local and they come here often. And maybe that's why they left them here. Even with that being said. I feel that you shouldn't be leaving your stuff here at the campground. Public land. I don't know. You tell me. What would you do? Take it home? Throw it in the garbage? Give the pair of shorts to Connor? I don't know. The other area that I need a little bit of input on. Is a lot of people have been asking for longer videos. And I would absolutely love to make longer videos. In fact YouTube would prefer that we make like 30-35 minute long videos. My problem is I have a hard time talking. If you've been watching the last four years. You know that I don't share a lot about myself. And when I watch other content creators. That's what they do a really good job with. You know I watch Larry, Nat Moran, Runaway Parents, Kevin Wald. Chrome, Van City Van Life. They all do an awesome job with opening up on the camera. That's something that I've always struggled with. I've just kind of gotten used to showcasing the beauty of the campsites. Toby's the star of the show. Not me. But I'm going to try to get a little bit better with it. Then I tell myself the reason why you're here. Is because you enjoyed how it's been going so far. This morning, yesterday when I got here. What I tried to do is just capture a little bit more of the behind the scenes. Of putting the campsite together. Stuff I normally wouldn't record. So you'll have to let me know if that's something that you liked. And we can just go that route. And then I'll continue with trying to work on opening up a little bit more on the camera. It might sound weird. I don't talk a lot. I've got a really good friend Joe. I haven't seen Joe in probably two and a half or three years. Probably in the next two and a half, three years. We'll go fishing together. Sit in a nice house. And we won't say a word to each other for four or five hours. It's just the way I am. I got to decide. Hammock? Nap? Throw in a fishing line. I think I'm going to toss in a line. See if I can catch fish. One of the things Mandy has suggested to me to fill in to make more content. She says you should bring your guitar with. And that's something that I picked up years ago. I started taking guitar lessons when I was probably 10 or 11. And played in bands through high school. And it's just something that I've always kept up on. Music for me is, it's really big. It helps calm my mind. And that's why I have music in the videos. A lot of people say, oh you should cut out the music. They don't like the music in the videos. And I know that in the very beginning when I was learning how to edit. My music was way too loud. But for me, I put my heart into every video I make. And if I was to start cutting stuff out like the music. Then the videos wouldn't be mine anymore. So that's why I have music in them. And then to answer some of the questions of what do you do when you're at the campsite and you're not recording. What does that look like? My daughter told you once in a video. I've climbed one of these trees before. I'm gonna do it again. And my dad's singing. He does that a lot. But don't worry. I'm not gonna start singing. There's gotta be something right on the edge of that weed line. Got him! Oh no! That hook set actually hurt my shoulder a little bit. What am I now? Almost six months off of having that total shoulder replacement. That's what we're gonna blame it on. There we go. Oh, settle down. We'll get you. Check this out. My third time fishing. Third time catching fish. It's little. But it counts. I just did a slow motion release. And I didn't push record. Go figure. I'm gonna change it up. Water is crystal clear. So I've got this popper. It's neon green, white, and purple. We'll see if this works. Got it. Is it stuck in the weeds? Nope. Here we go. This one's just a baby. Ready for the slow motion release? I don't know if I just keep forgetting to push record or what. But it didn't record that one either. It's probably me. What happened here? Nope. Massive knot. Let's call it a day. Now is where I'm gonna get something. We gave it our best shot. Stop laughing at me, crow. Getting a message out to Mandy. Letting her know that we're gonna stay one more night. I just heard it go through. There's too much tree coverage up by the camper. I was wondering how it would do with all the clouds. It looks like it might start raining a little bit. I think if we start the fire now, hopefully we can get supper done before it starts downpouring. For supper tonight, I'm gonna be making fajitas on the campfire. We're gonna start by cutting up this flat iron steak. It's one pound. We're just gonna cut it against the grain. And then we've got a red pepper. Yellow pepper. And an onion. So we're only gonna be using half of each of the pepper and the whole onion. Cut them up into strips. Pretty simple. Everything's gonna be going in the cast iron. The steak will take probably six or seven minutes. So that's first. Then we'll add in the vegetables. That's another four minutes. We'll add in the fajita sauce. And we let it sit and simmer. We'll eat when we're ready. I'm gonna try the steak. Make sure it's not poisoned. Thanks, buddy. All right, in with the meat. That's looking perfect. So thankful that I was sent that pan as a gift. I've got my cast iron that I usually use, but it's not in the camper for some reason. Thankfully, I had this pan. You know, I get used to just using the same pan over and over. Maybe this will be my new pan. These vegetables will take probably four minutes. Next up, we'll put our seasoning packet in. I never used this stuff before. I saw it at the grocery store and thought, yeah, that sounds good. That's usually how these go. I don't plan anything. Just whatever happens, happens. Should we get this piece yet before it has sauce? Don't burn your mouth. Was that good, buddy? Well, the instruction packet says to heat it through. And I think we're pretty much there. It smells amazing. I'll probably take it off the heat in a little bit. Just let it set up. I have a lot of people ask me if I carry bear spray out here. And I don't always. Sometimes I do. Those people that came down here yesterday though said that they saw a cub on the road. So I have been carrying it this weekend. I don't want to run into mama bear. That is going to be good. What a view. Got the camper all cleaned up. Rain's going to be starting soon. I think I might pop in a DVD and call it a night. We'll see in the morning. Let's go, buddy. Good job. I think we've all got this video in the bag. We'll do this again next week. Until then, be kind, be honest. We'll see you down the road.