Truck Camping Alone on a Cold Rainy Night When I Found Paradise

On this week's video, Toby and I are bringing you up to Itasca County. We're near Marcell, Minnesota. Looking for a campsite that I've never been to. It's supposed to exist. At least I hope it exists. We're gonna find out. It looks to me like there's a gate back here. I can see it's closed. We better get out. I have no clue if this place exists or not. Wait a second. Maybe it's just closed and not actually locked. Nope, it's locked. Back to the drawing board. It is a beautiful day to be out here though. It's like 52 degrees. Talking, maybe a chance of snow tonight. It's crazy. Beginning of September and snow already. Well, thanks a lot Google Maps. It kind of led me on a wild goose chase there, but we're gonna check plan B. This is another campsite that I've never been to. We're in that same area. If this one doesn't pan out, we got plan C. It's another dispersed campsite that I've never been to. And I'll tell you more about that one because I just recently found it like two weeks ago. We're getting close. Oh, this makes no sense. There's a fire number right there which tells me it's private property. We better take a look at this. We're looking at Onyx. It says it's public land. If I go up the road a little bit, I can see where we have private properties. This road should be public. Let's put up the drone and see what we can find. It was definitely a hammock. I didn't see a picnic table or a fire ring. We'll go down and scope it out a little better. It is definitely tight down here though. There's just no room here. It can barely turn around the way it is. I definitely wouldn't be able to set up the camper. Maybe they got some tent sites or something down by the lake. Oh yeah, now I can see it. It's tent sites. This is beautiful. I wish the road came back in here. It's an absolutely beautiful spot, but there is a little bit of construction noise coming from the other side of the lake. Let's go check out Plan C. Hey Jack, how's it going? Good. Well, here's the deal. I got a question for you. So, I'm looking for a campsite and I'm not asking you to tell me where it's at, but here's kind of what I'm thinking. All right, well here's the story with campsite number three. Like two, three weeks ago, I'm watching one of my favorite Minnesota YouTubers. He's out on a camping trip and he stumbles across this really cool looking dispersed site right on the edge of the lake. And I'm thinking to myself, I know of a lot of dispersed campsites and I don't know of this place. So, I'm watching the video. He's dropping breadcrumbs all along in his video. I jump onto Google Maps. I get onto Onyx and I'm thinking, I'm going to find this campsite. Well, he ends up showing a drone shot and it's a perfect shot of the lake. And he's talking about the peninsulas on the lake and I'm pretty sure I found it. So, I just called him up and said, here's what I'm thinking. I don't want you to tell me where it's at, but this is where I am. What do you think? And so, he's like, yeah man, go for it. He's probably laughing right now because it's not a spot and I'm like 20 miles from where I should be. But, Jack, Riley, thank you guys. And if you haven't subscribed and haven't watched Tiny Cabin Life, go check out his video. Jack, Riley, great people. In fact, they just gave a big announcement on their last video. So, congratulations. I'm going to put a link to that video right here. Let's go see if we can't find the spot. You ready, Toby? Going out to the Dakotas a couple of weeks back was absolutely beautiful, but these trails in Minnesota, this just feels like home. I absolutely love it back here. Someone's here. Dang it. The odd thing is, I don't see a tent and I don't see anyone around. Just a truck. Golly, I wonder if he's out here fishing. These dispersed sites are just single occupancy only, so we're going to have to move along. I will say he's got himself a sharp looking truck. That was spot number four. I was here three months ago and someone already had it. It's seven o'clock now. I might end up sleeping at the Walmart in Grand Rapids. Hopefully, there's nobody here. Just as I pull in, it starts to rain. They were talking the possibility of snow tonight. I don't know. It's like 49 degrees right now. I'm not sure if it's going to get that cold. Slept like a rock last night. Got down to 36 degrees first time that I used the furnace this year. Everything worked out. I think I'm going to start a fire and then I'll show you around this place. The last people here even left us a little firewood. Hopefully, it takes a little bit of the chill out of the air. Days are definitely getting shorter. Even starting to see some of the maples change colors. The trails are getting full of birch leaves. It's going to be fall before you know it. No picnic table at this place. This is a county maintained a campsite. We're still up in Itasca County and more specifically, it's a 1400 acre chunk of tax forfeit land. Borders the Chippewa National Forest. The cool thing about Itasca County is it has like 1400 lakes. A lot of them have these boat launches and hand launches and a number of dispersed campsites just like this. A number of people have asked how I find these campsites. These ones, most of them, are actually on Itasca County's government website right under the recreation tab. It'll list I think there's 15 or 16 of them. Even though they give you the directions, they're still not that easy to find. That's because some of these trails just ain't marked very well. They don't give you GPS coordinates. That would be nice, but you still got to put in some work even though you have directions to them. Then remember too, if you do get the directions and jump in the car and try and find these, just remember that a lot of this area doesn't have cell phone service. So download offline maps with Google. Otherwise, you're bound to get lost up here. But even with that, when you do get lost, you end up driving around for hours and finding other campsites that you can pin on your phone. So it's not the worst thing in the world. It looks like it's going to start raining again. I'll give you a quick tour now just in case if this rain actually turns into something. It is a nice big spot and then like I said last night, it was three months ago someone had a fifth wheel trailer pulled in right here and he just parked his truck over on this side. So there's definitely room for a pull behind trailer. There's a sign that says toilets. We'll check that out. They got this one a ways away from the campsite. There we go. Look at that. Someone even has a dry container for the toilet paper. Hey, check it out. It's full and more importantly dry. Well, let's go check out the lake. Oh, I thought maybe that sign was going to say designated trout lake. Boulder requirements. I did bring some worms. I try fishing tomorrow. I think it's supposed to be dry out. Looks like we got some good structure out here. Might be able to pick up a few panfish, maybe a bass or two. Oh, it looks like there's some trumpeter swans way on the other side of the lake. I don't think you're going to be able to see those guys and I really shouldn't put up the drone right now. I'm just going to put the chairs underneath the slide for now. I got the fire going good and hot. The reason why is because on a cold rainy day, soup sounds really good. So I think maybe we can start it in the camper and then just let it cook over the fire I'm going to try putting this over the fire, see if we can't protect it that way. I think this will work. Yeah, this is one of my favorites. Split pea. First thing I got to do though, cut up a cup of potatoes and a cup of onions. I'll show you how we put this all together. It goes really quick. The potatoes I cut pretty small and it's okay if they kind of disintegrate and fall apart in the soup. All that does is add a little bit of creamy starch to it and just makes it taste better. The leftover potatoes and onions, that'll work for tomorrow's supper. We're also going to be adding a cup of carrots and I went the easy route and just got these shredded ones. That'll work. Now we get to put it all together. We're going to start. Three tablespoons of butter. Have you tried this Kerrygold butter before? So good. We got a cup of potatoes, a cup of carrots and one cup of onions. We're going to add in one pound of diced ham. Make sure you wash and drain your peas. Don't do what I do. Last up is eight cups of bone broth, two cups of water. You can just use 10 cups of water too if you don't want to use a bone broth. Put away our leftovers. Cover it, bring it up to a boil, let it go for about 30 minutes. We'll want to be checking it often. I'm going to turn that down a little bit. I should probably check that fire. Ah, she's still burning. What do you say, Toby? Movie time? Young Guns or The Office? better than one. The soundtrack alone makes it a better movie. You're crazy. Let's see what we got going on. Right now it doesn't smell like much. It kind of smells like split pea soup, but it's that ham packet that we're going to add in. It really gives it a lot of flavor. And then we're going to turn down the heat, let it simmer for about 25 minutes covered. Then we're going to take it outside with the lid off, put it over the campfire, let it sit for probably an hour, pick up some of that smoke. It's going to be so good. I've got to start up the generator. I've had my power station plugged into the shore power since last night because the furnace has been running. And now I'm dead all the way around. We'll get this going, charge the power station back up, and I should only have to run the generator for about two hours and then we should be good for another day running off the power station. First pull. Shut that one off, turn that one on. I've got the power station plugged into an outlet strip. Turn that on, it should start charging. Awesome. Looks like it's charging around 1400 watts which means it'll take a little less than two hours. I'd put it up to turbo mode, it'd charge a lot faster but it would trip that breaker on the outlet strip. Now we can let this soup take on some of that smoky goodness. And we'll just let that go for 45 minutes, maybe an hour. I was thinking maybe I'd get some fishing in today but I just don't think that's going to happen. I haven't done much of anything today but that's all right. I've been enjoying that too. You holding down the fort, Toby? Good job, buddy. I guess one thing that I have been doing is working on this video a little bit. I'm trying to get it done sooner than later. We have a surprise birthday party for my sister this weekend but don't worry the video comes out after the party's going to already happen, plus she doesn't watch the videos anyways. So even if I say happy birthday, Christy, she'll never hear it and she's turning the big 5-0 which just makes me realize how old I'm getting. I still feel like I'm like 25 but I can't believe that I'm gonna be 50 here soon. Wow. The other thing that I've been doing today is just kind of nursing my shoulder a little bit. So I've been building this chicken coop and it's starting to throw a bit of a wrench into my shoulder along with cleaning up some campsites a couple of days ago. And then with cleaning up that campsite, I don't know if you saw that but I was dragging some mattresses or box springs or mattress springs out of the woods and when that happened I think I ended up crushing and breaking up a bunch of poison ivy plants and throwing them into the bed of the truck. I got oils on my hands and arms but I've been using a cream and so it's not too bad. But that's all I've been doing today. Working on videos, babying the shoulder and trying not to itch my hands. I think it's time for supper. Actually it looks like it might have got a little dark from sitting in there. Oh that's gonna be so good. I've actually been hungry for two things the last couple days. Chili dogs and soup. Chili dogs will give me heartburn though. The soup won't. Okay come take a look at this. You see how it got a little bit brown in there? It kind of changed colors. A little bit of pepper. I'm excited to try this. I should probably shut that door. Furnace just kicked on. It definitely took on some of that smokiness. I think that was a good idea putting it over the fire like that. but it's been sprinkling on and off this morning. I wonder if it's gonna keep raining or if we're starting to get dark out again. I'm gonna stack this wood so that way the next people maybe have a little bit of dry wood because it's just getting soaking wet sitting on the ground here. Hopefully that helps someone out. I don't know if I'm hearing thunder or there's jets up there. I'm gonna run in a caribou, grab my sister a gift card. That's gonna be her birthday present. If there's one thing I know about my sister is that she's not the type of person to spoil herself. If she's got 10 bucks in her pocket she would love to stop and get a copy but she's still got kids in high school. They're gonna get the cash instead. So I'm gonna go give her a present that she can spend on herself. We'll do this again next Tuesday. Until then, be kind, be honest, we'll see you down the road. Come on, Toby. Good boy. Just like that, it started raining again. I knew it was coming.