Yurt Motocamping at the Oregon Coast + Beginner-Friendly Sleeping Bag/Pad Test

It's just a little frosty, it's not a big deal. Carrie Underwood killed my fire. The friendliest what? I have to know! Ooh, that's Carrie Underwood's fault. It's a one-way ticket to Cozy Town. Damn it, Carrie Underwood. Well, as you can see, it's more than a little chilly out. That is frost, not snow, but I don't care. I want to go moto-camping. So we're suited up, we're loaded up, and we're headed to the Oregon coast to camp out and have a great time. Thanks for coming along with me. It's gonna be chilly, and we're gonna love every second of it. That's what I'm telling myself, like the song. Loving every minute of it. Maybe brand new gloves I haven't broken in yet were not a good choice. Oh, come on, baby. Man, they are stiff. Okay, nope, I'm over these gloves. It's just a little frosty, it's not a big deal. We'll be fine on a motorcycle with all this ice. I'm sure, with brand new tires I haven't scrubbed in yet. All good, all good. What could go wrong? Impressive freezing fog, man. It's cold. It just doesn't lift. Yeah, see? Well, you're not gonna use this audio, so... Welcome to Newport, the friendliest. That's literally all it says. The friendliest what? I have to know. Anyway, that's the ocean. We're at the coast, friends. That big blue thing, that's not the sky. That's the water. I get confused every time I come here. It is so much warmer over here. Dude, like, I'm not freezing like it was in the valley. It's 10 or 20 degrees warmer over here. Hard to believe it'll be dark in two hours. You can't even check in until four, supposedly, but we're gonna try early anyway. Happy to report the Transalp carried all my luggage and me over the pass like a dream. Like a good dream, you know what I'm saying? You know what time it is? Time for me to see if I'm fast enough to get my shades out. Oh, failing so far. Okay, we're committed. We're committed. It's actually hard to wear these when you have the... Ugh, my shades are so dark. When you have the, uh... Got my Bluetooth earphones in. What do we call those? They're not AirPods. They go up over my ear, so now everything is funky in my helmet. Didn't think it through. I never think it through, though. It's not really my thing. You guys know. Talking to myself. Now that's my thing. This thing is so balanced. I can, like, take my feet off the ground and, like, just balance for, like, 10 seconds. Ugh. Pretty good. Just the end of the longest highway in the country. No big deal if it, like, never changes because there's no traffic coming from the longest highway in the country. It is. Highway 20. It ends right here. And if you go the other way, go all the way to Boston. Uh, that is Boston, Massachusetts. That's how it's pronounced. Massachusetts. So the historic Bayfront District is off to the left here. We're not going to go down there. We're going to go over the Quina Bay Bridge to the south because we're going to South Beach. And guess where that is? South. All right, let's go over the bay. And over there... Don't want to see it. Oh, it's right here. It's this building. Big building. Is the Rogue Brewery, which, uh, you know, when in Rome... We're not in Rome. When in Newport, you go to the brewery for dinner. How come you never go anywhere different? Because I like it there. Get off my path, bro. Here we are. South Beach State Park. Yup. Is there anyone in the booth? Are there? Nope. 10 to 12. Will they come back at 4? Yeah. All right, well... I'm on the list. So let's just go see if I can get in the yurt. Yeah. So, last time we stayed much farther in. It wasn't so woody. This is much better. You're definitely, like, just in a big field last time. The other big surprise here is... I'm not staying in a campsite. I'm staying in a yurt, baby. Yeah. Wait. CRV or coop. Which one is it? Uh... I don't know. I thought it was coop. Cooper Ridge Trail. I think this is it. It was right next to the bathroom. Let's just go see if it says, Hey, welcome, dork in the road. Maybe it does. We'll find out. I have to get firewood anyway, so... Might as well. Oh, s***. Or I could just throw my bike on the ground. Tell you what. It's nice to be able to throw your leg over. Can't do that when it's loaded on the tenor. Motorbike right here. Um... What? I didn't get a code. The code... The keys are really not available before 4. There's nobody in there. Here's what I don't like, okay? Because it gets dark at 4.30, and I can't get my key until 4. Also, there's no code in my email. That's pretty dumb. Because if I was in a campsite, I could just go set up now. And I've literally never had this problem before. It's 40 degrees out. And I'm on a motorcycle, but... Nope, sorry. You gotta wait two hours. Well, I guess let's go ride down the beach a ways. Take in some scenery and come back and have a very early dinner. Not hungry at all right now, but maybe after an hour or so of riding down the coast. All right. Let's mosey. Anyways, there's the ocean. I just forgot what it looks like. Ahh. The sun is so low on the horizon. Ahh. Also, look at this. No cheese. I was gonna get a burger, but I changed my mind. That's too good. Holy crap. I ain't going anywhere. That's what you gotta say. Or else it will. Apparently the keys are not in the things that say the keys are in them. They're in the booth. Hi. I'm told my key is over here. Oh, okay. Would you like a map? Is it just right down this road? Uh-huh, yep. On the very end? Okay. I guess I'm good. Thank you. Okay, for real this time. So that's not very much firewood, but I don't think I could have brought any more back. All right. Well, if you've never seen a yurt before, it's kind of like a cabin in a tent. Had a baby. But it's like a big fabric, waterproof, comfortable, cozy, nice place to hang out when the weather's not great. But you're still camping. But only if you know how to work the lock, which I don't. Ta-da! Yes, finally. Unpack the important things first. A nice thing about camping in the wintertime, or at least the cold weather is, no cooler required. Also, somehow that six-pack and a bag of jerky cost $30 because... I can hear you in the comments. I can hear you thinking it. Why are you using an air mattress when you have a bed? Well, a few reasons. One, I've never found the beds in here to be particularly comfortable. It's usually pretty hit or miss. Two, I got this new Divide Insulated. I haven't even used it yet. And a new pump I wanted to try out, the Exped pump. And three, I got a new sleeping bag, and it works a lot better with an air mattress. And I want to try out the full setup because I'm working on some stuff that's going to probably be in my... I'm going to make a video where I put together sort of a beginner camping kit. And I want to try all this stuff out first before I recommend it to you. So this is the Divide Insulated. It's just an updated version of the old... The old Big Agnes Air Core Insulated, I think. They changed the name, and the old name wasn't very memorable, so it's hard. But I got this from Motocamp Nerd. I got everything I'm using tonight from Motocamp Nerd, and Motocamp Nerd is sponsoring this video, so I want to encourage you. If you're looking for motorcycle camping gear, pop over to motocampnerd.com. Hold on, I'm going to do the plug when this is not filling this up. That adapter is too good. So if you don't know about Motocamp Nerd, it's the only store on the internet dedicated solely to the needs of motorcycle campers. Run by our friend Ben and his wife Mary, who is actually the brains behind the operation, as far as I can tell. But they're real motorcycle campers. Ben has a GS. He goes out camping on it all the time, and his dream was to create a store for people who want to buy motocamping gear but aren't sure what backpacking, camping, car camping stuff will actually work. So his store is all stuff that will work for motorcycle camping, whether you're sleeping in a tent or a yurt or whatever, but it's all compact, high-quality stuff that he's personally vetted, and when something doesn't work the way that he'd like it to, he takes it off the store. That's happened many times. So I got this sleeping pad from him, and I got the bag that I'm excited to show you from him. Also this Eggpad Exped widget pump. That's from him too. You all know how much I love my Diamond Park bag. Well, it's an awesome bag, but super expensive. Turns out they make a less expensive version. This is the Echo Park. Yeah, but it's the same setup, same bed-like design, where you can use it in multiple ways. It attaches to your sleeping pad, which I'll show you. A ton of other advantages. The big difference between this one and the Diamond Park is that this has synthetic insulation. The Diamond Park has down insulation, which means this isn't as warm and won't pack down as small, but it's also less than half the price for what I'm guessing is still a pretty damn good bag. So I'm going to try not to run the heater in here tonight and see how this does. This is the 20-degree version. Just like the other, it attaches to your pad so you can't roll off of it. Unzip the sides, and it's a one-way ticket to cozy town. Hell yeah, Population U. I also bought this. Yeah, I don't know if he sells these or not. This is a climate pillow I just got at Sierra because it was cheap. I thought I'd give it a shot. And my actual recommendation for my starter kit is this. Need more pillow luxury, because I love this damn thing. But I like two pillows, so it worked out well. Now, you may have noticed I'm wearing pants. It's going to be pretty cold outside, and you're maybe thinking... I like to read your mind. You ever notice that? You probably never think any of these things, but whatever. I'm projecting onto you. You may be thinking, aren't you going to be cold with just pants, dork? Didn't you say it's going to be near freezing? I guarantee you I'm not going to be cold. And not because I have a campfire, but because of something I'm going to show you a little bit later. A little surprise for later. Mischief managed. Let's make a fire. Oh, haven't done these in a while, have we? The old Bigfoot bushcraft fire starters. Although this one is very frozen. Also, I got this neat little light from Stoke Voltaics. It's a light. It's a spotlight. It's a hand warmer, and supposedly a bug repeller. Interesting. It also flashes red and blue like a cop car. It's dark now, so it's about fire time. I'm going to go ahead and guess. Being the person who's in charge of when it's fire time, I'm going to say that it is in fact definitely fire time. Also, the fact that there's a fire makes me think that it might be fire time. It's Mr. Puff Puff time. I forgot these last trip. You remember that. Sean remembers that, because I had to buy those stupid backwoods fake cigars. Cigars are disgusting. Don't smoke them. They're bad for you. Don't do as I do, kids. Do as I say, except when I say do something bad, and then don't do that. You'll figure it out. While we're waiting for the fire to get going, there's something pretty serious I need to talk to you guys about. It's been bothering me pretty much all day, and it involves a topic that is important and near and dear to all of your hearts that everyone's very invested in, and that topic is Carrie Underwood, the country singer. Stay with me. But there's like a new heavier version of a cover of her song Before He Cheats that's been popping up in my playlist, because I like to listen to heavy metal or punk covers of non-punk or heavy metal songs, and my YouTube music algorithm knows that, so it'll show it to me. So anyway, I've been listening to that song here and there, and it's been stuck in my head all day. You know how you like, when you're writing and there's one song in your head, you're just like basically singing it over and over? And it's even worse when it's a song you don't really know the words to, but like maybe just the chorus, so you're like singing three lines over and over. I digress. For those of you that don't know that song, it's about a woman who destroys her boyfriend's truck, carves her name in the seats, and runs her key down the side, and smashes out the taillights, whatever, because he's cheating on her with some girl at the bar. But my problem with that song is, the word probably. Listen to the lyrics of that song. Right now, uh, what does she say? She's probably buying her some kind of fruity drink because she can't shoot whiskey. She's probably saying, I'm drunk, so he's thinking he's gonna get lucky. He's probably dabbing on. The point is, like, every line starts with the word probably. And that's problematic, because probably means that she doesn't know. She's assuming. So she destroys his rig based on an assumption. And what's weird about that is, if she's where his truck is, does that mean she's just like right outside the bar, where she thinks he's inside cheating? Or did he like take the other woman's car? Because if he took his own truck and he's inside the bar, where she's outside smashing it, couldn't she just walk in and make sure? And then it would be, right now, he's definitely, right? But the song says probably. So she's just assuming. She doesn't know. She has no evidence. And she goes through this whole thing. And it's this great revenge song. Except the word probably is problematic. How do we know she's not an unreliable narrator? Hmm? Yeah. This is what you do with your English degree when you don't teach English anymore. You super in-depth analyze semantics in old country songs. You gotta admit I have a point. Now I'm not saying that men are not pieces of crap who cheat on women. They are. I warn my kid about them all the time. But she doesn't know. We don't know the history. Based on the evidence in the song, that's all we have. All we know is that he's probably doing this. We don't know that he's definitely doing it. But we do know that she's definitely committing a lot of vandalism. We don't know. So, what do you think? Is probably problematic? I'm probably thinking about it too much. But it was in my head. So now it's in yours. You're welcome. That's your fireside chat for tonight. No serious topic. I actually do have a serious topic. But, uh... Oh sh**. I was not paying attention to my fire and I put it out. I think I'm gonna shoot it in the morning as a separate video. About what's real camping and what isn't. Because I will admit, I had trepidation about coming here and camping and filming this video. Because there are always comments about how that's not real camping. It's not traditional camping. But real is an interesting word that gets thrown around a lot. And I'll have a whole separate video on that for you. So check it out. Stop gatekeeping. I put a big piece on and I smothered it. My bad. Carrie Underwood killed my fire. Now it's going. Look at all that firelight. Ooh. I was hoping to have that whole thing shot and lit by firelight. But I got too caught up and didn't notice that the fire was going out. That's Carrie Underwood's fault. Killer of trucks, relationships, and campfires. Damn it, Carrie Underwood. Okay, I set that Stolt-Voltaix light up over there. And it's working great as sort of an ambient light. I might take that on camping trips all the time. I'll put a link to that in the description for you. They were nice enough to send it to me to try out. Motocamp doesn't sell those. So should I be talking about it in a video he sponsored? He's cool with it like that. He doesn't care. Oh, don't forget you can save 10% on motocampnerd.com. First purchase. Promo code dork in the road. So, you know, if you're picking up an expensive tent or an expensive sleeping bag or just a whole kit, 10% can be a lot. So take advantage. I will not be dabbing on any bathroom polo. Sorry. Getting up is hard when you're fat. Getting a little chilly out here. So I think it's time to activate Project Inferno. Let's go inside the yurt. It's cold out. I think it's time for a quick change. Ha ha! Luck! I'm basically wearing a sleeping bag right now. Motocampnerd sent me this ridiculous ensemble. Puffy jacket, puffy pants, and booties. Puffy booties. I'm not gonna be cold. This stuff, I wore it to my brother's team just won the state championship football. We were outside for like three hours in November. And it was like 35 degrees and I was toasty in this jacket. So this is my new cold weather camping gear. How do you like it? It's even got thumb holsters. Keep your hands extra warm. I legit think I don't even need the bag. I can just sleep with this stuff on, but I'm not gonna be cold by the fire now. Let's go back out there because I have booties with feet on. Booties with feet on? Booties with bottoms. Booty, booty, booty! You guys know I had a booty. Ah! Losey. That's much better. The only thing is, pretty sure I'm gonna burn a hole in this before long, but the point of gear is to use it and they make those no-sew patches for a reason, so it'll be fine. I'm not cold. Oh! Even my feet are gonna be toasty warm. This is a bomb. Oh, stop touching the fire pit. You've melted enough boots that way, idiot. Right now. See, it's still sucking my head. Probably dabbing on three dollars worth of that bathroom polo. The stars are out. It's hella clear. Nice. It's rare here at the coast. I think it's a two-cigar night. Brick house. Fumas. Fumas! I'm just chillin'. Dude, this beer is so much colder than when I bought it. You kinda find, like, the good things about winter camping, and, like, not having to worry about buying ice to keep your beer cold is awesome. Needing fire to stay alive? Less awesome. Get out, have your adventures, do your thing. Tellin' ya. Don't let the frickin' naysayers that are like, that's not real camping dissuade you. Get out. Have a good time. Do your thing. And do it in the way that makes the sense to you. Shouldn't be filming right now. Yep. You know, sometimes I wonder why I don't get more attention from bigger companies like Honda, right? Like, cause I do so much stuff for Honda. I mean, I don't do anything for Honda, but, like, I have, I'm so pro-Honda. Then I remember videos like this, where I'm clearly four tall cans in, and think to myself, maybe it's my lack of professionalism. I don't know. I don't know what to tell ya. I don't know how to be anything but myself. So that's what I'm gonna keep doing. Also, my beard is puffed up weird. Anyway. Cheers, friends. Don't forget to like the video. And did you know that YouTube is, like, super big on, like, positive comments? Like, it literally reads your comments now. So, like, when you leave a comment that says, like, awesome video, or this was fun, or I enjoyed it, it actually helps. Isn't that crazy? The whole algorithm is changing. So, like, likes, comments, all that's still good. But, like, positive comments help YouTube see that the video is, they call them satisfaction signals. They help YouTube see that people are liking the video and that makes them want to show it to more people. So, appreciate all of you leaving comments and likes and stuff on all the videos. I see you. And I appreciate you. Cheers, friends. Big giveaway livestream coming up last Friday in December, after Christmas. We're giving away a lot of stuff. We're celebrating 100,000 subs. Be there. Get free stuff. Also, follow me on Instagram, because I'm going to give a bunch of stuff away over there. Big sponsors. Good stuff. We're giving away a whole motocamping kit. Isn't that crazy? I got a bunch of Giant Loop gear in my garage I'm going to give away. We're giving away ditter. Ditter sweatshirts and t-shirts. We're giving away hippo hands. We're giving away a full lighting setup from Cyclops. It's rad. Make sure you're at the livestream. That's how I say thank you to all of you for making this dream come true, and helping me get to 100K. I owe it to you. And I love you all. Thanks for all your support. Now, beers and campfires. It's bedtime, so I'm about to climb in, go to sleep. I'm going to try to go without running the heater. I want to see how well this Echo Park bag does, so we're going to give it a shot. I think I'm also going to take this Big Agnes Puffy's off and just go with base layers in the sleeping bag and see how warm I stay. See if I make it through the night. I'll catch up with you guys in the morning. Good night, and I'll see you in a few hours for delicious, delicious coffee. Good night. Good morning. I got to say, these yurts, man. If you are wanting to try out camping but not quite ready to sleep on the ground, or you want to go out in the off-season and you're just worried about cold or being comfortable or whatever, these things are awesome. Like, they really are. They're not cheap, but it's half the price of a hotel room. A cheap hotel room. I think it's $60-ish for a night, which, honestly, I've paid $30 for a campsite, so I guess that's not too bad. Electric heat. Beds. Keeps the rain off you. You've got a covered porch to sit on. Bathrooms with flushing toilets nearby. It's not bad. It's a great sort of first step, so if the being out in the wilderness or the sleeping on the ground is what's keeping you from wanting to try the rest of camping, this is a good gateway drug for sure. This coffee is actually from Motocamp Nerd, too. He has his own coffee blend. Pretty good. So I didn't run the heat last night, and I didn't wear any of this puffy stuff. I just put it back on when I got up this morning. I just got in that Echo Park. It's in Echo Park 20, and it was below 40 degrees last night. Maybe a little warmer in there because the traps heat. I don't know. But I was not cold at all. I was very comfortable. Heat and cold wise. I just never trust those ratings because companies are dishonest, and there's a survival rating, and there's a comfort rating, and it's usually the number is the survival rating, and you're not comfortable, but you won't die. The cool thing about camping here is all these Coast Guard helicopters flying over, by the way. So you usually have to add 15 or 20 degrees to the number to get the actual rating of where you would be wise to take it to be comfortable. We were solidly within that last night, and it was fine. I was very comfortable, so. Certain companies tend to be more reliable in my experience with those numbers, and I'm usually comfortable around 10 or 15 degrees above whatever a big Agnes bag says. I was just surprised because I've been spoiled lately by all this stuff I have with down insulation. I haven't slept in a synthetic bag in a while, but it was good. And the other thing I like about that bag is the Diamond Parks have like a silky, like a nylon-y lining. Like it feels like, oof, I need to get brain not good, coffee not in. It's like this. It's like what the puppy jacket's made out of, like a nylon. That bag has, it's almost like a cottony, like a flannel-y lining, which just feels warmer for some reason when you climb into it. One thing about these bigger bags, and these are bigger bags because you have room to move around inside of them, is it is possible to get cold spots. I run into that with my Diamond Parks Zero even. They'll be, if I shift, it'll be cold in there in a place, and that's just because it's a lot more space to heat up with your body heat than like a mummy bag. So some people shove clothes down in there so that their clothes are warm in the morning, and also they don't get the cold spots, but that's just sort of par for the course with a larger bag like this. Most important part of that setup is your sleeping pad, though, because you don't have any insulation underneath you, so you have to get a pad. That pad that I have is probably the least inexpensive one I would go with just because it has R value of almost a four, four-ish. If you could find one with similar, I would go with that, but you want that for when you're sleeping on the cold ground. It's not bad coffee. All in all, there are worse places to wake up. It's not roughing it, roughing it, but it's not sleeping in my bed either. This is that Stolt-Voltaix light thing I was telling you about. Charging my phone with it right now, but it's got these panel things that come down lights. I was using this just to light up the campsite and film with last night. Kind of handy. Got an orange light, which is supposed to repel mosquitoes. My guess is it just doesn't attract them, and then if you want to pretend to be a cop, it's got red and blue. Flashlight. Pretty bright. It's waterproof. Huge battery. It's like 15,000 milliamp hours or something. It's a hand warmer. Got a hook, so you can hang it from your tent. But I ran it for, I think, three or four hours last night. Light on, and it's only down one bar, so hell of a battery. They sell these on Amazon, I guess. Check it out if you need a cool... I like multi-purpose things, and this being a battery pack and a light. Supposedly a hand warmer, though. I don't think it gets very warm, at least not in my testing. It's a nice little thing. It's not too big to have in your pack. I'll probably carry it for a filming light. But I'll link it for you if you want to check it out. Thanks to them for sending me that to try. I like to play with gadgets, you guys know. This climate sleeping pad, or sleeping... It's a pillow. It's kind of neat. It's got a cloth pillowcase, but it's completely protected because when you're not using it, you do this. And it goes to the nylon cover. Look at that. That's fun. I just got this at Sierra on a whim. Kind of neat. It's really comfortable. It doesn't pack down super small, so it's not ultra light. But on a motorcycle, we have a little bit more room. The lovely Nemo pillow, my favorite pillow. Well, very happy with this Echo Park bag. I did not expect a synthetic bag to be this warm, but I was perfectly comfortable. I will definitely use this again. And I feel really good about recommending it in my beginner camping kit, which that video's coming soon. I'm just trying to figure out which tent to put in it because I want to make it one you can get easily, and the one I have, you can't right now. It comes with a stuff sack. It's not a compression sack. You have to buy one if you want one of those. But a stuff sack at least is good. Come on, baby. Bruh. There we go. Okay. It's one up. I like this pad, too. It's sturdy and warm. Not as comfortable as the Boundary Deluxe, but it's pretty close for the money. We saved a lot. Well, I think that's going to do it for our Coast Yurt Camping Adventure this time. Thank you to the Chetco Yurt here at South Beach State Park. Mixed experience this time just because of all the issues with check-in. And I know someone's going to jump in. Well, it says you can't check it. I know, but I've never had that problem before. So I just wasn't expecting it. That's all. But anyway, pleasant night. Great campfire evening. And I'm excited for my hour and a half drive home. First things first, we've got to go drop this E off before I forget. Thank you all for watching. I appreciate you for being here. Thank you to Motocamp Nerd for sponsoring this video. Obviously, there's a link to all the gear from him I used in the description and to the site itself. And don't forget, you can save 10% off your first order with promo code DORKINTHEROAD. But I'm going to ride home, so please consider subscribing if you haven't. I'm the Dork in the Road and I want to be your internet riding buddy and your internet camping buddy. And I'm better than both of those in real life because I come with a buke button. Thank you for watching. I appreciate you. And please do not forget to be excellent to each other. I thank you. Excellent! Bye!