Ep. 281 | Prepping – What’s the Best Strategy?

well and you're also you're talking about traveling right well your traveling is either gonna depending on your mode of transportation but likely going to need fuel some sort of fuel yeah where you're gonna get fuel is the grid down is is is somebody filling the tanks at the gas station how long does that last [Music] what is up everybody jump to my right Mr Ryan mucking her and across me uh guys I was down at Vortex Edge the other day Jim and uh you guys seem pretty prepared down there I was talking with Brennan and he had a he had a oh a uh a plate carrier and it was all kitted out with some necessities and and I was like oh that's pretty cool maybe I need one of those things and you know you take into consideration like you know current events and levels of uncertainty and people are like you're a conspiracy theorist you're canceled you're wearing a tin foil hat and then like you know six months later they're like oh I guess that was kind of like a regular hat um I don't I don't know man like there's just like a lot of stuff going on and I'm like am I prepared to handle situations as they arise in the same breath though there's no crystal ball to see what's coming I'm overwhelmed that's that's fair I'm overwhelmed with the thought of being prepared for myself and my family primarily right right uh you know if you guys get in a pinch you're welcome to come over you know when it hits the fan I don't I to be fair I don't want to go to your neighborhood what's wrong with my neighborhood it just doesn't seem like a good spot to be in you know like a nice place at the fan situation okay but that's probably okay I don't maybe maybe maybe part of being prepared is not letting people know your strategy that's probably my strategy this whole time this whole time he's been throwing us the shade the smoke I'm aloof no no no no boardman's dial ladies and gentlemen yeah yeah yeah exactly he's gonna get some entertainment out of basically picking off people who are coming to try and take advantage of them well here okay here's what here's why okay we always I can see this as a uh okay finish what you're saying we always wondered why he had such a huge garage it was to house his M1A1 Abrams tank yeah it's a nice tank I like it um it gets it gets me from point A to point B the uh right now I lost my train of thought oh I know what I was gonna say so okay that is you've got a couple different philosophies too like you know do you burrow in you know do you burrow in do you bug out but it all depends on the type of scenario I mean you could be in a natural disaster scenario you could be in uh some sort of military conflict scenario you could be in I I don't know classic zombies classic zombies right and then you think okay well maybe my neighborhood would be good because the gates I don't have everybody says but like if I was prepared like I mean not to throw shade at my neighbors but like I don't think I think I would be likely to be more prepared than they are okay so does that put me in a better position or a worse position because the people around me aren't as prepared and so now they're going to want my potatoes yeah I tell you what a bunch of non-prepared City Slickers can get pretty scary when they start getting hungry and they haven't gotten the chance to go in and get their you know nails done in a while they can they can get pretty that is pretty terrifying the thing that we also need to address with this is like you said this is kind of a free-form conversation we're having none of us I think at the table claim to be the world's greatest experts in in preparation or anything like that no this is this is purely a potential kickoff to future episodes if if if the topic or the topics that that come up today interest people but but so many people have different ideas about being prepared and the thing is that until something actually happens and gives way it's all just opinion you know what I mean you can try and come up with every possible scenario in your head but no matter how hard you try and how much time you take you'll never come up with every potential scenario that would be infinite you would actually spend all of your your entire life trying to kill the scenarios you never actually come up with all the potential possibilities but anyway so that's that's this conversation that's my that's my caveat Corral yeah it's a good one to make um but like like you said though mark there's kind of categories of of what of what one could prepare for and one might prepare for each one differently there's the whole you know you bring it up like the the fun way to bring it up in some way in for lack of a better term is like the Red Dawn scenario right because everybody watches the movie Red Dawn you watch that for entertainment because you're like okay a bunch of kids take on North Korea Russia whatever it is and but that's where it's like some other country or you know whatever it is invades us of course there's I'm sure many people have at the top of their mind right now they're like what if it's our own country what if it's tyrannical government and all that we you know that's that's a potential scenario too but yeah then there's natural disasters there's some sort of like infection thing I mean we just came out of a pandemic we're at the beginning of that thing I'm pretty sure people genuinely thought it was like gonna be zombies right a little bit at the end of times yeah yeah well and and you look how people reacted to shelves are a bear you know resources limited mm-hmm and and and maybe somebody out there was like oh I 100 called this but I definitely did not call that toilet paper would be in such high demand nope no uh-uh bizarre things that people were really going for yep it's a significant talking point on whatever scenario you encounter is is trying to predict the reaction of those in your immediate environment and if you could have predicted that toilet paper would have been one of the most uh Limited in Supply I I would have not taken that bet well no excuse me I ought to bet against it I'm like are you kidding me toilet paper no everybody's going to be out there buying peanut butter because it's shelf stable and highly nutritious no toilet paper that was candy toilet paper nope so here's here's step one in preparedness I suppose is try to predict what people are going to do and you just simply can't no right with the paper I mean that was basically the new currency it pretty much became that way yeah I remember I went I went on I went on to buy toilet paper four squares please online at one point because we were running low at my house and of course all the shelves were just bare of toilet paper I remember going on and and I had a moment where I considered buying a pack of toilet paper I think it had a it was of significant quantity but it wasn't a TR like a truckload and it was six hundred dollars and for a moment I was like is this the only toilet paper that I'm gonna be able to find and then I moved on somehow we found something else somewhere but how quickly we forget to like that was you know really not that long ago right but like I I forgot that like oh if you saw toilet paper on the Shelf like yeah we better I'm not stocked up on T better anymore no exactly I'm back to a regular amount you know like maybe one 24 pack right for the house you buy that for the house it starts to dwindle yeah go I'll go um yeah there's just there's so many things to consider like I said it's it's it's actually overwhelming it is it is you know one thing that I think about a lot though with with preparedness of my own is trying to balance how comfortable I'm gonna I'm trying to to will my way into in this situation versus how much I'm just like trying to plan on Surviving you know what I mean because because sometimes people when they're when they're talking about their prepping plan they're listing out items that they have they're storing up like you know they got a uh in their bunker or whatever they got a TV with a vcr and a bunch of videos and you know like so that they can keep themselves entertained and they got like you know uh uh they gotta have a generator for all these electronics that they're having they got like a full kitchen in there or something like that they got like all these things that seem like every day uh luxuries if you will and it's almost like they're trying to set themselves up such that they have to have like very minimal change to their daily life in an apocalypse or in some sort of giant societal collapse and I have to think to myself okay well part of that would be kind of neat if you're pretty well just like set up you know what I mean like the apocalypse is going on outside and I've got food for months and months and months and months and months and months stored up and I've got like uh you know I've got a TV I can watch some TV so I don't go crazy like I've got all these nice things I got heat you know I got whatever it is I'm like how much do I actually need that versus how much should I spend more time on learning how to make a fire out of anything you know or learning how to survive in the cold or learning how to like make things from scratch should I spend more time on my intellectual Side Learning on that stuff or should I spend more time trying to make it such that I don't really need to rely on all these survivalist skills they've got something that goes through my head I think I think the answer to that is whether or not your plan is to Simply um never move from your position if if it is that you have established your boundaries and and your kingdom and you just like that is where I'm gonna stay then great great plan is that the best plan like is is stick and put to one spot not being mobile acquiescing a whole bunch of uh Chef Boyardee um in in plan to weather the storm yeah is that the best way to go that's a tough one for me personally it's not because I often think like okay what do you have there right you have a large Bank of resources and if anybody discovers that you have a large Bank of resources now you become a Target right and if if that kingdom is compromised and it's like okay shoot my neighbors found out that I have the SpaghettiOs Standalone and with I'll be frank we've got a problem like we gotta we gotta bug out we gotta get out of there and then what do you carry well that's just it though like okay that presents another problem though now you're on the move with limited resources sure right and I've always let me throw this everybody's a different situation too do you have a family right is is it more than just you do you have small children that are going to have a difficult time keeping up processing what's going on you know and and yeah keeping up and I mean sometimes hecky you think about like keeping quiet or you know being able to sneak uh and stuff like that I've thought about the whole burrow inverse bug out thing and there's kind of again of course it depends on the situation because you know okay so I think my mind tends to go to either governmental militaristic Force coming in and invading or zombies I go to those more so actually funny enough than natural disasters which natural disasters happen every single year to people all around the world but I think we have to maybe this is also partly because you know if you're into this mindset you're probably somebody whose mind needs to be kept busy and in some ways even though we're talking about pretty Grim stuff it's kind of entertaining to think about right to just sort of like Ponder but anyway anybody of us of course actually been through a disaster is probably upset with me for saying that uh you know but the people who like being prepared for things people who like being organized and whatever it is like they get some level of enjoyment out of it even if it's mundane or or sort of dark in this case but anyway uh where was I going with that oh so like let's say boom event occurs whatever the event is I've thought about the fact that if you go on the move you got to figure out where you're gonna go and there's probably going to be a lot of other people on the move too and there may be roads shut down like I thought about this in Wisconsin we're in South Central Wisconsin Southwestern Wisconsin sort of there's like Highway 151 there's Highway like 94 if you're going west I have no interest in going east there's either a lake or Chicago and neither of those things are great I could go south but then it's like you got to go around all sorts of other stuff and the tolls and the tolls I don't want to end up paying tolls what I'm trying to get away from uh um you know however it's convenient I know um actually I've got it and tools are extra when there's apocalypse needs money in my bug out bag I actually haven't got a fast pass so I just zip it yeah sure that's good yeah it's connected up to like a burner account or something like that so that um the account's name is bark Morgan so you know like what if what if there's a pinch point when I get to debucky as I think Eric called it once Dubuque Iowa you know and it's like oh I can't cross into Iowa or when I get up to near La Crosse and I'm trying to cross over into Minnesota I can't do that well now what now I've separated myself from my home maybe it's been already invaded and inhabited by somebody we've left resources that have been claimed and now I'm stuck here and there's all these other strangers around me that I have I don't know or then it's like okay once I finally get to where I'm going let's say I did you know get through well then it's like okay how many other people had the same idea to go approximately here so now am I going to have to like is is it like the wild west or I have to stake my claim now and sort of like set up my own Frontier but I'm I'm fighting off like you know Raiders and all this other stuff is it like cowboys and Indians of old or something like that all this well and you're also you're talking about traveling right well you're traveling is either gonna depending on your mode of transportation but likely gonna need fuel some sort of fuel yeah where you're gonna get fuel is the grid down is is is somebody filling the tanks at the gas station how long does that last and then of course you know so then it's like okay how much can you carry with you right I planned on this so I've got Jerry cans of fuel it's like well those Jerry cans are taking up a ton of space and weight in your vehicle which weight is a whole nother the vehicle is is obviously something that I'm very interested in but it's it's it's a whole thing that people just I feel like don't actually know enough about to uh I'm not saying I know everything but like I think people underestimate the importance of certain things you know but like weight is one thing you know it's you load it up with a ton of weight you're gonna get worse fuel economy your suspension is not going to do what it's supposed to do if you do have to go off-road let's say everybody's like oh you need a 4x4 for bugging out but then they load it up with so much stuff that's like the suspension is constantly compressed and they're so heavy that they basically sink into any soft drink like there's all this stuff right but anyway you know if you're carrying your fuel along with you that's taking up a bunch of space and weight and uh I don't know I mean if you're really prepared maybe you've got a diesel that you've converted to run on on on some sort of veg oil setup you can just bring a bunch of stuff yep stop at a couple of fast food places yeah raid a rate of fast food joint which probably isn't slinging Burgers but maybe has a couple of fryers full of oil oh yeah you know something like that but like maybe maybe you've prepared something how can you bank on that though you can't that's why that's where I go back to just batting down the hatches wow you get a vicious cycle though Mark you live in a heavily populated area what's the first thing somebody who's out of resources what are they going to do they're gonna go door to door-to-door to figure out whether there's resources there that they can exploit and I've so I've been I've been watching a lot of uh the last Kingdom it's a viking and that's Viking type show you know sure and I would say those people would be met with my sword and that then that's you just you've taken on that lifestyle of there's just more people to have to sword which comes to stockpiling ammunition that it's it's a it's a very fascinating juxtaposition to be in and I don't know if I'm stating my position I think my position is uh be light be nimble be mobile I think that's in some ways I've gravitated more towards that because I realized over time you know you take the Berlin approach and I think Mark like you said you fight people off let's say if there comes a certain point where if someone or a group of someone's once you got you're gonna get got you know what I mean so let's say it's it's another nation's military right like I can maybe take on especially if I'm going miss you know Patriot style and I've got a bunch of muskets in behind trees and I know the terrain better I can take on a few guys maybe right but then it's like okay I've done that now they're going to report back and here comes the here comes the Panzer Shrek which one I don't know what that is uh that was I'm thinking of uh Band of Brothers with uh the tanks German tanks okay I said it probably right it's like Panza or something like that if you say German words you have to have like a certain level of anger yeah um no you're right expert here and that's like that's part of my my theory or thought process a little bit is like there there's potential well you hate to look at things you know just like Ultra Grim but there's potential that in some ways that maybe it just is a lost cause but I would not go down without a fight and if I'm going I'm taking a few at least a few with me and maybe maybe because you know what your plan well yeah and maybe that's your plan is like hey I don't want to go down on the Run you know what I mean like if if you have a complete and total societal collapse I I have also wondered this too people who are sort of scrapping to stay alive and like really you know fighting off all just like really getting after now I'm not saying I I would take the position of just sort of like giving up I would probably wind up fighting as long as I could fight to stay alive and keep my family alive and such but I don't really think that it's ever going to come back to normal you know what I mean so like like zombie apocalypse some countries coming in bombing everything and sending in troops you know our big tyrannical government scheme comes out of nowhere and we're fighting you know like it's like a civil war whatever it is if this if this occurs it's not going to be like oh okay I survived through it for like a year and a half and then and then right and so everything's back to normal again you know what I mean so maybe your position is just I'm gonna sit my butt here and this is this is my hill to die on I'm gonna take on everybody I can uh and if they if it comes down to the point where they got to bring in some Sukhoi whatever it is fifth generation fighter and just bombed me I guess that's how I went there's that and then you I mean I ask myself this question too like we talk about some of this in terms of like oh you need to be like like the people who surround you are a threat to you and your resources which very well could be the case right possibly but are they or but could it be an asset could you unite in some ways are these people who will be your allies and be able and and you are have strength and safety in numbers you're I feel like you're most likely to get that at the beginning of said have said event when people are still Midwestern nice at least around here because there's going to be a certain point where they're like you know what this ain't getting better I got to turn into more of like you know old-fashioned caveman or something but but at very first they might be like oh yeah I know it's really bad we got to try and help each other out maybe you could try and form something then but that's tough I think you have to make some assumptions right up front what are what are people in your community generally and by that I mean like immediate area generally capable of so when you take stock of of you know whatever radius you want to assign to your position are the people in there capable of standing or weathering the storm or extend that radius are the people within that capable of you know disappearing into a large tract of wilderness and being okay not being each burden correct and I think I honestly like that when I put when I put this to thought I think most people these days are not capable of weathering the storm and are not capable of Disappearing into a large tract of wilderness you know it's a that's a maybe this is where you're going but how long would you actually have to last before you could come back it's an indeterminate amount of time I think the Gym's point but I mean like if it could be a month you know like oh dude I was out in the woods for a month everybody gone except the other 10 people that were out in the woods for a month and you know yeah I mean if if an event is so cataclysmic that like these are your your courses of action to take I don't know that there is a comeback from that necessarily not not in the not in the it doesn't turn back to yesterday um no no yeah I mean things that I'm thinking about and maybe potentially they could get turned back on but like dude like the grid goes down like like there's no there's no power you know you could have as many batteries as you wanted but you know I I don't know how to you know yeah that's I feel like you're most likely scenario of being able to come back and things you know not be just as bad if not worse than they were when it started is probably the natural disaster scenario yeah I have not lived through a natural disaster I know plenty of people have and it's extraordinarily uh devastating devastating so I I don't I don't want to somehow make light of this and and uh you know but I feel like yes things may be destroyed but you're not going back to deal with like oh where my house once was is now like a foreign military base with tanks and fighter jets and you know societal components still exists right and the environmental component is what was disrupted right right um and it's a localized event where people from surrounding areas can you know resist to the best of their ability I mean right obviously it's going to impact that person for likely the rest of their life so is the is the elephant in the room or getting rid of environmental disaster because it just happens and we're powerless to stop it and the elephant in the room is actually the societal collapse I think I'd say more well and I think an environmental disaster could cause societal collapse absolutely depending on the scale yeah yeah so I think I think I think what we're talking about here is like extreme Invasion or societal collapse yeah do that I do feel that's why or Z I don't know what it is if we're just entering into a time that's just like a Biblical proportion or if it's just that so many people are so wigged out about stuff after the whole covet whatever like it does seem like uh well and of course then there's uh many many conspiracy theories about you know like the media feeding us all this and that and I'm not saying I do or don't believe that in those conspiracy theories the point of this podcast is basically what I'm getting at just not to be like some political thing anyway but where was that oh it seems like we're on the verge of basically societal collapse and just like one of any millions of different ways right because at first it was like okay covid and then it was murder hornets and then it was you know and I I feel like it I could probably Google something right now and and just be like next big storm and there's going to be probably 10 articles that are like we're about to see a once in a millennium storm you know that's Brewing off the coast of you know eastern or western Africa right now and it's going to pick up steam and if you're living in Wisconsin you're going to get a category five right like I could look up anything or I could look up you know like the uh some sort of zombie apocalypse and people are gonna be like oh well some you know sixth generation covid thing is now actually a zombie right like there if if you look into things it seems like we're on the verge of 100 different societal collapses so uh I don't know where I was going at with that but well it's just a pain it's a good point though because it it has forced people to think about things good bad or otherwise like we're talking about like what what is your plan and how can you make sure that that plan um in the event that whatever cataclysm 100 different ways occurs um you can keep moving yeah you know or or stay put right and and whether that storm proverbial or literal well and I think I'm gonna I'll throw this out there too like I know we kind of just defined like oh yeah this is going to be like extreme societal collapse like that's kind of what we're talking about and I guess in a lot of ways it is but but I would say in you know myself included as far as even just basic preparedness for something I guess that could be considered minor and like it would still be like um a big challenge right but there are probably things like you know whatever an environmental event or something like that that uh would not be as big a deal if you had some basic preparedness of even just like you know food water filter ability to filter water some of some basic stuff that uh your basic needs are not so basic when they're not being met yeah sure so what are you know what are your basic needs I think that's yeah Food Water Shelter That's it man protection yes I mean because because regardless of whether everybody always says Food Water Shelter and yet every time that there is some sort of a pickup in civil unrest or some sort of other impending doom done sales go up right so like people are also worried about about that and um you know so I mean that's conversation there's lots of different ways this could go I feel like again like you said Mark it's overwhelming we don't even know what way to take the conversation this is what this I was like oh yeah I need that and then I'm like you know when I was talking about like you know um yeah maybe I do need a you know plate carrier and you know way to just like a go bag and and I probably do right uh but yeah there's just there's so much there's so many different ways if you play that game and you're like maybe I'll need this maybe I'll need that you wind up having a lot of stuff think of okay play care and and this is like this is a lot of money too that you have to spend for something you don't even necessarily know is gonna happen or maybe you think you know what's gonna happen but you don't know when it's gonna happen all that stuff right but but you can also justify it with it's pretty cool stuff it's cool stuff hey I'm not gonna argue there but it's like all right plate carrier uh armor plates you've got gun extra magazines ammo optic you know flashlights all the batteries to run all your crap you've got food you've got medicine bags to carry all this stuff in you've outfitted your rig you know your 4x4 with bigger tires suspension whatever all that other stuff skid plates you start getting like uh you know all these fancy camp stoves you got you know tents you've got whatever it is special kind of boots clothes like that the list just keeps going on and on and on if you think about like oh I might need that I might need that it just gets heavier heavier heavier and harder to transport and maintain and keep control of yeah and you get more visible you do yeah the bigger the pack is on your back Mark you with your gigantic pack you might look like prime rib out there what's your attack's gonna be pretty big let's raid his inventory you know he'll have a lot of inventory unopened new inboxed I think the I truly believe the best strategy is be light be nimble be mobile but know how to use your things yeah and know how to exploit the resources around you and I think that is what is in my heart of hearts I think that's what's going to separate the survivors versus um not is how a person could enter an environment any environment and exploit whatever's there without being visible without being assigning Target value to themselves yeah right and so you can have all these great things you can have those fantastic ammunition stockpile and the Chef Boyardee and all this stuff can you carry it the answer is no because it's too heavy think about what a person can carry what's the heaviest pack out you've ever done I mean nothing too extreme probably like uh I wanna let me fast forward a little bit you've you've transported what you can fit in your rig to the point that you're out of fuel you've exhausted that so we've gone a distance and we've either run out of road or we've run out of fuel now it's everything on your back what can you carry and it's under 100 pounds oh yeah oh yeah and so even if you get the lightest plate carries you get some poly plate carriers you get this ultra high speed low drag plate carrier um you've got a pretty damn efficient flashlight on your carbine you got your pistol your battle belt your spare magazines the ammunition within them maybe a couple of reloads worth and then your Chef Boyardee and then your medicine and then your cold weather gear and like you don't carry a lot of stuff you got about 100 pounds on your person and how long can you move with that hundred pounds on your person and through what kind of terrain can you move with that hundred pounds on your person and pretty soon they like find you not very far off the trailhead like a turtle stuck upside down on your back because you've got so much kit I feel people who are light fast mobile all that stuff they're probably the ones who will be able to make it the longest I feel like I agree in uh aside from see I think if you're that kind of person I think that you're going to be watching quite I social and and whatever it is experiment go on unfold before your very eyes because there are going to be the people who hold up right and they've got a stockpile and they're going to be dealing with people who are rating them trying to get at their stuff and you're you're almost gonna right now at the time of this recording I don't know when it's going to release but we're watching March Madness I feel like we're going to watch it you're gonna watch a tournament bracket occur sure you're gonna see all these people show up on either side of the tournament bracket and it's going to end up being this guy who's got a fort and that guy who's got a fort and eventually they're probably one of them's either going to lose to just getting rated out whatever or they're going to fight each other and then there's going to be you know sort of one combined thing there and ultimately you may after all this fighting occurs you may end up with a few who have managed to somehow beat the odds and fight everyone off and now they are the king of the castle but they're constantly either fighting people off or now they have to manage a bunch of other people who they've sort of like absolved into or not absolved uh like absorbed into their little Society they've created basically they're having to deal with a lot of politics at that point you know what I mean a lot of politics and a lot of like Personnel and and pro and and supply chain all this stuff they've created a bunch of jobs for themselves whereas if you're the light Nimble fast person on the outside all you have to do is pretty much take care of yourself and then you can sort of stay on the periphery of the um kind of that uh ipso facto government that's been created somewhere yeah and figure out how to exploit things that won't be exploiting their things and just fly under the radar you probably have to you probably have to fight a lot less some people have like a they've got like a complex about the whole fighting thing like I'll fight everybody and they'll like take pride in that I think I just don't wish I think it's a foolish approach I think it is too because I mean there's always going to be somebody better than you yeah or somebody who's in a better in a better position than you better situation has The High Ground are there any are there any major like fighters in history that have just gone just undefeated forever total Rogue well like I mean I'm talking I'm actually like I'm literally referring to like sports fighting you know what I mean like every great fighter eventually loses yeah you miss you you go left and you catch it on the chin um when you shoot a gun right it would have been a clean mess yeah right and then and then it's over you can't ask a guy to be perfect through you know like just time time time time time again yeah no I don't really think it I don't think that exists I I try to look at like animals like what animals on the landscape that live in harsh environments like like what do they do yeah yeah they're oftentimes pretty mobile they go places they're they're not um Specialists with respect to the foods that they eat their generalists um they don't need a lot to keep them alive they're Specialists with respect to the environment like if they live in a desert environment they have adapted A specialized tactic to living in that environment or if they live in an Arctic environment they've adapted a you know something to specialize within that environment but they're fairly generalistic as to where they go what they do and why and I think that's what keeps them moving yeah and keeps their species thriving and I think again I've come back to this like three times I think my personal plan is to disappear into a remote area know how to make fire know how to catch fish know how to set snares you know know what plants I can eat know what plants I can't eat it was can and can't I realized it sounded a lot same I had there and then just not be visible not be noisy just be quiet you make fire to cook you're visible correct you know I mean you're right okay but to to that end when do you make fire to cook when you can see smoke in the air or or how big a fire do you make to cook do I make enough fire to Mark you got to watch I am there's American and I'm gonna make a big fire okay well he's gonna be he's gonna be roasted a pig on the spit uh that's just barbecue sauce hey neighbor come on the Raiders are four miles downrange of him they're actually taken off they're they're they're sort of thrown off guard yeah is that honey barbecue is that sweet baby right is that a Mark Boardman from The Vortex Nation Podcast hey I I got this gun off your recommendation you know what I'm not going to shoot you with it um but I will take those 12 bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's even packing around that backpack um have you seen the guy on YouTube is a guy in Canada and he camps in extremely public places but he remains unseen I either saw that or you sent that to me uh now that guy's getting some good practice in have you seen this guy I haven't so he'll go to like the median like a roundabout he'll go to the roundabout like the middle of a roundabout that's got some sort of like Arborvitae and all this stuff like random little plants he'll Camp there overnight and and try not to be noticed at all and and part of his challenge is that he has to cook himself a dinner every night and he does and he usually is like he'll like go through the like recipe that he's got it's kind of fun uh and but yeah he's he's camped in the middle of a roundabout there's like dead smack in the middle of town he camped on you know when you have a a highway going on an off-ramp and a bridge that goes over the highway from the off-ramp and usually like on that little triangle patch there might be like a few trees and stuff like he's camping one of those overnight and he'll set up like camouflage for himself and he'll uh and at one point even he usually actually will go and uh and sort of wait until no one's around usually like in the middle of the night and he'll run out and he'll walk around his campsite with his camera to like to test himself and see if he can notice his campsite and then he'll run back in it's very interesting I think another uh significant part about that is you have to you have to try to see through the eyes of those who are going to be around you and like you think about when you're driving um at speed on the road how much of your environment are you aware of driving at speed yeah like you're usually driving to work well I suppose I'm I'm very aware of what's in front of me but I'm probably not very aware of what's around here are you looking for an encampment in a medium oh no right right no are are you looking for um a cooking pot out of place right and when you see that even if you made eye contact with whatever that item is or that that structure is does your brain register that is an encampment in the median no no I think your brain's like not valid continue on right right people may be a little bit more aware of that after a societal look like I think it would take some time though it would I think I think what you would have is is in in times of stress and I know you guys talk about this at Edge too when you guys are doing training in times of stress you get very narrow focused like the wall is closing on you and you get tunnel vision you see rear side front side Target and I think for a decent period of time people are going to be that I actually see my my DOT right yeah Ryan can you explain will you just described analog sites oh yeah okay got it so anyway nice call by the way fellas really good play because you know I just shoot a red dot like uh not very good um you know there's a place about hey 75 yards across the parking lot it's a me thing it's not it is amazing it's well it's it's not I think that people this was the longest intro into an intervention I've ever yep and here we are I think that people will become so narrow focused for such a period of time that actually being able to hide in plain sight um in the literal sense will be a little bit easier um than we all might think maybe yeah and I think that because of a lot of people these days like dear friends of mine that have no business being off the trail um literally and I think about them and then I think about the the layers of people away from my uh friendship or knowledge of being so dependent on the modern amenities we talked about the batteries what are you carrying batteries for to power your amenities right people that will put at the Forefront of their mind God I gotta have a pile of batteries to what power your amenities like 500 CR2032 yeah like a million Double A's Triple A's cr123 I mean it's I think even that person is pretty far removed from the person who can look at the trail and be like all right I can go disappear into there they'll be afraid of the dark quite literally and you'll be able to not have to go very deep to avoid detection from them it would be cool to have night vision though yeah be cool it would be an amazing Force multiplier until it became dead weight yeah right and so how do you get far enough away from where that Force multiplier is a force multiplier now is an inconvenience here's the thing here's one thing to think about yeah how how maybe you just need that Force multiplier for not that long sure what if maybe you have to hinge a bet there man it's like how long does that go how long until we exhaust cr123as on until they're like very difficult to find especially with the really nice to have items it's not going to take long I mean one of the really nice to have items would be in in this side well it's probably more so if you're holding up well no it'd be nice to have in any situation be thermal so that's one thing that I feel like I've heard lately is like if you if you are in like a combat scenario or something like that and I'm the furthest thing from this person by the way uh yeah I'd like to get better at it um but if you don't have thermal like you're not like you're like not in the fight yeah well foreign maybe you ever seen the movie Predator cover yourself in mud you work for Arnold do it do it now um no it's super valid right so because somebody might see you with their thermal traffic you know it's so that's I I think that's super valid and that's that I think reinforces my personal position is I'm going to assume and you have to do a lot of assumptions in a scenario like this that folks with that capability um hostile friendly or otherwise I'm not going to sit around and try to suss that out because I'm probably too danger close there at that point um are going to be fairly localized and I'm going to try to get as far away from that as possible and I'm going to try to get deep enough and and like literally exploiting canopy as cover um from that as as possible as quickly as I can do you think that is tough in Wisconsin boy winter is tough in Wisconsin it is and and that's here again what what are you willing to be uncomfortable with and for how long Winter's tough in Wisconsin but there's less stuff that wants to kill you on the ground in the winter in Wisconsin oh yeah that's that's a whole other thing now you go somewhere down south because I don't have to deal with the water this is great when you're walking around the ground heaters and cottonmouth and yeah there's big spiders and anyway uh do you think that actually so this military Invasion scenario do you think in that scenario probably more likely to to Ally with people that you bump into I think so I think you know absolutely but I feel I feel like in that situation maybe you know the the situation where there's some sort of like Mass hysteria the zombie apocalypse so that's where pretty much anybody could be your enemy you know what I mean like anybody you run into I wouldn't trust anybody but I want to trust you guys that's not true at least not at first but like you know a year into the Apocalypse but if you in the military Invasion scenario I might be more likely to be out in the woods and see somebody else and like you know they don't we're gonna start yelling Thunder and flash back at each other yeah the table is against the wall you um you would have uh weeded out some things when you encounter that person you know that they are likely have the ability to be an asset not a liability because they are probably they're sufficient same enemy yeah you know what I mean I think that's I think that's a realistic thought process yeah because in that in that scenario it turns into like everybody versus the bad guys whereas in another scenario where you get hit with the zombie apocalypse it's it's all of a sudden it's just everyone versus everyone yeah at least in my thought in my mind the one hard thing to be would be if you start like later on and do a military Invasion or some sort of like big tyrannical overthrows if you start having the uh the defectives not Dementors not Dementors but I don't know what do they have that in Red Dawn isn't there that isn't there the scene where it's like the the kids who are kind of like jerks or whatever and all of a sudden they start walking around wearing the the other militaries like Garb and they're doing the military's dirty work for them and trying to get in you know using the turn codes yeah the turn codes watch out for those yeah you have to watch out for those I think the the more remote you are the less likely you are to run into somebody like that that's true I think we're the City Slickers that's where you're running them I think or the the influence of the oppressing force um can be most applied is where you're going to have that the further you get from that influence the less likely you are to turn into it they may even they may even just not bother going out there correct because why would you get far from supply chain routes the return on the the return on investment for for them is like okay we went out and we got like 10 guys I think unless of course everybody runs to the middle of nowhere in the wilderness and then of course I just don't think everybody's going to do that personally I think it's I think that the initial thought process I know but like if you've ever done any camping and in some fairly remote places it's hard it is even if you know what you do like I don't claim to be like the best out of any stretch of the imagination I enjoy it every time I do it I'm like yeah I'm kind of hard it is like I was mule deer hunting this year um not a remote place remote in the context of like I could walk for 20 miles and not hit a road at us a very certain spot that I was at the biggest challenge that I was encountering on that hunt was how to keep water a liquid and and like that changed the entire approach that I had to the hunt how was I going to do that and like I can plan it out but is it sustainable and it I think yes it could be sustainable but my God was it inconvenient guess what hostile I stayed in yeah and it was nice I slept in a warm bed on that one I think a lot of people vast majority of them follow that route instead if you go if you go camping in some like I think during covid um we went camping a lot because there's nothing like this is what I do anyways I'm not I don't go to the city I don't go to the theater or whatever it is other people do and the theater the theater um I was in a campground that I've stayed at many times or at least regionally many times and there was a lot of people who had no business camping camping there they probably had generators and and bingo iPads I connected to church I was why would you go through the effort of just moving your house because that's not as good as your regular house that's the thought process that is what that is what they believe it is and it was it was so incredible to me to see this I was in um like a Wilderness Area and things that I have never seen there and I frequent this area a lot I've never seen all power mode on this highway I've never seen a jet ski on this highway I've never seen a Class A RV like the one where you got on the highway this is a road I shouldn't call it highway it's called a highway it is a highway but it's like a remote Road these are not things that you see I get into this Campground that is otherwise a place where if I decided on a Friday night that I was going to stay there on the weekend I could drive the eight hours up there and like every other year guaranteed I'd get a site I could probably pick my site and next to me was a group of young people and they had some brand new tents like brand new tents and you can always snags off they did they got the tags out but you can always tell like how much woodsmanship does this individual have by the pitch of their tent location placement basement and how well it was pitched and these things reminded me of Eeyore's structure like that he lived in in the woods it always fell down and like Pooh would come reconcile them you know he's like hey it'll be all right friend um and so I'm sitting there back watching this and I'm like I'm in awe I've never seen anything like this there's an RV a few spots down never seen an RV in this place they've got like lights strung up around the campsite somebody's flying a drone around I'm losing my mind and these individuals next to me are like what do we eat I don't know did you bring food no no well we picked up these these bag meals on Amazon oh so they weren't just camping they were like they'd bugged out well kind of yeah and so they're like we should build a fire how do you build a fire I got a Bic so what did they do they cut down a green tree and they like the tree was probably like five six inches in diameter they felled this tree and then um and the camera in the campground yeah and they the funniest part is they had I remember they had a gerber Camp ax which is good ax um they brought it out of the back of a Subaru and whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa what's that supposed to be where we start what's that supposed to before we start saying Subaru in that tone okay I get that there is stereotype it's a modern Subaru oh then go ahead okay I didn't they had to take it out of the packaging which they struggled with and every tool is new at some point every tool is news and that's potential fuel it's probably not the time to be taken out of the packaging when you're there but I and then they cut down a black Spruce that was green okay and then they cut it into log-like sections that resembled every cartoon fire they've ever seen in their lives and did they try to just light those just never got that sucker going no never got that sucker going here okay a couple things here and I think it plays into the conversation that we're having right now of being like they were able to get some items yep and you made a decision right they didn't know how necessarily to use the items or have the experience to uh in practice do the skills that they needed to accomplish uh so I'd say lesson learned correct they might be way more prepared now after the season yes and I guarantee they learned a ton because honestly like that is when you learn is when you actually do that that sucks I don't want to work I don't want to poo poo these individuals for doing it what what because I mean like a dichotomy here so part of me is like man you got no business being here the other part of me is like I'm really glad to see some people walking out of their comfort zone that otherwise would have been doing whatever it is that people in the city do on the weekends I was so refreshed to see that happen and I agree I've been to a city before there's nothing to do there's nothing for you there um you know what a city is you know what a town is that's where people hate you Joe Dirt um I was I was very I was very juxtaposed on one hand on one hand I was like man you got no business being here on the other hand I was like that is great to see some adult onset Outdoors people coming out and doing stuff outside they didn't do it right but you are absolutely correct from the spirit of recreation Outdoors they learned some lessons and I think are better off for it yeah I don't think you can I'm not knocking them I'm using them as an example of like that is a large majority of people yes it is yes so what you're saying what you're saying is in this case they got to do it and it was practice and I got to learn from it but if you know like you know shtf yeah and then all of a sudden that's when you're trying to learn all this stuff not exactly a great time to have to learn all that stuff they're not going deep they don't know about water purification fever fever beaver fever will strike them um and they don't know what food they can and can't eat out in the Wilds even water purification though it's a tricky subject it's it's true how many iodine tablets do you carry yeah I wonder how long until your filter wears out how long until you know oh you got a steri pin batteries you know I wonder if Nate listens to our podcasts remember that no remember names he doesn't remember Nate when he just dunked his water bottle into the the stale stagnant section of the river and it came out brown we just dropped it into it and said it was good it was the most exp we were surrounded by so much good water there was a lot of good water and he found the only little stagnant puddle of water just dropped a dropped a tablet into it and it's like guys this tablet says it will kill all of the bacteria 99.99 effective we walked we got to Camp he's still alive he was right as rain and and we actually had we still had water with us we had clean we brought some water we had plenty of clean water he's living in the moment he was like hey you know what and good on him but like again with like thinking through like if I had to filter some water on that trip like he got to shore it was muddy boggy River Shore think think the kind of uh Beaver field like soft sediment of uh like there was like lily pads you know yeah and when you sink your foot down in and then you pull your foot up it creates that plume of just like mud and debris and goo he didn't let that settle before he dipped it in I'm like Nate there's lots better water than just the like super gross water that you just like filled your you know your bottle with there and he was just like so confident in those tablets you know and he took it down and he didn't complain of the flavor or anything I mean I guess get on him there's more there's me being I've been like Nate why don't you go over there where the water is clear not step into the water and then dip dip dip your water bottle in and then put if you want to use the tablets let's start with clean water he was a good sport the whole time yeah but I think to the whole point of this conversation though it it's it's that you have to realize in in a situation like we're discussing it like everybody's imagining when they prepare for these things there's no backup Hotel and there's no backup ah let's just get back in the car and head home it's kind of a this is kind of a crap show you're you're in it you know what I mean like even now you know my wife and I it's like we go somewhere and like this isn't working the kid's a mess like all this stuff it's just like let's just go home right pull the plug pull the plug that's that's where I feel like so many people even now when they're like oh yeah go out and go camping or they're like roughing it there's no they always go out knowing there's a backup that's going to be the shot could be a shocker for me I feel like it'd be a shocker for anyone because your whole life there's always been I mean there's always backup yeah right something you can do speaking of that well even when you go like on a hunt on a hard hunt for a week you're still going home you're gonna go home yeah you're still getting back to somewhere where there's a bed and a shower and a there's no there's no backup you know you I mean it's what you're able to uh adapt overcome deal deal with things as they come it is we have no I was just going to say we we were mentioning this before this we have like 10 minutes left before we actually have another uh another engagement planned however there because we haven't even scratched a surface we've kind of just talked about it we've talked in circles we've gotten nowhere much of a conundrum this is and and like we said this is a conversation it's likely to kick off more podcasts because we want to I think just because all of us personally are interested in the idea and the topic of of preparation prepping and uh and so this hopefully will be will be more episodes but I tell you what one thing that I was thinking in the shower today because I was standing in the shower and I'm thinking to myself oh it's nice to be able to shower get clean not stink you know that sort of thing uh and knowing this podcast is coming up hygiene in the wild when you're off grid and the the grid is collapsed and you're on your own and you're on your own for weeks months of very extended extended period of time I don't know if I've ever considered that really or or what that looks like you know what I mean because most of the time you go on a hunt right and you're like okay I brought a pack of baby wipes with me in like a plastic bag to tossman when I'm done yeah you just give yourself a quick little like whatever but you can't carry with yourself enough baby wipes to wipe yourself off with for like you know months at a time but if you don't do anything you're going to get all gangrenous and you're gonna get bacteria eating your skin away and all that stuff can you imagine what your feet look like if you've been wearing the same socks and boots for like two weeks oh you're gonna need the ugh air things out a little bit remember when I broke my tooth yeah that'll go septic and kill you I'm still here right I had a modern amenity I had a gentleman a dentist and he simply extracted that tooth oh God life was good my mouth started to feel weird when I think about that but I mean Castaway man coconut a freaking bam ice skate got it good thing he had that ice skate I thought tea stuff um uh no you're right Jim but I think it's I think it's also something that we it's a uh it's an it's an amenity in some ways there's definitely certain things you need like I think you need to be taking a bath I'm not saying that you you do hygiene for the sake of like being presentable and smelling nice I'm saying you do hygiene for the for the fact of like not getting infections not having your skin melt off not getting you know gangrene trench foot you know severe uh you know whatever it is like fungus I think you're just gonna I think you're gonna have to exercise just like different methods of like hygiene self care like it'll be like Oh I'm gonna wash my socks in the creek and I have time to dry them out because they're my only pair of socks right well we're then I'm going to take a backup pair of socks you make sure to back a pair of socks in your gold bag right I would I mean two with your feet two would be nice your feet are if there's any if there's any you know Vietnam war vets and all that other stuff watching this right now I know there's one at least got his hat down there like all the your feet are tremendously important right and you're like you are correct having those things go sour on you not good no Super Bad I mean and even just and even just avoiding blisters and you know dealing with cuts and all that other stuff I consider I kind of lump that into hygiene I would hope that you would kind of I would hope that you would Harden over time in some ways I think you would but yeah you would but like and then you got to wash your hands right you don't want to get sick you know what I mean you go think of a tiny cut that can turn into a raging infection and then we have our regular lives now and we can go buy some Neosporin or we can buy some backs of trace and zinc we can buy some hydrogen peroxide we can take care of that I know I think that's one thing that you always they always miss in TV shows because in TV shows somebody comes out and like I've been in the wilderness forever and they have a bunch of like painted on scrapes on their face and some dirt but they still they don't have no they have no acne yeah like they don't have any like fungus growing on their toenails like they don't have any of that stuff it they looked very like dressed up dirty yep whereas like when you get like real rank yep I don't know I think that that could lead to bad stuff if you've ever had a bad poison ivy rash go wild like what that can do to you and then you you add some sort of uh swamp environment to that and now you got the swamp bacteria and your open wounds bad news that's that's a that's a topic there in and of itself so you better be studied on yeah what plants like what plants can you utilize to I don't know you better be studied on field medicine Herbal Remedies you better be studied on um shelter uh and within shelter I'm going to put fire right um food procurement of any kind whether it's vegetation or mammalian or fish or you know any of that and then evasion I mean you talk you know I mean talk those guys in Sears school man yeah we gotta get Grantham back out here to talk to us about everything that we probably said that was entirely wrong and right well I think we even talked about doing something like that we didn't or at least you know I know we brought it up uh 10 likes and Mark goes through Seer school there that's all we need 10 likes what is you pretend like skin I do have one more question I know we gotta jam out of here so because I'm curious because you're like oh I got one more thing too just it's a statement but okay after years you're you're like I'm bugging out I'm you know leaving the city I'm gonna be in the woods self-sufficient survival so what's your uh what's your uh I'm thinking this is a likely what's your spot a maximum of a two gun scenario likely a one gun scenario but I'm gonna say you have one long gun and maybe a pistol uh what is your gun 22 556 it's kind of whatever's at hand you know okay but what what are you leaving with it's tonight what do you say what's at hand like your houses okay so this okay yeah what's that hand is gonna be the one gun that's in your hand this started at your house you were at home so I'm at home at woof the thing goes off yeah all right and now it's time to now it's time to Boogie okay uh probably grabbing an AR because they're extremely utilitarian piece they're reliable through a lot of weather conditions um pretty versatile cartridge I can shoot small game with it um winged creatures are a little bit tricky good news is geese do land um I I will have a pistol it's very likely just small discreet thing I can turn over my long arm and I I got nothing on me man um bam yeah and so probably that um ammunition count is a very hard thing to predict uh things I think that are a good idea you're gonna be using it potentially to fight and potentially yeah to get food um things I think that are a good idea uh carrier with a chest rack um or a decent battle belt yeah yeah oh plates are a good idea don't wait though my uh yeah there's some pretty lightweight plates and pretty thin plates yeah poly plates are multiple impacts you can drop them they don't shatter um they're not they're not heavy in terms of even some of the soft flexible stuff will take a pistol round you know but you know one thing okay so my statement was going to be related to the gun because I was just going to say after we had a conversation a while back about uh the Scout rifle and we were talking about ARs and they're undeniable utility across all things somebody commented I don't I don't actually even remember the name of this person somebody commented and said the ARs are only range choice and that this was like completely false and that there's so many better guns out there and I I I about fell backwards out of my chair a chair with a back mind you so I would have had to like lifted it was a dramatic thing I couldn't believe that somebody like still thinks that um ARS are are super useful tools they can be used for almost anything very accurate um the cartridges is certainly sufficient for a myriad of tasks oh dude I'm not hesitating you know what you wanna you wanna double down a reliable now you go buy yourself an Atchison senior type insert for your AR you go get yourself a couple bricks 22 long rifle now you have a handy defense tool you have a pretty decent long range application not that it's the best but it's pretty darn good um you can take big game with it because I've done it and you have an action scener type insert for your AR and I shoot 22 long rifle out of it yeah now you can be discreet I just can't think of any other gun to take because when I watch zombie movies and there's dudes like clearing a house with a bolt action hunting rifle I'm like no thanks okay let me now that we're on this topic and I know we have to we have to go but like why is why is the cross why is somebody always have a crossbow or a regular bow and they're the most effective person that's the last thing that was in Dick's Sporting Goods when they rated it before they went out and about and that's fine everybody took everything else other than the crossbow I get that like that's fine hey it's better than nothing I'm just asking why is that person always like the most effective person on the battlefield that's a good question I mean you play that out you're going to see a de-evolution of um Society one but then amenity and usefulness right so a gun without ammo becomes a club um and a bow which before was at the very very entry level of effective tools now all of a sudden it's elevated above that gun like I guess you can like make arrows yeah right you can see recovery evolving you can recover it right but eventually you're going to be out of like let's say you had a super sick you know crossbow or compound bow right it requires a very specific type of Arrow eventually you're going to be out of those arrows like really if it keeps devolving you're gonna like a self bow with self-made errors and fletched with turkey feathers from a turkey that you had to kill is gonna be what you're at unless you're onto something unless we're able to like restart the Industrial Revolution which is what our hope is that's our hope okay we gotta we got a thing sorry guys but uh this this needs to be Revisited well and just continued on let us know what's your plan do you have a plan tell us what sort of thing because we obviously don't we've come up with this thing no a pin would be great uh we should get some experts in here yeah what type of uh experts do you want to hear from do you have suggestions for experts you want to hear from let us know thanks until next time stay safe bug out be prepared bug out go go to Ryan's Camp spot with the RVs talk to you later bye there you have it folks thank you very much for listening as usual give this video a like if you liked it comment something below and give us a subscribe to the vortex Nation Podcast Channel it would mean a lot to us also why don't you give us a follow over on Instagram while you're at it at Vortex Nation Podcast we'd love to hear from you over there and we'll keep you updated with all kinds of cool photos and videos from our adventures that we do here otherwise we will see you on the next one thank you again happy hunting and shooting everybody have a good one

Channel: Vortex Nation

Views: 14,781

Keywords: Vortex Optics, Vortex, Vortex Nation, Vortex Nation Podcast, Podcast, Optics, Vortex Podcast

Id: dWflJjfn1jw

Length: 68min 50sec (4130 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 10 2023