BOV, what's yours?

[npgunner]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. You've all chosen gas guzzling trucks that will do nothing but use up available energy and pollute the air of your bug out locations; causing your trees to die, and your food to be poisoned by dangerous fossil fuel fumes.

I'm going with this:


I hear Obama has approved the use of drones to refuel by tethered power cord if needed, you just have to let them know where you're gonna be.

[Dennis1209]

Like many here, I don't plan on bugging out from my bug out retirement location but, should the need arise due to a radio active cloud headed my way, an asteroid predicted to land dead center on my house , an environmental disaster of some sort headed my way, it be my 3/4 ton Dodge Ram diesel 4X4 pick em up.

 

In many circumstances a 4X4 is not going to get you any farther than the collapsed roads, bridges, congested / broken down vehicles and infrastructure will allow during an earthquake or mass exodus anyway.

 

Of course if you have Big Foot as pictured above you just drive over the traffic, but I own little toe hang nail myself :rant:

 

Doing a 360 and get out of Dodge isn't always possible. And when you get stuck and stranded a long ways from your destination, then what?

Edited August 27, 2013 by Dennis1209

[Joseg]

Hmm, have anyone thought about maybe bugout in place with neighbors agreeing to cover each other? Let's be honest, radio active cloud comes your way, your fooked, chemical, your fooked unless you have decon equipment and detection devices (birds don't count).. What if you bug out and the area you were looking at it contaminated, how would you react? I don't see a FOX Chem vehicle listed as anyone's bugout vehicle nor do I see where there's any equipment to deal with NBC threats.. 

 

I would prefer to fight instead of running, especially if you know your way around the current AO, best defense is a good offense. Always will be.. 

[npgunner]

Hmm, have anyone thought about maybe bugout in place with neighbors agreeing to cover each other? Let's be honest, radio active cloud comes your way, your fooked, chemical, your fooked unless you have decon equipment and detection devices (birds don't count).. What if you bug out and the area you were looking at it contaminated, how would you react? I don't see a FOX Chem vehicle listed as anyone's bugout vehicle nor do I see where there's any equipment to deal with NBC threats..

I would prefer to fight instead of running, especially if you know your way around the current AO, best defense is a good offense. Always will be..

Took me a minute to realize you weren't talking news channels. :squint:

[whitewolf001]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. You've all chosen gas guzzling trucks that will do nothing but use up available energy and pollute the air of your bug out locations; causing your trees to die, and your food to be poisoned by dangerous fossil fuel fumes.

I'm going with this:


I hear Obama has approved the use of drones to refuel by tethered power cord if needed, you just have to let them know where you're gonna be.

[Joseg]

Took me a minute to realize you weren't talking news channels. :squint:

 

 

Nope, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m93a1.htm this is what I was talking about. 

[whitewolf001]

If I don't sell it, I'm modding it. I want to reinforce some things.....

 

Hey, you said if you sell it I get first dibs... but first we have to test its off road capabilities, then we talk monies.

[bigbabysweets]

I had a guy offer $7200! I'd love to see what we could get into with this! I picked my little girl up from school in it the day before yesterday! I also tried pulling a couple stumps out for a guy with it. The chain snapped, put his gutter into his roof, dented his wall, and shattered a bedroom window! Lol Us 0 stumps 1

[Trekbike]

I had a guy offer $7200! I'd love to see what we could get into with this! I picked my little girl up from school in it the day before yesterday! I also tried pulling a couple stumps out for a guy with it. The chain snapped, put his gutter into his roof, dented his wall, and shattered a bedroom window! Lol Us 0 stumps 1

What...no video? It's SOP to video. Be sure to get footage of your next adventure.

[frankmako]

ford f250 4x4.  

[BrokeEnthusiast]

[whitewolf001]

 

Obummer approves.

[Timestepper]

If it were to really come down to it, and staying put was not a viable alternative, my BOV is a combination of a litlle Dodge Dakota 4X4, a mountain bicycle and a 16 foot canoe with a cart. Since my BOL is quite some distance away (I could get there strictly via canoe, but it would take several months),

 

I figure to go as far as the pickup would get me, then hook the canoe cart to the back of the bicycle (the cart was designed specifically for that purpose) and travel on. If traveling via bike becomes problematic or unviable, then the nearest waterway will suffice until such time as I can once again safely travel by land. Having puncture proof tires on both bike and cart insures less maintenance and fewer tools to be carried while increasing odds of success while traveling overland and/or portaging. And I can carry everything I need and then some in the canoe whether on water or towed behind the bike on land.

 

Folks were traveling the continent via canoe & horse for hundreds of years before the first automobiles came along, I'd just be adding a modern and slightly more effective and efficient twist to my travels...

 

...TS...

[whitewolf001]

If it were to really come down to it, and staying put was not a viable alternative, my BOV is a combination of a litlle Dodge Dakota 4X4, a mountain bicycle and a 16 foot canoe with a cart. Since my BOL is quite some distance away (I could get there strictly via canoe, but it would take several months),

 

I figure to go as far as the pickup would get me, then hook the canoe cart to the back of the bicycle (the cart was designed specifically for that purpose) and travel on. If traveling via bike becomes problematic or unviable, then the nearest waterway will suffice until such time as I can once again safely travel by land. Having puncture proof tires on both bike and cart insures less maintenance and fewer tools to be carried while increasing odds of success while traveling overland and/or portaging. And I can carry everything I need and then some in the canoe whether on water or towed behind the bike on land.

 

Folks were traveling the continent via canoe & horse for hundreds of years before the first automobiles came along, I'd just be adding a modern and slightly more effective and efficient twist to my travels...

 

...TS...

 

Yeah, going by your current situation,going on foot for you is pretty much a no go I'd say. How is your ankle doing by the way brother?

Edited August 30, 2013 by whitewolf001

[Timestepper]

Yeah, going by your current situation,going on foot for you is pretty much a no go I'd say. How is your ankle doing by the way brother?

 

My ankle is permanently fused to mid-foot and my left leg is now roughly 3/8 - 1/2 inch shorter than my right. I'm ambulating pretty good now (albeit with a permanent and horrible limp) and even tossed my cane behind the seat of the pickup more or less permanently a couple of weeks ago. There is a type of orthopeadic shoe called a rocker bottom which will help with mobility and gait provided I can ever afford to get one (or more) made.

 

I've come to grips with the fact that I'll never take another pain free step - although after the first 10 or so steps of the day (which feels like walking barefoot on thumbtacks) the pain decreases to a more tolerable level - but it really bugs me that I can no longer run or even stride out with the distance eating gait I used to have. (Again though, the rocker bottom shoe/boot should help with the gait and take the extra stress off my hips and spine that result from the horrible limp I now have.)

 

All in all, I'm staying pretty upbeat because I know it could have been much worse, but I did get a pretty huge lesson in humility on the evening of the 18th:

My wife was in the hospital fighting a case of meningitis (she's home and doing much better now, btw) and I had limped out to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette and make a phone call. Having discarded both crutches and cane about 5 days earlier, I was feeling pretty proud (and even a little cocky!) for getting around "two-legged" for the first time in more than five months. When I started back in, there was a little old lady - if she was a day, she was 85 - using a walker about twenty feet ahead me when I reached the entrance. Proud and cocky as I was and no matter how hard I tried or how fast I limped... I couldn't catch her in the hallway to save my life! :censored: She had 33 years and four extra legs on me and if I'd been a Boy Scout, she'd have beat me across the street as soon as the light changed! :surrender: Needless to say, I'm considerably more humble now and have no plans to race any more octogenarians - at least until I get my new shoe!   :rofl:

 

Getting back to the OP, I'd actually thought about this method of travel a fair amount before my accident and even experimented with traveling fairly short (20 - 30 miles) distances this way in the past and it worked quite well. Better than I'd thought it would in fact. 

 

Given that my BOL is such a long ways away and given my background as a truck driver and resulting familiarity with roads and terrain over most of the country, it just strikes me that this would make the most sense for me. I mean, as I alluded to earlier, I could literally do the entire route via water - from less than 1/2 mile from where I sit to my best friend's back yard - but it would take several months, possibly even a year or two. But if the pickup would get me even just over the Cumberland Plateau to Nashville and the Cumberland, then I've eliminated the entire loop down the Tennessee to Chattanooga and back up to LBL. And if the bicycle would get me across most of Illinois from the mouth of the Cumberland at Paducah (with occasional detours in the water), then I've eliminated the small craft hazards of navigating the currents at the mouth of the Ohio and a bunch more miles and so on. Having both bicycle and canoe also gives me the freedom to change routes without sacrificing either mode of travel.

 

Could be that I'd make some friends along the way, since a friendly cripple isn't much of a threat. Could be that I'd get killed early on because traveling mostly at night isn't as smart or cautious as I've convinced myself it is. But it could be too that I'd eventually make it to where I was headed and have some pretty boring tales to tell when I got there. Dunno... Kinda' hope I never have to find out. But if I do, well, I already know that it's possible...

 

:hat:  

 

...TS...

[Wyldk2]

I originally thought i would be bugging out from my house in Fayetteville. But living at my BOL so there is no need to bug out. If it happens i have to Bug out from my BOL to a new BOL, It will be in my 1998 dodge durango 4x4, or if it really comes down to a fast and maneuverable 4x4, My 2008 Can-am 650 outlander 4x4( atv).

 

I'm thinking the roads are gonna be crowded and everyone will try to leave all at once. So I'd wait a few days if possible and then go. Only if i needed to.

[whitewolf001]

 

I'm thinking the roads are gonna be crowded and everyone will try to leave all at once. So I'd wait a few days if possible and then go. Only if i needed to.

 

I don't think I'd wait, I believe that I'd take as many back roads as I could though. Wait too long and you may give looters an opportunity to set up shop.

[Timestepper]

I don't think I'd wait, I believe that I'd take as many back roads as I could though. Wait too long and you may give looters an opportunity to set up shop.

 

Wait long enough and most of the looters will have killed each other off. See, that's the thing about thieves and looters; they very rarely do it because they need to. They do it because they think it's finally the free ride they've deserved all their lives (and, while they won't work for it, they're not above killing for it). I remember going through a blackout several years ago where there was a fair amount of looting going on and laughing my @ss off because everyone was stealing electronics and other crap that they couldn't use, but almost no one stole food. :rofl:

 

And back roads are good if you're familiar with them. But don't be surprised to find homemde roadblocks, even early on. Heck, if I decided to bug in or wanted to delay the necessity of bugging out, one of the first things I'd do is drop a few trees in strategic places and/or block the road(s) with a couple of cars with the wheels & tires removed...

 

 

:2cents:

 

 

...TS...

[Wyldk2]

Point taken.  Looters and thieves will only come out and do their thing if they see an opportunity. Just like burgular proofing your house or business. Make it harder to breakin/get to and they willmove on to the easier place downthe road.

[Wyldk2]

I don't think I'd wait, I believe that I'd take as many back roads as I could though. Wait too long and you may give looters an opportunity to set up shop.

If any looters come to my neighborhood, they are gonna be in for a suprise. Cop lives down the street and I've got a great vantage point upstairs. Perfect sniping position. lol

[McGarrett]

'79 F150 4x4 with 4BT Cummins diesel swap, granny 4- speed, or '78 F250 4x4 service truck, winch, tire chains, tools, air compressor, welder, generator, tommy gate, large bumpers, I am usually in close proximity to one of these trucks so I would expect they would be my go to BOV but like someone said earlier you will probably go with whatever is available at the time. I

 

in a pinch I could always jump in the '77 280Z, my BOB is in the pass seat of it right now and I am ready to sign off for the night and fire up the Z and head home. I work 2nd shift at our business so I spend a little time on TGO at my desk after work before heading home. Are you noticing a pattern of '70's vehicles, I will know I am in trouble if I start hearing disco music. Maybe I am just stuck in the '70's. 

 

I am more of a bug in type anyway, but I may need to use the BOV to get home or retrieve others to get them home to bug in. I like the idea of the old trucks for BOV, reasonably will go anywhere in any weather we have around here, people don't mess with you, blends in does not look out of place in rural TN. When you approach intersections you can see the looks that people have, the caption would read "I don't want to pull out in front of him, he probably does not have any insurance". The old trucks are very simple to work on and maintain and they are new enough that parts are readily available and interchangeable with trucks on up into the 80's and even early 90's. 

 

Our business is working on big trucks & buses so we have the ability to keep these older vehicles running. I have a good BOV project sitting here now; '80 Chevy suburban 3/4 ton 4x4, 350 V8, SM465 4 speed, NP205 transfer case, 10 bolt front, 14 bolt rear, winch, brush guard, 3rd row seat, etc. I have kind of stalled out on this project for now, money & time have been redeployed on other things. I have a fresh 350 to go in it. The suburban goes along with the old truck theory but has the added bonus of covered cargo area and extra pass capacity.

[broylz]

will be driving my mustang GT like will smith in his Ferrari in Bad Boys 2. :)

 

in reality, I will probably stay put. have the choice of a mustang or a chevy trailblazer right now. could always go on horseback as well.

[whitewolf001]

Okay, so a vehicle that fits this category is sitting in our shop here at work. According to interweb folklore it is a VERY rare find, an 83 Toyota landcruiser(FJ40) right hand drive(Jspec) with a 3B 4cyl Diesel. It looks like it was just brought over here from a Safari in Africa, lol. I'll try to snag a pic of it tomorrow before it leaves.

[jtmaze]

My bug out partner is a life long friend that lives 3 miles away at the end of a gravel road. First thing get there from my house(undefensible or not easily). for this 87 Suzuki Samarai on 31x10.50's. If that house gets uninhabitable, fall back to hunting camp in very remote SW Texas. 94 ram 3500 12 valve diesel with no electronics.

[R_Bert]

1968 Honda CT-90 if it will still crank.