An Evacuation mock bugout drill

Sometimes I do little tests, sometimes I do big tests, but i'm always looking for ways to improve.  Thinking is nice, but all the thinking and simulations in the world can't replace a good old dry run as a learning experiance... and to do my last test I didn't even have to start my truck! 

 After several changes to my kits and gear in the last months, and some additions including creating my "chuck box",  I wanted to see how it would all work together.  I grabbed a couple of my kit totes and loaded them in my pick up just to check the weight.  (Its important that I can move all of them by myself in a crisis.)   I pulled my trailer and linked it to my truck and checked all my cables and safety chains.   I know my weapons and ammo will go, but in the spirit of OPSEC and being a good neighbor, I didn't want to be seen walking around with my firearms for no reason, so...  

"OK, I'm ready to go." My gear is packed for an evac.   Not in the 5 minutes to grab a BOB, but for the amount of gear, and the fact that I could be gone for 30 plus days under significantly more difficult conditions then I could ever face with a bag, i'm happy.   So what now?  Well, why drive, when all I really just want to test my gear in a real environment.  So I unhooked it and pulled it around into my back yard.  I could have driven to the nearest state park just to make it interesting, but I wanted to do a full dry run in one day by my self, so any road time is wasted time.

First, I got to test my new Camo paint job.  Since I pulled my trailer back to the woods behind my house, I was able to observe it at a distance and with natural foliage.   The new colors significantly reduces the visibility of the trailer compared to the original white paint.  If I had to stash it and come back later, I feel comfortable that now I can conceal it.  

I started by unpacking and setting up base camp.  First, I only put up the sleeping tents, and not my Coleman Weathermaster.  The Weathermaster is where the totes and gear would go and the screened room is a shaded area to purify water and perform other outside tasks without bugs.  I checked my inventories just like I was 100 miles from home and my life depended on just the gear I had...

• Solar panels & Goal Zero power gear
• Flashlights & comms gear
• Cables and power systems for the trailer power
• Propane heater, lanterns, trees and hoses
• White Gas & dual fuel lanterns
• Water filter and storage
• Personal hygiene, camp shower, towels, toilet
• Cooking equipment
• Security systems, perimeter defense equipment
• Tarps, ropes, pulleys, 
• Hunting, trapping, and fishing gear
• Camp and survival tools

Now bugging out is not my first response.  In fact, its something i would actively work to avoid. But if environmental conditions like a hurricane forced me to evacuate, i'm ready to do so.   I didn't find any significant gaps in my plan during this exercise, but in going through my camp kitchen I did find some excessive redundancies.  Camp oven, rocket stove, open fire grill, dutch oven, seems I'm a little heavy on the cooking systems, so i'll be making some changes to lighten that portion of my load.

Also, since this is my camping gear just stored in the trailer,  I have pulled out and "lived" with most of this gear on a bunch of weekend campouts, and one nine day camping trip this summer.  That has given me a lot of chances to sharpen my skills and fine tune my gear, but its all been piece work. This was specifically to see if setting it all up was truly viable.   We have been out in all my tents depending on the size of the group.   I have used my heater on a tent camping weekend with temps in the 40s.  I have used my sleeping bags on summer nights in the 80s and spring night in the 30s.   I have cooked on my propane stove, and used charcoal and my dutch oven on my deck just to get use to the speed of open flame and adjusting heat to bake.

I think its important to really see if you can do what you think you can, how you think you can, with what you have.   And the best way to know is to just go do it...  Even if its just for a day.