I got my cap for my truck the first week of April. Ever since then, I've been out camping in one place or another. Sometimes it's as close as my backyard, and sometimes it's as far away as Winnoa State Forest out in Lewis County. All of the time it's pure fun. It starts with packing all of my gear in two 20-gallon plastic containers. They are removed from the back, and I lay down my sleeping pads (all three of them), sleeping bags (one plus a second for covering my head when it's cold out), and my pillow.

That might be good enough for some people. Yet, my truck is even sweater. Installed behind the driver's seat is a 400-watt inverter that provides power for all of the basic camping accessories one might need. This includes an alarm clock, a table radio (for listening to music outside of the truck), a reading lamp with a 60-watt equivalent fluorescent bulb, and a 100-watt equivalent fluorescent lead lamp. I could use all incandescent lamps, but that would use extra power that I'd rather save for starting the next morning, and using my components as long as possible.

Right now, I am sitting in a lawn chair at Partridge Run with my laptop plugged into my pickup truck. I could just use the laptop's battery, but then I'd have to worry about it running low after a couple of hours. With my truck battery and the inverter, I have no fear of that. Should I use too much power on my truck, I can just get out my 350-amp jump starter (a separate compact battery), clamp it on the battery, turn it on, then crank like I hadn't ran down my main battery. Very cool. I love technology!

I've sat out by the campfire with my lights, radio, and had a pretty enjoyable Friday night. To make things more sweet though, I unload my gear packed in two plastic storage boxes, and drive along the truck trails and pick up firewood (whole dead trees) and toss them in the bed of the truck. I end up with tons of wood by the time I'm ready to sit back and enjoy the evening. No running out of firewood for me.

I do not know if sitting on the tailgate of my pickup truck, starring up at the stars and at the campfire, listening to the radio is really camping. All I really know, is cooking with lots of beer, and consuming a lot of it at the same is a lot of fun. It makes me think, and it brings me a lot closer to nature then sitting in my bedroom at home or in my little desk on the 14th floor of the Twin Towers in Albany.