Our new teardrop trailer made its trade show debut at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim earlier this month, and it was a huge hit there. But I hadn’t had the chance to actually camp in it yet, so when I took the Scouts up to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville this last weekend, I decided to give it a try.

This trailer is made by Little Guy Worldwide, and it is a 2010 “Silver Shadow” 5×8′ model, with the standard galley. It doesn’t have the optional built-in stove or sink, just nice Baltic birch cabinets and interior made by Amish craftsmen, from what I hear. It has LED lighting and its own deep-cycle marine battery and inverter, so electrically, it has everything you need. I just pack a cooler, propane bottle, lantern, and a stove to cook on. The whole trailer only weighs about 800 lbs empty, so it is really easy to hitch up and go.

I have a friend who built his own teardrop trailer, and he he takes it to classic car shows behind his ’50 Plymouth. Will and I were originally going to build our own custom teardrop trailer for the booth, so we had downloaded lots of ideas and plans from the internet, and had actually started building it, though we weren’t very far along. But my wife Carol found this one used on KSL.com, a local classified ads site. We had seen several others too, but they weren’t a good fit for the booth. This one was perfect for our show needs, so I bought it for $5800 and we saved a lot of time and work. Good thing too, because we’ve been really busy lately, and it’s getting really hard to find time for projects.

Anyway, I hooked up the trailer up to my Chevy Avalanche, left the stock camper mattress behind, and loaded the inside tightly with Scout troop gear. That left plenty of extra room in the back of the truck bed for the boys’ personal gear, which made the packing pretty easy. We left my house in Sandy about 4:30 pm on Friday and got to Honeyville by about 6, even with rush hour traffic. We had things unpacked within minutes, and had a nice fire going, since there was a little bit of snow in the air and the temperature was starting to drop below freezing.

The boys always want to spend as much time as possible at the pool and waterslide, which are both fed by the hot springs, and drained every night after 10 pm. With spring break there were a lot of people there, and the line for the waterslide was longer than usual. Although the path to the top of the slide is (mostly) covered from any weather, it can still be pretty chilly if you have to wait very long. And without enough foam sliding pads to quite go around (the pads make the waterslide really fast and fun), one trip down the slide was enough for me, I’m afraid.

The pool was also pretty crowded, but it still felt really good to soak your bones in the hot mineral water for a few hours. As cold and still as it was outside, and with all the people milling around and talking (shouting, laughing, etc), the steam rising from the pool dropped the visibility to about ten feet near the surface of the pool, and played whispy muffling tricks with the sound too, so it was a pretty surreal experience. When we were all water-wrinkled and pruny, it was time to go have some dinner: beef stew, rolls, hot chocolate, and a few marshmallows roasted over the fire. And then, it was time for bed.

I teach my Scouts to bring two sleeping bags when winter camping, and to put one inside the other. The Scouts sleep a lot better that way, since sleeping bag manufacturers seem to overstate their temperature ratings by at least 10-20 degrees, and Scouts don’t carry the extra internal insulation that I have developed over the years. I also teach them to use a good sleeping pad, because sleeping bag insulation compresses under you, leaving you with almost nothing between you and the cold winter ground. There is nothing worse than feeling the cold winter ground through your bag all night. Well, almost nothing.

Until this trip, I have usually slept in the bed of the Avalanche on these kinds of camps. The back seats fold down, and the midgate then opens and folds down flat over them, or at least nearly flat, so you have about 8′ of space between the back of the front seats, and the tailgate, all fully enclosed from the elements (and mosquitoes). I usually put the head of my sleeping bag behind the front seats in this flat area, with my feet extending out into the bed. Plenty of room, even for a big guy like me (I am 6’5″ tall).

But I have noticed over the years that in extremely cold weather, it is actually warmer to sleep in a tent on the ground, than in a truck. After all, steel doesn’t insulate well, and a cold breeze (say in the 20s or 10s) can blow all the way around and under a truck, while a tent is snuggled down against the snow (usually 32 degrees) or the hard ground (sometimes as warm as 40-50 degrees). So the sleeping pad idea applies with even more force in a vehicle. I use a Therm-a-rest ultralite extra-long backpacking pad that I have had for 15+ years, and it works in all but the very coldest weather (like below 5 or 10 degrees), where I will sometimes throw an extra wool blanket or something over it for a little more warmth underneath.

That said, this plywood-sheathed teardrop trailer has about 3″ of insulating airspace in a small storage compartment under the bed. And it does sleep much warmer than a truck bed, though the frost still collects on the windows. It got down to about 22 degrees that night (not that cold for Utah), and it didn’t snow near as much in Honeyville, as it did at my house in Sandy. So with two sleeping bags rated at 0 degrees, the mummy bag inside the flannel-lined bag, and my Therm-a-rest pad, I was plenty warm. Nice! And it was nice to have the overhead light to arrange my sleeping bags, and to read for a few minutes before dropping off to sleep.

This little teardrop is actually a little short for me. Although it is described as having a queen-size bed, the actual bed size is 58×75″– or about 2″ narrower and 5″ shorter than a proper queen bed of 60×80″. Since I am 77″ long when lying on my back (or longer when I sleep as I usually do, on my stomach with my toes pointed and one arm extended past my head) I obviously can’t lay out straight in the usual way. Sleeping diagonally, I was comfortable, although that makes it essentially a one-man trailer. I wish it did have a full-size queen, at least in the length. When I build my own teardrop someday…

One of the other Scout leaders slept in my truck this time. I never bothered to uncouple the trailer, block the wheels, or drop the tongue wheel of the trailer, so the trailer was connected to the truck all night by the tongue and hitch ball, just as it was while driving down the freeway. So as I was getting situated in bed, the trailer would wiggle. I noticed the wiggle every time he rolled over in the truck, and he noticed it every time I rolled over in the trailer. But I only noticed when I was awake, which didn’t last very long. The wiggling never woke me up, but it might be good to know, if you are a really light sleeper. It wouldn’t take even 5 minutes to uncouple the trailer if it was an issue. But I was already in bed.

In the morning it was biting cold, still 22 degrees on the thermometer, but with a brisk wind that made you reach for your down jacket, gloves, and fuzzy fleece pants. We had a quick breakfast (including oatmeal and more hot chocolate), packed the gear again, and were on the road by the 10 am checkout. The trip back was uneventful, and the trailer towed just as nicely as on the trip up, but without the rush hour traffic.

All in all, this little teardrop trailer made a quick camping trip easy, fun, and comfortable. It was everything I had hoped for, and then some. I highly recommend it!

I belong to a Vistage group of local CEOs who meet once a month to discuss issues that are important for our growing companies. We usually have a nationally-known speaker, followed by a rather intense discussion session where we deal with problems we are facing. However, every few months we do something different– golfing in Park City, group dinner with our spouses, or something just plain fun.

Last Friday (March 15) we spent the morning discussing mergers and acquisitions, something that I did a fair amount of in a prior life. The discussion was intense and interesting, filled with war stories (both good and bad) and I think we all came away with some new perspectives on things like the importance of company culture, especially during a merger, when two competing cultures often clash. Company culture is important!

In the afternoon, we drove up to Coalville to go snowmobiling for a couple of hours. The place wasn’t super easy to find, but we got there, and I have to say that these guys delivered a really good time for the money. The base was at about 7500 feet elevation, and things were pretty slushy and muddy that weekend, because it had been unseasonably warm for the last week. But they led us on a long tree-lined trail up to a wide-open meadow at about 9800 feet, where we could run the machines at full speed.

I hadn’t been on a snowmobile in probably 30 years, but it was a great time. A snowmobile is a funny thing– it goes in loose powder, packed snow, or anything in between, and even on mud, rocks or pavement (for short distances), but it doesn’t always go exactly where you point it. The handlebars give the snowmobile suggestions for direction, not real commands, and where it actually goes depends on lots of other factors. On top of that, the trails through the trees winding up to the meadow featured hard-packed snow right under the trail, where lots of machines had passed, but the snow on either side was heavy and wet from the warm spring conditions, so if you started to get off the trail, it was easy to submerge a ski in snow that was the consistency of wet concrete, bringing you to an abrupt halt, where you had to get off and dig yourself out. So in the trees, you really wanted to pay close attention and stay right on the trails, while in the meadow, you could go pretty much anywhere you wanted.

Life is like that– sometimes you are in a wide-open meadow and can do pretty much anything you want. Other times, you are in the trees, and it really pays to follow someone who knows the trail, and to stick to that trail as closely as you can. But for most of the fun aspects of life, you never want to go alone. Fun things are always better when shared.

Spring has arrived in Utah. The dwarf irises that Carol has planted in the front yard are in full bloom– though nothing else is, just yet. Days are getting a little warmer. Yesterday, on the way home from dropping Paige off at school, my daughter Heather had to stop for a covey of quail that were crossing the street. The Canada geese all seem to be on the move again.

But for us the most audible sign of spring is the return of our resident woodpecker. Woodpeckers feed on insects that burrow into trees, especially dead trees. They listen carefully for the sound of an insect munching on wood fibers, drill through the outer bark with their tough beaks, and find an early breakfast. However, this drilling is not only for food. Apparently, female woodpeckers are impressed by a guy who can obtain a healthy feast, so the rapid tap-tap-tapping is also a sort of a mating call. The louder, faster, and harder the male can drill, the more attractive he is to the ladies, or so it appears.

Anyway, the woodpecker in our neighborhood has developed an interesting twist. Rather than drilling in dead trees, he has discovered that drilling against the galvanized sheet metal flashing on our chimney will produce a lot more racket than any nearby wooden surface. So every morning we are wakened by what sounds like an impact wrench held against the sheet metal of the chimney duct. It might be really annoying if it wasn’t so funny!

I don’t know yet if this little woodpecker has a girlfriend or not. Maybe the girls don’t necessarily equate drilling metal with the ability to provide for a family. But I have to admire his innovative use of the resources at hand. And his hard-headedness. I hope he does well!

Once again, Ridgecrest Herbals executives have been quoted as industry experts. Matt Warnock, President, was quoted in Whole Foods Magazine in an article about metabolic syndrome – where the body becomes insulin-resistant, a syntrome linked to weight gain and a precursor to type 2 diabetes.

See more about the article at http://www.wholefoodsmagazine.com/supplements/features/diabetes-drastic-times-call-preventative-measures