Overland Expo Road Trip: Day Six

By Saturday morning the Friday gales had softened into a gentle breeze, which was a relief for everyone at the 2012 Overland Expo. I had been carefully polling attendees and exhibitors, and other than the crazy wind on Friday, I hadn’t heard a single complaint so far. Everyone was enthusiastic about the new venue, especially compared to the “oppressively hot dust bowl” of previous years, and the vendors were all happy about the business they were doing with the large crowds.

The big Thursday and Friday winds had also whipped up a bad wildfire far to the south of us, bringing the smell of smoke to the air and apparently also burning down a major AT&T cell tower facility. For those of us with AT&T, we’d be without data service for most of the Expo. This was a bummer for me as I planned to live tweet updates and photos from my iPhone, but it was even harder on the folks who were trying to get their actual jobs done, including vendors trying to process credit card payments.

I was moving a little slower this morning but was still energized by the event. As the trip went on, Anthony and I each became increasingly lazy with regards to cooking meals, neither of us wanting to go through the work of cleaning up afterwards. Luckily I’d brought several of my favored Mountain House blueberry oatmeal packs which minimized my cooking & cleanup.

My first seminar this morning, the “Borders, Checkpoints, & Bribes” expert panel, featured Austin Vince, Tiffany Coates and other veteran overlanders. This was an interesting discussion panel and each of the panelists had their own experiences and perspectives on the subject. There were some very good tips, such as carrying a “bribe wallet” (with a little money & such to say “but this is all I have…”), and to always ask for a receipt for any taxes or duties you are asked to pay. If they won’t give you a receipt, then it’s probably not a legitimate fee.

The next item on my agenda was the presentation of “Egypt’s Libyan Desert: The Sykes/MacDougal Centennial Expedition”, presented by Jonathan Hanson, Diane Boyer, and Roseann Hanson. I really enjoyed this presentation, mostly because the expedition was precisely the sort of thing that interests me.

Retracing the footsteps (camel tracks?) of the original Sykes/MacDougal team who had traversed the Sudanese and Egyptian deserts in 1912, the group was armed with detailed journal entries and reprints of original photographs. The goal was to discover and record precisely where these locations were, and to further document the changes that had occurred during the intervening century.

Their journey included overland travel across the deserts in Land Cruisers, navigation & research, and an underlying scientific purpose – all of which very much appealed to me. This was exactly the sort of thing I’d most like to do on an expedition, and it “spoke” to me . Someday I really want to get involved with something like this. Or several somethings!

After the presentation, Roseann and Jonathan were gracious enough to sign a copy of an animal tracking book they had written, which I had given to my daughter last year.

My last course before breaking for lunch was the “Top Travel Tips” expert panel which featured Chris Scott, Lois Pryce, Austin Vince, Gary and Monica Wescott, and Tiffany Coates. This was in a slightly different format, with the each panelist being presented with a question in rotation. I’m not sure where these questions originated, but they were pretty interesting overall and the session was kind of a catch-all for various subjects.

After lunch I had some free time where I again stalked the vendor area, checking out products and vehicles, and chatting with merchants and attendees alike.

My next class was supposed to be “Countries and Borders of Central America”. On the way to the location, I was sidetracked by people a few times so I made it there about 10 minutes late. Then I realized that I had read the event map wrong, and had gone to the incorrect location marked with a “7” on the map. Oops! Now I would need to backtrack across the entire Expo & be even later… So I switched to Plan B and hoped everyone else would be in their classes and I could snag a quick, much-needed shower!

It didn’t work out that way though & I ended up waiting in line for well over 20 minutes until a pay shower at  the Lodge facilities became available. It was worth the wait thought and the hot shower felt amazing! I felt a lot better after getting cleaned up properly.

Shower accomplished, I also cleaned up my cookware and other gear at camp before making it over to my final class of the day, “Packet Data and GPS for Convoy Operations and Group Navigation”. This sort of thing was right up my alley and although I was concerned it might be too basic, I was hoping to pick up practical tips & procedures.

I was also looking for what I feel is the missing piece to my own personal travel communications/tracking, which is being able to see live position updates from other vehicles while outside of 3G data reception. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a solution for this yet, but I am hopeful that one will be forthcoming.

This presentation was interesting and the attendees were a mix of experienced users like myself and people who were discovering about these solutions for the first time. Naturally, the inexperienced people got more out of the class, but I was still glad I went and felt like I was able to get plugged-in to the current state of affairs.

Classes over, it was time again for the 5:00 happy hour. It was nice to relax, socialize, and have a cold adult beverage. As a bonus, I was still feeling the residual shower happiness.  Anthony, Bryon and I then walked over to the lodge restaurant for dinner, and we picked up a 4th guy at our table so he didn’t have to wait for a table for himself. Dinner was good, but I think we all enjoyed our sasparilla and vanilla ice cream floats more than our actual meals!

After dinner it was soon time for the big Equipt Saturday night Maya End of the World party. We were again fed by Overland Gourmet (or rather everyone else was, we were stuffed from dinner) and we were only too happy to help Equipt quickly run out of Cuba Libres. A big round of applause to Equipt for wanting to give back and host this bash! It was great how easy it was to join or start up a conversation with so many like-minded people, whether it was about overlanding or vehicles or politics.

And if that fantastic party wasn’t enough, there was then an after-party over at Tacodoc’s camp where we he grilled up some tasty meats including the delicious antelope that Gianni had brought, courtesy of a recent hunting trip. Mark Trump also brought along a couple of blocks of Mike’s Beer Cheese (mikesbeercheese.com, not yet in retail production) which was unanimously loved by everyone present.

Around midnight Anthony and I were finally hitting the wall as others trickled back to their camps too. We somehow completed the short walk to our camp and I quickly crashed out in my tent. Sadly, tomorrow would conclude Overland Expo 2012.

• Day Six Miles: 0
• Day Six Miles offroad: 0
• Trip Miles: 1,007
• Trip Miles offroad: 163.8
• Days without a shower: 0 (woohoo!)

Overland Expo Road Trip: Day Six photo gallery