A look into what I have experienced over the last 3+ years in the Overland “Community”
It’s been an an amazing and exciting journey for Paula and I over the last three years or so. For those of you who haven’t heard how we started out, let me give you a quick background on what brought me to be writing this blog today.
November 2019
I stumbled across a post in a FaceBook group one night while randomly surfing around the inter-web. I am not sure why I was in this group that night but there I was reading about an upcoming trip to the Ouachita National Forest involving a rather large group of people from the great state of Texas. Something made me message the organizer of this trip and I asked if they had room for one more rig. The organizer was Blair. He was a transplant from South Africa living in Texas and had the accent to prove it. He welcomed us to the group and we started planning our first “trail ride” through the Ouachita NF. What an amazing experience this first trip was. To leave from work late on a Friday afternoon to meet up with a group of strangers, after midnight in a one traffic light town in Arkansas was something that was totally unlike me. When I look back on it now, it just seems like something was pushing me outside of the normal routine and try something new. I am so glad I did. I made great friends on that trip. Blair, Jack, Matt, Justin and Will among others. What a great group of people who welcomed us like we had known each other our whole lives.
The experience from this trip led me to leave out on a solo trip to the Ouachita NF on December 23, 2019. Paula was working at the hospital and I had a couple of days off leading up to Christmas so I decided to take the opportunity to take a quick solo trip before our families gathered for the holidays. I think I rode close to 60 miles of trail in that short trip. On the drive back to Memphis Christmas Eve. I had a smile on my face because I had discovered something amazing. Being away from it all, being disconnected from the hustle of life. It was a place to decompress and just take it all in. I couldn’t wait to bring Paula on the next trip and share this experience with her.
Pre-Covid 2020
From January to early March we took several trips back to the Ouachitas and began to joke it was becoming our second home. In late February 2020 Matt, who I had met on the first ride back in November, invited me to join him and some friends in Gilmer, TX at Barnwell Mountain Recreational Area for the 20th anniversary of Mega Run. Another great weekend with great people. That is until……the China Flu locked down pretty much everything in the US the following week. To think we were all passing around a Mason Jar full of moonshine just a couple of days before the dreaded lockdown.
Covid 2020
During the lockdown I started “researching” new places to explore on YouTube all while still visiting Arkansas every available weekend. We couldn’t go anywhere else, so why not the forest? In April we were stir crazy and wanted to do something normal so we rode over to Knoxville, TN and picked up a trailer that the previous owner had converted into a rather crude adventure/overland trailer. I could have found one in and around Memphis but it was an excuse to get out of the house. This would be the trailer I built to take on the GA Traverse later that summer. Again, this isn’t something I would ever dream of doing 8 or 9 months earlier.
Post Covid
From November 2019 to July 2020. I had camped and explored new areas off grid in multiple states, built a very capable overland trailer and in the process learned to weld. By the Fall of 2020 I had led groups on multiple trail rides in The Ouachita NF. I even created a very modest YouTube channel to document the places we visited. I would eventually start a podcast, another first for me, in October 2021.
The Overland “Community” has changed and not for the better.
Over the last year or so I have seen the thing that hooked me in 2019 turn into a shit show, full of clowns and influencers on social media. These fine humans have turned this “hobby” or “pastime” into their cash cow. Manufacturers in their quest to get the latest thing out to the consumer, have created a huge money grab. It’s a cycle of free product goes to influencer, influencer gives “credibility” to a product, that you the consumer ends up paying a ridiculous inflated price for (Overland tax). The following month the same influencer is selling you the best widget ever. Nevermind that he was selling you a different “best thing ever” a few short weeks earlier. This kind of garbage is why I created my podcast. These slimy salesmen created a platform that drew in the sheep like moths to the flame. Instead of helping the community in a “tangible way” they robbed from the community that helped create them. Rarely a mention of “Tread Lightly” or giving back to the community. These people only care about how much they can stuff in their pockets, more followers, more subscribers. It always take its never give. You will never see these people at a trail clean up. Self absorbed twits. The overland “community” is no longer about adventure, it’s about product placement and fake product reviews, Patreon accounts, etc. It has gotten so bad, you now have people leading trail rides in the national forests for hundreds and hundred of dollars. Has the world gone mad? Some of the same gravel roads I have led free rides on, you have people charging upwards of $800.00 or more. It’s shameful but these people are shameless. If you are that naive to pay someone to lead you down gravel roads, you deserve to be fleeced.
When is enough, enough?
The thing that I enjoyed so much more than three years ago has been polluted with some much noise, slime and greed I have decided to take a big step back away from social media. Yesterday I decided to end my podcast. Something I really enjoyed doing for the first couple of years but if has become a drag. I am very appreciative of the thousands of people who have listened, the hundres of messages of encouragement to keep “doing what I do”. It meant the world to me. However, it has taken my focus away from the thing I loved so much and that is disconnecting, unplugging and just putting the world on pause while exploring new areas. Over the last few days I have unfollowed close to 500 Instagram accounts, I have purged close to 300 Instagram followers. I have ended the podcast. I am going to focus on the reason I got involved with this hobby in the first place. That does not involve YouTube, podcasts or social media. The fewer the people the better. I have made some amazing friends over the last three plus years and I have met my share that weren’t worth keeping around. So goes life.
Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on improving the website and uploading blog entries on a more consistent basis. I will upload short update vlogs to YouTube on projects I have going out in the shop. Let me clear. I am not going anywhere. I still have a passion for spreading the message of Tread Lightly. The scumbags out there are not worth it. They will fade away like yesterday’s news. Memories are forever.
The Beaver Has Landed
Kevin