Prepping In The Age Of COVID-19

If I was to modify the old Yiddish proverb “We plan, God laughs” to fit my life better, it might go something like “We plan, a worldwide pandemic breaks out, I panic-sob in my bathroom”. What was supposed to be an early March departure to Utah by way of the Hoover Dam, has become a late March departure through California by way of the coastal highway.

Now, if you’re planning on going off-roading for a long period of time, making sure that your car is properly serviced and outfitted is crucial. Duh. What that meant in practice: meeting up in Yak’s parking garage and spending time on attaching a cage, awning, LED light bar, and new headlights to his Jeep. I got experience working with electrical wiring and basic car maintenance. Aside from knowing how to change a tire and coolant, it felt pretty good to add a couple new things to my tool belt.

What the Jeep looked like after we installed the cage.

Attaching the LED bar to the Jeep’s battery.

Wiring the LED bar to an on/off switch by the driver’s feet.

The Jeep with the cage, awning and LED bar.

Then came the work done on the inside of the Jeep. This included: thoroughly cleaning the interior, ripping out the fabric flooring and replacing it with a rubber mat that was cut to size.

Finally, in a very ambitious move, we custom-built a bed area for Yak’s beloved pup Alta. Using a piece of pretty thick wood we marked it around the contours of the Jeeps trunk. Using various saws, chisels and drills we cut out the correct shape and attached perpendicular slats which would separate the dog bed area from the usable truck space. We even sanded the edges and spray painted the slats to give it a more professional look.

Marking up the wood to custom fit the back of the Jeep.

Since the Jeep was coming together pretty nicely, we decided to focus on supplies. Yak showed me how to put together three of the tents we were going to bring with us — including a ShiftPod I’ve used previously. We packed our clothes away, and attached our sleeping bags. We visited REI multiple times, purchasing a new gas stove, cooler, and portable power station.

While all of this was going on, reports about COVID-19 spreading around the world started to happen. Then, in what felt like three days, people were panic-buying toilet paper and public areas were closing. The original plan of going to Utah seemed like waste of time — all major ski resorts we were going to hit up were closed. Our friends from San Francisco cancelled their flights and AirBnbs there as well. In a quick regroup, we decided to go to some major National Parks in California instead of Utah.