This is The Shorts, and you're listening to The Dirtback Diaries, a duct tape

and beer production with support from New Belgium Brewing, Kuat Racks, and Patagonia.

In the dirt bagging lifestyle, we all have our low moments.

Those times when living on the road, out of your car, forces you to brush off the sense of dignity and pride, do what must be done.

Sometimes this means bathing in a rubber-made tub, reading cantuna with a nut tool in a Walmart parking lot.

Sometimes it means reverting your behavior to how humans lived 10,000 years ago.

In 2010, I had two months of time to kill, between the end of the semester of college,

in the beginning of my seasonal job working at youth program in Wyoming.

I had nowhere to be, and no obligations to fulfill.

I decided to visit my friends, Luke and Aaron, who were working on the east side of the Sierra in California,

and climb as much as possible.

I packed everything I owned into my little Saturn sedan, and drove towards the mule capital of the world,

Bishop, California.

The first week, I spent working out the kinks of living out of my car.

Frustrated with cooking on the ground and getting sand in my phone,

I learned to balance my Coleman-2 burner on the unnecessary plastic spoiler on the back of my car

to make a flat cooking service.

The water jug sat on the floor in front of the passenger seat for perfect pouring height.

I packed my car like a champion Tetris player.

Each time I filled my car to capacity, I felt satisfied with my efficiency.

The only issue is my sleeping situation.

Because the Owens River Valley is a desert, squeezed between the sear as to the west,

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