The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: Summer Camp

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/https://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcasthttps://twitter.com/themofpodcastSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*The boys are back from the annual MoF summer camp to talk about where this annual event came from and why it's so important.Matter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices. Intro and Outro Music by Phil Rabalais All rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator prepper, prep, preparedness, prepared, emergency, survival, survive, self defense, 2nd amendment, 2a, gun rights, constitution, individual rights, train like you fight, firearms training, medical training, matter of facts podcast, mof podcast, reloading, handloading, ammo, ammunition, bullets, magazines, ar-15, ak-47, cz 75, cz, cz scorpion, bugout, bugout bag, get home bag, military, tactical 

Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwfpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Rabelais, and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast. Hello. I am still nursing away from my first cup of coffees and I look like I got hit by a bus so bear with us. But the annual Matter of Facts summer camp is in the bag. We all literally got home

yesterday at varying hours after I don't know I think the shortest drive had was probably five hours and i think the longest one was probably about what 14 no thinking of our wisconsinites yeah yeah no i mean they i think he said it was like just over 12 it was a good little haul i think and then uh wasn't i mean tommy i mean they're only weren't they like like four or something like that or five are they five hours yeah they were pretty close they had a nice little easy hop this year yeah but for those that are tuning in that don't know what the uh the mof summer camp trip is like this is something we started doing now two years ago so So this is the third annual event. And it really has always been restricted to like, you know,

patrons of the show and some really close friends. We've invited like the crew from Prepper Broadcast Network to come join us. But it's always been like an opportunity to get get together the show's most intimate supporters. And also the people we've been at Prepper Camp with and things like that. To get together and just cut loose for a weekend. Or a long weekend or a week and have some fun. Well, to me were the whole patreon thing i mean we're so grateful to the people that help support the show uh because without them i don't

think the show could exist uh i mean so the one thing that we've been racking our brains on is perks uh we're always constantly trying to think of perks for the Patreons and everything. So one of the perks that you and I kind of brainstormed one year was just the MOF camping trip, just to get together. For those of, I mean, we like to go to Prepper Camp, but for those, the ones that can't make it to Prepper Camp because of certain obligations or whatever, this is just another thing that we can just get together. And is it going to get as big as Prepper Camp? I don't think so. But it's one of those things where we just get together.

And honestly, we don't even, it's not even compared to Prepper Camp. Like, we don't talk. I mean, we'll talk preparedness. Like, it'll come up, obviously, because of the group of people that we're with together. But this is honestly, like, just a good vacation for the family and then just uh we just we use it to just meet everybody that helps support us and then we just do events together like i mean you know any if you don't want to do events together it's i mean i went golfing this last time i went golfing um josh and his family i mean they they you know they did

their thing a couple times you guys everybody kind of everybody kind of just did their own thing I mean we went to the caverns and uh a few of us went to the caverns a few people went hiking uh down a big really large down to a waterfall down the mountain uh and you know so it it really like you can do your own thing uh and if you want to do it in a group, you try to just, hey, if you're going to plant something, throw it out there. And if other people want to join, then cool. But, I mean, this is really just a good vacation for the family, I think. And then just, yeah, on top of that,

we get to kind of hang out with some good like-minded individuals and just have fun. Yeah, but the vibe is very much like a vacation it's not centered around an event it's not centered around classes or preparedness like prepper camp is like when we when we originally started talking about doing this like my my my big 30,000 foot vision was always like i want to do something that people will bring their spouses and kids to. Because I've always felt like, you know, the group of us that got together for Prepper Camp, like, we've become very, very good friends over the years. Over the, what, six, seven, eight years of going to Prepper Camp together.

But I felt like if we can't knit the families together, get the spouses together, get the kids together, if we can't do that, we're missing something here. And that's why this event has been intentionally done very differently from a lot of other preparedness events. It really is a big group of people who, if you weren't friends when you got out there, you're going to be friends by the end of it. But we're just going to, you know, share a drink and eat ourselves until we're swollen like ticks, and we're going to go on hikes together and just goof off. Like, it has intentionally been formatted as the zero expectations, run what you're brung, do what you want. It's a vacation.

Yeah, and that's the thing is it and there's no expectation so as far as if you want to show up and you and the family want to go do whatever honestly it's like it's one of those things where if you guys want to show up say hi maybe chill here and there all the time you know but basically have the family and go i mean it's that's what it's for uh there is there there's zero obligation to hang out with the whole group. It's just we want to meet the people who help support the show, and at the same time we want to connect like-minded individuals across the United States.

I mean, I always take this book, I take the whole page out of like Franklin Horton's Locker 9 series where the father has his daughter, Grace, he has people lined up across the United States to get her home in case something were to happen. I did a similar thing. I remember my mom and my sister, brother-in-law, and like some of my nieces and stuff like that, they went to Florida.

They drove to Florida. And I can't remember what was going on, but, I mean, I coordinated with, like, Tommy, I reached out to Franklin, I reached out to a few people and I was just like, Hey, along their route, is it okay if something were to happen? Can they stop in? And yeah. Oh yeah. You know, that's, and I made them a document saying, Hey, this is their address. This is who they are. Just tell them who I am, stuff like that. And this is the kind of things that you can, that we're trying to push is just we're just trying to build that the community now off of from texting in the signal chat uh or whatever to just

broaden it to hey can i get your number can we hang out hey i didn't know you're that close to me uh and just try to make i mean like josh and i were talking about uh you know him taking some mdfi classes or or just come over when you know next time he comes to Michigan and hit me up. I mean, it's those kind of things that it's just like you don't realize how close some people are. So if we can use this event to help kind of coordinate and get people together and basically increase your group, your MAG or whatever, I mean, that's a plus. So we're looking forward to it uh i know next year i guess you want to say it now or yeah i think i think it's pretty

official next year it's going to be in michigan yeah so if you guys anybody north uh i mean honestly if you're from if you're in the south and you want to travel by all means uh if you fly in let me know uh we can coordinate, and I'll pick you up. I'm not very far from the Grand Rapids Airport. So if you want to fly in, by all means, let me know, and I can pick you up. But, yeah, it's going to be in Michigan next year. Still looking at locations. Still looking at what everybody, you know, for places for people to do.

But, yeah, so if you couldn't make it this trip or the trip before that or whatever, if you live close to Michigan or if you, honestly, like I said, if you live far away and you want to fly in or even drive in, just coordinate with us, let us know, shoot us an email. If you're in the Signal Chat, let us know. Obviously, we're going to put this in the Signal Chat with everybody. But if you're not in the Signal Chat, let us know obviously we're going to put this in the signal chat with everybody but if you're not in the signal chat let us know if you are not in the signal chat and you're a patron and you want to be let us know or if you don't really want care to be just shoot us an email

just go to go to the mofpodcast.com and go to the contact at the very bottom and it'll send to both phil and i if you guys haven't already done that yet but let us know you're coming just so we can and go to the contact at the very bottom, and it'll send to both Phil and I, if you guys haven't already done that yet. But let us know you're coming just so we can get a good head count, and that way I can figure out spaces and stuff. Because, yeah, I'm on the hunt for locations to set up. But, yeah, so, yeah, I feel bad because Michigan, it's a long drive for everybody, but Michigan in June is nice. It's not terrible.

It's not – July, it gets muggy and everything, and right now the mosquitoes aren't terrible, knock on wood. But, no, it should be a good time. Yeah. Well, let's talk – let me kind of, like, unpack that just a little bit. Like, you know, the first two years we did this, we did this earlier in the year over like Easter break and we did it further south. And the problem we kept headbutting was like, since of the two of us, I'm the one with, you know, little hell spawn. And I was coordinating this around like, you know when easter vacation was for my family

and that doesn't line up all the way around the country so this year we made the decision to move the summer camp to the summer instead of spring and everybody's kids would be out of school hopefully there'd be less obligations we'd be competing with people be able to come out and bring their families but that now necessitates we have to go places where it's like semi-reasonable camping weather in the summer yeah and uh unfortunately y'all are never ever we're never going to do this in louisiana unless y'all come down here for like thanksgiving break it's just it's just too it's too hot in the summer. Yeah. I mean, it'll be 92 degrees at 2 in the morning. Jeez. Yeah.

No, but no, if, what was I going to say? If you're interested, let us know. Just because, I mean, we don't have an exact date yet, but it will probably be sometime in June. We just don't have an exact date yet uh but that kind of narrows it down for everybody as far as june goes but uh but yeah um if you're not a patreon member uh this is patreon only if you want to become a patreon member i mean by all means uh i don't remember the tiers but it doesn't't, it's not, I think, what, a dollar, five dollars? It starts at a dollar a month.

Yeah. And so that's the thing is we appreciate it. And this is just, like I said, a perk for everybody that helps support the show. Just, hey, we're grateful, we're thankful, great to meet you, stuff like that. And I did want to take just an ever so brief a moment like talk through like what summer camp was like this year just try to give everybody an idea of like you know kind of like roughly how we try to work this because i feel like we have some plans in the wings for next year but we really can't trot can't trot those out until we get we get things for a little bit but like for this year you know

so every year our criteria for where we host this has always been that i want to go to a place where we have multiple options for accommodations so that people can can come at their comfort level we have a couple of campers who like their comfort level is lodge or cabin. And that's cool. We have some campers who, if I told them, hey, we got a warm bed and a toilet for you, they would snicker and go set up in the parking lot, you know, because like that's just that's how they like to do things. And everybody's in the middle. So we've always said that we need everything from you know unimproved campsites all the way up to cabins that way everybody can come at their own level we do that also because like

some of us godless heathens will live like hobos for a weekend quite happily but our spouses might they want things like you know running water and toilets flipping things that no one should really have to have i I'm totally kidding. I hope my wife isn't waiting to smack me when I get out of this office. But, you know, so those are requirements for us. I don't get really hung up on what is there to do in a certain area because, to me, like, you know, we find stuff to get into. Like this time, Andrew, you were at the golf course. We find stuff to get into.

Like this time, Andrew, you were at the golf course. A bunch of us all took it upon ourselves to go on what wound up being about a four and a half mile hike through the woods, over the hills, to grandmother's house, past that, all the way down into a gorge to jump in like a lake at the bottom of a waterfall. And that sounds amazing. Like I've got got i have so many pictures on this phone gillian actually started putting them on her personal instagram yesterday and i gotta spend some time today like getting all that together and starting to get that on our social media because it it's the pictures we took out there were incredible it was fun we all got to some people got to push their what they thought their limitations were you know i'm saying like i'll admit i was huffing and puffing and sore the next day because i don't know if you can imagine this but in south in

south louisiana we don't get a lot of hills much less mountains well but also i was well i was cool i would have been cool walking four and a half miles. That's fine. But I use muscles I don't use to go up and down hills. Well, but what I was also going to say was, I mean, I don't think it was, like, extreme. But even, like, I mean, just think about the elevation change from where you're at now to, I mean, even if you're 15, you know, 2,000 feet higher, I mean, that's a slight elevation change for you. And your body has, I mean, like I said, it's not extreme.

But, you know, some people, their bodies just have to adapt to it. When you spend 360 days of a year at, you know, 20 feet sea level 1700 feet is is a thing i'm pretty sure my body was wondering what in the hell i had done to it at that moment but the hike was probably like the wildest thing we that most of the group did the whole time a lot of time was spent like you know jumping in watering holes and just driving around, seeing the parks, looking at the scenic overlooks. Honestly, we probably spend more time than anything else because, like, the one thing we did this year that Gillian and I agreed we're not doing next year is this year we kind of pinned ourselves into,

like, hey, breakfast, lunch, dinner, who wants to cook where? And because of the group we hang out with, everybody wants to contribute. So we wound up with like three meals a day planned for most of those days. And that by itself is not a problem except, you know, when you're invited to eat at somebody's table, you kind of feel obligated to come. But that then meant that we were trying to shove like fun in between breakfast and lunch and in between lunch and dinner. And quite a few times, the after-breakfast activities, you know, pushed lunch back to, like, 2, 3 p.m., which pushed dinner back even further.

So I think in the future we're going to learn from this experience and say, like, we can get together for breakfast, we can get together for dinner, and that's it. Lunch, eat MREsres you're on your own well it's just a lot i mean we had so much food and i mean i i brought home a bag of chicken from uh what what tim cooked yeah uh i mean chicken yeah the sous vide chicken that he did uh willow had um god we had i don't i i don't know how, I don't know if the burgers disappeared or not, but I know she had another six or seven that were not cooked because we had so much. We had like 30-something patties that her and I made up, plus everything, all the salads and stuff that she made.

And so, I mean, that was just our meals. And then I know Josh and his family had a ton of food left over. We had so much food. And then on top of that, though, because we didn't make this, this was like a last-minute decision, I had steaks and chicken and all kinds of stuff that I brought for myself just to cook, and I never touched it. Because there were so many groups. Yeah, because there were so many meals.

So, yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things. And then, honestly, that's another thing is if you don't want to join in on the meal, I mean, you don't have to. It's like, hey, I got some new camping gear I want to test out, and you want to test it out? Cool, more power to you. But, no, I mean, it's fun. I mean, that's the thing is it was a lot of fun.

It could have went, I know, like Gillian was even saying, like she wishes it went like maybe another day or two we there's so much to explore in that state park and so you almost felt like you just cut out you know you you i mean i'd love to go back to that state park just to visit to do it more uh and so no it was i mean mean, to beat the dead horse, it was fun. And I hope, being in Michigan, I'm hoping there's a few individuals that can make it next year, especially one down in Illinois. Not going to name drop Nick, but, you know, hopefully you can make it. But, yeah, no, I mean, it's fun.

And I do know, because I do not remember his name. Please forgive me for that. I saw we had a message from a relatively new patron from the Michigan area. I'm assuming he's from Michigan. I think he said he was from Michigan. I know he said he was going to file him. Where did you get the message at? It was on the website.

All right. I just logged into the Wix app, and I saw it. Yeah. all right i just logged into the wix app and i saw it yeah but um he was actually he was asking i mean just a couple of days before we left to go on this summer camp he was asking about where it was and i responded back and i was like uh there's unfortunately there's you know it we're we're leaving tomorrow to go yeah but i did but i did go ahead and tell them like we're talking about doing next year in michigan which should be pretty convenient for you but that's kind of the idea is that if we if we bounce this thing around every year if we move it around every year

and i'm okay with moving it kind of in the vicinity of a different patron each year even that way it's convenient for them but then they also become our kind of embedded asset in that area to say, hey, help me find state parks. Help me find stuff in that area. And they can become our little ad hoc tour guide. Because by moving it around every year, we're going to get the ability to see people that we otherwise wouldn't because we're too far away from them. Or Prepper Camp's too far away from them. But we're also going to get a chance to expose the rest of the group to different environments. Like to me, that is that's the joy I go through.

I love seeing everybody and I love meeting all these people. And I don't mind. I mean, like next year, I don't know where we're going to have the event next year. But I do know that from my front doorstep to yours is 15 hours that's not bad it's really well but again i don't know like how if we're gonna wind up we haven't drive north of you to the event we haven't we haven't picked a spot yet yeah i know but yeah that's not terrible man that's like a that's a day drive yeah i think i think what gillian and i talked about was we were probably gonna like bulldog it up to probably nashville the first day maybe push a little further and then find a place

to bed down because i would rather have a long drive the first day and the second day have a shorter drive because i know that especially if we go camping next year like i would like to we're gonna wind up having a drive and then set up a campsite so if i have to pick i'd rather like you know kill ourselves the first day with 10 hours and then the second day we have a five hour drive and then we can just hit it but we'll see i mean we got time to figure that out but i did want to go ahead and kind of preload the conversation with next year's probably going to be in Michigan. And if that sounds like a hop, skip and a jump away from you, then you should probably get in touch with us and let us know. Hey, I'm curious if you're not a patron and the show is worth a buck a month to you.

Like, we certainly appreciate it. I'm not going to lie. That goes directly to defraying the cost of running a podcast while not a multi-million dollar operation would be a drain on my finances otherwise so for those of you who feel like you know a cup spending the cost of a cup of gas station coffee with us every month thanks it made it really does help out and quite frankly it means something because it tells me that there's people out there that find some value even if it's just entertainment from the stuff we put out. But I do have an absolute mountain of pictures to go through today. I have the roundtable chat we recorded Monday,

which I am waiting to fire that up on my laptop and see how that went. I'm pretty sure I was in a drunken stupor. I was on my third margarita when we fired that up. Yeah. Oh, that could be bad. It's okay. That one's probably going to be patron only because I didn't intend for it to happen, but several of the kids joined in.

And I just, I'm not totally convinced I want to put children's likenesses on our publicly available YouTube channel. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Even though, I mean, their parents might be totally cool with it. I can make a couple phone calls and ask. I just don't know if I want to do that. So that one will probably be patron only. But we did record it in video and audio so y'all can listen to all the drunken shenanigans and the kids egging us on, by the way.

But I don't know what else to say about this. I didn't want a really long episode today. You've got work. I've got 14 different things to jump to. I haven't even finished unpacking yet. And this is my first cup of coffee since I landed back here in Louisiana. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, I got my laundry about done, and luckily, I'd like to do maybe an unpacking of the camping rig, of the truck rig, and how it went. But, I mean, this was like the first major camping trip with it.

I'm back for a week or so, and then I'll be gone. I'll be camping again for another week coming up, up in the Upper Peninsula with one of my good friends. So it'll be another. And that's actually going to be even more remote. Actually, that reminds me, I need to buy a solar panel for my Goal Zero because that, I believe, is complete roughing it. I don't think there's electricity or running water or bathrooms besides

the pond or the lake that we're going to be camping next to. But yeah, so anyway, no, it was fun. No, it was a blast. And I just want to say for the patrons and for the friends of the podcast that came out to join us, thank y'all.

Like, I could have, if it was nothing but me and andrew getting together i would i would love every end every minute of that because i andrew and i the only times we get to see each other face to face most years is prepper camp in the summer trip so like we've gotten to be such good friends over the years of podcasting together like it it it's something to me just for us to get spend time together but then when you add in you know everybody else that i don't want to name drop that comes out to this thing you know gillian gillian refers to it as it's like get it's like a family reunion and it really is

even when like you know one of our one of our patrons for the first time brought his wife and one of his daughters that hasn't come in previous years and i'm not 100 positive but i think she might have been um i think she might become a regular to this thing because like you know we did what we normally do we welcomed welcomed her in with open arms and sat her down and we just brought her in i see kristin just joined us and kristin's another one. Thank you so much for coming. I love getting a chance to see and hang out with your husband and his friend, who I'm trying not to name drop on the show. I'm making a conscious effort not to.

But it's something special when the people that we've gotten over the years say, these people are normal enough i can bring my spouse and my kids out and not be shunned for it afterwards but yeah i mean it was great definitely all right well you got anything else you want to insert here or punt this one out the door so we can no get back no it was a reality yeah right right. No, it was just a great time. It was awesome seeing everybody. I loved seeing Tommy and his family, Kristen. It's always fun seeing you guys as a rig because I base my truck off a lot of

conversations I had with Tommy. So seeing what you guys have, it's always an inspiration, for me anyway, on what do I the next what's like what i what do i need to add or what am i missing kind of thing because you guys have been doing this for so much longer than i have uh but uh it was awesome seeing you guys and the kids and uh i mean just everybody so i'm grateful for uh i'm very thankful for everybody who supports us and the opportunities that we've gotten. Yeah, and personally, I feel like between Prepper Camp and the MOF Summer Camp, I feel like we have finally accomplished something that we set out to do years and years ago.

The idea of this podcast was always to try to convince people that preparedness wasn't some weird thing that nutcases did, that it was a normal thing done by normal people for very normal reasons. Like we all just want to take care of our families and ourselves. We all just want to be able to respond to life's little emergencies. And I feel like this has helped break that stigma because I will always go back to the comment we got from Holly the first year we did this when her and her husband and her child came out. And she just remarked like very off the cuff like, wow, y'all are really normal. Because she'd gotten drug out by her husband saying, hey, it's the podcast and preppers and we're going to go hang out with them.

And she was a little reticent. And then she like oh wow y'all are really normal like you know you don't live in bunkers and eat mres and like y'all are just normal people and i'm like yeah we're normal ish we have some odd tendencies and some interesting hobbies sometimes but like you know for the most part we are normal people and i love breaking that stigma down so that we can we can my hope is that over the years of doing this maybe just maybe we convince enough enough people's like spouses and their kids and you know maybe they're then a little bit maybe they're a little bit more secure about like exposing themselves to others and saying, Hey, yeah, I'm into preparedness.

That's a normal thing. I mean, at the end of the day, this is all about trying to spread that message so that everybody's better able to take care of themselves. So the flag goes up. And on top of that, it's just a really good chance to hang out with a lot of really cool people for a weekend, have a lot of of fun which is something we always do but i'm gonna go ahead and set and send it andrew has work i have other kinds of work to do and we will talk to y'all in another week uh if you're patrons if you're not patrons i would suggest suggest you look in the show description for links to our Instagram and Facebook, because there will be content going up on those.

Lots of pictures and videos, and maybe a reel or two. If you're a patron, I would say keep an eye on Patreon. I'll have something going out there with the video and the audio from the impromptu roundtable we did out there. I'm not promising it's coherent. It was fueled by lots of margaritas, so God only knows what we got into. I don't even remember what we talked about. But y'all can have a good old time giggling at me. But MatterFacts Podcast is heading out the door.

Talk to you all another week. Next year is in Michigan. Don't miss it. You'll kick yourself in the butt if you do talk to y'all later guys bye bye Thank you. Thanks for watching.