Meet David Hicks

I couldn't sleep. I was shivering so much my teeth rattled.  Mike and I finally moved back-to-back to conserve warmth, but I never did drop off.  It was a long night.

It started off as a cool evening in November when Mike Starnes and I pitched our Army-surplus pup tent on the hard gaveled surface in Central Texas.  We were freshly minted Boy Scouts on our first camping trip.  It was 1958 and at fourteen years old, we felt indestructible.

Camp Wisdom was an hour's drive from our homes in South Dallas and our troop of fifteen boys and four leaders had pulled away about five in the afternoon.  Spirits were high as the small caravan wound its way south to this new adventure.  After several rounds of "The Ants Go Marching..." the lead van turned off State 67 and lead us along a guttered road to a large gate.  We fell silent as we entered a forest of low cedars (think Christmas trees) and oaks.  Another mile of dirt road and we pulled up to our own camp site.

It looked like squirrel release day as the doors flew open and fifteen varmints piled out of the vans and grabbed packs from the back.

Mike and I hiked out about fifteen yards and found a spot we liked.  The tent went up easily.  We had practiced many times in Mike's back yard so knew how to pick a level surface, in open sky, lay down the ground cloth and drive in the stakes at an angle.  But this was the first time we actually slept outside and we were in for a weekend of discoveries.

It was 6:30 pm by now and as the sun dropped below the horizon the warmth of the day went with it.  We felt the chill began to move across the landscape and decided that it was time to start our fire.  We had read the articles in Boy's Life, studied our Boy Scout manual and practiced in our back yards.  So the flames came up on schedule and we felt better.

By 9:30 pm we had eaten our snack and decided to retreat to our bedrolls for warmth.  The temperature had now dropped to about 50 degrees and our clothing was not keeping us warm.  We crawled into our bags which were hand-me-downs from older siblings.  We had slept in them before in the comfort of our living room floors at 72 degrees.

But something was wrong.  First of all, the hard graveled surface poked into our backs or sides or whatever part of our bodies were contacting the ground.  The ground cloth was a piece of plastic and didn't offer any protection from the pesky little stones under our bodies. 

But the most memorable was the cold.  Our pup tent did not come with flaps, so any warmth from our breath mixed with the cold moving through our tent. 

Our bags seemed to betray us and let the icy fingers of the night air drain the warmth from our bodies.  At midnight we got up to build a reflector behind our fire to bring in some heat.  But we knew to keep a safe distance between our tent and the fire, so it did not improve our situation at all.

Mike and I finally decided to move our bags together to fend off part of the cold and we spent the rest of the sleepless night shivering.

This was my first camping experience and it set me on a course to learn how to sleep warm in the out-of-doors.  I discovered that if I don't sleep warm, I don't sleep well and it makes the rest of my trip miserable.

Fast forward to 2008 - Denver Colorado and the Fly Fishing Retailers Trade Show.  I'm shaking hands with a man who has a great solution to my life-long quest.  His name is John Seidel.  I discover that he is a seasoned outdoorsman, a professional fishing guide and a Boy Scoutmaster with experience in snow camping. 

I'm there to research potential products for third world economic development businesses.  John has an idea about a fleece sleeping bag liner with pockets for warmers. Thus began a great friendship and the creation of the Toastyliner Sleeping Bag Liner.

Today, John continues his job as a manager at Home Depot in Utah while guiding and mentoring his scouts in his free time.  I am an accountant in Dallas and work on marketing the ToastyLiner as well as Fly Fishing Floatant (www.titelineproducts.com) that John invented.  We've been joined by Rocky George who works with corporate sales to distribute the ToastyLiner. 

We all three hope to help thousands of campers have a great experience in the outdoors beginning with a good night's sleep.  

Contact us at:

David Hicks

7101 Chase Oaks Blvd. #212

Plano, TX 75025

Toll-Free 877-862-7899

Fax - 877-527-3822

Email -  dave@toastyliner.com