Happy CAMPER!

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So, I’m taking my last (and most major) camping trip of the season starting this Sunday. I’ll probably come back Wednesday or Thursday depending on how good the fishing is (and how well my back holds up sleeping on an air mattress).

I’m so excited that I’m already getting my gear together and packed up!

This will be “urban” camping… I’m going to a riverfront park in a little hill-town about an hour from my house. It is not the wilderness, but it is a great place for kayaking, fishing, and swimming.

I’ll be in my trusty dome tent and I won’t be using wired electricity—the campsites have electrical service, but that feels like cheating to me. I will be using my battery-powered radio, florescent lantern, and kindle (I’m going to try to get a jump on some school reading) but I won’t be using anything with a plug.

For cooking, it’ll be charcoal or sterno only, no gas grills/camp stoves. It will take longer to get my first coffee in the morning, but that’s part of the charm of camping.

The only drawback to this trip is that since there’s a burn ban in effect, I won’t be able to build a campfire at night. I guess I’ll have to settle for my kindle reading LED and my citronella candles….

So, any other campers here?

Just got back, second one so far this year. I even did a little bit of fishing, well casting and catching weeds... Tested out some new equipment, had some fun, relaxed mostly.

I'll post pics later.

Cannot wait till we go out again. I swear we burned at least a half cord of wood at the last place, I just love free firewood. The inside of the van still smells like it's been smoked.

My boyfriend and I are hard core campers, our daily driver is a gmc Safari that we converted into a mini rv, almost all the comforts of home, just different. All off grid. We keep all of our gear in the van ready to go any time the feeling of wanderlust strikes we just drive.

We just built a shelter out of 1/2 electrical conduit, zip-ties and tarps that goes together with our 8x10 utility trailer, serves as our camp kitchen/storage area. We toss our tiny boat, electric and 2.5hp gas motors, 6.5hp mini bike, food water gas, poles, tarps camp gear in the trailer and the bedding and house stuff stays in the van. We have a propane heater meant for a huge army tent that we hook up to a 10lb bottle, it heats it up in the trailer to a balmy 30+C in minutes no matter how cold it is outside.... The trailer looks like a portable outhouse or a portable HAZMAT shower tent... whatever, it's campin!

We camp with 2 cats one of which is blind and a 15lb yorkie....

We have 3 batteries, one of which came out of a resistance spot welder (we use that as our house battery), we use solar and a tiny 350watt honda gas generator and the alternator to charge the batteries. The little honda generator we have cannot be heard when standing right ontop of it.

3 inverters, one 80watt, one 160watt and one 3000watt.

19" monitor, bluetooth/usb deck, 2 amps worth a total of 600watts of audio power, one 10" sub in my own enclosure design which doubles as the pet seat between the two front seats.

One wireless AP, one bluetooth AP, One 10.1" android tablet, One android smartphone and one very fast 1080P netbook. I can control the whole thing from the next camp site over. Waiting to pick up an LED pico projector. The phone and tablet both have large data plans.

Hot-Water-On-Demand!! !! !! Of which I have to take apart and bypass the charging circuit... Coleman made it so you cannot run their HWoD straight from mains power, you MUST charge the battery fully first... so dumb.

We have essentially a queen size bed with 4" thick foam ($428.65 JUST for the FOAM!! !!)

Plus all the usual camping stuff you accumulate over many years of doing it, the axe, the kitchen gear, the trusty old coleman dual burner thats 25+ years old, the camp fire spark riddled camping chairs, etc etc etc.

We did the tenting thing for years.... were to old for the cold, damp, setup/teardown etc. The van we are using is beat, the motor is just about done, next step is a 4x4 1ton diesel dually and a fifth. But were selling our house and the fifth will be our new house, so were holding out for one meant to be used way up north in the winter (think -45C). Selling due to hating living in the city and retiring, looking at acreages while travelling.

I love camping, I get nature, I understand it. Most of the places we camp are one step away from being bush. We don't ever do commercial camp grounds, Community or Provincial campgrounds only, otherwise we hit the bush.

Got Firewood? Yes I hauled all that by myself, and four more piles just like it in 4 days of camping. Burned. It. All.


The camp kitchen/utility trailer and the rest of the campsite.


Inside of camp kitchen/utility trailer.


What the van looks like inside sort of.

The table drops and another piece of wood goes into then another piece of foam. The sub box between the seats gets put on the passenger seat and the litter box goes in its place. Their food and water go on the floor of the drivers side footwell.

It's small but it's homey....

I Love Camping!!

*EDIT*
Just a couple more pics from the same trip.



Sorry, didn't mean to thread jack.

don't apologize! That was a great post.

You have quite a set-up.

I'd like to get an old school bus and convert it into an RV...

I enjoy it but haven't went in a few years,the last was a float trip and the first night we camped at the convergence of Little Buffalo and Big Buffalo river,it's a lovely spot,the artist Thomas Hart Benton did a great painting of this( he's my favorite). The people I were with were rather rambunctious,beer you know,so I wound up pulling the thermarest down to the rivers edge and sleeping there.They sure were sluggish the next morning but I felt really rested.I can cheat and sleep on the back porch and when the rivers running I can go to sleep listening to it.I'd love to camp in the desert,Grand Canyon maybe but somewhere private,not many other campers.I like the idea of remoteness,animals don't scare me but a campground full of rowdy strangers does.Happy Trails!

I haven't been camping in a long time. I miss it so much, though. Camping and survival skills have been aspects of my childhood.

I'd set up all the tents and make breakfast every morning for all the campers.