Getting Ready

Back to work for 5 more weeks before "retirement".  Lots of loose ends to finish. The hardest part will be saying goodbye to the kids and the fantastic team I work with at my school.

Over the weekend we went to a Shakespeare in the Park performance. anticipating lots of mosquitoes I came prepared.  I brought a new gadget with  a battery driven repellent, 2 repellent coils and a highly recommended bug spray.  I think I gave Michael a headache. I told him and Bob, our friend that joined us, that I was doing research for The Big Trip.  We sat through a light drizzle while enjoying the ambiance.  No mosquito bites, ha, ha!

We have mapped out the BIG trip we are taking beginning August 24. We are planning for 7 weeks.  Mostly camping with motels thrown in after long drives. We are going west: Badlands, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier, and if we make it, Olympic Park in Washington.  Can we do this?  Living and cooking outside at a picnic table, using park shower rooms, packing and unpacking at each site, dealing with critters and lots of bugs?  Who does this for 7 weeks?

Actually, I found out that there are quite a few people that retire and start traveling the country and some of them are tent-campers like us.  It starts with the idea that this is the cheapest way to get to those places.  At 62, people can get a pass for $10 that gets them into National Parks for free and National Park campgrounds for half price.  So depending on the place we might spend $8-$14 a night.  Throw in some chain motels and we are good to go.

What I don't know is how our bodies will hold up.  Michael is turning 65 this month and I will be 63 in August.  We are pretty healthy but nothing works as easy as it used to.  Like a lot of people, we gained some weight and got comfortable in our lifestyle.  We each hare our go-to chair.
 
Well, that is the whole point of this - we don't know what will happen, but we want to shake things up a little bit and give it a shot.  What's the worst that can happen, we turn around and come home with some stories to tell.  On the other hand, we can see some amazing places upfront and personal.  This is a fun way to start my retirement (instead of worrying about what I am going to do with myself over the next 20 years)! Hey, if this works out we can think about camping in Florida during the winter.  Imagine your tent by the beach with the surf coming in.  We can do this!

Testing the equipment

We purchased a lot of camping materials and needed to see if we could figure out how to assemble and use all of it.  We decided to go to an easy campground, Indiana Dunes State Park, to test it out.

IDSP was entirely booked for the two nights we were camping.  First rule, check in advance.  We decided to camp in the National campgrounds down the road.  These campgrounds had no reservations and no power.

Here's Ilze in our completely packed car.  We wanted to be able to take everything we needed without resorting to a cartop carrier.

Our major purchase was Big Agnes, our tent.  The Big Agnes company makes wonderful designed tents.  We chose the 6 person for two reasons it will stand up to bad, high wind horizontal rain, weather and there's some place to go during the weather.

Years ago, before babies, we had the pleasure of camping for 4 weeks in the UP.  In August that means camping for 4 weeks in the rain!  The picture above shows the tent opened up and our damp towels drying on our folding chairs.

The two picture above are our cooking set-up.  The Coleman propane stove is, as before, efficient.  We like camp cookware that stacks and folds.  Reliant continues to make a 5 gallon folding water carrier, pictured on the left in the top photo, that has an improved handle from years ago, but it continues to be a roly poly heavy cube of water.  The damn thing always falls over at weird times with a big KLUMP.  It is resting near the folding dishpan that works very well.

The cook set is beautiful.  Unfortunately, the handles on the big pot cannot take heat when folded down.  Now imagine yourself an engineer of camping cookware, folding is a good idea YES, melting is a bad idea, Duh.

This is a picture of the front of the tent, sort of a garage or vestibule.  Two of the things that we definitely would not compromise on was sleeping and going in the middle of the night.   For men, the going part is easier because we can use a bottle.  There's a nice on from Campmore with a screw top lid that works great.  For women it is more complicated.  Ilze found a posting of this device.  It is a toilet seat that snaps on to a plastic bucket.  The bucket is lined with a 13 gallon garbage bag and a couple of scoops of kitty litter.  Very efficient.

I don't have a picture of the sleeping equipment.  We purchased two self inflating memory foam mattresses that inflate to 4 inches thick.  They are expensive and so-o luxurious. 

Finally, I wanted to pack as tight as possible.

All of my clothing will go into these two compression sacks.  I used one for this trip.  I carried 3 days of socks and underwear, 3 tee shirts, jeans, sweater, rain coat and one long sleeve shirt.  I had space left over to lash my dop kit underneath the top flap.  Amazing!  I figure when we get to the mountains, one for winter wear, the other for summer wear.