Independence Day Weekend at the Camp Site

Well, last week­end was a good one.  Not only because I cel­e­brat­ed Inde­pen­dence Day, it was also my Moth­er’s birth­day (she turned 65), but I was able to get out and do a lit­tle camp­ing too.  It was a hot and long one as well…  It was more of a main­te­nance week­end than a full on fun  games camp­ing week­end.  Since we have a camp site on pri­vate prop­er­ty, we need­ed to get up there, clean up the prop­er­ty, cut chop and haul wood back to the camp site, etc.

I real­ized some­thing I already knew.  Water is your all impor­tant friend, and in the heat, (85 — 95 degrees) cut­ting, chop­ping, haul­ing, and stack­ing wood is a hel­lu­va lot of work.  For a good four or five hours of work, I bet I burned close to 3000 calo­ries (maybe more) and prob­a­bly per­spired a good liter or two of water.  I esti­mate a liter or two because I think I drank two liters of water post work and drank at least a liter while work­ing, and was still thirsty.  What hap­pened lat­er proved that I burned a large num­ber of calo­ries.  I began to get tired.  Now any­one would be tired after four or five hours of cut­ting and stack­ing wood, how­ev­er, it felt dif­fer­ent.  Like I was drained of ener­gy.  I imme­di­ate­ly knew I had to eat some­thing.  It had been all day since I had break­fast, and now it was get­ting close to din­ner with just a lit­tle home made beef jerky in between to sat­is­fy hunger crav­ings.  With din­ner, a cou­ple of beers, more water, I was feel­ing much bet­ter and much more nor­mal.  Less the slight ache in my low­er back, knees, chest, and arms from throw­ing wood around.  Proof that going to the gym does­n’t work your entire mus­cu­lar struc­ture.

I also got to think­ing.  I only car­ry two 1.5 liter bot­tles of water in my truck as emer­gency water.  I would have gone through that in less than a day with no more water to wash or clean up.  Truth be told there is a stream behind our camp site, but if there were not, I would have had to resort to oth­er meth­ods of gath­er­ing water.  But to my point, I would have not been able to cook, clean, or drink any­thing else, and would have had to ration the water.  Hygiene is impor­tant to me when on the trail.  Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly it makes me feel refreshed and ready to take on what is ahead of me.  So I like to wash myself up a cou­ple times a day at the least while on the trail.  This got me think­ing that I should car­ry a more sub­stan­tial load of water with me whether I am dri­ving to Philadel­phia or going camp­ing for three days in the woods.

Fast for­ward to Sun­day after­noon… Camp­ing is over, my Moth­er’s Birth­day par­ty is in the after­noon and I make a quick stop at the local Wal­mart.  I pick up a few items and head over to the outdoor/camping sec­tion when I come across a water con­tain­er form Reliance Prod­ucts.  I picked it up, played with it, and decid­ed to buy it.  It is a hard plas­tic, has a hid­den built in spig­ot, and holds sev­en gal­lons of water.  I am going to fill it, add a half a tea­spoon and a few drops of Clorox bleach to help the water stay potable for about a year, and put it in the back of my SUV for emer­gency use.   Sev­en gal­lons should last me sev­en days in tem­per­ate sit­u­a­tions.  It is not a small con­tain­er, as you can see here.  I paid just under $11.00 for it, and thought it was worth the price.  How­ev­er, it seemed rugged enough for me to beat around in the back of my truck if it had stuff thrown on top of it, etc.  I chose not to go with one of the col­lapsi­ble plas­tic five gal­lon con­tain­ers because I did­n’t want to acci­den­tal­ly poke a hole in it, as it is clear­ly not as durable as the Reliance Prod­ucts sev­en gal­lon con­tain­er.

My advise going for­ward on water.  Keep at least one gal­lon per per­son in your vehi­cle.  Make sure you have some­thing portable to pour it into like a can­teen or water bot­tles that you can use as can­teens if you have to leave your car and hoof it to safe­ty.  I know it would have been a big help for me this past week­end.

Last­ly, I keep about 35 gal­lons of water stored in my apart­ment and is part of my preps.  This gives me a bonus sev­en gal­lons for a total of 42 gal­lons of water if I have to bug in or bug out.

I guess the moral of the sto­ry is don’t under esti­mate your­self in any sit­u­a­tion.

Every­thing I do is a learn­ing expe­ri­ence when it comes to being more pre­pared and more self reliant.  I just pur­chased a new Ger­ber knife (seems I am tak­ing a lik­ing to knives) in addi­tion to my Ger­ber Para Frame I, II, III’s,  Swedish Mora, Leatherman(s), and my Ka-Bar.  But more on those lat­er, as I may post a blog about all of them and what I feel their uses are for me.  And, I just picked up a small bank of non-hybrid seeds off of E‑bay.  I will show­case those in a post when they arrive as well.