It's A Good (Camp) Life

Here are a couple of observations from living out of a tent for 3 weeks.

-Shade, of course, is a major deal. We lucked out because of the each of our tent sites had partial shade available nearby, but a shade structure like a tarp or palapa is a necessity for even a short trip in sunny country.

-The tent you see in the pictures is an REI Hobitat 4. It has a lot of ceiling mesh, which helped us stay cool at night. Its just big enough to fit a Cabelas’ cot, and I slept better on the cot plus a Thermarest pad than I do in my own bed. The absence of a couple of squirmy little people may have been a factor in this as well.

-We used a Weber Q grill for the some of the fish fillets with great results. The grill cooks more like a full size grill than any portable I’ve seen due to it's heavy cast iron grill plates. It’s a little clunky to drag around but the ease of use and flavor is well worth it. And the little flip-out shelves and pushbutton ignition are just cool.

-Ice. We didn’t consider it a must-have item in the planning stages (unsure of availability), but as the trip went on we discovered how easy it was to find and how nice it was to have a bottle of cold pop at the end of the day. We went through roughly 1 bag of crushed ice a day, so going to town every couple of days just for ice is kind of annoying. If I did it again, I would bring an additional cooler just for ice block, and only open it once per day to refill the food cooler, etc. This would extend the resupply frequency to match that of gas, food, etc.

-Coffee was produced each morning in a GSI Lexan Java Press, and it was good stuff. For those not familiar with a press, you basically put coarse grounds in the bottom, pour in boiling water, let it steep for 10 minutes, then push a plunger down to filter all the grounds into the base of the unit. Out comes strong, slightly muddy coffee. Luckily, I convinced Steve that it was a very complicated process, so our morning routine consisted of me boiling water while Steve waded or swam (often in the dark) out to retrieve the boat. I know I got the better end of that deal!!