Posted on 06/16/2005 6:26:24 PM PDT by Gabz
Good evening ladies and gentlemen!!!!!
Camping seems to be a huge favorite pass time with many of the member of our little group and I would like to give the afficiandos of it a chance to expund upon its merrit (and drawbacks)
Have at it folks - please do your dangedest to convince those of us with no interest why we should give up things like hot/cold running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity for a weekend or a week or longer without any or all of them.
That VW van is exactly what I camped in while we prepared the two tents for cooking and sleeping. Had a space heater because when we arrived in B.C. it snowed the first night!
I don't know about injections, but you can do a number of things to keep them at bay. These include using DEET (most bug repellents have this as an ingredient), wearing light colored, loose fitting clothing, don't camp near shallow standing water if possible, keep your tent screen closed and only open it to the extent that you need to get something and when you're ready to enter it to sleep. Catnip is supposed to work better than DEET and has no real side effects (like DEET may have) except for a possible allergic reaction. Vitamin B1 and lavender oil are also touted as effective repellents.
Best memories: simplicity and getting to know myself on the inside. Raising my daughter without the "bells and whistles" of this world of ours. She is now a naturopath/herbalogist and is raising her two daughters with real appreciation of nature.
Worst: black flies and mosquitoes! I had a beekeepers hat, wore long sleeves/pants and used three different kinds of bug spray. I couldn't wait for the first frost to kill the little devils.
Avon has a product that works well, as does lemon oil. DEET has been accused of being very bad for the nervous system.
A lot of people swear by Skinsosoft lotion.
Some people say drinking a shot glass of vinegar a day
keeps them off.
I personally always used the WW II jungle juice that was
100% DEET but you can't hardly find it any more.
Now the best you can get is Army Surplus "ARTHROPOD" repellent. Not messy and seems to work, fairly inexpensive
too.
Try baking soda on those bites, wet it and cake a little on
each one.
What I hate worse than mozzies is CHIGGERS!!!
There is modern stuff you can spray yourself with but
tucking your pants in your socks and dusting yourself at the ankles and belt line, cuffs with powdered sulfur works
as good. you can get it at any pharmacy.
I used to have a 18' teepee and it was lots of fun too,
harder to put up but very comfortable.
black flies...I HATE 'em. Worse than mosquitoes IMO.
You can also consume sulfur tablets over the course of a few days before you go into the woods to ward off bugs. Pretty effective but has an anti-social side effect.
The best thing for CHIGGERS is a red hot needle stuck
right in the center of the bite....
Well at least that what you would put up with if it would
make the itching stop.
Usually a drop of clear nail polish on the bite will smother
the little buggers after a bit.
Don't scratch, it only irritates them and makes them frisky.
I still got 50 infected mozzie bites.
Someone mentioned to me that there is some sort of injection a person can get if they are allergic (as I seem to be) to mosquito bites. I just haven't been able to find out what it is yet.
I have very fair, Irish skin.
As to the baking soda - when I was a kid, I was always coming down with hives in the summer. My late Mam remedied the itch by making a paste of bread-soda and water (until it became the consistency of icing/cake frosting). The itch went almost immediately.
I like the outdoors, but I hate sleeping in a tent.
My kids usually wake up in the middle of the night, and I have to walk them to the bathroom. It's usually cold at night in California at the places we camp, and I can never go back to sleep. After a few days, I'm totally exhausted.
My husband wants to get a tent trailer.
I'll bet a small space heater could actually heat it up enough to take the chill off though ~ ah - the good times! lol
That looks like my kind of camping!!!
sounds like a good plan to me!
Very good advice.
What great pictures!!!!!!!!!!
That's for danged sure!!!
Now that is what I call adventurous!
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