Category Archives: Camping

Event Strategies – Fun or Not: Part 2

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So last time we were talking about timing your arrival at an event in order to get the most out of the activities, and understanding the difference between the mindset of longer and shorter events.

At shorter events most people set up a fairly minimal camp because the attitude is “it is only for a few days”. At longer events, like Gulf Wars and Pennsic, people will take the time to set up much more elaborate camps, complete with gates, walls, showers, and other amenities. Some larger households have “teams” that come for set up and spend several days just building the infrastructure for the rest of the camp. As someone who has been a part of one of those teams, I can tell you that for the folks who come in later  it is almost like “hoteling it”. All you have to do is set up your own tent and all of the communal facilities are already in place. But none the less, whether you are with a larger household, or a small encampment, if you are camping you have this “base of operations”. A place that you can go back to on site, that has some comforts like cold water and a snack, and a comfy chair. You can decide to take a short nap, or do some crafty thing, and if you are camping with others, there is a significant chance that you will bump into a camp mate and have someone to chat with.

Hoteling it without an onsite base of operations means that you have to haul everything that you need with you at all times. If you drove to the event you can still bring a fair amount of “stuff” with you – like  chairs, a cooler, and a wagon to haul it all in. You can use your car as a storage locker, which obviously has  its issues if it is particularly hot, or if the security at the site is not great. Parking is also often “out in the north 40”, which can make those trips back to the car a serious chore.

If you fly to an event you either have to rely on the good will of friends who are at the event, or buy things that you will leave at the end of the event, or do without. As you can imagine, all of these options have issues. If you have a rental car you can still use it as a storage locker to keep spare drinks and crafty bits so that you don’t have to carry everything all of the time. But again your parking spot may be a long distance from where you want to be for activities.

Next Time: Distances and Other Challenges

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Event Strategies – Fun or Not?

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The best SCA event that I have ever attended…Very Disappointed…

Well certainly these comments must be referring to two different events! Nope!

I often follow what is going on at events that I can’t attend because I am curious and I have friends there. And the variations in response to a recent event made me think about why folks were having such a different response, and what I might be able to do to give people a clue for happier future events.

All of the people that I was “following” are the sort who usually have a good time at events. They are not whiners, and they always find fun things to do at an assortment of events. But I was seeing some wildly different responses to the same event, and tracking down the issues was not initially straight forward. And then I realized what the biggest difference was – “hoteling it” vs. camping.

Now I have to admit, unless an event is happening at a hotel, I don’t usually prefer to “hotel it”. I like to get to an event, get my camp set up, and change into garb. I then stay in garb until it is time to break down and go home. At long events like Pennsic we almost always stay in garb when we go into town. We prefer the “immersion” approach to SCA camping.

So the people that I talked to were hoteling it, because they had flown to the event. When they arrived all they had to do was change into their garb and show up at the site. And they arrived on one of the first days of the event, when everyone else was in the process of setting up their camps and getting themselves organized for an extended camping event. So there was nothing to do. There were not a lot of things on the schedule to start with, and some of them were canceled because people had not arrived yet.

BIG CLUE! Check the event schedule. If you have any doubts about there being enough going on at the beginning of the event, then come a little later. If the schedules are not being published early enough for you to be sure what is on them, come a little later. Statistically there will be more happening in the middle and near the end of an event than at the very beginning. For instance, at past Pennsic Wars ordinary people were allowed on site on Saturday. A&S classes don’t start until Tuesday. So, if your main goal is to attend A&S classes, and you can only be there for a portion of the event, come later in the event. Now this may seem obvious, but if you are accustomed to mostly four or five day events, it may not be obvious. The shorter the event the more people tend to “hit the ground running”. Classes and activities start almost instantly, because if they don’t there will not be enough time for them.

Next Time: The Long Event Mindset

Pennsic Schedule

Camping, Batteries and CPAPs

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Over the past year or so we have written several blogs about camping and dealing with electrical needs. From charging your cell phone or iPad to running a CPAP machine, we have discussed the use of various sorts of batteries and inverters, and how to figure out how much power your machine needs. Make sure that ANY system that you use for medical purposes is tested before you plan to use it camping. If you don’t have the skills to evaluate a design yourself, find a competent person to aid you. Make sure that you discuss your medical needs with your doctor.

At a recent week-long camping event I was approached by a camper. She thanked us for all of the articles…she had read them all, but now she had a new problem. The temperature. Now I know personally that I have to sleep with my current cell phone in my pocket in order to protect it from the cold. The battery in the new model is very cold sensitive, whereas the older version of the same model was barely affected by even the coldest nights (How is THIS new and improved?)

I know that some folks only camp during warm weather, but there are several events a year that I camp at which can be quite chilly. What exactly do I mean by chilly? The forties (Fahrenheit) and down as the very low 30’s. Yes, I have seen the water in the dishpan freeze overnight. It actually made me feel good – I thought I was getting soft in my old age!

I was aware of the effects of cold on batteries because I do a lot of nature photography, and when photographing outside in the snow I knew to keep my spare batteries in the inside pocket of my parka to keep them warm. If you are going to be camping outside in cold weather, you need to check your batteries ahead of time to make sure that they can take the cold. For easily transported electrical sources, generally alkaline batteries perform poorly in very cold weather, and lithium batteries are only a little better choice. According to the experts your best bet is the NiCad battery. But just as we recommended that you test your battery set-up before you used it while camping, you need to see how your batteries will respond to cold temperatures, too.

In addition to the problem of battery failure from low temperatures, the camper who stopped by to talk to me had another issue – the air from her CPAP was sooo cold that she couldn’t tolerate using it. So we talked about it for a while. The only thing that both of us could think of, that would be non-toxic, and not require additional electricity, was hand warmers. Her plan was to create a box around her air intake and put a hand warmer or two in the space to preheat the air. Larger “body warmers” were also available. For people who may not be familiar with these little camping gems, there are several types. I am aware of two different forms that do not involve any sort of combustion (we were concerned about toxic fumes). The most common form is a disposable pack, containing cellulose, iron, water, activated carbon, salt, and vermiculite. You unwrap the pack, shake it up, and it produces heat for one to ten hours. Another self-contained, and reusable form of the hand warmer uses a super-saturated salt solution, but it is usually only good for a maximum of two hours.

I have been thinking about using a small cooler with a hand warmer to keep our phones warm for a while. I would be interested in hearing about other people’s experiences with cold, batteries, and CPAP machines!

A pair of air-activated disposable hand warmer...

A pair of air-activated disposable hand warmers, US quarter to scale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)