Archive for the ‘Mystery Mondays’ Category

I wanted to show you some of my favorite designs for fishing, kayaking, geocaching, and TheOutdoorPrincess.com. All of these designs, and more, are available for you to order through my clothing shop at http://www.CafePress.com/EatStayPlay

Brand New Designs:

Fishing Junkie

Featured here on a hat, the ‘Fishing Junkie’ design is a two-tone green statement of what your favorite weekend activity is.

Geocaching Junkie

Shown in hot pink but available in 5 colors, the ‘Geocaching Junkie’ design tells the world what I already know: you’re addicted to geocaching and proud of it!

Fishing Voices

Available in blue, and shown on a water bottle, ‘The Voices Tell Me To Fish’ design explains it all!

Geocaching Voices

Have you ever heard the GPS calling to you from inside a drawer, closet or the trunk of your car? Let that geocaching voice be heard!

Long-Time Favorites

Camping Princess

One of the all-time most popular designs, here’s a crown fit for the ‘Camping Princess’.

Kayaking Princess

Since I’m The Outdoor Princess, I have a full selection of ‘Princess’ designs. Shown here on a dark brown, long-sleeve tee, the Kayaking Princess is a must-have.

Been There.

Three little lines sum up geocaching:

Been There.

Done That.

Signed The Log.

Shown in red, but also available in green, blue, or black.

Geocacher-U

Show pride in your hometown AND tell the world that you’re a geocacher! All it takes to customize this design is shoot me an email and I’ll build a graphic just for you. No obligation to buy either!

The Outdoor Princess

You can get the same design I wear to film all the videos for The Outdoor Princess Production episodes. You can be an Outdoor Princess too!

Yes, I tend to lean towards the “girly” side of designs, but I’ve tried to show a variety that would appeal to both men AND women. If you have an idea that you would like to see, just let me know!

Tee shirts make great gifts and prizes. The best news is that everything comes with a 30-day money back guarantee! Shop Now!

Seems like I am the designated “introducer” in my circle of friends. It doesn’t really mean that I’m necessarily the expert at anything, just that I’m the go-to person when somebody want to try something new. For example, my friend Greg was visiting me from Mesa this past weekend. Greg had never been kayaking (something I love) so I invited him to try it out. (It helps that since ESP Boss bought a new kayak, I can borrow his anytime I want!)

So whenever somebody wants to try kayaking, or tent camping, or geocaching, or metal detecting, I’m their go-to Princess. (Figures, since it’s in the name, right!?)

Greg was an absolute good sport about it all. From helping me load the kayaks the night before, to watching as I assembled the paddles, to letting me help him adjust his life vest. When we were unloading the kayaks from the back of my truck, he told me he was both nervous and excited. I thought that his honesty in the face of being a beginner was fantastic!

Ah, being a beginner! When was the last time you tried something new? How did it go?

Here are my tips for anytime you are sharing your “expertise” with somebody who is just trying out something you’ve done for a while:

1. Remember what it was like to be new at it.

The first time I went kayaking, I had NO idea how to paddle without slamming my elbows into the seat. Or how to keep myself mostly dry. Or how to launch. Or get out. Or even which way was “up” on the paddle!

Remember all YOUR frustrations as a beginner. Then gently share your knowledge.

2. Gently share your knowledge.

If you’re anything like me, you want to KNOW but sometimes ASKING can be embarrassing. Especially when the person you’re out with seems to have loads more experience!

When you’re “instructing” somebody in something new, try forming your instructions as suggestions. Like: I found it works better if I put one foot into the kayak and then sit down right away. That way, the newbie gets the advantage of your “been there, done that, feel in” experience without feeling like they’re being lectured.

The caveat to that, of course, is for any must-know safety tips. In that case, lecture away!

3. Don’t take it for granted that it is “easy”.

Nothing is more frustrating to me, as a beginner in Fill-In-The-Blank, than having my friend assume some level of knowledge. With many of my friends who I introduced to kayaking, they didn’t know how to snap the paddles together. Yes, it is just a compression button and the two halves of a paddle snap together, but don’t assume they know how. Just kindly demonstrate how it’s done and move on.

4. Don’t hover.

Sure, the first time I taught somebody how to use my metal detector I was absolutely panicked at letting an expensive piece of equipment out of my sight. And then I got over it.

How?

By realizing that it’s much better to damage a piece of equipment through USE rather than just letting it collect dust until I was obsolete. And frankly, your friend probably won’t hurt your equipment at all. Isn’t it better to be able to share your excitement with somebody than always going out alone?

5. Assume that they want to take care of your gear.

Sure it can be never wracking letting somebody borrow or use your gear. As on only child “share” wasn’t really part of my vocabulary growing up! But, make the assumption that your friend will take good care of your stuff. After all, they care for YOU so it’ll naturally extend to your gear.

6. Reassure them it’s okay they use your stuff.

Hand-in-hand with #5, be sure to tell your buddy that you’re glad to have them along and excited to show them what you’ve been up to.

In the case of the kayaks, I always make sure to tell my friend that the kayaks are pretty much indestructible. With my metal detector, I just show them the bits that they need to be gentle with.

7. Don’t wait to “introduce” somebody to what you like to do.

I had barely started geocaching before I started dragging my friends along. I figured I knew more than them (how to use a GPS) so I could teach them what I knew.

Same with kayaking: I had done my research and gone out once. ESP Boss saw how much fun I was having so decided to try it too. (At the time, we only owned one ‘yak so he had to buy his own.) I gladly shared the little I knew and we learned together on the rest.

8. Enjoy yourself!

Your friend is more likely to relax and enjoy herself if you’re doing the same. When I’m “introducing” somebody to kayaking, I always go to Watson Lake. Why? Because the boat launch doesn’t stress me out, the lake is gorgeous any time of year, and I know it well enough to show off my favorite rock formations and islands.

9. Let them do as much as possible.

Sometimes I’m so busy trying to show off my knowledge, I forget to let my friend participate! I had to remind myself to let Nicole hold the GPS (and not lead the way to where I knew the cache was!) Or let somebody take the lead on a hike or kayak.

There’s a fine like between giving them knowledge and not letting them learn anything on their own. Sometimes, falling in the lake IS the best way to teach somebody how NOT to get out of a kayak!

10. Ask if they’re having a good time.

It’s usually pretty obvious, but asking if your friend likes it is okay too. I try to keep an eye on facial expressions and body language as well.

When I was in college, I liked to ride the bus across town to go ice skating on Friday afternoons. Since I liked it, I had a stream of friends that I took along. Some liked it, some didn’t. But when I took my friend Elise, I made the mistake of not paying attention to HER. I was busy skating around and I didn’t realize that she was taking fall after fall. After about thirty minutes she begged me to go home. If I had been paying more attention, I would have realized that she wasn’t having a good time and cut the trip short.

11. Don’t expect everybody to love it.

Just like with Elise, I have plenty of friends that never want to go Fill-In-The-Blank with me again. It just wasn’t their cup of tea. But for every person who said “Thanks. I’d always wanted to try it and now I have. Bye!” there is somebody else who’s asked me: How do I register to find geocaches? Where should I buy a kayak? Or Can we go again?

Remember, your goal is to INTRODUCE somebody to what interests you. It’s up to them after that!

Whew! I’m returned from my camping trip last weekend to White Horse Lake Campground near Williams, Arizona. Nicole and I had a great time!

Of course, like any good trip, it wasn’t without its hiccups! ESP Boss built me an AMAZING rack that fits over the back of my truck so I could haul all the camping gear AND the two kayaks. And, of course, I didn’t get a photo of it! But, I’m hoping to get in another camping/kayaking adventure before fall so I’ll be sure to get photos then.

But, to build the rack: well, let’s just say I had planned to leave about 11 am.

Then leave by noon.

Or 1:03.

Or SOMETIME on Friday…

By 2:15 Nicole & I were FINALLY on our way.

What is fantastic about this kayak rack (aside from the fact that my dad built and it was free) is that I can slide all my gear under the kayaks! I picked up a pair of Rubbermaid Action Packer tubs.

What’s really cool about these containers is not only are they tough, hold all my gear AND keep it dry, but the way the lids latch on make them really secure. I never had to worry about the lid flying off the tub while in the back of my truck! Plus, they’re lockable!

And it was so hot it was a good thing that we had the kayaks! It was nice and cool on the water.

Here are some camping tips:

Get a crate that just holds your water container. When you’re traveling, the water jug sits inside the crate so it is less likely to get punctured. In camp, you can turn the crate and the water jug sits on top. (Plus, you can get an extra storage cubby!)

Bring a tablecloth. Picnic tables in campgrounds are very handy and very dirty! A table cloth (plastic is fine) makes camping feel more civilized.

Buy new bug spray. Yeah, I brought along the bug spray that had been hanging out in the bathroom cabinet for a year and then had spent a week riding around in my truck. It did NOTHING. The mosquitoes feasted on Nicole and I! Gross!

Keep the camera handy. When we were heading back on Sunday morning, we encountered this enormous flock of sheep bopping along in the road. Nobody would have believed it without the photo!

If you blog about camping or the outdoors, take photos of the mundane things. I’m forever writing an article thinking “I have a picture of my _________” only to realize that I didn’t have photos of a campfire, stove, or tent!

All in all, we had a great time. Just look at how GREEN everything is!

Ah camping! One thing I discovered is that each family has their own way of getting ready for camping; their own must-take lists, their own way of packing, cooking, and traveling. Since this weekend I’ll be going camping with my friend Nicole, I wanted to share some tips with you about how to plan for a trip when you’re NOT going camping with your family.

We’ll be heading out Friday morning and will be back on Sunday. Look for an article next week telling all about the trip!

1. Decide on dispersed camping or in a campground.

Nicole & I decided to go to a campground since she hasn’t camped much in Arizona. I just feel that two women probably shouldn’t camp out in the boonies by themselves. We’ll be heading to White Horse Lake Campground near Williams, AZ.

2. How to pay for things.

Camping fees, food, propane, gas: decide before you head out how you want to handle the expenses of the trip. A lot of public campgrounds ONLY take cash so make sure that somebody is in charge of bringing it!

3. The menu.

I don’t know about you, but I have my favorite camping foods: eggs & bacon, white donuts, Ritz crackers with strawberry cream cheese, ham sandwiches, shrimp on the barbeque. Most people have foods that just work for camping. And when you’re traveling with somebody who doesn’t know your favorite foods, be sure to talk about it. Nothing is worse than getting to the campsite when each person thinks the OTHER person brought dinner!

4. Who’s bringing what equipment?

Who will be in charge of the tent? The stove? Sleeping bags and pads? In the case of Nicole and I, I’ll be bringing most of the gear since hers is in storage. But be sure that whoever is in charge of bringing the tent is trustworthy!

5. Don’t forget the little stuff!

Tent?                              Check!

Stove?                            Check!

Bowls?                           Um… What bowls?

ESP Boss left on Saturday for a scouting trip with our friend Bob. ESP Boss was in charge of bringing most of the food and gear since we have it all. Of course, The Queen Mother was in charge of packing the kitchen. She was a bit dismayed when she realized that she forgot to send bowls for Albóndiga soup AND the shrimp for dinner #2!

6. Tell people where you’ll be and when you’ll be back!

Nicole & I are taking my truck. So, when I see her on Thursday (we leave on Friday) I’ll give her a paper that has the make, model, and color of my truck, the license plate number. where we’ll be going, my cell number and the contact numbers for my folks. She’ll be able to leave that at home so her mother knows the plan.

If anything were to happen (truck breaks down, run over by a charging elk, abducted by aliens, you name it!) then two families will have our plans and can come looking for us!

Readers Weigh In:

• Have you ever been camping with a friend and left something really important at home?

PS: Nicole has a website of her own: Herman & Lily’s

My two summer research interns: Keith & Gabe have been hard at work all summer. And, I’m excited to announce the first of the states they researched:

MONTANA

Montana is officially up and running on EatStayPlay.com. It has (currently) about 1,800 PAGES of information about outdoor recreation!

The research team focused primarily on adding campgrounds, picnic areas, state parks, National Parks, National Forests, and lakes where you can fish, kayak, boat, or just play in the water.

Here’s some great news for all you geocachers out there: 98% of the new attractions have GPS coordinates that link DIRECTLY to geocaching.com! So when you’re researching Crystal Lake Campground near Lewistown, you’ll be able to find out which geocaches are near by!

Most attractions also have driving maps as well.

Want to make camping reservations? Yep, you can do that as well. We included a link from EatStayPlay.com to ReserveAmerica.com

Please take a look at Montana! Let me know if there are any typos (I’m sure there’s a few) and if we’re missing anything!

If you’ve been reading my free weekly newsletter, you know I had two summer interns working on researching more states for EatStayPlay.com. Keith actually worked for me last summer and Gabe is brand new to the EatStayPlay.com team this year. During their 8 week internship they researched places to go camping and fishing in Montana and Texas as well as the State and National Parks.

And, they also turned 18!

18 is one of those milestone years so instead of just getting them a card and a gift certificate, the EatStayPlay.com “Royal” Family decided to throw these two a surprise party!

Little did the boys know, not only had I arranged for The Queen Mother and ESP Boss to come, but I’d also contacted their mom’s and siblings to arrange work schedules to come and celebrate with us.

I’ve never thrown a surprise party before (but had always wanted to) and I do have to say it was a total success. The Queen Mother whipped up a ton of grilled hotdogs on the Coleman Max and everybody chowed down. (The Queen Mother also made a to-die for birthday cake!)

(Just in case you’ve seen my stove videos, yes, the Coleman Max did a FANTASTIC job. Of course, it wasn’t windy at all!)

Let me brag a bit on my two “boy-ohs” so you can see just how fantastic it was having them work for me this summer.

• Both graduated from Chino Valley High School in 2010
• They’ve been friends for FOREVER (I think 6th grade or so)
• In one summer they’ve added well over 1,000 NEW attractions to the EatStayPlay.com database
• They are hard working, on time, polite and always on task

So, what’s up next for the EatStayPlay.com interns?

Gabe will be enlisting in the Army at the beginning of September. He’ll be taking August to visit family in Washington, do some physical training, and get in some fishing before he goes off to Basic Training.

Keith will be working for EatStayPlay.com through August. At the end of August, he’ll be moving to Flagstaff to attend Northern Arizona University. He’ll be sharing an apartment with his older brother, Nathan. (Nathan worked for EatStayPlay.com in Summer 2009.)

Congrats gentlemen! We wish you all the best of luck!

Happy Monday! I don’t know if you’re aware, but while I’ve only been writing The Outdoor Princess blog a short time, I’ve been publishing a newsletter since 2006! For today’s Mystery Monday’s article I wanted to share with you two tips from the Pitch Your Tent newsletter.

Like clothespins, bungee cords have a myriad of uses around the campsite. Here’s a tip called

The Art Of the Bungee Cord

The bungee cord is a handy tool that every type of camper can make use of. But, for this tip, I am talking about the Art of the Bungee Cord to secure drawers, doors, and other equipment in your RV.

Most RVs come standard with some mechanism to keep drawers and doors closed. They seem to work fine, as long as the RV never leaves the pavement. Have you ever come to your campsite, at the end of a long bumpy dirt road and find that your drawers and doors have opened, spilling the contents all over?

The perfect solution is the Art of the Bungee Cord! I prefer to use the bungees that are a loop with a ball on one end rather than the type with a hook at either end. Just wrap the bungee between two door handles so the doors can’t open! Make the bungee tight enough the doors (or drawers) stay closed, but not so tight as it puts strain on the handles.

Yesterday, the EatStayPlay.com “Royal” Family took a road trip near Williams, Arizona. We were looking for some places to film for The Outdoor Princess Productions when we wouldn’t be able to get by with our studio setup. (Like cooking or pitching a tent — stuff that HAS to be done in the wilderness!)

We found a few great spots but weren’t able to film because it was raining. In driving through White Horse Lake Campground and Dogtown Lake  Campground, there were about a million families out enjoying a weekend of camping.

I can live without my fridge, freezer and microwave when I’m camping, but the appliance that I miss the most is my dishwasher! Here are some tips to make cleanups easier:

7 Camp Clean-Up Tips

1. Put a pan of water on the stove or fire while you eat so that the water will be hot and ready for cleanup when you are done eating. You want the water as hot as you can stand it — it will cool down quickly and the hotter the water, the more germs it will kill.
2. Bring liquid soap for dishes. Consider finding something that is labeled as a low-water soap to make cleanup faster. Use small amounts, just enough to clean the dishes, so you don’t waste water on dish washing.
3. Whenever possible, wash dishes outside instead of in the RV. This keeps your grey water holding tank from becoming full as quickly.
4. Soak stubborn pots and pans while you’re scrubbing plates and silverware. By the time you’re done, the baked-on food should be loose. If you plan to leave it soaking, be aware that the standing water and food can attract bees, bears and other manners of beasties.
5. Three words: plastic dish tubs. You’ll want at least two: one for scrubbing, one for rinsing. The goal is to minimize water usage (and time spent doing dishes!) and to maximize the cleanliness ofthe dishes so nobody gets sick.
6. The soapy water-filled dish tub is great to wash hands in. Just dunk and rub! It’ll work even after the water gets cold.
7. Keep dish soap in a bottle with a tight fitting lid so it doesn’t leak if it tips. The toggle-button bottles (like for shampoo) aren’t recommended since they can open during changes in elevation.

Do you want more great tips like these? Sign up for my free email newsletter at EatStayPlay.com/Newsletter

You might remember that back in April, ESP Boss & I attended the Overland Expo 2010, near Tucson. While there, we met some really amazing people, not the least of them Mark & Brooke Stephens of AdventureParents.com. Mark & Brooke take their young daughter, Chloe, on just about all their outdoor adventures.

Since I’m not a parent, I asked them a few questions about their experiences. I’m really curious to see if all you parents out there have had similar experiences!

1. You go camping with a toddler! Wow! Why didn’t you & Brooke say “We’ll wait until Chloe is older before taking her camping?” What was the number 1 reason you didn’t want to wait?

Mark: When Brooke and I began dating, we enjoyed a lot of backpacking, rock climbing, trekking, back road driving, and those types of things. We had fun and accomplished some significant achievements together; particular hard or significant hikes and climbing routes especially. We made some good memories together in the outdoors, which really shaped our relationship. We believe that spending our time doing active things together, completing goals together, was good for us as individuals and as a couple. So we simply decided that we’d raise our children while showing them how much fun we can have outside, and also using an active lifestyle to teach goal setting and personal achievement. So, the number one reason? It was a lifestyle choice.

Brooke: I think Mark even bought the domain adventureparents.com when I was still pregnant with Chloe! We both knew it might be challenging camping with an infant and toddler, but we understood it can become too easy to wait for “the right time” to get out and do neat things. It’s good for our marriage, and therefore our daughter, to keep doing the things that brought us together as a couple to start.

2. If you could give one piece of advice to families that are just getting started with outdoor adventures, what would it be?

Mark: As parents, we are typically way off base about what will get our children’s attention and hold it. It’s pretty normal to think you have to bring along 4,000 lbs of toys from home and make sure the backseat DVD player is running top notch. It’s just not true. Kids find more entertainment in a fallen log and and some open space than we can fathom. St. Exupery even wrote, “Only the children are pressing their noses against the windowpanes. Only the children know what they are looking for.” He wasn’t full of crap. It’s true.

Brooke: On another side, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be comfortable while you camp. In fact, it’s far more enjoyable when you are comfortable. It doesn’t have to be like bad memories of a boy-scout backpacking trip. You can cook good food, and sleep on very comfortable bedding arrangements if you want. Mark has engineered a water tank and shower on our Frontier. Nothing makes me happier than being somewhere beautiful and exploring all day, having a great time with friends around a campfire, and then to top it all off with a shower. Added bonus: if you’re comfortable, your kids will pick up that vibe and have an enjoyable time, too!

3. What items are on your “Can’t have an adventure without _______” list?

Mark: Chloe’s purple blankey, a topo map, a camera, and a bright attitude.

Brooke: Swimsuit, s’mores fixings, headlamp, and a good mixture of music (currently we alternate between Dora and Friends, and Counting Crows)

4. What is the scariest thing about taking a toddler on your outdoor adventures?

Mark: Having to come home. She hates that part. No kidding! How many times have we been out on a little hike or bike ride and if she senses us turning around she’ll say, “We’re not going home!”

On a serious side, getting too cavalier about her safety, or oblivious to potential danger, is a constant thing we watch out for. Chloe recently fell into the coals of a dead campfire and burned the skin on her lower back. There were three adults within an arm’s reach of her and it still happened. Chloe wasn’t running or jumping or anything like that; she simply tripped over her own feet while walking and tumbled in.

Brooke: I have a fear sometimes that we are ruining all of the routines we work so hard to put in place at home. Sleeping through the night, eating well, having good playtimes inside and outside, and most recently, using the toilet like a big girl. It just seems so dangerous to mess with those things when they’re going so smoothly at home. It’s no different than every parent feels taking the kids on vacation, though. Just throw the routines out the window for a while, keep what semblance of normalcy you can, and then get back on track at home later.

5. What is the best thing about taking a toddler on your outdoor adventures?

Mark: The absolute best part? We don’t have to put our travels on hold. We get to expose her to the world, to wildlife, to plant life, to culture. We’ve taken her to Mexico a few times and she’s played with local children there, eaten the food, seen 17th Century missions, learned a few words of Spanish. Chloe knows that cacti have spikes that can hurt her, she knows what a California condor looks like and can see a picture of one and call it out. To some degree, I’m just a parent bragging about my child right now. But she’s experienced some cool things and we can see that she’s learning from them.

Brooke: I love seeing her eyes light up when we talk about getting the tent and truck ready for a road trip. And it’s like that when we’re someplace new, too, she is eager to see and play and talk about everything. I think about how many types of experiences she is getting and as a teacher, I can appreciate how that will help her future learning in school. Also, I like the slower pace we are “forced” to take on with a toddler along. We might spend a long lunch at the park, just so she can stretch and play for a while before our next drive. Having a child with us gives us a need to immerse deeper into where we are and to interact with more people along the way.

6. How do you plan your trip? What resources do you use? What steps do you take to make sure the trip is fun?

Maps! I like to look for the empty spaces on the Arizona map. Other times a trip just kind of unfolds as an attachment to something else. One time we were at home and got to talking about our dishes and how we wanted something new in the cabinets. I suggested we drive down to Nogales on the Mexican border for a day and buy some Mexican glasses. That flourished into a fun three-day weekend near Patagonia; we camped in the mountains down there, did a little biking, and made some tasty meals. Eventually, we made it to Nogales and bought those glasses.

I also like to read Arizona Highways and get specific ideas for destinations or things to do that I’ve never been to or done. Sometimes it just serves as inspiration to go find my own backcountry drive.

We just discovered EatStayPlay.com and look forward to using that as a resource as well. (We met Kim at the Overland Expo 2010.)

To maximize fun for everybody, we try to keep the driving time down, eat meals at funky small town restaurants, find hikes or geocaches to find. Chloe can’t hike much more than hour on her own two feet before she starts asking to be carried, so that’s limiting. One of the best formulas for maximum fun is to go someplace and set up camp by about 3:00 or 4:00; that gives us plenty of decompression time for exploring, relaxing, and getting dinner ready before the sun goes down.

However, I think for a trip to be really fun is that both Brooke and I have to be on board with the whole idea. If she or I really don’t want to be on the trip, it’ll contaminate the spirit of things and deteriorate everything else. So, it’s best if we all have a good attitude. Chloe just wants some open space to go play. That’s easy.

Background / About Adventureparents.com

Mark and Brooke run their website as a source of inspiration and advice for other parents who enjoy adventure travel with their children – or parents-to-be who have that understandably typical fear of being forced to trade their active lifestyle for something dull. They enjoy the outdoors with their daughter Chloe by traveling throughout Arizona, the southwestern U.S., and Mexico. www.adventureparents.com

Fireworks in Prescott, AZ 7/4/2010

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you all had a safe, fun holiday. I think that ESP Boss & I have just found a brand-new holiday tradition that I wanted to share with you.

Kayaking by LED lantern light to watch fireworks!

ESP Boss saw a flier in a local sporting goods store about renting canoes to go out on Willow Lake in Prescott, Arizona, to watch the fireworks. Since that sounded like our type of outdoor adventure, we left the barbeque a bit early to load the kayaks.

Besides the kayak, life vest, and paddle, here are some supplies that you’ll need:

• Insect repellent. We used Off! Clip On Mosquito Protection and it worked great. There were bats swooping all over munching down on the skeeters but we didn’t get a single bite!
• Coleman LED lanterns (2 for the front of the kayak, 2 for the back)
• Battery operated LED light stick (2)
• Long-sleeve tee-shirt or button-up tee (for when it gets chilly!) I was really glad I had brought mine because just before the fireworks started, a slight breeze came up and I got chilled. With it, I was able to enjoy the show and not be too cold.

Before you launch, be sure that you turn on the LED lanterns and push them as far into the bow and stern of your kayak as they’ll go. For extra glow, we had two lanterns in both the front and the back.  We had these really cool red, white, and blue, LED light sticks that were about 10 inches long and ran off 2 AA batteries. They fit perfectly under the knee pads of the kayaks for 360 degrees of glow. (We picked them up on clearance at Walgreens; when we went back to get more, the store was sold out!)

In fact, David, a new friend we met at the lake called us the red fireflies. And we had several people tell us how cool the two kayaks looked floating on the water during the fireworks!

For all you kayakers, if you’ve never kayaked in the dark, you are totally missing something. If you are going night kayaking, here are some tips for you:

1. Check your local boating regulations to find out what the rules are about night boating. Here in Arizona, you must have a bow and stern light for any boating after dark.
2. Check the batteries before you leave! Nothing is worse that getting to the lake and having a dead flashlight.
3. Bring warm clothes — just in case you get chilly.
4. Wear your life vest! In many states just having it in the boat is enough. But if you tip out in the dark, you want to be wearing that life vest not having it float away in the black!
5. Bring a headlamp so you can use it to light up that path you’ll be paddling along.

A few more photos of fireworks:

Use 73: Reflecting In The Dark

Okay, I don’t know if there are REALLY 127 uses for clothespins but it sure seems like there might be!

When ESP Boss trained dogs for Search & Rescue, he used clothes pins with surveyors tape attached to them to mark where the “victim” had walked. As the victim walked, she would clip the pins to bushes, marking the trail. That way, ESP Boss would be know more or less if the dog was following the scent trail or if he was just off in chase-the-lizard land.

Since then, these clothespins with surveying tape on them have become a must-have item for all our outdoor adventures!

Not only are they perfect for closing the bag of potato chips (use 23) or hanging out among the general debris of the truck (use 103) they are fantastic to clip on the guy wires of the tent so we don’t walk into them.

ESP Boss made his clothespins to not only have surveyors tape attached, but also reflecting tape. That way, when I’m walking near the tent in the middle of the night, not only does my flashlight beam illuminate the fluttering clothespins, the reflecting tape shows me exactly where the guy line is!

How To Make Reflecting Clothes Pins

Materials

• Clothespins
• Surveyors Tape
• Reflective Tape
• Scissors

Make sure the clothespin is clean and dry. Cut a narrow strip of reflective tape. Peel off the paper backing and firmly press the adhesive onto the clothespin. Repeat with other side.

Cut a length of surveyors tape: about 10-12 inches. The tape is pretty wide so I cut down the middle and make two strips. Holding the clothespin open with one hand, slide the tape into the pin, against the hinge. Make sure you have equal lengths on either side of the pin. Tie the tape securely around the clothespin.

You want to make sure the knot is tight, but don’t pull it too hard; the surveyors tape will stretch and break.

Add a second color of surveyors tape or 1/8″ ribbon.

You can also clip these clothespins to your backpack or clothing when you’re hiking in the dark or at dusk (use 57). It’s a great way to add reflective strips without actually sticking it to your clothing. This is especially helpful if you’re walking along a roadway!

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