Top Ten Tuesday: Camping equipment that we need

As the rally rapidly approaches and I keep waking up with night sweats realising what on the "list of things to do in preparation for the rally" has been done (not much), still has to be done (lots, and growing), may have been an impossible dream and should be taken off the list entirely - I thought it was about time we actually started making these lists visible. Perhaps if they are here for everyone to see, we'll get things done? And perhaps someone with fresh eyes can tell us if we're being a little hysterical....

Top Ten Tuesday: Camping don’ts

I went on a camping trip this weekend and it reminded me of a few important things we’ll need to keep in mind whilst on the Put foot rally.

1. Don’t pack a wet tent away. Rocking-the-daisies dew has turned my once spotless mobile home into a black mouldy mess.
2. Don’t forget chairs. It works to have one chair that is superior to the others – whoever wins the day gets to have king chair and lord it over the peasants.
3. Don’t skimp on mattress – We might be bad-ass, but old bones and hard ground do not a happy camper make.
4. Location location location. Don’t camp too far from the ablutions, and don’t camp too close. A view is 20 points and shade is 10, a built-in braai is 5 and a slope is minus 5.

5. 

   Image from her

   Don’t forget to check for all the poles before you head off. You can fashion a pole out of a branch but it’s not pretty - and you’ll lose the respect of fellow campers who you might need to borrow a corkscrew from at a later stage.
6. Don’t forget a corkscrew.
7. Don’t underestimate the sun. It’s bright, and it rises earlier than you think. A well placed tree can do wonders and get you an invaluable extra hour of sleep.
8. Everybody needs good neighbours. Don’t camp too close to the ones with children, or the ones who look like they might feel the need to jol UB40 at 4am. Future neighbours beware: we fall with the latter.
9. Don’t go in there. Death Valley is not the hottest place on earth - black mould tent at midday can easily top 50 degrees. Enter at your own peril.
10. Don’t forget your sense of humour. Things are going to go wrong, your tent will blow over and your sleeping bag will be filled with sand from day 2. Mother nature will get under your fingernails and in your ears – if we wanted sterile we’d be going on a package tour instead of the put foot rally!!

Thanks Cyanide & Happiness

Top ten Tuesday: Car-tertainment

There shall be no I-spy in the car so I’ve compiled a list of ten other options to keep us entertained during the long driving days of the Put Foot Rally. 

1.  Twilight audiobooks. Yes.
2. Learning a language cd’s – there have been debates over which language, but we could very well return from the put foot rally fluent in German. Drei Gin Tonics bitte.
3. Caraoke – Karaoke’s more mobile cousin. And yes, we will be compiling a video of this for your viewing pleasure.
4. The “what would your last meal be” game – we played the 3-course version of this on a garden-route road trip and there’s definitely room to expand.
5. The top 25 road-trip compilation tape – coming soon to a Tuesday near you.
6. I have heard of something called Car Cricket. I am still unclear of the rules but I think it's probably worth learning. It's probably the only cricket I will understand. 
7. Our very own desert island discs - if we were on a desert island what item  [technological, book, CD, DVD, as many options as we can think of] would you take.



The Daily Mail online (of course).

8. I say famous persons' name. You say another famous person's name whose first name starts with the first letter of the surname of the person I just said ie.Patrick Stewart; Sarah Jessica Parker. etc. Usually a drinking game but it involves much shouting so I think we'll enjoy it even without a sippie.
9. The association game. Bizarrely entertaining when you get going.
10. Mooning? Perhaps we shall hope that this is the entertainment that comes from elsewhere.

Top Ten Tuesday - Things We Can't Survive Without

With the minidiots planning to fit everything they need for 17 days into a mini I think the pitstoppers can definitely manage in their Toyota Conquest, with space to spare, well maybe not space to spare but we can cross roof rack off the list of things to buy perhaps...

All this being said I've spent alot of time thinking about what I can't live without on the trip and what the first ten things I'm going to put in my suitcase are and I've narrowed it down to:

1) Headlamp - yes I'm vaguely frightened of the dark and if I'm going to get eaten by a lion in any late-night tent to bathroom rambles I want to at least see it happen to me. Perhaps I also need a little camera attached to the light for when they want real-life footage in my bio-pic.
2) A Kindle - apparently they have 6-8 weeks battery life and I can't survive 8 hours a day in a car without something to read. There will be another blog post (or 10) about what on earth is suitable reading material but that is definitely for another day.
3) Insect repellant - it may be winter, we may be hardy but I can't help it if my blood is sweet and I certainly don't intend to spend 2 weeks scratching at myself. My recent brush with bed bugs has once more brought the reality of insects and their bites to my coddled first world existance.
4)  Sunscreen - I don't deny I long to be nut brown but Lyn's nose peeling (not her fault, the fault of ten hours at the border - yet more content for another posting) has reminded me the perils of sunning one's self. There is of course the great fear of old-before-my-time skin (and there is no space for anti-ageing cream on this trip) and skin cancer. 'Nough said.
5) Passport - fairly obvious but important
6) Cold Hard Cash - I don't think any officials that might need a bit of palm greasing will carry a card swipe machine.
7) Address book with contact numbers written down in pen, on paper. I read recently that you know you're old when you carry a filofax (good thing I don't then) but we best have contact numbers somewhere accessible for the hugely unlikely (but then almost definitely going to happen) situation when not one of our phones is accessible (lost, stolen, not charged) and we really really need to call mum and there's somehow a payphone to hand, or perhaps a kindly stranger with a phone.
8) Headache pills - self explanatory
9) Wheel jack. We may not know anything about cars but we can change a tyre so we should at least be prepared to do that.
10) Duct tape and Swiss Army knife - homage to McGyver - he's gotten out of worse situations than we'll find ourselves in using these two items. Surely we can too, after all we're a scientist, a writer and an organising fundi. There isn't a lot we can't do!

Top Ten: Wilderness Whizzing

Back from a mini-adventure to Zimbabwe which involved many hours in a car I thought it was important to make a Top Ten 10 comment on the extremely important issue of urinating in the wild.

1) Avoid as much as is humanly possible while remembering that holding it in can lead to bladder infection.
2) Hold out till the last possible moment, even the most nervous bladder can't beat the call of nature after 6 hours, 4 cups of coffee, 5 bottles of water and 3 cokes.
3) Best to avoid drinking that much in so short a time in your normal life but particularly on long car journeys.
4) Take loo paper with you, it's bio degradable and I'm just not sure I know enough about plant life to be sure I wouldn't pick something poisonous and that would not be pleasant, to say the least. We have enough to worry about without finding a camp doctor to identify and treat stinging nettle rash on the no-no place. Is there even stinging nettle in Southern Africa....? You see what I mean about plant life knowledge.  
5) Spread your feet as wide as possible.
6) When choosing a spot make sure that you're well out of eye-shot.
7) And that you've surveyed the area thoroughly - I'd say that snake/spider bite in the no-no place is worse than stinging nettle.
8) Chose a spot with something sturdy to balance against - there isn't enough toilet paper in the world to hide your shame if you inadvertantly tumble into your own puddle. You aren't the first, and won't be the last.
9) Trajectory is key - this will depend entirely on your height, the suppleness of your knees and the sturdiness of the object you have found to lean against.
10) Buy a SheeWee - peeing standing up is no longer only a man's game. Thank heavens for bits of plastic that mirror the male anatomical form...

Chez Penny Pitstop

17 days on the road is no joke. So the team is going have to think long and hard about what home comforts need a space in our car and what we'll have to do without. (No hairdryer you say???!!!)

So while we work that out here are a few putfoot homes we wouldn't mind finding under the Christmas tree: