Guest Info

Camping list (suggestions for guests) Lawn chair (the most important thing) Bathing suit Shoes (flip flops and/or water shoes) Towel Hat Sunglasses Sunblock Camera Favorite water bottle Life vest (for children 12 & under) Music Book Magazines Cards or games Fishing poles Fishing license Tackle Water toys   If spending the night: Tent (not required) Air mattress and/or cot Sheets and/or sleeping bag Pillow Night clothes Bug spray (Off) - not always needed Flashlight Soap Shampoo Creme rinse Toothbrushes Toothpaste Deodorant Medications Hairbrush Hair clips, rubber bands Coffee cup for morning coffee Breakfasts Lunches Snacks Dinner (if you don't like what we are having) Drinks (ie: water, soda, beer, liquor) Printable list (pdf)

 

Havasu Info Here is some Havasu info for you. Some will be useful, some boring! You wont need a lot of things, because we all bring enough of some things to share with everybody. See the suggestion list of what to bring with you. Here are some notes and explanations of our Havasu experience, and what to expect. This was written for friends who are planning to spend a few nights with us. Sleeping: I would suggest bringing a tent, or cots for each person, or both. There are creepy crawling things at night, and you'll either want to be zipped up in a tent, or off the ground. Most everybody in our family has cots.... but there are a couple/few tents that get set up every year too. I bring an extra cot to put our bags on. This helps keep scorpions and rattlesnakes out of our stuff. We haven't seen scorpions in a looooong time though. When we go in July, the avg low is around 90 degrees, and we don't need to crawl into the sleeping bags at night. We usually use only a sheet for covering at that time... sometimes we even dunk the sheet in the lake and then put it over us at night to cool down enough to sleep. However, in mid-June the low is about 76/77 degrees. I don't know about you guys because you are already desert rats, but it might get cool enough to crawl into a sleeping bag. If nothing else, a sleeping bag between your body and a cot helps make the cot a little more comfortable. Art and I sleep on the boat on an air mattress. We're spoiled. Some tent sleepers bring their air mattress to sleep on too. Last year a Mom put her air mattress on top of her cot, and slept that way. Looked like it worked out! Lawn chairs: We all usually bring one per person, and pretty much live in them during the day. Most of us put our lawn chairs in the water, and a EZup over the lawn chairs. That's one reason Art and I like the low to the ground chairs. It puts us more in the water. :) Food: We've all learned to keep our food in big plastic bins with lids, to keep the raccoons, mice and birds our of our food. We also usually bring at least 2 ice chests. One for drinks and one for food. The drink chests are usually opened and closed several times a day, where the food chest might only been opened once during the day, which means the ice doesn't melt as fast in the food chest. I also prepare a lot of my food beforehand and freeze it. Which also saves on ice. For instance, I'll be making stew for everybody who is at camp on Friday night, and likes stew (y'all are included if you like beef/veggie stew). I make it ahead of time, and then freeze it in 1 gal bags (I found I have to double bag it)... then I have several 1 gal ice blocks (of stew) to help keep my food cold until Friday. We usually do ice runs twice a day. There is a store at the Black Meadow Landing campground directly across the lake from our campsite. It's like a minimart type of store. You can expect to pay mini-mart prices there. Cookware: We'll bring a propane stove that we can share with you if you want to cook something. The only time we'll use it is Friday night for dinner, and every morning for coffee. Other than that, it'll be free. I personally try to stay away from cooking at all on this trip. Besides being hot, I always figured it's my vacation too, so I do what ever I can to make everything beforehand, and have easy grab and eat foods. PB&J sandwiches go over big in our family. Flashlights: The cove campsites in the 3 dunes area where we camp all have outhouses up the hill from the site. You might want a couple flashlights for your family that you can keep in the tent with you at night... in case someone needs to go up the hill or into the kitchen area at night for a midnight snack. Walkie-talkie radios: Most of our kids are older now, and less likely to hike around the desert like they used to. When they were younger, we always made sure they had a two way radio with them, and we kept one on at camp, incase they got hurt or lost. Clothes: There won't be much need for clothes. We stay in our bathing suits all day long. We'll likely take a day trip to the London Bridge one day. Sometimes we get off the boat and go in and shop or eat lunch. Even on that day, you'll want to be in your bathing suit, or something you don't mind getting wet as it is a very long, hot ride (about 45 minutes one way), and sometimes stop on the way there, and on the way back to jump in the lake and cool off. Tshirts are very helpful to keep cool. I usually wear a long baggie tshirt or dress during all day, and take a dip in the lake with my shirt on to cool me down, and keep me cool for a while after I get out of the water. We used to sleep in our bathing suits at night, and even take a dip in the middle of the night if we needed to cool off. However, we found that if you don't get out of your wet clothes at night, some people (a lot of us) get rashes in the bathing suit areas. So you might want to bring something to sleep in (unless you are in your tent, and sleep in your birthday suits! LOL) During the day we always made our kids where hats... like fishing hats when they were young, and told them to keep their hats wet all day. That helps keep them cool. Most of us live in our flip flops. Some of us prefer watershoes. (I like flip flops). You'll want something that's ok to get wet, and/or easy to take off and put back on several times a day. Bathing: We usually brush our teeth standing on shore, spit in the a bush off to the side of camp, and rinse our toothbrushes and mouth with a little bottled water or lake water, depending how hard core camper you are! LOL. We bring soap and shampoo and bath in the lake. Because there is no way to get privacy, we wear our bathingsuits when we do this. I take a little boogie board to keep my toiletries on, out in the water because they don't all float. I am still able to find biodegradable soap at the local grocery store, but not everyone in our group is concerned with that. Suave Naturals used to be a biodegradable shampoo and cream rinse, but I don't think that was the case last time we went. So I just used our regular brand and didn't have biodegradable shampoo. There is also another option. There are showers at Cattail Cove, the campground where we launch the boat, park the cars, and pick up and drop off anybody coming or leaving our camp. We can give you a boat ride to Cattail cove, drop you off, then come back to pick you up after a bit... no one has ever chose that option without being called a wuss!! Just a warning! LOL Life vests: We have a bunch of life vests in the boat, both childrens and adults. More than we need for the number of people that we are allowed to have on the boat at once. However, they are the standard marine life vests you know, the orange thingys - which are approved by the U.S. Coast Guard. They get the job done, but not as comfortable to wear or swim in. It's up to you if you want to buy ski vests for the boys or not. The state of AZ says all children 12 and under must wear an approved life vest when in a boat. We enforce this too. I don't know how many seadoos we will have there this year.... but we'll have ours there, and we share. You are welcome to take rides on our seadoo, and we'll have plenty of adult ski vests that you can choose from to wear. Hopefully this gets you more excited than exhausted thinking about all this stuff! LOL. It should give you a pretty good idea of of what you're in for though! Let me know if you have any questions! Cindy Printable info (pdf)

2011 Havasu Trip