Solar Coolers and Nighttime Nature Calls

Pamela and Tim answer some questions from a listener's email.

Transcript

00:00 - 00:04
Hello and good day. Welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

00:04 - 00:04
I'm Tim.

00:04 - 00:06
And we are from SuperGoodCamping.com.

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We're here because we're on a mission to inspire other people to get outdoors and enjoy camping

00:11 - 00:13
adventures such as we have as a family.

00:13 - 00:18
Today, we wanted to answer one of our one of our fans' questions. Shout out to Jessica.

00:18 - 00:20
Thank you so much for the email.

00:20 - 00:25
She had a couple of questions for us. 1 about solar powered coolers and the other about comfort

00:25 - 00:26
breaks in the all night.

00:26 - 00:31
So solar powered coolers, I I'm far from an expert on.

00:31 - 00:32
I knew that there were powered coolers.

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I didn't and I should have put it together because I'm a I'm a big solar fan. So, nonetheless, there are.

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There are coolers with, you you put out a a big old solar panel and and keep them charged.

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Charge a cooler.

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Basically, they run off batteries and and have a like a an air conditioning unit built into them.

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They look like a little fridge inside.

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Yeah. They do. They have so a lot of them have, like, the the wire baskets like you maybe have

00:56 - 00:59
in your, in your deep chest freezer. They're expensive, man.

00:59 - 01:04
Even even even the cheap ones, and you kinda get what you pay for by the looks of it.

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I highly recommend typing in best solar cooler into your search bar and, you can you can read

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up on that a bit because they're they're all they're not normal.

01:14 - 01:18
At least the well rated ones are not not names that I recognize.

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I didn't I didn't spot a Yeti.

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I didn't spot a a Coleman cooler. Nothing like that.

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So read read up on them.

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They're heavy, so it's not something you're probably gonna wanna take backcountry. Right?

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It'd be more of a

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This is a frontcountry. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah.

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They're expensive and heavy, and they they're large, so they they take up a lot of space.

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A lot of them have not particularly long cables.

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So if you wanna keep it in your car to be safe, if you're say you're going off your site, you

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don't wanna you don't here in Ontario, the park rules, you can't leave food unattended, or what do they call it?

01:53 - 01:56
I think they call it, attractants, animal attractants.

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So you'd have to have it locked in your car.

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But if you had a long enough cable, you could still have it being the battery being charged,

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because you could have your panels outside.

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But, apparently, a number of them have quite short cables.

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It's meant to be I don't know.

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I it feels like an oversight to me. Me.

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Design design those darn engineers.

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So you don't need ice? That's it.

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So there's yes.

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Because it we've certainly we have not done solar power coolers.

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We have done just regular ones.

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And then we have to put that block of ice or ice cubes in it, and that melts, and then all your food gets soggy.

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And so that's kind of an icing.

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Yes. Yeah. You have to you have to bag everything so that it doesn't get wet.

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And so so that's that's and I suppose you're not spending the money on ice.

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So over time, it might save you some money.

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I don't know if a $1,000 just because I

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Yeah. So that's what they look like. Yeah.

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The good ones look like around 900, a $1,000.

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Yep. Something something in that realm in the world.

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But even the even the cheap decent ones were, you know, in the 2.50, $300 range.

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So what was the other question? Oh,

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Comfort breaks in the middle of night.

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Comfort breaks in the middle of night.

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When you have young children. Yeah.

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So particularly, because in Ontario Parks, at least the rule is, as as well as not leaving your

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food unattended, you're also not allowed to leave your child unattended.

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But if you're a single parent camping with your child and nature calls in the middle of the

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night, there's you know, you I suppose you could wake the kid up and take them with you.

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That's not gonna make for a fun experience for anybody.

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Probably the right thing to do. But

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I I would be willing to say that I plan when especially when when when it well, when it was

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just Thomas and I, he was quite a bit shorter. It we

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never have a vault toilet right next to our site, but sometimes we may have it 2 sites away or 3 sites away.

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So so pretty quick jump out the tent, race off to the the washroom, right back.

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Yeah. Brandon and I had done a lot of this type of overnight trip, as Jessica described in her email.

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And similar situation where, like, I was on my own with Brandon.

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He would have been 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years old.

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And and he was a, like, out cold sleeper.

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Still is an out cold sleeper at 19.

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But I I if I had to go in the middle of the night, then I was not gonna be trying to wake him

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up and lug him with me.

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And it would be a quick, like, I could be there, do my thing, get back within, like, 2 minutes.

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So I I would I would leave him.

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Yeah. Rules are rules. I'm I'm all for following the rules.

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I would it it feels like a bit of a butt covering 101.

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I certainly wouldn't be concerned that that was the moment a bear decided that they wanted to eat a small child.

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It's it's just it's unlikely, especially if you're front country camping.

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Like, it's just the chances are so nil.

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Yeah. But but so then the alternative Jessica was asking about

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is Yep.

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You know, fashioning your own kind of toilet in your site.

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So with a bucket and, some kitty litter just to try to absorb some of the the odor.

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Yep. I would probably I would probably line the the, the bucket as well just like a bag.

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At your disposal?

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Less less mess later. And I know that there are.

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So for 5 gallon pails, you can actually buy a toilet seat that's designed to to mount on them.

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So at least you have a comfortable nighttime break.

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Not if you have the plastic bag lining it too.

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You could always tie up the top of the bag just to because the other concern was, you know,

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maybe the odor would attract some sort of animals.

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But front country camping too here at least here in Ontario.

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So maybe a different story.

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Jessica mentioned she's not here in Ontario, so there may be more bears in front country camps.

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It's always possible. We have seen bears in front country camps. They're but they're opportunistic.

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They're they've been I I don't think they're gonna come eat your bucket of pee. It's this

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And not after that.

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They're looking they're looking for the, you know, the the leg of ham that you dropped into the fireplace or whatever. That's that's the issue. So yeah.

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I honestly, the only the only concern I would have, I don't I don't really want it in the tent with me.

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You'd you'd have a privacy issue to to have it to have it outside the tent and and use it.

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I don't know how you would Oh,

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behind a tree somewhere, hopefully.

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Yeah. But we've also had some pretty pretty open campsites where there was no tree to do that. So I don't know.

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I know that they do have I've seen it on Amazon, although I think I've seen them, like, crappy Canadian Tire as well.

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A little a little sort of privacy tent.

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It's a it it almost looks like a shower stall so that you can go in and and change inside of

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it, or you could have a 5 gallon pail in there. You know?

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It's for in the middle of the night.

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I put a little LED light in there for it. You know, all cozy.

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I think, I I I don't think I could come up with something else to do.

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I would I would make a run for the vault toilet that was 2 sites away, I think.

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That one. And the point about not being right next to the vault toilet is solid too.

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You don't wanna be hearing everybody coming and going in the middle of the night.

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The doors often are on the spring, and it slams shut every time somebody comes out.

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So, anyway, that this is why we're not right next to the old We

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never we never camp right next to it.

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It's at least two away, but often no more than three away for that exact reason.

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I would highly recommend if there's a comfort station, which is the place with toilets and showers

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and sinks and stuff like that, don't don't camp near those.

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They're they're they're noisy and you just yeah.

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I just I don't know.

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It somehow, I'm not out in nature when I'm listening to all that.

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Coming and going and

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dragging and banging. Yep. Yep. That's it for me.

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That's it for us for today.

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Please do tune in again soon.

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And if you would like to reach out to us, we are on all the social media, Twitter, Instagram,

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Facebook, and we would love if you subscribe to us on YouTube.

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And if you want to talk to us, we would appreciate more emails just like Jessica's.

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We are at SuperGoodCamping.com, that's SuperGoodCamping.com, and we will talk to you again soon. Bye.

08:06 - 08:06
Bye.