Camping Critterz' Momma Critter drops by for a chat!

Molly Foss, her hubby Cole, and their wee man make up the Camping Critterz. They're a wonderful family that loves to do any & all activities together as a family. Backyard camping? - check. Backcountry camping? - check. Monster truck show? - check!
The have an absolutely fantastic website! Seriously,  if you're new-ish to camping, or you have a new-ish addition to your camping family, Molly has you covered. Gear reviews, packing lists for the youngsters, first aid considerations, you name it!
https://campingcritterz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CampingCritterz/
https://twitter.com/CampingCritterz
https://www.instagram.com/campingcritterz/
https://www.pinterest.com/campingcritterz/

Transcript

00:00 - 00:01
Hello, and good day, eh?.

00:01 - 00:04
Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

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

00:04 - 00:04
And we

00:04 - 00:09
are from supergoodcamping.com. We are here because we're on a mission to inspire other families

00:09 - 00:11
to enjoy camping adventures such as we have with our kids.

00:11 - 00:18
Today's guest is the eh? portion of an amazing camping family that has combined a total of seventy three years camping experience.

00:19 - 00:24
She built a website that's chock full of camping related information, packing eh?, best of lists

00:24 - 00:26
for for gear, beginners guides, and so much more.

00:26 - 00:31
Being a mama, she's very family oriented, and that's very obvious in the family's activities.

00:31 - 00:34
Please welcome Molly Foss from Camping Critters with a z.

00:35 - 00:36
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

00:36 - 00:39
Although you probably say with a z eh? you're from.

00:39 - 00:44
Oh, yes. No. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Camping Critters Eh?. Zed. No Zed.

00:44 - 00:45
Either way.

00:46 - 00:51
Alright. So thank you very much for coming and having a chat. Absolutely. Yeah.

00:51 - 00:58
Just just we've obviously had a a brief chat beforehand and I've spent some time on your website.

00:58 - 01:03
Just looking at your eh?, it's like, oh, these are so so us.

01:03 - 01:07
Like it like we're so aligned in all the things that we day, you know, about it being a family.

01:08 - 01:12
Well, it's kinda well, I guess we're still sort of family for us.

01:13 - 01:17
We we do front country camping, car camping together, Pamela and I.

01:17 - 01:22
Our youngest is busy doing game design and stuff like that, like he's at university.

01:22 - 01:26
But but our eldest still still jumps in a canoe and bugs out with me for a while.

01:26 - 01:29
So I guess we're still we're still family campers.

01:30 - 01:32
So tell us tell us a bit about you guys.

01:32 - 01:37
How did how I I'm not gonna ask about the math of seventy three years in mind eh?

01:37 - 01:38
I don't want to be a part

01:38 - 01:39
of it. Yeah. Exactly.

01:39 - 01:42
Because there's three of us, the math adds up faster.

01:42 - 01:45
So how day so for starters, how did you get into camping?

01:45 - 01:47
How did that start for you?

01:47 - 01:54
My mom, we were at the store one day and we're at good old Kmart and she decided there was a

01:54 - 01:58
tent on sale, Coleman standard, you know, two room tent.

01:58 - 02:00
It was actually huge at the time.

02:00 - 02:01
It still actually would be considered huge.

02:02 - 02:11
I wanna say it was on sale for, like, $99, and she decided, we're gonna buy this. We're gonna go camping. So we buy it. We get it home.

02:11 - 02:13
We, of course, immediately set it up in the yard.

02:13 - 02:21
And my dad comes home from work and looks and he goes, whose tent is that? It's our tent. We're going camping. Who's going camping?

02:22 - 02:25
So it was a bit to get my dad convinced to go.

02:26 - 02:32
We did many different iterations of sleeping arrangements in the tent, which was, quite the

02:32 - 02:37
eh?, being complete novices at this, not really knowing many people who went.

02:37 - 02:42
I think the first time we went out, I don't remember what my parents slept on, but my sister

02:42 - 02:48
and I slept on pool floaties, so they were not made for sleeping on. They were very slippery.

02:48 - 02:54
And with the slippery sleeping bag, it was kind of like a rodeo all night trying to stay on it.

02:55 - 03:01
We definitely had some misadventures with, not realizing when you have an awning on your tent.

03:01 - 03:03
My mom thought it'd be a genius idea. She's a seamstress.

03:04 - 03:05
She made an awning for the tent.

03:05 - 03:09
It seemed like a great plan until we didn't realize that when you go to bed, you have to tilt

03:09 - 03:12
one side of the awning if it's gonna rain.

03:12 - 03:16
And so the awning filled up with water and pulled the whole tent forward.

03:17 - 03:19
And so we're sleeping at an angle.

03:19 - 03:20
We wake up, and I go out first to

03:20 - 03:21
try and get outside, and my dad almost, like, runs into me. He's like, why aren't

03:21 - 03:21
you going out of the tent?

03:21 - 03:25
I was like, eh?, like, runs into me.

03:25 - 03:26
He's like, why aren't you going out of the tent?

03:26 - 03:30
I was like, well, the door of the eh? is in the mud on the ground.

03:30 - 03:31
I don't know how to get out.

03:32 - 03:39
So, it was it was quite fun, going camping, figuring it out, going from the pool floaties to

03:39 - 03:43
air mattresses to cots to figuring it all out and what was the most comfortable.

03:43 - 03:49
And eh?, eventually, my parents settled into a pop up camper, which I thought was amazing.

03:49 - 03:54
And we did that for quite a while up and down the North Shore Of Minnesota along Lake Superior

03:54 - 03:59
is really one of the most favorite places that we went camping.

03:59 - 04:04
We also used it as, like, instead of staying on a at a motel on a road trip, just, you know,

04:04 - 04:06
throw the tent in the the car and why not?

04:06 - 04:10
It's much cheaper and makes it more of an exciting trip to tent on the way there.

04:10 - 04:17
Then when I married my husband, he was an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts, and so camping was

04:17 - 04:20
something he'd been doing since he was little as well.

04:20 - 04:23
So, we eh?, early on in our marriage, went camping.

04:23 - 04:29
And then when our son was born, we knew it was something that we weren't gonna stop doing because

04:29 - 04:32
a lot of people would ask me, like, how do you go camping with your kid?

04:32 - 04:35
And I'm like, well, babies are quite portable.

04:35 - 04:38
You just pack up half of everything you own and you throw them in the car and you go.

04:38 - 04:40
Pack them under your arm. Eh? you go.

04:40 - 04:43
It's just like going anywhere else with a child.

04:43 - 04:47
You just you do have to pack up half the house, it feels like, when they're very young.

04:47 - 04:52
But, eh?, so it was kind of that questioning that I would get from friends and coworkers of

04:52 - 04:53
how do you do it, how do you do it?

04:53 - 04:59
And it seemed very obvious to me that I realized maybe I did have information other people didn't

04:59 - 05:06
and, or at least maybe bravery to go and figure out on the fly, you know, make the mistakes,

05:06 - 05:08
figure it out as you go along.

05:08 - 05:15
So, in October of twenty twenty, it seemed to me camping was going to be the next kind of popular vacation.

05:15 - 05:19
I was sensing it was going to get more popular, being outside, doing things like that.

05:19 - 05:25
So I decided to start the website to help other people who maybe didn't have the confidence

05:25 - 05:30
to go and make the mistakes, to tell them more about the things we've done, the mistakes we've

05:30 - 05:35
made, to help them learn and be a little ahead when they go and make their own different mistakes

05:35 - 05:39
for camping and just try and help more people get out there with their families because I I

05:39 - 05:43
love it, my family loves it and I want I want that for more people.

05:43 - 05:46
And and everybody's gonna make mistakes.

05:46 - 05:52
Hopefully hopefully, they're not big ones or at least bad ones, bad outcomes in in that sense

05:52 - 05:53
and everybody's got it everybody has to learn.

05:53 - 05:59
So so I I that's one of the wonderful I mean, that's kinda why we have our podcast but that's

05:59 - 06:04
one of of the wonderful things I thought about your your website was it's it's pretty straightforward

06:04 - 06:12
to read the information like like it's you it's it's very relatable to to put into action to

06:12 - 06:15
go to, you know, to to the little guy and go Yep.

06:15 - 06:20
And and put him in a tent and and, oh, here's some things to remember because when you get out

06:20 - 06:26
there and good, shoot, I forgot the eh?, insert whatever here. Yeah. That's that's painful.

06:26 - 06:29
So great lists, all all that sort of jazz.

06:31 - 06:36
How long you've been working on the website to to do all those amazing amazing articles, amazing

06:36 - 06:39
lists, all that my good. There's so much stuff.

06:40 - 06:44
Yeah. So my day job, I'm a nurse.

06:44 - 06:49
And over the last three years, I've worked anywhere from three to four shifts a week.

06:49 - 06:52
I think I've been eight hour shifts the whole time.

06:52 - 06:55
I used to do twelve hour shifts a while ago.

06:55 - 07:01
So, really, all of my days off during the week while my son's at school, I am working on the

07:01 - 07:10
website and researching things, writing articles, that kind of stuff, making eh?, doing the graphics. It's it's really yeah. It's all me.

07:10 - 07:16
So it's kinda every chance I get to have a good chunk of time to sit down and chip away at it to continue.

07:16 - 07:21
And I get good feedback from people that they've read something and it helped them or somebody

07:21 - 07:25
took their son on a camping trip for the first time and used one of my packing lists and gave

07:25 - 07:29
me a shout out and that really it makes it all worth it. It's awesome.

07:29 - 07:34
The feed feedbacks feedbacks the best because then because otherwise you're just for for us

07:34 - 07:37
shouting in the into the ether for you, writing into the ether, right?

07:37 - 07:40
Like you don't, it's like, oh, that's, I think that's great.

07:40 - 07:46
That's that's my experience, that's the thing and then crickets. Yep. Come on, man. Cool.

07:46 - 07:52
So, where do you guys like, how much how much time do you spend camping in a in a given year?

07:52 - 07:59
Obviously, that's, you know, with the with the a youngster that's still in grade school, but

07:59 - 08:02
but was itty bitty not that long ago. Yep.

08:02 - 08:04
It obviously, there's a bit of a eh?.

08:04 - 08:08
There's a bit of a change in there because you're busy with with life things. Yeah.

08:09 - 08:11
How how do you how much time do you spend outside?

08:11 - 08:16
I would say we we spend a lot of time outside in general, especially during the summer, but,

08:16 - 08:19
we live in Minnesota even during the winter.

08:19 - 08:26
You know, we have the gear and I've been told and kind of have adopted the phrase, there's no bad weather. There's just bad gear.

08:26 - 08:31
Because living in Minnesota, if you just don't go outside when the weather's not perfect, you

08:31 - 08:32
don't go outside a lot of the year.

08:32 - 08:37
So you gotta adapt to the snow or the rain or what have you.

08:37 - 08:42
And so we do try and spend a lot of time outside, riding bikes.

08:42 - 08:45
We have a nature preserve not far from us. We walk down.

08:45 - 08:47
We actually live not far from the Mississippi River.

08:47 - 08:52
We can walk eh? there, and do that in an evening and come back. So that's awesome.

08:52 - 09:00
I would say we only get camping probably two to three weekends a year in the middle of the summer eh? it's nice out.

09:00 - 09:07
I'm hoping as my son gets older that maybe we'll have more opportunities to go as he is able

09:07 - 09:11
to tolerate the longer car rides and want to go more places.

09:11 - 09:19
So it's exciting as he gets older that we are envisioning cooler and more adventurous trips with him.

09:19 - 09:27
And what kind of places like like regular campgrounds, what was the term, diverse diverse camping? Is that what those

09:28 - 09:30
State parks, like where would you go?

09:30 - 09:32
Yeah. We do a lot of state park camping.

09:33 - 09:41
I find that they're always well maintained, and usually they have awesome walking trails and

09:41 - 09:44
hikes and things to do in eh?, so that's a lot of fun.

09:45 - 09:50
Some of the private owned campgrounds are more of a I don't wanna say party scene, but, like,

09:50 - 09:55
people are just there to stay in their campground and do that kind of you know, they need a

09:55 - 10:00
pool and an arcade and all this stuff, and we wanna go off and go on a fun hike or do a thing

10:00 - 10:04
outside and not turn our campground into a party kind of scene.

10:04 - 10:06
So we do like the state parks.

10:06 - 10:12
Just this last summer, we took our son to the Boundary Waters, which is all the lakes in between

10:13 - 10:15
Minnesota and Canada, which is gorgeous.

10:15 - 10:17
It was my first time being there.

10:17 - 10:19
My husband had been there several times with scouts.

10:19 - 10:21
But so that was canoe camping.

10:22 - 10:25
Canoed in, two to three lakes.

10:25 - 10:29
One of the lakes changed names in the middle of the lake, so it was kinda weird of what you

10:29 - 10:34
would actually wanna call a lake, but only two portages to get to our campsite.

10:34 - 10:37
So that was definitely a new way of camping.

10:37 - 10:40
My husband and I have also done, backpack camping.

10:41 - 10:49
We hiked the longest one we did was 12 miles in Havasu, Arizona to Havasu By Falls, which we

10:49 - 10:53
did in the middle of summer, and it was absolutely crazy and hot.

10:53 - 10:57
But, if you've ever seen pictures of the waterfalls, they are amazing.

10:57 - 11:01
Like, we just don't even have water that color here in Minnesota.

11:01 - 11:03
So it's it was awesome to see.

11:03 - 11:07
It's not something I, ever probably need to do again.

11:07 - 11:14
It was quite, quite a hike, quite, long and hot, as you would imagine. It's Arizona.

11:14 - 11:16
But, so we've done a little of that.

11:16 - 11:23
I would like to do maybe, the Superior Hiking Trail with our son, a little more low stakes kind

11:23 - 11:28
of backpack camping eh?, you know, if something goes wrong, you're not terribly far from civilization.

11:28 - 11:35
Once he gets a little older and is able to carry a couple more things in his backpack, so that's kinda the goal.

11:35 - 11:36
I couldn't do the Arizona thing.

11:36 - 11:39
I would just I would melt before, like, about four steps in.

11:39 - 11:45
I'd just be a puddle on the floor. That'd be it. I'm done. That would be, yeah. Yeah. No fun. Cool. Alright.

11:45 - 11:47
And are you I can

11:47 - 11:48
mute a minute there, Melissa.

11:48 - 11:49
Yeah. It was eh?? Okay. Okay.

11:49 - 11:52
It was really hot and it's definitely a different camping experience.

11:52 - 11:57
There was, no campfires allowed, so I was like, well, what are we gonna do in the evening?

11:57 - 12:00
Well, it was so hot, you wouldn't have wanted to light a campfire anyway.

12:01 - 12:07
But on the hike out, you definitely have to start at dawn because you want to be out before

12:07 - 12:08
noon, if at at all possible.

12:09 - 12:14
It was eh?, like, we didn't even put the rainfly on the tent because he wanted as much ventilation

12:14 - 12:18
as possible, and it really the chance of rain was minuscule while we were there.

12:18 - 12:27
So, from camping in Minnesota, eh? it gets down pretty cold and we're used to insulating sleeping

12:27 - 12:31
pads, insulating the bottom of the tent, insulating wearing a hat to bed, doing the whole thing.

12:31 - 12:36
And then here we are in Eh?, like, I don't even know this world of, like, the

12:36 - 12:36
there's a breeze rolling through the campsite and you expect it to feel refreshing, but it

12:36 - 12:40
kind of feels like you just breeze rolling through the campsite and you expect it to feel refreshing,

12:40 - 12:43
but it kind of feels like you just opened the oven to check on cookies.

12:43 - 12:47
It is just so extremely hot. In a convection oven.

12:47 - 12:48
We did it. I can check

12:48 - 12:53
that one off the list and we we survived without eh?, which it it was close.

12:54 - 12:57
That's pretty yeah. That'd be pretty pretty polar opposites.

12:57 - 12:58
That's weird.

12:58 - 12:59
To to to do that.

12:59 - 13:07
So and when so when you're talking about, being being cold, like, do you actually get out and do winter camping?

13:07 - 13:11
I haven't yet. My son has been talking about wanting to try it this year.

13:11 - 13:17
So I told him, maybe in the backyard, we would see if we could set up the tent.

13:17 - 13:24
And, we have all the gear for it that, conceivably, we should be able to stay warm and survive,

13:24 - 13:29
but very low stakes being, you know, ten, twenty steps out the back door if it all goes wrong

13:29 - 13:32
and we decide not to follow through with it.

13:32 - 13:35
But I definitely think we're gonna we're gonna try it at least.

13:35 - 13:41
We've definitely woken up, to frost on the tent before eh? times.

13:41 - 13:45
I will say I I wear contacts when camping, and I wear contacts all the time.

13:45 - 13:48
Sometimes I wear glasses, but I like wearing my sunglasses outside.

13:48 - 13:50
So I definitely am wearing them while I'm camping.

13:50 - 13:56
And if you put in contact lenses that are just above freezing into your eyeballs first thing

13:56 - 14:00
in the morning, that will wake you up better than any coffee or anything else you could ever have.

14:03 - 14:04
Note to self. Yeah.

14:05 - 14:07
That you're just awake whether you want to be or not.

14:08 - 14:16
And do you so also day you anticipate as the the Wee Eh? gets older, you're going to be able

14:16 - 14:22
to do not not not even just farther trips because the the the joy of being stuck in a car for

14:22 - 14:29
four hours or eh?, but but potentially longer duration trips instead of just like, you know, weekend type trips?

14:29 - 14:34
Like, do you are you planning towards doing, like, week trips or or whatever?

14:34 - 14:40
Yeah. I think that definitely good be the goal, especially I think the Boundary Waters would

14:40 - 14:45
be a perfect place to do that because once you kinda get into your campsite with the canoes

14:45 - 14:51
and everything and set it up, it's a great place to stay and do your base camp and then do little

14:51 - 14:52
day trips with the canoe.

14:52 - 14:57
And, you know, if we on a certain day trip, if we'd taken a left instead of a right, we could

14:57 - 15:03
have ended up in Canada and had a a a good time paddling over there and all that kind of stuff.

15:03 - 15:09
So it definitely is something I wanna go back and do and explore more, and it's kinda it's it's

15:09 - 15:10
quite a drive from here.

15:10 - 15:15
And, again, with getting all the stuff in the canoe, getting it to the campsite and eh?, once

15:15 - 15:21
you set it up, it's like, I kinda I kinda wanna stay here for several days now that we've accomplished all this.

15:21 - 15:24
So I'm looking forward to doing the longer trips as well.

15:24 - 15:27
Well, it's I mean, I I like I'll take any camping. I don't care.

15:27 - 15:33
I'll I'll do it all, I'm I'm good with it, but it's that's that's my favorite trip.

15:33 - 15:38
Actually, it ends up being two or potentially three trips, but that's my favorite is jump in

15:38 - 15:40
a canoe, go far away from people.

15:40 - 15:42
Yep. And stay there.

15:42 - 15:44
And stay stay eh?. Yes.

15:45 - 15:49
And eh? paddle some more to a different site and paddle some more to a different site Yep.

15:49 - 15:52
Because I'm a glutton for punishment. Alright.

15:52 - 16:03
So since you have obviously far too much energy, and a bit of free time, what what do you like

16:03 - 16:11
about what you're what you're doing with with with the articles, with the the the lists, with

16:12 - 16:13
the the guides, all the things.

16:13 - 16:17
Like, what's what's your favorite part of doing that stuff?

16:17 - 16:23
Honestly, like you said, it's the feedback that other people have used the information I have

16:23 - 16:26
and successfully accomplished something with their family.

16:26 - 16:30
That is, it's really awesome to hear about.

16:30 - 16:36
It's really great to know that, you know, the information, you know, sometimes very hard won

16:36 - 16:42
information that I have about the do's eh?, especially with kids, is helping other people not

16:42 - 16:45
make my mistakes and have the confidence to get out there.

16:46 - 16:56
It also is fun that, it's kind of forced me to, kind of take maybe more adventures with my son

16:56 - 17:03
to have more material and more experiences and see, like, day, will this work or is this product actually worth it?

17:03 - 17:10
And so we get it and we try it and that kind of little eh? adventures that my my son has even,

17:10 - 17:13
started saying, Day, mom, take a picture of me for the website.

17:14 - 17:21
So, you know, I don't make him pose for me too often for that kind of thing because I do like

17:21 - 17:26
living in the moment and making it about the hike and not about the pictures we're gonna get on the day.

17:26 - 17:31
But it is, funny that he tries to be helpful and, here, take a picture of me for the people

17:31 - 17:33
on the website so they can know how to do this.

17:33 - 17:39
And it is cool that we're, you know, passing that love of camping and the spreading of information on to him.

17:39 - 17:43
So, yeah, kind of a little bit of everything.

17:43 - 17:49
It's nice to have all of my knowledge in one spot and also to know that it's helping other people

17:49 - 17:54
and helping my son and having everybody get out there and have a better time at it.

17:54 - 17:58
And is there a most popular bit of content that you've noticed or, like, people comment the

17:58 - 18:00
most about, oh, this checklist was just about us?

18:00 - 18:04
The the infant packing list has been pretty popular.

18:04 - 18:11
Also, one recently about how to spray, like, permethrin spray your clothes for ticks has been pretty popular.

18:11 - 18:19
We have a lot of ticks in Minnesota eh? we are and neighboring Wisconsin, pretty popular for

18:19 - 18:23
ticks and Lyme disease is prevalent around here.

18:23 - 18:25
So that one has been pretty popular.

18:25 - 18:32
Also, like, inflatable air mattress alternatives because people and I I mean, first night I

18:32 - 18:36
spent in a tent was on a pool floaty, but the, you know, $20

18:37 - 18:37
blow

18:37 - 18:41
up mattress that everybody seems to get at the store is a popular choice for going camping,

18:41 - 18:44
and I've slept on them many, many, many times.

18:44 - 18:49
But once the eh? day slightly, sleeping on one of those mattresses, like sleeping on an ice

18:49 - 18:51
cream sandwich, it's not great.

18:52 - 18:55
So I wrote one about air mattress alternatives.

18:55 - 18:56
It's kinda got some traction.

18:57 - 19:02
My favorite is insulated air mattresses that I didn't know were a thing for quite a while.

19:02 - 19:07
And then we found out by accident on a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana.

19:08 - 19:13
There were six of us and the first night, it was August, we thought it was going to be hot and

19:13 - 19:18
it wasn't And we should have been more prepared for that, but we were sleeping on a standard,

19:19 - 19:26
you know, Queen Eh? mattress that you get from Walmart or eh?, and it was absolutely freezing that night.

19:26 - 19:30
And we all woke up the next morning and all of us were complaining about how cold it was eh?

19:30 - 19:32
for one of the six of us.

19:32 - 19:36
And I said, day, what is it you were doing that the rest of us weren't?

19:36 - 19:42
And he told us about the Eh? insulated air mattresses and I I bought one within a week of us getting home.

19:42 - 19:49
It was a game changer of being insulated from the ground, but still on some kind of inflatable mat.

19:49 - 19:55
So that article is definitely getting popular because people wanna go camping.

19:55 - 20:00
Those air mattresses always deflate in the middle of the night, and they're, you know, people

20:00 - 20:03
like me who don't want to sleep on the ground.

20:04 - 20:07
So they're like, I can't get up from a deflated air mattress.

20:08 - 20:09
My back won't do it.

20:09 - 20:10
My knees won't do it.

20:10 - 20:11
What's a good alternative for this?

20:11 - 20:14
So, it's a pretty popular one.

20:14 - 20:15
You're too young for my back won't do it.

20:15 - 20:17
My knees won't do it.

20:17 - 20:20
Yeah. Leave it leave it to us. Elder day.

20:20 - 20:23
It sneaks up on you though. People. No. No.

20:23 - 20:26
I've been crippled for as long as I can eh?, so cool.

20:26 - 20:31
I just had a thought eh? was I gonna go with this. Shoot. Gear reviews.

20:31 - 20:34
So, I it's one of the things I didn't it's eh?

20:35 - 20:39
I was too busy reading. There's so much. There's so much eh?. My jeepers.

20:42 - 20:44
What what's your what's your process?

20:44 - 20:48
A, do I make the assumption you're not sponsored?

20:48 - 20:51
People don't just throw free gear at you to go and review or decide the thing?

20:52 - 20:53
It is a thing, actually.

20:53 - 20:59
I have been lucky enough to been contacted by a couple companies out of the blue.

21:00 - 21:06
And they've asked me to review their stuff and given me a sample to review.

21:06 - 21:11
And others, I have contacted them and had the same relationship with.

21:11 - 21:17
So some of my posts are with sponsored gear, and I eh?, note that when that's happening.

21:17 - 21:23
Other things, like, I wrote a big write up about the the baby carrier backpack that we used

21:23 - 21:29
a lot when my son was little, the Osprey backpack, and, definitely did not get that one for free.

21:29 - 21:32
Just loved it so much that it was our go to.

21:33 - 21:37
We got it actually used, which I think is the genius way to get those things because they are pricey.

21:37 - 21:40
But, carried my son everywhere in it.

21:40 - 21:43
I mowed the lawn one day with him in it.

21:43 - 21:47
I definitely shoveled the driveway more than once with him in it, walked to the coffee shop.

21:47 - 21:51
He slept on many, many hiking trips in that backpack. Loved it.

21:52 - 21:55
So it's a it's a bit of both that it was interesting

21:55 - 21:55
to find out once I

21:55 - 21:57
started the website that, eh?

22:04 - 22:09
review. And other people, you know, don't always answer or don't have that kind of relationship

22:09 - 22:13
with, people who are content creators, but, have that kind of relationship with, people who are content creators.

22:13 - 22:18
But it's it's kinda cool eh? once in a while, you know, getting something in the mail and, you

22:18 - 22:22
know, telling my husband, like, oh, that's that's for me. I'm an influencer now.

22:22 - 22:25
So it's kind of funny.

22:25 - 22:30
But it is it is cool to see different gear that I wouldn't have necessarily known about.

22:30 - 22:37
One of the first things that we got involved with that I was contacted by the makers of, a camping baby monitor.

22:37 - 22:37
And I had an article that was quite popular for a while about,

22:37 - 22:39
battery operated baby monitors. And day

22:44 - 22:49
monitors eh? you want to go camping and you're canoeing or, you know, out in the wilderness,

22:49 - 22:52
whatever you're doing, not somewhere with power.

22:53 - 22:55
Even car camping don't always have plugins.

22:57 - 23:00
And you wanna, you know, kind of sit at the campfire, maybe in the neighboring site because

23:00 - 23:02
you got friends with you or something.

23:02 - 23:06
But you don't wanna leave the kids absolutely alone in the tent. What do you do?

23:06 - 23:11
So I wrote an article about all the different ways you could use a walkie talkie or use a set

23:11 - 23:17
of cell phones or use this, use that or, you know, get this one weird baby monitor that looked

23:17 - 23:21
a little good, but it definitely worked and was battery operated.

23:22 - 23:25
And I wrote this whole article eh?

23:30 - 23:37
operated day it's a battery operated baby monitor and it's made for camping. It's splash proof. It's drop proof. It's amazing.

23:38 - 23:42
And so he, sent me one to review, and that's up on my website.

23:42 - 23:46
His website is roar.com, like r0ar.

23:46 - 23:51
And they definitely have awesome baby monitors that are super cool.

23:51 - 23:53
And I wish I had one when my son was little.

23:53 - 23:55
I thought that one was hilarious.

23:55 - 23:59
Like, I'm writing about all the ways to work around this because that's what I can do is think

23:59 - 24:01
through a problem and find other solutions.

24:01 - 24:04
He sat down and said, I bet I could make one.

24:05 - 24:10
So eh? cool to see different people solving the same problem from different angles.

24:10 - 24:13
It is. That's awesome. What, I'm I'm sorry.

24:13 - 24:20
I'm picturing when when ours were shorter too that we had we had walkies but we I bought the

24:20 - 24:25
stupid expensive ones that had box settings on them so that that's only when they were, you

24:25 - 24:26
know, talking and stuff like

24:26 - 24:26
that. Yep.

24:28 - 24:30
And, baby's not gonna push the button and go, hey.

24:31 - 24:34
Baby's not gonna do that. Maybe gum it. No, it's slobbering.

24:34 - 24:36
Don't don't slobber on it. Just short out.

24:36 - 24:39
What, what other gear that that have you done?

24:40 - 24:45
I've gotten a set of thermicel mosquito repellent.

24:46 - 24:52
One is just a little mosquito repeller, and one is a mosquito repellent, lantern. What else?

24:52 - 24:54
I'm looking at all my stuff.

24:55 - 24:58
I got a ice mule cooler. It's a backpack cooler.

24:59 - 25:04
So it would be actually perfect for taking up to the Boundary Waters and things like that.

25:04 - 25:09
I have not written up the review and put it on the site eh?, but it's a really awesome soft

25:09 - 25:15
sided backpack cooler that you can, you know, load up and go, I would think, into the Boundary Waters.

25:15 - 25:20
A lot of people I know take some kind of frozen steaks or meat or something and cook it up the

25:20 - 25:21
first night as it thaws.

25:21 - 25:27
And then they can use the cooler for a couple other things if you want to keep something mildly cold.

25:27 - 25:32
But that was definitely, something cool that I got.

25:32 - 25:36
Gotten some samples of a bone broth powder.

25:36 - 25:39
That's one of the cool things that I learned.

25:39 - 25:41
It was interesting being in the Boundary Waters.

25:41 - 25:47
We went with some friends that they have been there, they said easily 40 times, 40 different

25:47 - 25:49
trips to the Boundary Waters.

25:49 - 25:57
The year we went this last year, I think we were their fourth trip of the year to go to the Bounder Waters.

25:57 - 26:01
So I'm like, Oh my gosh, these people know absolutely everything about camping.

26:01 - 26:06
I'm so excited to go with them and learn from them about how things are done.

26:06 - 26:13
And we found out that we learned a lot of stuff from them and they learned a lot of stuff from us.

26:13 - 26:18
One of my favorite tricks is eh? you're going out and using those dehydrated backpacking meals,

26:19 - 26:25
the way to get more protein in them is you buy bone broth powder and you add that to the meal.

26:25 - 26:30
And then as you're eating it, it's chicken broth powder, so you can add it to any of, like, the chicken.

26:30 - 26:31
A lot of them are chicken dishes.

26:31 - 26:37
But even if you add it to chili mac or the lasagna or whatever, you're not even gonna notice the flavor.

26:37 - 26:43
But 10 more grams of protein when you've just canoed in all day eh? goes a long way.

26:43 - 26:46
So I was talking about doing that, and they were like, wow.

26:46 - 26:48
I've never thought of that. That's super awesome.

26:48 - 26:51
And, we're, you know, checking out their water filter and they're checking out our water filter

26:51 - 26:55
and we're trading tips and it was it was really awesome.

26:55 - 27:00
So, yeah, it is fun scoping out all the gear and seeing who has what and how they like

27:00 - 27:02
it. Yeah. Cool. That's funny. That's the wow.

27:02 - 27:03
We never thought of that.

27:03 - 27:09
That's exactly what's going through my brain. Yeah. It's awesome. Because we dehydrate eh?. So cool.

27:09 - 27:10
How so you've been to Eh?.

27:12 - 27:14
You've been up to the Boundary Waters.

27:14 - 27:21
Any other cool places you've gone that you've really had, you know, enjoyable trips or or had absolute night trips?

27:21 - 27:23
Because those are the best stories.

27:23 - 27:27
Yeah. The night the tent flipped upside down with the the weight of the awning was definitely,

27:28 - 27:30
high up on a a disaster.

27:30 - 27:34
We got it figured out and right again and made it the rest of that trip.

27:34 - 27:39
I was lucky enough to be involved in a group when I was younger that went across the country

27:39 - 27:44
and did Habitat for Humanity trips where you build different houses for people.

27:44 - 27:51
And every time we went on a trip, we went and did five days on the job site and then two days camping somewhere.

27:52 - 27:58
So I've been camping many different times in Colorado, and that is always beautiful with the

27:58 - 28:02
mountains and everything that Colorado has going on.

28:03 - 28:09
I've camped in the Black Hills in South Dakota, which is always an awesome time, very pretty,

28:09 - 28:12
different landscapes and all of that.

28:12 - 28:18
One of the favorite ones though with the trip for the Habitat for Humanity stuff was Assateague

28:18 - 28:20
Island out off the coast.

28:21 - 28:23
Oh, it's been so long now.

28:23 - 28:27
I wanna say it's South Eh?, somewhere in there.

28:27 - 28:30
Someone will comment and correct me, I'm sure.

28:30 - 28:33
But it's out there and it's on the outer banks of the ocean.

28:33 - 28:41
And there are wild horses there that the rumor, we were told, is were from, like, shipwrecks long, long ago.

28:41 - 28:45
And the horses all swam to the island, and now they live there.

28:45 - 28:52
So it's definitely day experience waking up in the morning and seeing horse hoof prints around your tent.

28:52 - 28:58
I'm used to raccoons and squirrels and, you know, I've even heard coyotes while camping, but

28:58 - 29:04
seeing actual horse hoof prints around my eh? in the sand was quite a different experience. That was really cool.

29:05 - 29:08
Way better than seeing bear paw prints eh? tent.

29:08 - 29:11
Yes. I luckily have not ever encountered a bear while camping.

29:13 - 29:20
Definitely, raccoons have opened coolers and stolen food eh? they're very, very sneaky.

29:20 - 29:25
Herd coyotes recently on a cub scout camping trip.

29:25 - 29:32
And while up in the Boundary Waters, we had what we think is a grouse literally crash into the side of our tent.

29:33 - 29:34
That was a good one.

29:34 - 29:37
The one morning, first morning, we my husband and I kinda heard them.

29:37 - 29:39
They were loud and yelling.

29:39 - 29:44
They're birds and whatever, probably getting ready to migrate at the end of the season.

29:44 - 29:47
And then the next morning, I'm kinda laying there half asleep, and I'm like, day.

29:47 - 29:49
I can hear the birds again. Alright.

29:50 - 29:54
That bird sounds like it's getting closer. That's kind of weird. No.

29:54 - 29:56
It sounds like it's getting really close.

29:57 - 30:03
That actually sounds like it, and then it literally shook the whole eh?, crashed into the tent

30:03 - 30:11
right next to my husband, and we both sat upright, looked at each other, like, did that just happen? And, like, day. It did. Look at my son.

30:11 - 30:13
He is absolutely out sleeping.

30:14 - 30:15
It's 06:30 in the morning.

30:16 - 30:21
We managed to get a little sleep after that, but, yeah, we're like, oh, my gosh, a bird crashed into the tent.

30:21 - 30:23
He's like, no, it didn't.

30:23 - 30:25
Like, it no, it really did.

30:25 - 30:26
He's like, I would have woken up.

30:26 - 30:30
It's like, well, I I would have thought so, but you didn't.

30:31 - 30:39
So, yeah, seeing all the different wildlife on all kinds of different areas of the country is awesome too.

30:39 - 30:46
Well, it's, I mean, that's that's a big part of that's a big part of, you know, outdoor adventures

30:46 - 30:52
is is that interaction with wildlife because we don't, for the majority of us that that live

30:52 - 30:56
in a city, you know, raccoons, yes, because they're they're garbage pandas.

30:57 - 30:58
Coyotes, we have coyotes

30:58 - 30:58
around here.

30:58 - 31:05
Oh, we do too. That's true. Rabbits. And squirrels. Eh?. Birds and hawks. Okay.

31:05 - 31:06
I'll just shut up now.

31:06 - 31:09
You you just took my point away. Thanks. Yeah.

31:09 - 31:13
Eh? else you want particularly to to dive into?

31:14 - 31:21
I guess, I would just wanna end by encouraging people to to try out camping, even if it's in

31:21 - 31:25
their backyard, if it's something they wanna do with their family and I think most people will

31:25 - 31:30
find once they kinda dip their toe into it, they'll find out it's not nearly as hard as they think.

31:31 - 31:37
And I would say most people at the campground, if they're worried about getting judged or other

31:37 - 31:42
people looking at them funny, I would say that going camping and being around other people who

31:42 - 31:47
camp other people in the campsites are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

31:48 - 31:54
If you need something and don't have something, you can easily walk, you know, one, two tents

31:54 - 31:58
down and probably find someone who's willing to borrow it, you know, loan it to you.

31:59 - 32:03
When we were down in Havasupai Falls in Arizona, we're obviously 12 miles in.

32:04 - 32:10
It is a Native American reservation, so there was a little, town not far and not far.

32:10 - 32:16
I mean, I think two miles walk away with a small, you know, kind of general store with a couple things in it.

32:16 - 32:19
But other than that, it's like, if you if you didn't bring it, you didn't have it.

32:19 - 32:25
So, you know, the strap on my husband's shoe broke, and he actually went and found someone with

32:25 - 32:28
shoe goo, like, glue to go help fix that.

32:28 - 32:31
And then someone else heard that I was a nurse, and they brought somebody over for me to look

32:31 - 32:33
at a an insect bite.

32:33 - 32:40
And, you know, it just it's awesome to be around other other like minded people that are willing to help you out.

32:40 - 32:46
I was camping once and somebody's dome tent was just not staked down well and was just blowing

32:46 - 32:47
down the road at the campsite.

32:47 - 32:50
And five of us go chasing it and we finally catch it.

32:50 - 32:55
And all of us is looking at everyone else waiting eh? figure out where we're gonna bring it

32:55 - 32:57
back to, and we realized none of the five of us owned that tent.

32:58 - 32:59
We all went running after it.

32:59 - 33:00
None of us owned it.

33:00 - 33:04
So we had to walk back and find, like, oh, well, probably goes right there where that campsite

33:04 - 33:09
doesn't have a eh?, but five people just instantly willing to get up and chase a tent that's

33:09 - 33:14
blowing away that it wasn't even ours is kind of the epitome of camping and how people are willing

33:14 - 33:19
to help and loan you something or give you a tip on how to do something easier.

33:19 - 33:24
So I'd say if people are nervous about going and thinking they're gonna be judged, you're not.

33:24 - 33:29
People are gonna be very welcoming, very helpful, and definitely give it a try because it's awesome.

33:29 - 33:34
Well, that phrase, like minded people, that I that's that's exactly it. That's the camping community.

33:34 - 33:39
Like, whether it's your first time eh? your eight hundred and seventy ninth time, it doesn't

33:39 - 33:43
Whether you're in Canada, whether you're in US, eh? seems to be the same.

33:43 - 33:47
Yeah. There's more of you in The US, but other than that, we're we're all seeing

33:47 - 33:48
the same. Exactly.

33:48 - 33:49
That's it for us for today.

33:49 - 33:52
Thank you so much for our special guest, Molly Foss from Camping Critters.

33:52 - 33:56
She's at w w w dot campingcritters dot com.

33:56 - 34:00
And you can find her on Instagram as well under camping critters as well. Yeah.

34:00 - 34:04
So please do reach out to her and check out her all of her content on our website.

34:04 - 34:06
You'll learn learn something for sure.

34:07 - 34:09
And we will talk to you again soon.

34:09 - 34:15
Please do reach out to us. We are at hi@supergreatcamping.com. That's hi@supergreatcamping.com.

34:15 - 34:19
And we are on all the social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and we would love it if you

34:19 - 34:20
subscribe to us on YouTube.

34:20 - 34:22
We will talk to you again soon. Bye.

34:23 - 34:23
Bye.

34:23 - 34:24
Bye.