The Ultimate Festival Checklist

I would like to point out my focus on safety. There are three fire alarms on my workbench...in their packages, sitting where I placed them 2 months ago. 

220, 221. Whatever it takes.

yes it must be an inverter changing 12 DCV to 110 ACV. Or it's magic.

For me, laptop is my only email and internet access. As far as work stuff, I managed to avoid it at L2 and L3, but with what I do, I may need to put out a fire.

Truthfully, L2 was easy because there was no cell service at all, which is my internet connection on the laptop (broadband). The world survived without my input.

yay as long as you don't go around with the hood up, looking like a wook. And lose the wool hat while you're at it, it's August fercryinoutloud.

I've packed my Frog Toggs rain suit, a rain jacket, and a squeegee in case my tent gets flooded. All set for it not to rain. 

You guys are bringing clothes? Amateurs.... 

I wanted to share something that really worked well for us from a camping perspective. With all the Armageddon coolers on the market these days, I started doing some homework on coolers as I only have cheapos that don't last long and I could use something better for my longer boat trips. I found a website that compared all the roto-molded coolers and they had the Coleman 52 quart Xtreme cooler as their best value, lasting 4 as opposed to the 5 days of the roto-molded ones but at a fraction of the cost ($60). I bit. We used it this past weekend. I pre-chilled it over night with a single bag of ice and all our beer, the food i left in the fridge. Before we left, I put two gallon jugs of block ice, one with salt and one with fresh water and three bags of ice in the cooler along with the beer and food. Because of the heat, I didn't zip up my tent rain fly for security which meant that we left the cooler in the back of my Toyota Highlander with just a small crack in each window all weekend. We left the house on Friday at 7:30a and returned Monday at noonish. I still had 4/5ths of the block ice in the fresh water jug, but strangely the salt water jug had completely melted. There was probably 3/4 of a bag of crushed iced left as well. We never bought ice over the weekend. I did see the truck, so could have gotten some but didn't need it. It was nice not having to worry about carrying/finding ice. I recommend this cooler:

I can also vouch for the Coleman Extreme. Another tip is to insulate it from the ground with a foam pad cut from an old sleeping pad.

This year our best tip was to bring an extra refrigerator and an ice making machine. I kid you not.

Cup O' Noodles. Yup, they're terrible for you and for the environment, but this is a special occasion we're talking about. Shelf-stable, lightweight, stackable, virtually indestructible, and you gotta be pretty fucked up to not be able to boil water.

Camelbaks. Anybody got one and can recommend a certain model? Did they stay cold during the day? Sure could have used one. Got sick of running back and forth to the refill station.

For the non-roto-molded coolers, you can add even more insulation by lining it with Reflectix, the silver lined padded insulation stuff which you can get at Home Depot. And if you line the outside too, it might be even better. I agree wholeheartedly with the strategy of pre-cooling and using BLOCKS of ice. $10 is too much to pay for a bag of ice.

I have a camelback that holds 2 liters which does me well. The bladder is mold resistant.

put a layer of newspaper between the top layer of beer and the lid, which seldom has much insulation, and takes the heat.
Speaking of which I have a cooler with a black top (came that way free, maybe at L2) and one in worse overall condition with a white top (free from L3) so I switched the white top onto the better cooler; the other one will be for fish and crab bait.