Preparing for the first camping trip of the year can be almost  as  much  of  an  adventure  as  the trip itself! Tracking down gear, making sure all of the Nalgene water bottles and camp dishes, mugs and coolers are cleaned, putting  essential (anyone else tired of this word yet?) gear together, poring over paper and online maps, making arrangements with family members/friends, making camping reservations if needed. Oy, might as well stay home, right?

Not a f—-ing chance! This will be our first  overnight trip since early January and our first camping trip since October, 2019! We plan on making minimal stops on this trip (filled up with gas at Costco beforehand), will be using hand sanitizer  liberally, bathing  in disinfectant  (lol), disinfecting shared things we touch  when possible, wearing masks indoors 😷 and exercising  social distancing. Rustic camping IS the ultimate social distancing activity! Aside from time spent in restrooms, in our car and short  ‘n sweet jaunts into stores we’ll  be spending  most of our time in the great outdoors. We plan to visit one “up north” bar on this trip with outdoor seating (drinks only). I’ve  packed more than enough cleaning/hygiene supplies  for this trip. Which brings me to…

Tiny plastic bottles! I never throw  those away – those cute little vials given out by hotels/dentist offices can serve  their purpose  well beyond allowing  you to wash your hair, gargle away bad breath or moisturize your  skin! Mine get used, reused, refilled, repurposed, you name it! As of late, small bottles of hand sanitizer have become particularly valuable. I still have one that was given out at a trivia tournament in February, 2018: ⇓

Never, ever throw away these tiny bottles unless they break or leak…

Always trying to up my game, I decided that ALL bottles of liquids must be labeled if containing  things  besides  what’s  actually on the labels. But first, I had two “mystery” bottles I had to solve…

First step? Sniff test! If inconclusive, put mystery  goo on hands and add water and rub hands. Does it lather? Then it’s  soap or shampoo! If it’s  fragrant, kind of runny and doesn’t  lather, it’s  conditioner! Does it moisturize your hands without water? It’s  lotion!

Turns out I had some old tea tree soap or shampoo in one of the mystery bottles, which is perfect for camping (especially  for washing feet – trust me on this). The other one had old conditioner  in it, which I dumped  and replaced with some shampoo. I already had a trial size conditioner bottle I could  top off.

Last step was emptying  dish soap from an old mouthwash bottle  and using that for rubbing  alcohol (first aid). After a virtual eternity rinsing, finally all the soap and suds were gone! I must’ve  run 10 gallons of water rinsing out that 2 ounce bottle…

Ugh, that was an annoying chore, but at least I have a good setup now.

What’s  left  to do today? Not much! Make pasta salad and pre-cook some ground meat to bring with us. Oh yes…and find the barbecue  tools! Heigh ho,  heigh ho, it’s  back to work I go ☺

But…one more thing! There is one other bottle I found and repurposed for the trip – an airline size Kraken rum bottle! It now holds cooking oil! Sorry, no photos…I’m not digging packed things out just yet!