AQUA IV: Zero Hour

Salutations H2o Brigade,

The time for Aquatic Joy is drawing near. I can already taste that peculiar blend of River Water and Cheap Bear in my mouth. This email will consist of 3 major things: Important Tips, Gear Suggestions/Requests, Tribe Organization.

IMPORTANT TIPS

1. ENTRY: The ranger closes the camp gate at sundown. This is a problem with almost every public campsite in the country and we have always found a way to deal with it. My plea to all of you is to make your best effort to get there before sunset. Official sunset is 7:58 pm but they may not be working on official time so error on the side of early. If you cannot meet this deadline, you have 2 options: 1) park on the road and risk getting a ticket or your car broken into. 2) Come early on Saturday morning. The gate opens at 6am. We leave for rafting around 8:30a. So plan accordingly.

2. THE TRAIL: Apparently the parking area is about ½ mile from the actual campsite. They told us that last year but we were able to drive down temporarily to drop stuff off. That may or may not be a possibility this year since this is a slightly different camp. Either way, it would be nice to have a wagon or dolly of some sort to shuttle gear. If anybody has something like this, lemme know! I will try my best to get a heavy duty wagon.

3. VALUABLES: Our camp is more exposed to the river this year. That could mean increased party atmosphere from the river passer-bys and/or a greater possibility of hoodlums messing with our stuff. With that in mind, we may want to hide/lock stuff up when we are not at the camp. I don’t think we should be over-paranoid about this, but maybe don’t bring any unnecessary expensive stuff that would make your cry if it was stolen.

4. PAYMENT: YOU OWE ME MONEY PUNK! Each human is $25 total. The breakdown is $20 for rafting and $5 for camping. Please bring cash (or check) to the campsite. I have friends in the Stanislaus Mafia, so be careful or you may find yourself swimming with the fishes!

Group Gear Requests

Here are some community items that could help us all:

Large Tents
Gas Stove or Grill
Fire Wood
Lanterns
Trash bags, paper plates, cups, forkknifespoons, paper towels
Large Water Jugs

Individual Gear Suggestions
Tent

Sleeping bag

Pillow

Sleeping pad

Flashlight w/ working batteries

Food

Water

Firewood

Charcoal

Lighters, Matches

Giant Coolers

Midsize Coolers

Lots of ICE

General Cookware (pots, pans, skillets)

Individual Cookware (fork, knife, cup, plate)

Sandals

Shoes (in case we wanna climb something)

Swim suit

Towel

Toilet Paper (just in case)

Trash Bags

Sweater or Jacket (can get cold at night)

Extra socks

Rain gear (you never know)

Camp chair

Hammock

Sunblock/chapstick

Sunglasses

Shade hat

Insect Repellent

Camera (waterproof?)

Guitars/Drums/Kazoos

Frisbee/soccer-ball/baseball



Tribe Organization

A tribe is a group of fellow campers who live near each other and are willing to share resources. I promise life will be better if you ACTIVELY seek out your tribe. That means emailing or calling people today and working out these details.

CARPOOL: We technically only have 10 parking passes for this campsite. I am not sure what happens if we go over, but we should try our best to fit into 10 vehicles. It is more fun to travel together and better for the environment. So SF people talk to SF people! I know we have a sweet LA caravan already planned. Let’s see who the REAL environmental city is! Woot!

FOOD: I AM NOT BRINGING FOOD FOR YOU! I have tried this in the past and it has generally been annoying and a flop. Sooooo…chat up your tribe and plan a shopping trip before you depart. I suggest easy to cook food for the camping newbies…but if you are an outdoor grill enthusiast, make us all jealous with your crab cake soufflé. Don’t forget the smores!

WATER: BRING WATER! Lots of water. Each tribe should bring a few of those big jugs (or a bunch of small water bottles). It will be freakin hot and sometimes bear just don’t do the trick. Also pack your coolers with ICE. I suggest at least 1 ICE cooler and 1 DRY cooler.

ALCOHOL: NO GLASS ON THE RIVER! Otherwise, bring it on!

The CAMP: There is a Grill/Fire pit for cooking the food. There are tables. There are bathrooms (no showers). There is no drinkable water. Plan accordingly.

Call me if you are having trouble finding a tribe. I will hook you up!

WOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!


Helpful Info:

When: August 15th – 17th

Where (Camping): Horseshoe Road Recreation Area
30 feet east of the residential address:
14842 Orange Blossom Road
Oakdale CA 95361

Where (Rafting): 17525 Sonora Rd
Knights Ferry, CA 95361-9523

My Phone#: 510.325.8761

http://aquaarmy.blogspot.com/

Alright Soldiers!

I like being Brad's sidekick. I get to help out, but if something goes wrong it's all on him.

Firstly, if you're not receiving the emails, you want to email me at greeklamb@mac.com so that I can put you on there. All future communication will be maintained via email.

So far we have received more interest in this year's float than originally expected. RIGHT NOW HERE'S WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU. You're not guaranteed a spot on the float or camping until you pay. You MUST PAY BY NO LATER THAN THIS FRIDAY. The longer you wait the less of a chance you have in securing a spot thought. This is because we have to tell the floating/camping places how many more people are coming.

PAY RIGHT NOW ONLINE BY CLICKING HERE!!!


It's $5 for each night of camping and $20 for the float. Once you've paid, email Brad at brad@fotsch.net if you're SoCal or me at greeklamb@mac.com if you're NorCal and let us know the following
-Your phone number and email
-How many people you've paid for/are going with you
-What nights you're camping
-Whether you and your party have a car and are willing to drive/or need a ride
-Email addresses of any additional people you're bring that are not on this list
-What gear you have/can bring (see list)
-Which do you prefer better. . . rhino or marmot coitus

A word of advice. If you're only going to camp for one night I recommend that it be Saturday night. Most people are really drunk, hungry, and exhausted after the float and going home like that just isn't much fun at all.

One last reminder. If you're going to camp on Friday night, you need be able to get there before 7:30pm. Also, our float begins on Saturday morning at 10:30am, so if you're just meeting us there try to be early.

Oh yeah and bring your water guns.

Your loyal servant,


-Tassos the Councilman

From The Best of F...

Here's the Skinny

A Message from madman Brad Fotsch

Salutations H2o brigade,

The float trip is now official. I have signed away my first born child so we can act like baboons on a river.

Here is the scoop:

PAYMENT (this section first cause i know you will start to skim):

$20 per person for rafting

$5 per person per night for camping

I booked rafting for 20 people and camping for 15. There is some wiggle room if you act now...but waiting till the last second for joining or dropping out is highly frowned upon and has cost me dearly in the past.

You can pay me directly using this website:

Brads Marathon Charity Website

p.s. - if you feel like donating more than the required amount, I am running a marathon and I need to raise $3500 for an Aids Charity. Please help!!

FLOATING

Saturday August 4th

10:30am start time

We are still floating on the Stanislaus river with:

http://www.raftadventure.com/

The trip takes 4-5 hours and requires virtually no paddling or skill. It only requires a taste for glory.

CAMPING

Friday August 3rd

Saturday August 4th

Leave Sunday Morning

The big news this year is that we are camping at a NEW CAMPSITE!!! So for those of you who were not thrilled with the close proximity camping of last year...you are in luck. This time we have a campsite where we will most likely have the whole area to ourselves. He called it the HOWL-at-the-Moon campsite...so we can keep the drum circle jamming all night (bring earplugs if you get cranky). It is also right on the river. Could this be the West Coat Huuuzzzahh ZOO?!

It has a bathroom, fire-pit and BBQ grills. Keep in mind that this new solitary freedom means that the campsite will be a bit more rugged than last year. The water is not drinkable so we will have to bring plenty of our own (the town of Oakdale is not too far if we suddenly need more). The one nagging rule this site has (as many others do) is to be in the park by sundown (7:30pm). Apparently the gate closes and you are not supposed to park on the road. I suspect this will not be possible for some or many people. This could be a blessing in disguise though as it could influence you to leave work/school/obligation early for once and enjoy life. It is way better to get to the camp during the day rather than arriving at 2am. Late arrivals can drain your energy for the whole trip. But if it is inevitable...I am sure we can work out some covert operation.

CARS

The car situation is more flexible this year. We can pretty much have as many cars as we want, I just have to request the parking permits ahead of time. If I can get Tom and Janna and Sal to co-ordinate all the Nor-Cal car pools (dont forget to consider how much room bags, coolers, water, etc. will take up). Please let me know how many nor-cal cars total will be driving by this weekend (july 22nd). If you can also get an approximate list of what day and time everyone plans on arriving, that would also be handy. If you are so-cal let me know those same details.

FOOD

I am going to plunk down a new food policy this year. I do not think 1 giant food plan is the best strategy. It places too much burden on too few people. There is also inevitable dissatisfaction with food choices and thus reluctant payback to the buyers. Instead I think we should form into little pods and buy what our pods enjoy. This could be meaties, veggies, gourmet or sloppy joes. Try to plan each meal for a serving or 3 larger than your pod so that you can share and trade with other tribes. We can still communicate between pods in advance so that we can optimize common items. If you think I am a Fascist Food Nazi....then all you have to do is convince all the other pods to join together and cook as one. That will show me!!

Don't forget Smores!

ALCOHOL

Bring it. Lots of it.

TENTS/SUPPLIES

We need to sort out how many tents and people we have. Please email me if you have a tent and the number of people it holds. Also let me know if you have any good camping supplies like cookware, lanterns, etc.

SUGGESTIONS

Tent

Sleeping bag

Pillow

Sleeping pad

Flashlight w/ working batteries

Food

Water

Firewood

Charcoal

Giant Coolers

Midsize Coolers

Lots of ICE

Lighters/Matches

General Cookware (pots, pans, skillets)

Individual Cookware (fork, knife, cup, plate)

Sandals

Shoes (in case we wanna climb something)

Swim suit

Towel

Sweater or Jacket (can get cold at night)

Extra socks

Rain gear (you never know)

Garbage bags/zip lock bags

Camp chair

Hammock

Sunblock/chapstick

Sunglasses

Shade hat

Insect Repellent

Camera

Guitars/Drums/Kazoos

Frisbee/soccer-ball/baseball

DETAILS:

LA-->Campsite (note that google suggests the 99. I have never taken this route but maybe it is good?)

SF --> Campsite

Float Starts Here

My number: 510.325.8761

FINAL WORDS:

I expect nothing short of a miracle out of this trip. Don't let me down.

p.s. - if you still have not made a peep....don't be afraid to speak up now. I would cry from laughter if I saw some of you silent norcal folks.

East Bay contingent

So, last year I remember two cars leaving from Danville. My girlfriend and I will be coming from Sunnyvale (South Bay), but if people are coming from Danville/East Bay, we might like to carpool with them. We're definitely in for the rafting, but we're not sure about the camping just yet.

The 4th is best for me!

Hey Everybody,
Josh and I have looked at our schedule again and actually the 4th is a better weekend for us! Let's make a decision soon though so we can request the time off!
Thanks!

NEW POSSIBLE DATE

How does everyone feel about the weekend of August 4th? I just got word that a bunch of you would prefer this date. Reply by commenting on this blog post.

An idea

Ok so there seems to be some varying opinions about what weekend is the best for the trip. What everyone should do is please post on this blog suggestions for alternative dates. After I have a bunch, I will create a poll where people can select all the dates that they are available. At which point we can select the most utilitarian choice. POST YOUR ALTERNATIVE DATES NOW!!!!

New Date Suggestions

Wait! August 11 doesn't work for us and this year we want to go! The only weekends that DO NOT work for us are July 13-15 (wedding), and August 10-12, and August 17-19 (we'll be in Peru with my brother!).

Any way we could do it some other time - like the week before - August 3-5?

If not, no worries, but if yes, then that would be suh-weet.

Aqua Army 3

Ahoy Aqua Army Veterans!

The summer has arrived and with it comes an avalanche of Float Trip Fun. This is the 1 time of year we should all ditch our responsibilities and drunkenly float down a river with a group of long lost (or near and dear) friends. Recall that this event takes place near San Francisco. Historically we organize carpools/food/tents/weapons by city (SF and LA). We camp 2 or 3 days near a lake....and 1 of those days we float down a slow moving river with beer in large rafts. Some highlights include rope swings into the river, pirate invasions of unsuspecting rafts, campfire sing-a-longs, jet skis, marshmallows and snuggling in sleeping bags.


Does the weekend of August 11th work for you?

Do you have any alternative campsite, river, raft or date suggestions?

Are you enlisting in the Aqua Army this year?

I know I have absent-mindedly forgotten neat people from this email list. Please feel free to invite your hooligan friends.

Who: The greatest people on Earth
What: Camping and Floating Extravaganza
When: Weekend of August 11th
Where: Lake Tulloch - near SF (See map below)
Why: Bliss
How much: around $35 (who knew bliss was this cheap?)

Last year we floated with "River Journey"

Last year we camped with "Lake Tulloch Campground"


Map from SF to Camping


Map from LA to Camping


Map of the drive between camping and floating


Average temperature for camping