A good thick inflatable (not suitable for backpacking but fine for car camping) should do. I bring one of each when winter backpacking for warmth but IMO it’s not needed for most 3 season camping. A sleeping bag will be warmer than blankets, but if you’re car camping and have a down comforter at home, just bring that. As long as you can keep it dry. Insulation is insulation.
A cargo truck for all the gear you’ve been told to take.
Handi-wipes and materials to make s’mores (don’t forget the roasting sticks).
You’ve packed your Glock… right?
Joining the choir to tell you not to bring an electric heater into a tent. Unless you want to join a certain invisible choir.
Jeez! Kids these days. :rolleyes:
All you really need is a sharp rock. And you should make that once you get to where you are camping.
Everything else you make with the sharp rock; food, bedding, clothes, shelter.
Former Cave Man.
Sharp rock? Luxury!
You’re kidding, right? This is going to take place at a state park with electrical hookups, for cryin’ out loud. A plug-in chain saw will make the amputation process soooo much quicker and, done correctly, provide a much cleaner cut through the bone(s).
Yeah smarty-pants? How the OP gonna plug the saw in while pinned by a tree? Huh?
A real wool blanket underneath the air mattress will provide the insulation to make it bearable…but real wool blankets are often more expensive than camping mats. If there’s an Army Navy Surplus near you, Army blankets are the bee’s knees.
Duct tape, gallon ziploc bags and zip ties. No, I don’t know what for. But you’ll find uses for all of them, most likely, and if you don’t, they pack small and can be purchased at the dollar store for very little money. I’ve used duct tape to repair holes in tents, to hold together broken zippers, and to prank jerks who fall asleep at the campfire when it was their turn to watch it. Ziplocs to hold wet clothing so they don’t get other things wet, to hold diapers so they don’t get everything smelly, to hold my stakes in my tent bag when I inevitably lose the stupid little bag they came in, and in a pinch a gallon sized ziploc full of air makes a not too terrible pillow. Zip ties can repair a broken tent pole, hang your lantern in a tree, hold a stick to a broken arm or finger as a splint, and make emergency handcuffs if your fellow campers aren’t well behaved.
Don’t forget your medications, if you take any on a regular basis, and a small **first aid kit **for boo-boos and splinters.
A **tick key **or tweezers for ticks. They’re out already, and Lyme Disease is no joke. Don’t smother, burn, twist or annoy a tick - it makes them more likely to puke their diseases inside you. Just pull 'em straight out with a tick key or tweezers.
Sunscreen. Yes, I know it’s not summer yet, but there’s still sun, and springtime camping is when I end up with my worst sunburns, because I forget the sunscreen.
With a low of about freezing, you won’t need a heater if you have proper insulation under you and several blankets or a three-or-four season sleeping bag over top, (or your sweetheart – nothing better for keeping warm at night than a sweetheart).
Lose the radiant heater unless you want to risk being severely burned or being burned to death. Space heaters should be kept at least three feet away from combustibles. Your blankets, clothing and the tent itself are combustible, so unless you are in a very large tent (e.g. a cook tent), the heater would not be far enough away from these things. Note that clothing and blankets tend to be moved about when people are changing for bed or are dressing, and blankets tend to be moved about or kicked off when sleeping, so even the three foot guideline is not adequate for most tents. Also note that getting out of a zipped-up tent so that you can run about with you r hair on fire takes time that you will not have if your clothes, blankets and the tent itself are on fire. (It’s not that you’d be missing much by going without a heater, for heat rises, so the heat from the space heater would not help you much because it would rise above you and quickly dissipate through the lightweight single wall tent.)
Replace the air mattress with a three-quarters of an inch thick yellow Evazote[sup]TM[/sup] closed cell foam sleeping pad. An air mattress is useless at keeping you warm. An Evazote[sup]TM[/sup] closed-cell cross-linked ethylene copolymer foam pad (as opposed to the much less effective open-cell foam pads commonly sold by camping stores) that is dense and does not compress much so that it both insulates extremely well (I’ve been comfy using them when celcius and fahrenheit meet) and smooths out the bumps on the ground. Evazote® - Zotefoams Retails through Zotefoams Evazote Winter Sleeping Pad - Unisex | MEC If you cannot obtain one in time for your outing, just bring along a two inch sheet of foam board insulation from a building supply store (thinner than two inch might fracture).
A light cross-country ski cap (or any old winter hat for that matter) will keep your head warm at night when the air temp is about freezing. No need for a mask at night at that temp. A pair of wool socks will keep your feet warm.
Tent’s do not have any sound insulation, so if the breeze in the trees, the scuffling of wee friendly beasties sound like giant murderous monsters at night, and the various noises emanating from other tents keep you awake, a flashlight and a book can come in handy.
Do not bring food into the tent, for some critters will chew through the tent to get to their dinner.
If you are prone to having to urinate at some point during the night, bring a plastic bottle (wrap some tape around it so you can idenitfy it in the dark) and a silicone felxible funnel, rather than stagger about in the dark, but if you must leave the tent during the night, dress fully in case you get disoriented in the dark in unfamiliar surroundings.
Carry water (hydration), chocolate (quick energy), a light pocket space blanket and matches with strikers in baggies with you. If the state park does not have potable water yet, bring a water filter. Carry a map, be familiar with it, carry a compass in your pocket (and know how to use it), and frequently orient yourself. Carry a cell phone and check for reception, and if you are going somewhere where there is not cell coverage, borrow a PLB or SPOT.
No matter what, stay dry or quickly change into dry clothing after you have finished a wet activity
(and be sure to keep your cache of dry clothing dry). If you start shivering, or worse if you feel a bit dopey, immediately take in some chocolate/sugar, take off all your damp clothes, and hop in a vehicle and turn the heat on, or crawl into bed with one or two other people whose body heat will help you warm up. Use the buddy system to frequently check for hypothermia. I’m not joking about this. Hypothermia is both insidious and deadly, for it affects your ability to think clearly, and outdoor activity in late fall or early spring is prime time for hypothermia for folks who are not aware of what it is and how to watch out for it.
In general, when messing about in the woods with a group of people, protect yourself from being attacked by teh stupid by carefully thinking and voicing your concerns before making decisions, for while working together as a team is vital, groupthink and polarization often lead to problems in outdoor adventure activities.
And finally, carry duct tape for first aid, clothing and gear fixes, and (with apologies to the late, great William “not Bill” Nealy) birth control for that manly-man-wilderness-man in the tent.
Using a really long stick. Cut from the fallen tree. By a chainsaw tooth. Riddick would be ashamed of you.
I met a couple who did just that. It took about a year of prep, starting with trees, stones and mud and working up from there, following which they lived in the middle of nowhere for another year.
You’ll be home soon, and will laugh about what you neglected. That’s what makes it a part of the adventure.
Car camping can be fun, and you get to take all kinds of crap you’d never take backpacking. If you want to stay warm at night:
Use an inflatable mattress. They are very comfortable. Make sure it doesn’t have any holes in it!!
Put a foam pad on top for insulation.
Wear thermal underwear, socks and knit hat.
Pee before going to bed-- no need to heat that extra liquid!
Use a good sleeping bag instead of blankets.
Pull the sleeping bag up over your nose, so you’re breathing warm air, not the cold stuff outside!
Put your water bottle nearby so you don’t have to get up if you’re thirsty.
A glass of wine then an Advil and a Benadryl before bed make even a camping mattress luxurious. Or at least passable.
Exhaling into the bag will reduce the insulative efficiency of the sleeping bag (significantly with a synthetic bag, and greatly with a down bag) and also presumes the sleeping bag can be thoroughly aired out the next day to avoid compounding the problem each night. Even a liner used to retain the humidity between one’s body and the liner without letting much of the humidity pass into the bag itself is not made to keep out the amount of moisture produced by breathing.
If inhaling cold air is a problem (some people cough when inhaling very cold air), then a ski mask is the easiest solution.
Have a good camp chair. Alot of camping is just sitting around enjoying other peoples company.
Always assume bad weather may be part of your trip. So bring rain gear. Poncho, a dry place for all of you to hang out in the rain is important too. So I’m assuming someone is bringing a large tarp.
It’s all good though, you can drink in the rain. 
Truth. Sit back in the evening in a long-back legless Crazy Creek camp chair and you risk finding yourself waking up in the morning still in the chair with a blanket thrown over you. Those things are way to comfortable.