Camping

There is just something so simple and relaxing about camping. Is it the warmth of the wood fire, the fresh air and connection to nature, the preoccupation with simply having fun, the lack of work-related stress.....

or is it the wi-fi in the campground?

We were gone ten nights and set up the tent seven times, so we got real good at making camp quickly. Here is our typical setup with the T-Rex protection device properly installed. Teen2 said that's what it was, and we were never attacked by any T-Rex, so I'm sticking with that story too.

Here is a look at the kitchen area. We put dishes, cups, silverware, knives, cutting board, towels, dry foods and spices in that three drawer thing. The Coleman stove sits on the end of the table, and the ice chest sits on the other side. The grey box on the ground holds the pots, pans, stove fuel, dishpans, and table cloth. When we put everything in the car, the ice chest and drawers are accessible for lunch on the go.

With this set up we cooked all our meals except two lunches on days we decided to eat out. This is the kind of dinners we made:

Yep, we cook right on that dirty old grill over the campfire, but we make the fire hot and scrub it down with aluminum foil before we put the meat on it.

And this is the kind of breakfast we make when we aren't in a hurry. You can get a little toaster device to sit over the burner, but we have found that if you just keep turning the bread over a low flame you can easily make toast. We slathered it with blueberry jam that we bought at a roadside farm stand in the middle of blueberry country. It was delicious.

Some folks might think we get a little carried away with cooking whilst camping, but the guy below outdid us. While he didn't have a tent or a stove or a chair, and he used his backpack for a pillow, he did have breakfast in bed. I kid you not, he was drinking beer in his sleeping bag at 7:00am.