Cooking Outside

100 Days of Camping Day #16

It's always nice when moving day comes and goes without any misadventures.  We slept in, organized our coach before we left, drove safely, and had plenty of time to set up camp and eat a good meal before hitting the sack.  While Michael was buying gas for the coach, I decided to swing over to the nearby fruit stand and take advantage of their amazing food prices.

Wow!  For $12, I bought two bags of potatoes, two small watermelons, four bunches of small bananas, a bag of cherries, and eight corn ears.  I should have bought more food, but I was trying to hurry.

I love the staff at Wilderness Lakes.  We are regulars now and not only do we know most of the staff by name, but many of them know us too!  When we pulled up, this kind gentleman had seen us coming down the road, pulled up our information, and had all of the paperwork ready to go for us.  How's that for service?  Wilderness Lakes no longer feels like the exotic campground it did when first came here in December.  It feels like home.  When we were looking for a spot to camp, we were also keeping our eyes peeled for our friends, to see if/where they are parked, and we spotted a few.  While we are ultimately hoping to travel, for now we are primarily stationed in Menifee, and it's a great place to be.

As soon as we started setting up camp, the kids took the corn on the cob out of the car straight to the table and started husking them.  I guess we're having corn tonight!  $2 for eight ears, and $1 for the watermelon.  Not bad when you can feed a family of 7 on $3!  Living in a small space means that it doesn't take much to heat or cool the space up.  When we were at Idylwild during the snow storm, we were surprised at how popping a batch of popcorn could make the whole room feel warmer.  We baked a lot of food up there! 

But what about when it's hot outside and you want the inside to be cool?  Simple.  Don't cook!  At least inside.  We eat lots of raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, and cold sandwiches, as well as fruit smoothies in order to keep cooking to a minimum.  Whenever we can, we like to cook outside.  We have a convection hot plate we plug in to the side of the RV with an extension chord.  I've also made popcorn and waffles outside.  Other things like baked granola I will make at night when I know the RV will continue to cool at least a little during the course of the night.  Gotta stay cool.  Little things make all the difference.