My Cookbook of Essentials

One of things enjoyed about my traveling days, especially in the early days while I was camping, was how life became reduced to essentials like shelter and food. It was pleasing to live in this state of being actually, and I feel lucky I got to live it. As AI takes over, I fall back more and more to remembering these things.

One learns a lot about these necessities while setting up a tent every night in various conditions of terrain and weather. Can I stay dry and warm tonight? 

Making a campfire properly is something you hopefully learn to do quickly. I usually tried to make a fire, to keep me company. It was far better than television. The routine of buying wood, say from a roadside cash drop box, prevalent in parts of the country, or from a country store, became one of my daily chores. 

One learns to savor the primal warmth that comes from the heat on one''s face as one stoops to place another log into flames. I could then sit on my three-legged camp stool and think of tomorrow's destination.

Can I feed myself? Roadside takeout burger stands in small towns on the way to state park, visited an hour before sunset, are the gold standard.

My Jetboil stove carried me through many evenings with premade meals, and in the mornings for instant coffee. I rarely cooked over the campfire.  If so, I usually resorted to Boy Scout style of wrapping meat and vegetables into aluminum foil and dropping them into the fire itself. I would need more in my arsenal now, maybe cocktail weenies wrapped in pepperoni. One never knows what is available at those camp stores, which are always the most comforting places in the world. 

A good cooler is a must unless you want to carry sandwich meats and cheese for sandwiches, as well as the great luxury of half and half, which is best both for coffee and over granola in the morning. A small cutting board for preparing such sandwiches in parking lots is a must . Filling the chest with ice was another daily chore, as well as draining it out the back passenger seat of the car.

And let us not forget the citronella candle to place on the picnic table, and spare batteries for the headlamp. I miss the one I used to have, that had real plastic gels of different colors that one could slide to make the light red, green, or blue. I lost it somewhere in a move and the new ones are all digital. One changes colory by pressing buttons in some weird order I never mastered. When I wanted red, I got flashing blue or blinding white lot. The tactical nature of switching the old gels felt like one was switching the reality of the world. Why is everything awesome taken away like that?

If I took any road trip now, I would hope I would have the strength of will to travel this way again and resort to motels as little as possible.