Camping in the Weekender!

I consider myself a simple kind of guy. I enjoy simple things. Camping, cooking, eating, meeting new people. This last weekend, I was able to enjoy each of these. A real treat. Gina and i went to a gathering of a bunch of trailer enthusiasts at Buckskin State Park near Parker Arizona. There were 40 odd trailers there, ranging from minimalist 4' x 8' teardrops to classic Airstreams from the '50's, and almost everything in between. A significant number of them were home built, and most of the old ones had been significantly remodeled. The weather was a bit cooler than I would have liked, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

We arrived at 5:30 Thursday evening. It was a bit windy, so we set up camp (that takes about 10 minutes with the Weekender), made and ate dinner, said "Hi" to the folks that were already there, and retired out of the wind in the trailer. It was about 7:30 by this time, but too cold to sit outside. Oh, and we had all 3 dogs with us. So, with nothing else to do, we watched the 1st hour of a movie. By 8:30, Gina was out of it (she was a little under the weather), so I stopped the movie and we went to sleep. We were not quite toasty in the camper, but with the blankets we had, we did just fine. Had to get up once for a potty run (both us and the dogs), but otherwise had a good, restful night. Didn't get up until after 7:00 Friday morning! Made sausage, eggs, and hash browns for breakfast. Yum.

Friday was a beautiful day, once the sun cleared the mountain ridge (about 9:00). Clear, the wind was gone, and the temperature kissed the 70 degree mark most of the day. I met a friend from a forum I belong to (www.camp-cook.com/forum), and enjoyed the meeting immensely. Friday evening I cooked mushroom and beef stew for dinner, to be served over noodles. We ended up adding a can of green beans to make a complete meal out of it, dumped the noodles into the stew so they would stay warm, and chowed down. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

Saturday was not the best of days, weather wise. Overcast and cold, we had to use the 12volt electric heater all night. We made it, though, with its help. Stayed in the trailer until 8:30 to avoid the cold. I had intended to make biscuits for breakfast, but forgot the ingredients, so we ate left over sausage and has browns stirred into scrambled eggs. Not bad at all! Kind of a skillet breakfast.

Saturday night there was a campfire, with a gentleman singing and playing his guitar for a while. By 8:00 it was too cold, so we went back and watched the rest of the movie.

Sunday morning we got up, broke camp and headed home, chilled a bit towards the bone. We stopped by McDonald's and had a gourmet breakfast of sausage biscuits and hash browns. We were home in time for lunch and had leftover stew. All in all, a pretty tasty meal.

I don't know how to post pictures in this blog, so if you want to see all the neat trailers you will have to follow this link http://s734.photobucket.com/albums/ww347/cliffmeister2000/Buckskin%20State%20Park%20Gathering%202009/

God Bless,

Cliff