Taking Couples Cooking Arguments on the Road
Not content to limit them to Texas, we will take them elsewhere. To Florida in 2 weeks.
Taking COVID precautions, our motels are small, with entry doors directly from the parking lot into the rooms. Every site we want to see can be done in a vehicle, and we can choose isolated places to get out of the vehicle, maybe swim, maybe check out an alligator. I know people who catch them for the park rangers nearby. Wrestling gators is an art form.
Here is the cooking argument in waiting: We purchased a Mr. Bar-B-Q charcoal grill so we can drop the tailgate on the truck, and fire it up, thereby avoiding fast food and crowded restaurants. ($19.98 at Lowe's) We will have to go into a grocery store, but they are roomier than a restaurant.
Cooking ensues."A, you burn shit!" "B, you expect me to eat bloody meat!" " B, I judge by sight!" "A, you need cataract surgery, goober!"
This a step up from just motels and buying crap food, but a step down from purer glamping. A couldn't find glamping opportunity where we wanted to go in Florida. B is in accord with the portable charcoal grill. A is glad. B can do all the grilling while A watches. And drinks beer.
I can attest to the lifting of spirits of just leaving your home for a day or so. In this instance, we will get at least a week. We all need the experience of being free, within safe, COVID protocols.
Just thinking of wrestling an alligator gets my blood racing
And watching B grill does, too.
Comments
Y'all are funny
Why Florida? Just curious...
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
B visited the Keys in his youth and wants to return.
A has been to 47 states and virtually all national parks, but somehow missed Florida and Everglades National Park.
There are alligators everywhere right where I live, but I guess the ones in Florida have a different mindset, just must be seen.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
@on the cusp I would love to just
I would love to just visit all the state parks and sight see.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Sounds great!
We're off to FL end of May to gather with our festival buddies. No festival this year, but we're all vaccinated and plan to play music, canoe, and generally cut up and carry on.
Be sure to check out some of FL big springs, if you have the time and your route takes you near some.
The last couple of days we have had some friends staying at the camp house. During the day they are fishing in several local lakes. They leave out tomorrow, but it was fun to sit around the fire and drink and joke the last few nights. First real socializing in a while. Holler if you make it to this corner of the world!
Have a wonderful trip! You'll be A, B, and sea.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the travel tip!
We can go see some springs as we return home.
Glad you will see some of your music maker friends. It is hard to adjust to this isolation, isn't it? Oh, take a portable grill!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Heh...
Filmed at Silver Springs, Florida, I do believe.
They also filmed several...
at Wakulla springs near Tallahassee.
https://thelodgeatwakullasprings.com/tarzan/
Lots of manatees as well.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
What a lovely place!
We will make it a point to spend some time there!
I have booked our lodging for the drive there and for 3 nights at our destination. We have maybe 5 days to wing it. We will decide where to go and what to do as we go along.
One day, we will get to your neck of the woods. I am making a plan in my head for the first week of September. A good month to travel before snow begins to fall.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Ok, so I will pack a dagger.
Maybe 2.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Tons of experience on the subject here, though
we tend toward sandwiches and concoctions made in the motel room nuker, often involving rice, veggies and shredded rotisserie chicken. We long ago also acquired a 1 burner butane stove and, if we're in an expansive mood, a weber Q2200 portable grill (with thermometer in the lid).
That said, it sounds like you need to spring for a good instant read meat thermometer and some charts as to what temps are rare, medium, etc. for each cut of meat.
That will take the fun out of it, however, and wreck all the stories you are sure to tell later, so mebbe take a pass.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
We do nuke things.
You can get damn creative with a microwave oven when that is all you have.
A does have a meat thermometer, and charts, but B prefers non-scientific methods. Sigh...I often wait until B steps away and I stab a slab of meat with my thermometer.
What caught my attention about this cheap little grill is that it is the size of a brief case. Even has a handle to carry it like a brief case. I didn't want anything too large to put in the back seat. If we leave a larger grill in the bed of the truck, it might get stolen.
We will be cooking very simple, basic items. Burgers and hotdogs. Ok, and steaks, too.
Weber grills are great. This little one doesn't have a thermometer on the lid, but I can pack one. If we do not like it, we will give it away.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
We too rely a bit on dogs and burgers, and brie and
red wine. And yes, you can get hugely creative with a nuker.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
With restaurant closures, and a concern
about our safety going into ones that are wide open for business, we have really tried to figure out how to prepare food and eat well when traveling. If we were pulling a camper, it would be easier to take all kinds of cooking appliances and utensils, but we are not ready to do that yet. Neither of us has experienced the RV park thing, or state and national park camping.
I did go onto the Mr. Bar-B-Q website, and it seemed like they were intent on selling products associated with grilling, and more impressive, parts for repairing your grill.
I have started packing a box or bag with certain snacks when we are traveling. It is fun to think about 3 in the afternoon, crossing a state line, pulling over to get fuel, and sitting in the parking lot, eating a snack, and discussing how crazy some drivers re.
But you are correct that when our couples cooking is a sure thing, mistake free, no trial and error, it will not be the crazy fun that always is.
Tonight, I formed the burger patties, B grilled them. He had hell flipping one of them, almost broke it in two. He meticulously put it back together so I would not laugh at him, and he saved the patty and face. The argument would have gone on for hours: was it his bad flip or my bad patty forming? That would have been the question for the evening and beyond.
Too bad B saved the patty. Dammit.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Well, we finally got rid of our trailer.
Campgrounds are getting more and ore crowded, more and more difficult to get reservations for and good sites at, and waaaaaay noisier than they once was. OTOH we still have a quad cab with a shell over the bed and can ergo pack and take many boxes and a keep a cooler and snax box in the back seat, so we're right there with you on sitting in the parking lot, or rest stop, or scenic pull out or anywhere else convenient when snack time hits.
enjoy the ride.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I might consider getting one of those truck bed covers
if I knew it was easily removed. Seems like a week goes by, and I am loading up the bed of my truck with something that I couldn't do with one of those covers. I don't even have a tool box in the bed, which is also a good way to lock thinks up, but they take up room if you have to haul lumber, etc...
I can set a box with snacks and a cooler for cold drinks in the back floorboard, suitcases in the seat. The tiny grill, especially if I can seal it up in a bag to prevent the smell of charcoal in my extended cab, should be the easiest solution.
Travel while needing food, drinks, and a place to sleep is not the level of science that cooking should be! LOL!
While we will bitch at each other about cooking no matter where we go, we will look quite chic. Hawaiian shirts for B, new shorts for A, and A will take a cool hat from Columbia to stave off skin cancers and sun burn. A has already in A's mind planned for B to all the grilling whist A watches, and gives moral support.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Pick-up shells come in a vast variety, as do their connections
to the bed. The simplest has 4 clamps (2 per side) that tighten with something like a 9/16 bolt or thereabouts or metric equivalent etc. Here they must have a brakelight/tail light combo unit which is usually connected with a quick disconnect of some sort from one tail light assembly or the other. Hard part is getting it up onto the bed in the proper position without pinched fingers. Almost all of them take two people if you wish to avoid a lot of grief. Others have a bead of sealant or caulk for waterproofing, and some are actually through bolted or screwed down.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I was thinking more of a bed cover.
Nothing you and I describe would keep an experienced thief from doing their thing. (Trust me. They can break into damn near anything, so they say when they have been convicted of same, and i am their attorney.)I am just trying to think about something cheap and practical for an overnight at a series of motels. This is travel I have never done. Concerns are new. I know more about precautions to take in Columbia and France than Florida.
Back in the 80s, when I drove all over the US, I had no worries about anything other than snow flurries and buffalo attacks, maybe pick pockets.
All I can say is that A did not give B proper moral support to put some chicken tenders in the oven, although A washed the baking pan.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Oh, I don't thing of it as security so much as
weather-proofing, keeps everything back there dry. It also provides that quickie deterrent security for quickie stops at grocery stores, rest stops and such. People passing by can't just reach in and grab shit, hell, stuff's not even visible until they're right up close.
be well and have good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
That is exacly why the cover
might be a good purchase. It just has to be removed when we get home. I use that truck to haul stuff every few days. That is why I have it in the first place. Having only a car would be dreadful out here in the country where you must take your garbage to a repository miles away.
Continuing the constant A and B cooking controversies, the magic cheap grill is still not assembled. B has time. A is the calendar/timer watcher.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981