Pizza Bagels at 65MPH

Now that we’re on day 6, I’m happy to report that this has been as much of a culinary adventure as a geographic one. Cooking in an RV adds a few unique constraints – only a 3 burner stove, a small oven and a microwave; limited space to store pots and pans; limited pantry space leading to limited spices and other staples, etc. Given our tight budget, we’re planning to limit restaurant meals to once per week – I can’t remember the last time we went more than 3 or 4 days without going to a restaurant or buying prepared food to eat at home.

Here’s a summary of the meals that I’ve prepared so far (interestingly, while I used to do only the meals for company when we lived in a bricks & mortar house, I’ve done all of the cooking so far on the trip). Mostly, the breakfasts have been cereal, but we’re planning to expand to scrambled eggs and fresh corn bread in the near future. Lunches have been sandwiches, pasta (CFO Josh sings the culinary and budgetary praises of Ramen noodles), leftovers and the below-mentioned pizza bagels.

Night #1, Shadow Brook Campground, Cooperstown, NY.
This was our first meal so we weren’t planning to be too adventurous:

Linguini in a sage-butter sauce
Farm stand-fresh green salad (lettuce, tomatoes, and an onion)

Reviews were mostly positive, biggest downer was we had to buy salad dressing at the campground store as we didn’t have oil and vinegar

Night #2, Shadow Brook Campground, Cooperstown, NY.
We had more time to plan, and so I decided to spend a little more time on the dinner. Unfortunately, because we got back to the campground late we ended up eating it in the dark and feeding the mosquitoes while we dined.

Pizza Chicken (chicken tenders coated with crushed Ritz crackers, then baked with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on top)
Pizza eggplant (as a vegetarian, I sautéed some eggplant and then baked it with the sauce and cheese)
Parmesan Risotto (from a box, actually very good)
Steamed Broccoli au Beurre
Apple Iced Tea (bought a box of apple cinnamon tea at the dollar store, and brewed it up and added a lot of ice and a little sugar)

Day #3 lunch, along Interstate 90.
We had left Cooperstown later than planned so were hoping to make up some time by not stopping – while Wendy drove I defrosted some frozen bagels in the Microwave, cut them in half, slathered them with tomato sauce and sprinkled some shredded mozarrela on top, then baked them in the microwave. With Wendy’s steady hand on the wheel, I was able to have them piping hot by the time we pulled into a rest area to eat.


Night #3, Jellystone Park Campground, Niagara, ON.
We had about an hour to prepare and eat dinner and still make the 8pm shuttle bus into town to watch the fireworks over the falls. Nonetheless, we managed to put together a reasonably healthy meal.

Roast Salmon (marinated in the leftover campstore-bought Italian dressing)
Zucchini & Yellow sq uash stir fry
Tomato & Mozzarella salad (with olive oil & balsamic vinegar – no more store bought dressing!)

Night #4 & 5, Sewickley, PA
We stayed with friends just north of Pittsburgh who on the first night cooked up a wonderful meal with lots of fresh produce from their garden. We had a picnic in a local park on the second night.

Night #6, Buck Creek State Park, Springfield, OH.
Another late night (got to the campsite around 7:30, dinner ready by 8:30.

Ginger-Soy stir fry (Tofu, baby corn, water chestnuts, snow peas from the grocery, with a pre-made ginger soy sauce)
Jasmine rice
Fresh broccoli (from Patty & Harris’ garden)
Edamame
Pink lemonade (from a mix)
Gin & tonics (We were worried the mosquitos might be malarial, so we needed something as a carrier for the quinine)

That’s the first almost-week in a nutshell—no restaurants or take-out meals yet! I now have the Verizon broadband access via Blackberry working, so I have good internet at the campsite just by connecting my Blackberry to the PC. I uploaded Josh’s blog earlier as Wendy was driving west on I-70, and am finishing this up as the kids get ready for bed.

Ciao!

Our first day

We finally cast anchor at around 1 pm today. It was a very hectic morning, getting all of our stuff out of the vacation rental and into the RV and/or my parent’s house. All of our nerves were frayed, but we finally got everything loaded up in the RV and had Wendy drop the car at my parents while I drove down to the Post Office for the official departure photo…

Since we still weren’t ready to leave, we bought lunch at the Winhall Market and ate it on the way. We then stopped at the farm stand 10 miles down the road to buy food for dinner and after that we were on our way. The bumpy Vermont roads were a little scary at first, but eventually we got into a groove and continued to the Shadow Brook campground near Cooperstown, NY without any further stops (well we did have to stop a a cross road to let an Amish horse and buggy pass, but I’m not counting toll booths and top lights). Simon mostly read (Harry Potter 5), Wendy fell asleep on the sofa, Josh and I worked on finalizing the budget. Wendy tried out the new coffee maker and made me an excellent cup of French Roast. We went through a hellacious rain storm near Albany that had me nervous because of the limited visibility, but other than that things went well.

We finally got to the campground around 5pm, just as we were listening to Harry Chapin’s 30,000 Pounds of Bananas song (Josh’s voice is changing, and he’s getting pretty good at the bass part on the chorus refrain). I didn’t know what to expect from a campground, given that I’ve never done much car camping or any RVing before, but the place is really nice. We have full hookups (electric and water) and the campground has a nice pool and playground. Here’s a photo I took from the front lawn just after we checked in…

We got to the campsite and did all the numerous set-up tasks (connecting water and electric, taking out the awning, putting the slide-out out) very rapidly considering how inexperienced we all were. The family posed for a few photos and then we went off to the pool.

After the pool, we cooked our first RV dinner. Given how little planning we did, and our inability to find a grocery store along the way (we kept thinking we’d see one off the road, and didn’t) we eked out a passable meal –cheese and crackers, linguini in a sage butter sauce and a green salad with the veggies from the farm stand. After dinner, Simon took his bicycle out and we set off to discover the rest of the campground. It’s hard to figure out how long the rest of the inhabitants here are staying – there are a lot of camper/trailers that seem to have been here for a long time, with cluttered front porches, barbeque grills and toddler toys all over their campsites. We seem to be the only folks stopping by for just a night or two.

As I’m writing this (9:30pm EST) the kids are asleep, Wendy’s reading in bed and I’m due for a good night’s sleep as well, so I think I’ll sign off. We’re all very excited about going to the baseball hall of fame tomorrow and I hope to be blogging a lot more regularly now that all of the preparations are finished and we’re on the road.
Thanks for all of the nice emails that you’ve been sending. It’s been great to stay in touch, and Wendy and I hope you’ll keep commenting / emailing.

The Preparation

After 6 months of planning, hundreds of miles of “pre-trip” driving -- From NY to Georgia and back in one car down and a different car back up when the first one broke down, from Virginia to Vermont in the new RV, from Vermont to Massachusetts to meet the boxes of stuff arriving from Georgia and London (2 separate trips, one in a rental, one in the RV)—we finally set off on our odyssey today.

I haven’t been blogging for awhile, but it’s not like I haven’t been busy – I feel like I must be the busiest unemployed person around, and I don’t know how I ever managed my life when I also had to work. Here’s some of what has been happening in the lead up to the departure:

Web site – We’re now on the third iteration of our www.familyadventureyear.com web site, and it’s certainly not the last. I hoped to have a week in Vermont to do the photo integration (via Flickr) and the Google Maps API programming (so that you can interact with a map of our journey and see where we’ve been, where we’re going, etc. on a large map). Unfortunately, all of the other logistical issues have prevented me from doing the programming work required. I hope to spend a few days getting the site overhauled at some point before mid-September, and you’ll certainly hear about it first here if I get it down;

Gadgetry – While I’m happy to traipse off into the outdoors with just a backpack and sleeping bag, I thought that I’d take advantage of the adventure to update the family’s technology stack. If anyone has any detailed questions, send me an email as I’m now an expert on several new things:
1) Data loggers – I have an AMOD AGL3080 device that fits in my pocket (or clips onto the camera bag) and gets our GPS location every second. At the end of each day it geo-tags all of our photos, so if someone looks at any of our photos on Flickr (after I get around to uploading them) the location the photo was taken can be viewed;
2) Digital SLRs – I wanted a new camera to document the journey and have happily settled on the Canon T1i with both 18-55 and 75-300 image stabilization lenses. It’s amazing how much better the pictures are than with my other cameras;
3) RVs – See my last blog, but I spent a lot of time before settling on our WII (Winnebago-Itasca Impulse). If you’re ever in the market for an RV, the $150 that RV.ORG charges for their buyers guide is well worth it;
4) Portable Printers – Bought an HP-460c for $60 on eBay; it has a built-in, rechargeable lithium battery, and does great printing and takes up very little space. There are newer (and better) HP models for >$300, but buying the older one saved a ton of money;
5) Netbooks - Wendy needed a new computer and loves her new Toshiba -- <3>10hours battery life, etc.
6) Mobile phones – Moving back to the US I had to navigate the maze of carriers, plans, devices, etc. We ended up spending a little more $ to go with Verizon, but there coverage map is much better and so far we’ve been very happy with the coverage and the customer service. My BlackBerry Tour is not as nice as the Bold I had in the UK (no WiFi support), but it’s still a long way from the first email only Blackberry (and only text at that) that I had back in 2002. I think this is my 7th or 8th Blackberry, and I’m still a big fan.
7) Coffee makers – When I drove the RV up from Virginia to Vermont I realized how much money I spend at gas stations on coffee. I did the math and realized that we’d either need to add a separate line in our family P&L for Wendy and my multiple times per day habit, or come up with a reasonable mobile solution. We ended up with a Keurig unit that can either use the very environmentally irresponsible single K-cup packages or brew a cup at a time with the re-usable filter. While it doesn’t have a steam head for milk foaming, it does brew a very good cup of coffee with no glass to break;
8) Rechargeable batteries – I now know far more than I ever wanted to about NiMH AA and AAA batteries and the proper types of chargers required to keep the batteries re-charging time and again. It’s amazing the number of devices we’re carrying that need batteries and how often they go through them:
a. Data logger – 3 AAA
b. Josh’s Lego NXT robot (part of his science curriculum) – 6 AA
c. Family Walkie Talkies – 6 AA and 8 AAA (we have two different pairs)
d. Flashlights – 8 AA for the non-crank flashlights we have;
e. I’m sure I’m leaving off a few others, so that’s why I have some spare batteries.
And, of course, this trip isn’t about the technology / gadgets at all, so I’m trying not to go too overboard and just have things that make our life easier but don’t keep us away from all the fun adventures we can be having. I’m still frustrated that I have very few photos of the times when I’m having the most fun – because who wants to stop to take photos when they’re having such a good time. I’ve also pretty much decided against doing any videos, as Wendy says, we don’t want to be one of those families that spends the first half of their life videoing themselves and the second half watching…

Home Schooling Prep – We had to plan both a 2nd grade and 6th grade curriculum, purchase materials (math texts, spelling texts, etc.) and convince the state of Vermont that we would be providing a good education for our children. We heavily borrowed from the American School in London (ASL) curriculum that our kids would have done this year, and are indebted to the ASL middle and lower school principals, our children’s teachers, friends with teaching backgrounds and other home schooler parents that we know. Thanks again for all of your support.

There has also been planning around our itineraries, especially some of the more complex / expense legs that require more advance planning and reservations (Churchill, Manitoba where we’re seeing the Polar Bears in October; Hawaii where Simon will be studying volcanos and tropical fish in January, etc.)

But, all of that is now behind us, we've gotten our tetanus boosters, our Vermont residency (drivers licenses, PO Box, car registrations), we've set all of our bills to paperless, we've arranged for someone to forward the mail and now we're on the road.