Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Adventures in camping.... COLD weather camping...

Well, we finally woke up to our first official snow that has actually stuck around for the day.  We have forgotten what really "camping" in freezing weather entails...  Glad we only have less than a week remaining.

First of all, have you ever baked bread in a RV?  I decided to attempt to bake a loaf today as I'm bringing some to the Thanksgiving dinner that we were invited to (such great people here in Haines).  Well, I set the frozen dough out in the late morning expecting it to rise in the 4 to 7 hours indicated on the package.  To be honest, the package did state that the time to rise would depend on the temperature of the "kitchen".  Well, almost 12 hours later (after putting the bread directly in front of one of our electric heaters for the entire afternoon and evening), I was finally able to put the bread in the oven.  I haven't cut it yet, but it seems a little hollow.  Hmmm...  lesson learned...  its darn cold in here and bread does not rise when its cold...

As many of you know, we have been without our city water hookup for several weeks (since it started getting cold) so we have been filling up our tanks at least once a week so that we are operating on a limited water basis.  Well, we forgot to fill up on Friday when the office was open, so of course, on Saturday, we ran out.   Hmmm..  Ok...  Problem solved temporarily by filling up plastic containers with water from the office so we can wash dishes, flush the toilet, etc.  The plan was to fill up on Monday.   Well...  After getting the office to turn on their faucets and dragging out our two hoses and having the office drag out theirs, we finally connected all the hoses in the middle of the parking lot and turned the water on...  No wait...  NO WATER...  Hmmm...  would you believe that 3 hoses tied together across an entire parking lot will freeze in less than 10 minutes...  Still no water even today although we are proud owners of 3 hoses in our interior shower so that they warm up and un-freeze.  We will try again tomorrow.  Cross your fingers!!!

And of course to completely top off the day, my wonderful hubby comes home early from photographing the eagles today (no snow at the preserve) and proceeds to inform me that he sat in a dead nasty salmon and then proceeded to sit in the truck.... Yep...  nasty fish guts everywhere...  Well, of course he is in the middle of the preserve, no water anywhere so after spitting on the nasty gluey glob of fish parts, he finally remembers the baby wipes in the truck.  Well at least when he handed me his nasty pants, there were not fishy parts clinging to them, only a VERY NASTY SMELL...  Oh wait...  No water remember...  Off he goes to the office to fill up our water jugs so that I can proceed to wash the nasty fishy smelling pants in the kitchen sink...  Several trips later, we are now proud owners of a pair of ski pants hanging over the shower drying out (with the hoses)...

Whew....  lets hope tomorrow is a bit tamer...  but just in case, I'm starting my Thanksgiving cooking tomorrow as who knows what will happen....

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