Faux Camping and the Fourth

Let’s start off with, I don’t do camping. Who in their right mind would, all that nature gives me the heepy jeepies. I do all my hunting and gathering at Safeway, not the wilderness. My earliest memories of camping are not pretty. Picture a ton of kids, two adults and four wet dogs in a tent that needed to be put up in the pouring rain by an impatient daddy. Nuff said.

But Bebe was coming back from Elko, Nevada for the 4th of July and how could I refuse to spend quality time with my BFF since she moved to points north. When we went “camping” with our nature survivalists when the kids were preschoolers it showed what polar opposites we are. Team Tuna stayed in a travel trailer while the B’s stayed in a pop up trailer. The most fascinating difference is while we were practically hosing down the woods with liquid, their little family of four survived on a coffee cup of water. I am not cut out to conserve.

Bebe and Bubba have a little place in Show Low and the Big Tuna was giddy to take his new (at least to us) and shiny RV for its inaugural run. Riding shotgun in the big rig was a weird visual experience. So much windshield, it was like riding in a 1978 AMC Pacer, another stellar purchase my parents made in my youth. The interior was sort of an uncanny twilight zone experience. The upholstery was identical and I mean identical to a sofa we’d retired about 10 years ago. All the built ins and fixtures were ¾ quarter scale. I felt like Alice in Wonderland who ate the cake and grew big. So a quick and easy recipe for the Mad Hatter and crew.

Easy One Dish Tortellini
28 ounces chicken broth
9 ounces cheese tortellini
4 ounces onion and chive cream cheese
1 can undiluted tomato soup

Bring broth to boil, add tortellini and simmer for 5 minutes. Ladle out a little broth into a bowl, add cream cheese and whisk until blended, return to pot. Add the can of tomato soup and heat thoroughly.

Living in the west, wild fire capitol of the world, makes me a little nervous about lighting fireworks. We compromised by flicking lighters inside the RV. But in the end, RV, $30,000, filling it with gas, $300, not peeing in the woods…….priceless.