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Boondock Bangkok

by Brian on March 8, 2011 in Food & Drink

Living in an RV creates special obstacles for someone who likes to cook eat as much, and as well, as I do. “Boondocking” adds a whole other layer of challenges, mostly relating to concerns about limiting water used for prep and clean-up. It is for that reason that hamburgers, hotdogs, deli salads and meats are so often associated with camping. But that isn’t the kind of diet I’m going to adopt willingly. Fortunately, there are tasty alternatives to the standard campground grub. One of which is Chicken Sates with Spicy Thai Noodles.

What makes this dish campground friendly is that the Thai noodles can be prepared a couple days ahead of time and served at room temperature, or even cold. Take that potato salad! The Sates marinate in a freezer bag before getting thrown on the grill. Add steamed vegetables and some House of Tsang Peanut Sauce (which is surprisingly good right off the grocery store shelf) and you have high-quality Thai take-out served up in the heart of the wilderness. How’s that for “roughing it?”

The following recipes are approximations of what I do. Read More…

Something you probably didn’t know

by Brian on March 7, 2011 in Miscellaneous

Click image for one of Shannon's published works. Photo © Château de Monte-Cristo

Writing is hard work. Getting paid to write is damn near impossible. I know, because I’ve watched Shannon do the impossible every day for the last six years. She’s far more successful than she gives herself credit for, and I’m incredibly proud of her.

I’ve been reading a lot of travel blogs lately and I came across this essay So You Wanna Be a Travel Writer? posted by a professional freelancer. Her experience mirrors ours, or Shannon’s, at least. It’s a good exposé on the realities of trying to write for pay. Freelance writing is a field where you have to work terribly hard; suffer constant rejection; manage the chaos of feast or famine assignments; harass editors for pay; deal with the uncertainty of when, or whether, the next check will arrive; constantly ‘interview’ for the next gig; work on stories that may never get sold; and compete with folks who are willing to do all of this for free. It’s not all fun and games, even if it appears to be.

Nobody knows how hard Shannon has worked to make a go of it in this crazy profession, but I thought you should.

Not Crossing

by Brian on March 7, 2011 in Florida

This sign is more hopeful than practical. Fewer than 10 endangered Florida panthers are thought to prowl the 1.5 million acres of the Everglades National Park. Not surprisingly, we haven’t seen one.

For The Birds

by Brian on March 4, 2011 in Florida

The Everglades is for the birds – literally. What it lacks in critters of the furry variety, it makes up for with an abundance of the feathered kind. Shannon & I never thought of ourselves as “birders,” mostly because around our neck of the woods the only things you typically see are pigeons. But out here, the avian diversity is truly stunning. Now I’m finding myself slowing down, looking up, and even searching for that little song-bird in the underbrush. Moreover, I really want to know what that giant pink wading bird is. Oh crap, I’m becoming a birder.

Probably our favorite encounter was with this giant pink Roseatte Spoonbill.

The Purple Gallinule may have been a close second. This bird is so brilliantly colorful you can’t help but stop and stare. Read More…

Getting Our Feet Wet

by Brian on March 3, 2011 in Florida

We were told that fewer than one-half of one percent of people who visit the Everglades sign up for a “slough slog.” So for every 100 people who show up at the park, only a single person’s bottom half makes the trek. Presumably the smarter top half stays back at camp drinking beers. I don’t know how that works exactly, but the point is, not many people do this, which is part of the attraction.

In our travels we’ve taken countless hikes over dry land. We’ve canoed through alligator infested cypress swamps and we even canoed through the “river of grass” known as the Everglades. One thing we haven’t done, though, is waded through an alligator infested swamp in search of places you can’t get to by boat. That is until now. Read More…