Airstream Life Food

Since being on the road (it's been over 2 weeks now omg) I've had to figure out just what in the world to cook and how to make it taste good. For the most part I've used our Webber Q grill to make our meals. I also have an induction cook top I use and a microwave but the grill has proven to be the easiest to use so far since we've been camping in mostly non-electric campsites.

Some staples of our camping meals include chicken ceasar salad (it's delish & easy), fajitas (chicken and steak mmm), pancakes!,  scrambled eggs and bacon, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches (so good) and hamburgers (we've had these at least 4 times now).

When I'm feeling less adventurous we dine on cereal for breakfast and turkey sandwiches for lunch.

When I'm feeling fancy, I've made rosemary pork chops with mashed potatoes and jambalaya with grilled asparagus.

One of the fun things about cooking in the Airstream is that I take more time to prepare our meals. At our house I tried to make food as fast as I could because we were too busy or too hungry to wait long for our meals to be ready!

I do miss being able to make cookies, cake, ice cream- you know, all that bad stuff that pinterest made me make because it looked (and was) so good.

What are some of your favorite meals that I could make on the grill, fire or cook top? I'm always searching for new ideas!

Bryce Canyon Astrophotography

Howdy, It's Matt writing again on the blog! This week we're staying at Bryce Canyon National Park in Southwest Utah.  Bryce is known for spectacular rock canyons, fascinating HooDoo's (rock spires), and very dark skies!

I've been excited to take some night sky photos since we left the light pollution of the big city and I've definitely come to a great spot.  First off, thanks Dad for my graduation gift of a Canon 40D DSLR camera - it has been a great tool on this adventure and now I've gotten to try it out on the stars!

Now, of course much better photos of my first two images are available on the web by professionals, but keep in mind these were just taken with a DSLR - no telescope used!

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy

M13 - Hercules Cluster

These are 2 fun wide angle sky photos I took.  I hope to replace the trees with some canyon rock soon!

Also - if you're someone we've met on the road - please leave us a comment on the blog - we would love to hear from you!

Bryce Canyon- Hi High Altitude

Hello!! We've made it to our 4th National Park on this journey, Bryce Canyon. I'm still surprised at how many National Parks there are that I had not heard of before a few weeks ago!

Bryce Canyon is a more popular park than the others we've been to so far which means more people and more gift shops! I'm enjoying the more commercialization of this park but really compared to most places we are still very much in the wildrness.

Here I am on our first day out in Bryce Canyon-

Here's me about an hour later-

High altitude is rough on my ability to have energy. We hiked about 1 mile and felt like we had gone 10. I'm sure sleeping well in this park that's for sure.

The longer we're here though, the more energy I gain so tomorrow Matt and I plan to conquer a hike in the canyon!

Here are some pretty photos from our big 1 mile hike!

We can do it!

Hoodoos and trees! There's a controlled burn in the distance, apparently forest fires are good for the health of the forest!

Our Campsite

In front of the lodge

This is petrified wood! Can I make a counter top out of this please?

Capitol Reef, Don’t Trust These Park Rangers

Whoa Capitol Reef has totally worn me out. I have gotten a few blisters and learned that some park rangers may think I’m more physically fit than I actually am (more on that in a minute).

So far on this trip I’ve learned that there are way more National Parks than I realized. If you asked me about 2 weeks ago how many Nat. Parks there are in America I would have guessed around 12. Now I know there are 55! We’re in our third National park of our journey, Capitol Reef. The more parks I see the more I appreciate that we have these places in the USA to explore.

This place is an oasis in the desert. Mormon settlers came here at the end of the 1800’s and planted an orchard with apple, pear, apricot, and other trees!! The trees are still here today watered by the clear beautiful river that allows this place to be the unique desert oasis that it is (you can eat the fruit too when it grows). A group of Mormon people lived here until about 1960. There’s a little shop here with pie and ice cream and you better believe I got excited about that! I had ice cream twice. This place is preserved very well and I can just picture the rugged settlers that lived in this remote place 100 years ago.

Now onto the rough part of this experience. Because we’re in the desert walking in and around the river sounded like a great idea and there just happens to be a hiking trail through the water with beautiful water falls. We asked the park ranger at the visitor center how she recommended getting to the trail head. She suggested biking because it was only about 3 miles. Unfortunately that was 3 miles uphill. What do I look like? An Olympic bike rider? I can’t bike 3 miles uphill. After giving it my best effort (3.5 hills into the ride only covered about a mile) we turned around and rode back to the visitor’s center. I'm totally kidding about not trusting the park rangers, you can trust them, just not with bike ride advice.

I at least got a really good workout in while at Capitol Reef. We did end up doing the hike along the water, we just did it backwards until we saw one of the pretty waterfalls. My blisters came from wearing my chacos for the first time of the season, they always take getting a few blisters before they are comfy again.

Our next stop is Bryce Canyon National Park! So far Utah has been more than I expected and is a great place to experience the outdoors. One last thing I’ve been surprised about is the amount of Europeans visiting the parks. Many of them have rented RVs and are traveling the national parks between Moab and California for about 3-4 weeks. I always wondered what the USA had to offer tourists besides NYC and other big cities. National Parks are a great representation of America!

Here are some photos from Capitol Reef-

A home from about 1910 in the town of Fruita which is now in the National Park (this is where you buy pie and ice cream).

A River in the Desert

One of the orchards

Our Campground

A little evening bike ride on a flat road