Vintage Teardrop Camper with 1956 Parklane Trim

summer 2011 - part 3

Og her er huset vårt på Sleneset. Mye av interiøret var Kolbjørn sitt, han som bodde i huset før oss.

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And this is is our house at Sleneset. Many of the things used to belong to Kolbjørn, the man who lived in the house before us.

Super-fast, yummy stir-fry for quick RV meal

There are so many times, especially after a long day of sightseeing, when we come back to the camp and no one feels like cooking. It’s tempting to go out for something that’s cheap and bad for us, and more often than not, that’s what we do.

I try to have a few things on hand, though, that will keep us from doing that too much. All it takes is a couple of chicken breasts in the freezer and some freshies – maybe a little bit of broccoli and a red pepper, or some celery and carrots – on top of steamed rice (even instant is better for you than a Big Mac) and we’re good to go.



Healthy and delicious!



Here’s our family’s favorite fast stir-fry.

Super-fast Stir-fry

The sky’s the limit with vegetables in this – we’ve used carrots, celery, all manner of bell peppers, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms (shiitake, button, portobello), bok choy, onions and baby corn, all to good effect. We make a steamer full of brown rice, but it's faster with instant if that's what you have on hand. Serves 3-4

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch-thick strips

2 tbls. toasted sesame oil, plus 4 more tbls.

4 cloves garlic, minced

2-in. piece fresh ginger, minced, or 1 tbls. ground ginger

6 cups vegetables, cut into bite-size chunks

2 tbls. rice vinegar, brown rice vinegar or white wine vinegar

2 tbls. black sesame seeds
Soy sauce to taste

Heat a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat until hot; add 2 tbls. sesame oil and then immediately add chicken strips. Sauté, stirring, until meat is just cooked through, about 4 minutes. Remove from pan, set chicken aside in a bowl, and turn burner off.

Add garlic and ginger to pan. Let sit for a minute, then turn heat to medium. Add remaining sesame oil and sauté for 10 seconds. Add vegetables. Sauté, stirring vegetables constantly, until they begin to soften. Pour vinegar over and stir to coat.

Cut reserved chicken into bite-size pieces and toss in with vegetable mixture. Cook until heated through, about one minute. Sprinkle sesame seeds over top and divide among serving bowls with white or brown rice. Serve with soy sauce on side.

The roadtripster is the handle of a longtime Coloradan who travels the country by any means possible, sometimes in an RV, sometimes car camping or in the backcountry, with kids and without.

summer 2011 - part 2

Endelig tilbake på Sleneset, øya på Helgelandskysten. Alt er som før.

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Finally back at Sleneset, our small island in the north of Norway. Everything is just like before.

Classic Camping Recipe: Monkey Bread

photo: Annie Shapiro

Monkey Bread is one of those camping foods that starts with a tube of Pillsbury dough. So I use the term "recipe" loosely. Still, it's a classic and the kids love it, and so do I! It's delicious!

Why is Monkey Bread called Monkey Bread? Many of us campers think it's because the kids rip the "loaf" apart as if they were little monkeys. Hard to think of any other reason, isn't it? And only the Boy Scouts know for sure.

Have fun, and remember the butter!  

From The Real Family Camping Cookbook:

Monkey Bread

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

1 tube of refrigerated biscuit dough

½ c. of brown sugar

1 T. of cinnamon

1 large Ziploc bag

butter

Preparation: 

1.  Grease a skillet or Dutch Oven with butter.

2.  Let the kids mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a plastic bag.

3.  Have the kids pull biscuits off the roll and shake each biscuit in the bag of cinnamon sugar.

4.  Place the biscuits in the skillet or Dutch Oven.

5.  Dot each biscuit with butter.

6.  Cover and cook the bread over medium heat for 20-30 minutes.  If you cook this in a Dutch Oven, pile hot coals on top with your camp shovel.

“Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold.”
- Judith Olney

Classic Camping Recipe (and Vegan, too): >>Veggie-Potato Foil Packets

photo: Annie Shapiro

From The Real Family Camping Cookbook:

Veggie-Potato Foil Packets

We make these every time we go camping to get a veggie or two into the kids along with all the biscuits, S'Mores and whatnot. Kids like to assemble the packets (which we usually do at home, then label with a sharpie) and then watch over them in the fire.

Serves:  4

Ingredients:

4 small potatoes, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

1 cup of string beans with the ends snapped off

any other kind of veggies you like

olive oil

herbs - I only pack a few when we're camping, like basil & oregano

salt & pepper

Preparation:

1. Tear off 4 rectangles of aluminum foil and fold them in half to make double thick squares.

2. Let the kids assemble their own packets with the potatoes, carrots and string beans. 

3. Drizzle olive oil over the veggies. Season with herbs, salt & pepper.

4. Wrap up the foil packets so the contents are snugly wrapped, but not too tight.    

5. Place the packets directly on medium coals or on the hot part of the grill.

6. Turn them every 5 minutes or so, and cook them for about 20 minutes, or until everything is cooked through.  

7. Serve with salt & pepper

TIP:

•  When making this for a group, put everything in a large aluminum pan and cover it with foil. (Or use a Dutch Oven.) Cook it on a hot grill or in the coals for about 45 minutes, stirring every 5 or 10 minutes.

“Potatoes served at breakfast, At dinner served again; Potatoes served at supper, Forever and Amen!” - Pennsylvania prayer

summer 2011 - part 1

Første del av sommerferien ble tilbrakt på Hamar hos gode venner, både tobeinte og firbeinte.

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Summer, part one, was spent with good friends, both two- and four-legged.

Best Sites Sugar Pine Campground OFFER

I just had to cancel my reservations to Sugar Pine Point........ booo hooo hooo. These are great sites and took allot of work to get. If your interested don't hesitate, let me know if you got them though. 

RESERVATION DETAILS

Reserve America

Campground: SUGAR PINE POINT SP

Site: 162

Site: 159

Site Type: STANDARD

State: California

Arrival Date: Mon Aug 1 2011

Departure Date: Fri Aug 5 2011

 

 

my dear oslo

I am out of words.

Some top spots along the Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway, which runs for 469 miles from Virginia in the north to North Carolina in the south (and a tiny bit over the border into Tennessee), is one of the most scenic drives in the United States. It's famous for not being particularly RV-friendly in parts -- many big-rig drivers tote along another vehicle and park the RV at a centrally located campground to go explore chunks of the drive. The route is well marked by milepost (the spots below are so marked), and a good place to start your trip planning is at the official site.

The views along the Blue Ridge Parkway are hard to beat.

However, with the exception of the tunnels around Asheville, N.C., most of the road can be done in a motorhome; you just want to get a good map of the highway and pay attention to the warnings about tight sections and watch for the turnoffs that are marked as larger, as well as keeping an eye out for tunnel heights all along.

Highlights include Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Here are some other options for activities:

Mill Mountain Zoo (MP 120.3) is a nice break near Roanoke, Va., with more than 160 animals, including small exhibits of big cats, primates and wolves. There's a wildflower garden and a small train (extra charge), and the views are spectacular.

Mabry Mill (MP 176.2, 276-952-2947) near Rocky Knob, Va., is a cool grist mill with living-history re-enactments that does different demonstrations depending on the time of year. Soap-making, apple butter, wood-carving and cloth-making are among them. There's a nice restaurant nearby of the same name that serves food made from local produce.

The Mile High Swinging Bridge is not for those with height issues.

Grandfather Mountain (MP 305) has a Mile High Swinging Bridge that makes kids squeal and a lot of adults close their eyes and, well, usually swear. Once you're across, though, you'll say it was great fun. Promise. Don't forget the camera, because there's also a "zoo" of sorts where you feel as though you're in the cage, and the animals get to roam free. It's pretty cool.

Altapass Orchard (MP 328.3) near Linville Falls, N.C., is best at apple-picking time, of course, but year-round offers the products made from the apples (cider, juice, jams, etc.) as well as fudge and also has a Monarch butterfly pavilion for kids.

Sliding Rock (by MP 407.6) near Pisgah, N.C., is a kids' paradise, a natural water slide that ends in a small pool. It costs a buck to do it, and good luck tearing the kids away on a hot day.

Graveyard Fields (MP 418.8), also in the Mount Pisgah area, is a great place to get out and stretch the legs; several waterfalls, including Yellowstone and Upper Falls, are worth striving for, although the latter requires a 3.2 mile jaunt.

The roadtripster is the handle of a longtime Coloradan who travels the country by any means possible, sometimes in an RV, sometimes car camping or in the backcountry, with kids or without.

Eggs in a Baggie! A Classic Camping Recipe

We always make Eggs in a Baggie on camping trips. Even our kid who doesn't like eggs likes to make Eggs in a Baggie for someone else. That's because it's FUN! After you crack a couple of eggs into a Ziploc-style bag (we use the cheap kind) you get to squish them around to scramble 'em up:

Squishing.

After the eggs are thoroughly squished, you pop the baggie into a pot of boiling water (as usual, we had the wrong size bag, so we had to hold it there. With a smaller bag you can just toss it in):

Simmering.

Then, after 3 or 4 minutes of simmering, you just slide the cooked eggs out out of the bag and onto your plate. Voila! Eggs in a Baggie! Or should I say, Eggs a la Bag.
















I suppose Eggs in a Baggie are like coddled eggs in that they're both cooked in closed containers in simmering water.  But Eggs in a Baggie have a unique texture - airy and a little bit cake-like. They slip miraculously from the bag when they're done without any butter - but go ahead and add a pat to give it a little oomph. We also add crumbled, cooked bacon, and any leftover, cooked potatoes or veggies from the night before. Waste not, want not (as my mother would say).

Have fun! And here's the official recipe, from The Real Family Camping Cookbook:

Boiled Scrambled Eggs AKA Eggs in a Baggie

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 strips of bacon

butter

salt & pepper, hot sauce and catsup

2 plastic Ziploc baggies – the large sandwich bag size

Preparation:

1.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

2.  Fry the bacon in a skillet.

3.  Let each kid tear apart or crumble their bacon into a Ziploc bag.

4.  Add a shake each of salt & pepper.

5.  Break1 or  2 eggs into each bag and zipper it tightly.

6.  Let the kids squish the eggs around until they’re scrambled.

7.  Open a corner of the bag and squeeze out all of the air so the bags don’t explode when you cook them. I learned this the hard way.

8.  Put the zipped bags of eggs into a pot of boiling water and cook them until they’re done, about 3 or 4 minutes.

9.  Empty the omelets out of their bags onto plates.

10. Serve with salt & pepper, hot sauce and catsup.

Variations:

•  Instead of bacon, use cubes of ham or cooked breakfast sausages (or leftover dinner sausages).

•  Add cheese.

•  Add chopped onions, mushrooms and green or red peppers.  

•  Serve on a tortilla.  

•  Garnish with sour cream and salsa or chopped tomato.

“We plan, we toil, we suffer - in the hope of what?  A camel-load of idol’s eyes?  The title deeds of Radio City?  The empire of Asia?  A trip to the moon?  No, no, no, no.  Simply to wake just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs.” - J.B. Priestly

Water Balloon Hoarder

Some Kids Like Crawly Things ... And Visa Versa

Reviews - Campers emails 2011

Many of you email us after your camping trip to say how much you enjoyed it.
We can add your comments to this Review "Post"

We enjoyed the stay in your "Sweet meadow Wing" very much,
it was purely wild experience which infact we both were looking for before planning.

Thank you once again & would probably look forward to see you some time later.
Kind Regards,Rohan.& Jane


"Catkin" pitch 12.8.2011
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2011 2:01 PM


Subject: Thanks!
Hi Chris/Yvonne

I just wanted to say thank you to you both for our enjoyable stay last week.

I did ring the bell when we were leaving on Friday morning but you must have

popped out.

Whilst the weather was awful Wednesday/Thursday, we still had a great time

and enjoyed the site very much.

It was the second time we had visited and we will certainly be back again.

Planning a tent upgrade for next year!!

See you next tim Douglas & Emma

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"Nest" and "Tilt" pitches 1.8.2011

Dear Chris and Yvonne


On behalf of our youth group, i would like to take this opportunity to
thank you for having us on your site,
to experience our first adventure
of wild camping.
Enjoying the relaxation and the oudoors and the scenic wonders of
nature.
Yours thankfully
Marie Burns.
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"Hoot" pitch Sunday 7.8.2011:-

sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 1:46 PM
Hi Yvonne and Chris

We would just like to say thanks for the lovely pitch, Hoot, we had on saturday night.
Even though the rain poured down

we had a great time enjoying the nature and wildlife.
just the tonic for a busy life. Hope to be back soon with the kids.
Thanks again Kirsty and Cris




"M.Yellow" pitch Sunday 7.8.2011:-
sorry we didn't get a chance to see you this morning before we left. Just wanted to say thanks and to let you know we all loved Gimme Shelter. It made our first time camping very special and we survived that awful rain. Looking forward to coming back!


Many thanks.

Stevie, Tracy, Eve and Carla




We really enjoyed our stay at Gimme Shelter - thanks from all of our group. The site is a very clever set up and we loved the pitches up top with so much space to the next pitch.
Alistair













"Nest" 13.7.2011

We returned to Newcastle last night after our great two day stay
at Gimme Shelter, pitch 'The Nest'!
Your site is beautiful; quiet and peaceful, with gorgeous scenery and a fantastic host!
We all loved the organic atmosphere with the chickens,
 handmade furniture etc
and the sawdusts toilets were much more luxurious than we had imagined.
The perfect location for trips up to Elie and Anstruther!

When we left, we talked about making our trip to Duloch an annual event!

I've attached a few of our photos which we would be more than happy for you to use on your website.

Regards and best wishes for a successful summer,

Rachel Scott

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24.6.2011

Pitch "Sett"

Hi Chris

Just thought I'd say we stayed last night - great place -

 the boys loved it and we will certainly be back !

Many thanks Ian

Pitch "Bobtail"

From lane going to "Hoot".

Hi Yvonne,

Just wanted to say despite the wet weather this weekend we had a great time camping. What a fantastic site you have! We'll definitely be back soon.

Many thanks,

Vanessa
Pitch "Sweet Meadow"

Sent: Monday, June 13, 2011 10:48 PM

Subject: Wonderful Campsite

Hello,
We just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful weekend. It was just what we hoped for: peaceful, spacious and apart from a bit of rain, generally very lovely. We are planning on coming back in Aug/Sept so we'll be in touch!

Regards,

Heather, Stuart, Ross, Niall & Nicola

Pitch "Rising Sun"









Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 9:37 PM

Subject: Thank you

Chris,

Just wanted to let you know we had a fantastic time over the weekend and loved your site. Graeme

(Returning next month)

................

Pitch "Sweet Meadow" & "Gurgle"






Hi Chris & Yvonne


Just a wee note to say we had such a lovely time camping with our friends on your beautiful land.


Thank you for making it such a special place - I hope we will be back sometime soon.



Kids said it was the best place they have ever stayed (and it's only half an hour from home!!)

Love & best wishes from

The Robb family

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Pitch "Coppice"

17.5.2011

Hi Chris,

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say how much we enjoyed our camping with you

on the weekend.

The facilities were perfect and the shop was beautiful (the Rhubarb jam was especially nice!),

it's so refreshing to see some homemade produce and honesty box.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll see us again soon over the summer,

probably in a larger group now that we've seen how nice the place is.

Regards, Rob.


Pitch "Coppice" & "Rising Sun":-

5.5.2011 Hi Chris and Yvonne,
Just wanted to drop u guys a wee email to say thanx for a lovely weekend. I have taken xxxxx to many sites around scotland in the last couple of years and yours is now the firm favourite. I hope we will be back soon if i can swing a few days off from work. kids had a wonderful time as did i very relaxing just what i needed before a heavy season ahead in my job.lol. i envy your life style, maybe someday lol.

many thanx and warm wishes to you both x

Lyndsey

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(J Way & Hoot)
30.4.2011
Hi,

Just wanted to say many thanks from all of us, yet again we had a great
time. The kids absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back. Thanks
again :)


Amanda Easton

..................

Date: 21 April 2011 "Nest"

(photo supplied by camper)

just wanted to say a huge thank you for making us feel so welcome during
our stay with you. the girls and i loved exploring your site and really
enjoyed the peace and quiet. definitely hope to come back very soon.(the girls
said they might even let daddy come!!). thanks again, alyson, heather and
amber. x

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(http://www.camping-fife-near-edinburgh.blogspot.com/) (http://www.woodlandcampinggimmeshelter.com/) Phone 01383 417681 or 07957 264 805