Driving With Dinner 05/23/20

Kaibab Camper Village, Fredonia, Arizona (Grand Canyon North Rim)

Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future hope, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. ~ Proverbs 24:19-20

Our friendly neighborhood squirrel returned this morning, making his same rounds once again, but today, he stopped and desperately tried to gain access to our new neighbor’s nylon cooler. That cooler must be made of pretty stern stuff, because he tugged on the edge pretty hard with his teeth, before giving up and moving on. We’re thinking he must be used to being able to get into coolers.

This campground has a 10am check out time. Really, really early! Most force you to leave sometime between noon and three. But today, it’s 10:00. Our next spot has a check in time of 3pm. Kinda late compared to most. That meant we had five hours to kill. And with a less than two-hour, 96-mile drive ahead of us, that still left three hours to kill. So we threw in a time change, which took off another hour (for the foreseeable future, we’ll only be two hours behind Ohio instead of three). Still, there were two hours left. So Blaine asked the KC Village owner yesterday if we could leave a little late. He graciously gave us a half hour – – hour tops. Well, so as not to push him, we opted for a 10:30am check-out. Now we’re down to 1 ½ hours.

There was a large scenic pull-out not far down the road, so we stopped there, looked at the view, and sat in the coach working on stuff like blogging, for a bit, before we drove slowly to our next destination. We seem to have become proficient at wasting time. 😊

Sand Hollow State Park, Hurricane, Utah

What an incredible site Blaine reserved for us here! We have 360⁰ views! And what views they are! Tall mountains, hills, pink sand dunes, a lake and vast open wilderness! And none of the neighbors are very close.

It’s a short four-night stop on the way to our time in Utah’s “Mighty Five” as they call them – Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands. Utah is blessed with 5 National Parks and we’re expecting to hit all five in the coming weeks!

This place isn’t known for hiking, etc. it’s more of a park for boaters, beach goers, and sand buggies. And that’s what we see here. It seems they’re trying to reopen slowly. They’re limiting the number of people into the Park each day, so there are lines of cars, even though the signs and internet tell you – when they’re full, they’re full. It’s not like Huaco Tanks, where people come and go. Here, people come and stay all day.

We tried something new today. Driving with dinner in the kitchen sink.

I have a marvelous crock pot recipe for “Amish Beef” (as I dubbed it). It takes about 6-8 hours, so we decided to try moving with it simmering in the sink as we drove. (There’s a plug above the sink area) It actually worked out well, once Blaine placed rubber bands from the lid to the side handles to keep the lid in place.

And it tasted great! And all we did was boil noodles and make a salad once we were ready for dinner. Here’s the really simple recipe, should you be so inclined:

“AMISH” BEEF AND NOODLES

3-4# Chuck roast, cut into cubes

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can French onion soup

1 package noodles

Place the meat in the crock pot. In a bowl, stir together the soups. Pour over the meat. Cook for 8-9 hours on low.

Add some kitchen bouquet for color if desired.

Serve over noodles.

Serves 4-6

HINT: I like to remove most of the sauce, put it in the noodle pot (once the noodles are being strained), add a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch and make a thick gravy. You can also add seasonings like Worcestershire, soy, or A1 if you like.

After dinner, we took a walk around the campground. We thought it was a pretty busy place, but we hadn’t seen busy yet!