Burnt and Bent but it still makes coffee……..

   I got a chance to get away from my store, Trailhead Supply, for a couple of days. I took the family camping.  As I was packing for the first trip of the year I double checked the menu I was planning on cooking against the needed pots and pans list. Just double checking to make sure I had it covered on the shake down adventure of the year.  Lord knows in the past I’ve made coffee in a frying pan, but I would rather not if I don’t have to…Breakfast came, and I once again was playing camp cook, when my loving wife looked over at the propane stove and said…”Why’s my good pan out here?” I said, “It’s my new pan you got me for Christmas.” “Oh no, I got it for you so I could have it. Now you are using it in the middle of nowhere and it will look like the rest of your pots and pans, burnt, and bent because one of your mules wandered into the kitchen to play sou chef and steps all over your kitchen stuff.” “But it’s my pan!!!”

  When we got home and I was cleaning up all my kitchen items and putting them away for the next trip I noticed that my wife was right. All my pots, pans, and assorted kitchen items were burnt, bent ,and duct taped back together. Some had handles made out of tree branches. So other than they all tell a great story and each item that goes into the kitchen boxes and packed around the wilderness for 1000’s of miles a year making memories are truly wore out!!!  As with most of you reading this, our whole kitchen started as junk.  We all rescued these items from a box destined for the thrift store or yard sale or you saved it from someone else’s yard sale, maybe even the dumpster at work.  Some of the items I pack, in and out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness every weekend year after year were my mom’s, she gave them to me when I left for college. They then made it to my first apartment, then I got married and my wife said toss this out. Nope I’m taking it camping. I will tie this on the mule.  Where does it stop?  Why can’t we buy a nice nonstick pan, easy to clean you know a new pot from the store, and tie it to the mule?  Is there a law that says only pans with no Teflon left and bent in a triangle shape allowed past this point?  I guess it really doesn’t matter what you cook in, food always taste better in the mountains.  So pour another cup and plan another trip…

I’ll see you on the trail.

Andy