Cooking in the outdoors has always been one of my favorite activities…or, I guess that’s eating in the great outdoors. Actually, I think eating anywhere is what I enjoy. But then, eating while outdoors is great because it saves me the trip back to the house.

Some men rarely cook when they’re at home. While that is not true for me, it is true that everything I make outdoors tastes better than the same fare prepared at home. This is due primarily to the meal planning and what is known as the hunger/taste ratio. This ratio is used as an indicator which assumes that the acceptable taste of a particular food increases in direct proportion to the hunger of the dining subject. I use this ratio in conjunction with trail meal planning, which consists largely of another indicator ratio, the hunger/hike ratio. This indicator states that the farther and harder a person hikes, the hungrier he or she will be. It follows that the hungrier the person is, the tastier a relative meal will be. It is by the use of this equation that most of my outdoor preparations become palatable.

Actually, after a long day of hiking some tough mountain trails, I have seen a group thoroughly enjoy a dandelion green and Canada thistle salad with a main course of pine bark stew with spruce cone croutons. (This recipe’s secret demands the use of pine bark, not spruce.) According to Patrick F. McManus, who wrote the book Watchagot Stew, you can mix anything you have available in with your stew. Personally, I don’t recommend rocks when in the core of a mountain chain – the granite and quartzite cannot be boiled enough to become soft even though they are a great source of minerals. Rocks from the foothills, with their higher moisture content, may be more adaptable to this recipe’.

Anyway, outdoor, um, gormeticism, while a subjective art, is not difficult to commit, er, do. Basically you have three heat source options: Cooking over an open fire, charcoal heat or a campstove. All methods of outdoor cooking fall under, or into, these three heat sources. I have a friend who made a wonderful meal using the 1988 Yellowstone wildfires as a heat source, but that would fall under open fire cooking. Also, I understand that with the proper equipment, an excellent job of cooking can be done using solar power. This is not so much a cooking heat source as it is something I know nothing about, so I will not consider it in the otherwise comprehensive text of this article.

Cooking over an open fire is the oldest method of cooking with the possible exception of electric roasting. You see, it is a little known scientific and archeological fact that wooly mammoth tusks acted much like lightning rods. This would leave the creature unevenly cooked but with an ample variety for all the different tastes in the tribe, from rare to well done. You didn’t think they all froze to death or got stuck in tar pits or something, did you?

Anyway, while used early in mans’ history, open fire cooking is no longer common. The flames are extremely hot and difficult to control for even cooking. My open flame cooking technique could best be described as “rare Cajun”; that is, blackened on the outside and largely raw on the inside. Since this method appeals to very few people, regardless of hours hiked, I tend to prefer cooking over charcoal or coals from the wood fire.

Charcoal cooking on a grill is well known to almost everyone. It is also possible to use this method outside your usual backyard perimeter. Using coals as a heat source produces a steady, more controlled heat than an open fire and is much more manageable. Cooking over coals may be done by the familiar grilling method whereby you place food directly on the coals by first dropping it through a grate of some type. This apparently has a straining effect but I don’t know what’s being strained aside from the chef’s patience. I believe this action is merely a male ritual of ancient origin since it is always followed by loud chanting of specific obscenities. A large percentage of the men I know perform this rite in much the same way, although the chanting may differ. Possibly a tribal variation.

Coals also work well with any number of cooking or baking devices from Dutch ovens or reflective ovens to tin foil or a skillet over the heat source. Any method that allows you to ruin a perfectly good meal at home will work over coals. One very old method of cooking originally used by native Americans is pit cooking. A large hole is dug several feet deep and coals are lit within. When the coals are glowing nicely, wrap a roast, potatoes, or whatever you desire cooked in wet burlap or some other protective layering and place it on the coals in the pit. Cover this very loosely with dirt and leave for 8 to 12 hours…more or less depending on the number of coals, the size or volume of the cooking items and whether you remember where you buried it. This method is primitive but effective and can be satisfying to the pallet as well as to deep survivalist neurosis, er, urges. It also teaches us an understanding of the struggle of early man, not to mention the proper use of a shovel.

A more sophisticated method of outdoor cooking is by the use of a camp stove. These are most common in the models fueled by white gas or propane. Cooking on these stoves is the same as cooking on your stove at home except for the need to screen the flame from the wind, pump up the pressure in the tank, prime the burner for initial lighting, heat the vaporization tube…okay, so it’s not the same as cooking on the stove at home. After these tasks are completed, however, the procedure for burning your meal is precisely the same.

For backpacking, the standard Coleman style twin burner stove is somewhat (as in very) large, but its offspring, the single burner pack stove, is light, efficient and easier to carry than a 20 pound bag of charcoal briquettes. Meals prepared on these stoves should be planned well ahead of time. Prepackaging one pot meals for use on the trail can be very helpful as they are quick and easy to prepare on your lone heat source. To save weight many meals are offered as freeze-dried fare. These are quite often edible and actually very tasty. They also take the fun out of outdoor cooking. Meals planned and prepared by yourself on a packstove have that extra flavor which only comes from trail dirt, white gas and extreme fatigue. It’s sometimes helpful for beginning outdoor chefs to find some special outdoor cooking books, but to be totally honest, recipes for cooking over these heat sources can be taken from your collection at home…or your wife’s collection at home, as the case may be. Most primitive gourmets tend to discard this wise advice, however. I have a camping buddy who packs a box full of spices for his camp cooking that makes his wife’s home supply look like a starter kit, yet he doesn’t cook a hot dog at home without scorching it. This, at least, can be ultimately recognized as a burnt hot dog. His outdoor menu is rather overbuilt. Now that I think about it, he could be over-spicing for purposes of camouflage. We usually need to stop early so Jim can get to his cooking. By the time he’s finished with preparation, everyone is showing signs of malnutrition. It could be that Jim is privy to my indicator ratios but, like his cooking, he tends to stretch them out too much as well.

After all, there’s only so much you can expect from starvation.

I have been pondering mobile homes on and off for quite some time and I have a question in relation to that: Why?
I mean, you’ve seen a mobile home recently, right? Sixteen, eighteen, even 32 feet wide and somewhere between about 56 feet and 180 yards long. Occasionally, you’ll see a brand new one going down the road in as many as three parts. You can tell it’s new ’cause it’s still wrapped in plastic with that little UPC sticker in the corner. You know, the black and white bar code they ran across the register when the person bought it. These homes can be quite large and not at all what you would call, in any practical terminology, mobile.
Mobile homes did, however, have very honest, humble beginnings. That was back in the early to middle part of the 1900’s when they were unwhincingly known as “trailer houses.” For many families whose livelihood was mobile, like construction workers, harvesting crews, traveling show people,, bank robbers, etc., the trailer was often the only home they knew for quite some time. Whole families lived in these few rooms on wheels. They could work the job and then back the old Dodge up to the house and take off for the next job site only to return in several hours because little Billy wasn’t sleeping in his bed in the trailer but was over at Jeffies’ playing. But then, nothing is perfect.
American tradition, however, led to a continuous increase in the size of the trailer house. In short order you could no longer pull the trailer with the old Dodge. You needed a new Heavy Duty GMC pick-up and a trailer towing package. Then a one ton truck. Soon it was no longer much more convenient to have a trailer house than it was to own, say, the Baja Peninsula. Somewhere in here the idea of the trailer house diverged into two distinct lines: the Mobile Home and the Camper.
Take the camper. Along an evolutionary scale, todays’ camper compares to the original trailer house in the same way a new automobile follows after the first Model T Ford. The idea is the same: basic shelter which is easily transportable from place to place. Naturally, the new camper comes in more sizes with more options and more available luxuries, from a pop–up camper which is essentially a tent that has the additional ability to roll into the lake after you set it up, to a large, split level 5th wheel trailer, which, no matter how you count them, ALWAYS has at least 2 extra wheels (that would be SIX). The advancements in campers have some so far as to have actually moved 180 degrees, from the trailer house to the trailer car. In this case, a large engine moves the camper and the camper pulls a small sport utility vehicle. Or maybe as the units got larger they went from spare tires to spare vehicles.
On the other hand, the original trailer house leads to the modern mobile home in the same way the first stone wheel eventually sired, say, the TV Dinner. Not only is the size different, the whole idea is different. Yes, you can still move your mobile home yourself, provided you are presently an independent hauler with your own Kenworth tractor and a commercial drivers’ license. In any other case it will cost you only slightly less than moving a standard construction 30 x 50 ranch style home with a double garage (basements do cost extra). As a matter of fact, many contractors build conventional homes with the intention of selling them and having them moved to your lot (basements cost extra). The only real difference is the standard home is built on blocks and moved to a foundation, whereas the mobile home is built on a steel frame with wheels, moved to your location and placed in your yard on blocks – kinda’ like that old Buick by your Uncle Frank’s shed.
To be fair, many of today’s mobile homes are quality built, fuel efficient, ergonomically designed homes that are comfortable and pleasurable to live in. These also can be placed on a basement (which costs extra) to make a complete home. Despite this fact, most mobile homes are not placed on the home owner’s lot, but are set in a mobile home court, estate, villa or manor. These are typically large parcels of land – usually recent soybean fields – which are devoid of some of the amenities of your standard home site. Things such as curbs, trees, level ground, character, etc. They do, however, have one redeeming quality for the mobile home owner: they are zoned for mobile homes.
So here’s what you do. You find a nice, large, beautiful double wide mobile home, for which you pay, say, $90,000 (on a 30 year mortgage at 9% interest).. Because of zoning ordinances, you’re not permitted to place it up the hill next to Dr. Hectors’ house so you rent a lot in a mobile home court. Now, since you’re thinking you’re not going to move the darn thing anyway, you build a nice double wide garage with a loft next to your mobile home on a piece of land which does not belong to you. For this you have paid an additional $40,000 not counting the monthly payment you need to make on the lot rent.
Let’s say in three years something comes up and you decide to move. Since it costs so much to relocate the mobile home, not to mention the garage and that concrete floor and driveway, you resolve to sell your home where it is – on someone else’s land. This will likely net you a loss of about 60% from your original investment, not counting any appreciation you may have gained on an actual home, which is probably none because any increase in your real property value would likely be recognized and offset by the realtor fees, legal costs, state and federal taxes, storm door surcharge fees and penalties for the use of chartreuse shag carpet.
So, as you see, the only actual mobile thing about a mobile home seems to be the value, which moves on pretty quickly after you buy the thing.

Okay, let’s grab a chance to set aside an hour, hop in the car and take a drive. Today, however, instead of taking the freeway to the next major city or your local highway to the closest town or even the nearest through street to that trendy neighborhood brewpub – which we both know will take you a lot more than an hour – let’s take a drive on some back roads. These are mostly spare roads that people are hardly using right now. I mean, they may not be as good as your main roads or thoroughfare or even a side street and some of them may not even be paved. Because we’re always needing roads they just know that someday we’ll find a use for them so they save them and put them out back. That’s why they call them backroads…maybe.
The federal government used to keep these roads in central storage facilities in the midwest but during the F.D. Roosevelt administration they decided to distribute them to the public along with jobs, ration stamps and those 5 pound blocks of cheese (which they’re still not out of). Later on they took these storage facilities and made missile silos out of them. Now they’ve filled the missile silos all with dirt, concrete, asphalt and other paving materials, which they could have used to generate more roads – go figure.
Now before you take off, don’t confuse backroads with sideroads. Sideroads, too, are quite common and can be found near or often right beside many main roads, if you can believe that. They can usually be identified by names like “Rough River Road” or “Cherry Creek Drive” or “Porky Parkway” – things near which they run or destinations to which they go. Often these sideroads existed alone for quite some time because people actually wanted to go to these places. Finally some astute person pointed out the error of having a side road without the benefit of a main road from which it stemmed so the local residents were faced with the options of renaming the sideroad something mundane, like “County Road 118.3” or “Brown County 7.” Taxes were then increased to generate more money for additional roads to connect to the sideroads. This is the American way… Except in some metropolitan areas like Illinois, where you pay taxes for the roads and then you pay again when you actually want to use them. This is the “Chicago way.” This method also works for “protection” for your business and expensive loans in alleyways, but that’s for a different article.
“Fine,” you say. “I’ll take a backroad. But where do I start?”
This is the easiest part of the whole process. Look out your window. Wait! Take this paper with you. Okay, look out the window. See that street? That’s your best place to begin. Some schools of thought advocate the need to go to the edge of town to start or maybe the first main highway. I have always found the best place to start is where you’re at… It seems if you have to go somewhere else to “start”, you never quite get around to it.
Once you take off on your aimless backroad drive, you should actually have an aimless backroad. Identifying one is fairly easy. First of all, it won’t be more than two lanes and in most cases, it won’t be paved – unless a politician lives there, which is unlikely since they all move to the city to keep their finger on the pulse of America. Of course, the city they move to is usually Washington, D.C., where they know absolutely nothing about the pulse of America. They also know nothing about the respiration, blood pressure, cholesterol level or kidney output of America, much less the backroad system. Let’s just simplify. You turn onto a gravel road and drive for, oh, a couple of minutes. You stop. You look around and the thought occurs to you, “This road doesn’t go anywhere!” This is a backroad.
Of course, just because this road goes nowhere you normally want to be doesn’t mean it doesn’t go anywhere. Somebody probably lives on this road. You might find a young family trying to escape the hectic life of the city or an older couple going about the business of simple farm life they’ve worked all their days. Perhaps you’ll come across a compound of neo-religious zealots with underwear on their heads and automatic weapons… Or maybe a secret government installation where they’re hiding captured space aliens with atomic blasters and underwear on their heads (the space aliens, not the government people, although what they do in their off time is legally none of our business). For the most part, however, you’ll find the people are very friendly. They’ll wave or even stop to converse about the weather or the crops. Unless the backroad you’re on happens to run across the deepest part of their land or you have one of their cattle tied to your hood. For the most part, you’re okay to take the road if there are no signs, gates, concertina wire, flying lead or bomb craters, nuclear or otherwise.
“But what if I get lost?” you quiz. Well, the whole idea is to place yourself in a semi-misplaced state; an aimless exploratory situation in an open and tranquil setting. Getting completely lost would seriously hamper this position so it’s good to have a general concept of where you are or at least how you got there. One way to do this is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Aside from being time consuming when done from a vehicle, this has been historically and scientifically proven to be an unreliable method of trail marking by the research team of Dr.’s Hansel, Gretal, Grimm and Grimm.
One of the better methods to use in not getting lost on backroads is a simple understanding of the basic backroad layout and a sense of the directions around you. Your direction of travel can be monitored by use of a standard compass, a tool invented by the Boy Scouts, I think. The placement of backroads in the United States is normally done in a grid pattern of roads around pieces of land in either quarters, sections, uh, halves, townships, dimes or parsecs…maybe. Generally, the further west you travel, the larger the spaces between roads until in places like Montana and west Texas they use road grids which coincide with county lines and time zones. These roads will usually run in a west-east, north-south network unless they are forced to circumvent a natural barrier or landmark such as lakes, rivers, hills, Pike’s Peak or John Goodman.
I should note that government owned land does not necessarily have a layout consistent with the standard grid system. Normally these roads will wander aimlessly, often taking off in a different direction entirely whenever a new administration took over.
If you are still unsure of your ability to remain aware of your location at all times, you may want to acquire a mobile GPS, or Global Positioning System. These devices are wonderful modern appliances which can be purchased quite inexpensively or added to your smart phone via an app. There is no better, faster way to find out just how lost you really are.
Have a nice drive, enjoy America and relax! If you get lost you have a really good reason not to be at work tomorrow.