Canyon de Chelly Changed Our Lives Forever
- wearesane
- Jul 16, 1998
- 2 min read
by James Howard
Kelly and I both came from the backpacking world, where the low weight of dehydrated food trumps flavor. When we started going on camping trips together in my Land-Rover, we packed and ate in much the same way. We would still eat ramen or some dehydrated food.
For one trip, we decided it would be really nice to have cold drinks, so we started bringing a cooler. The cooler doubled as a chair. Next we took a step up in the culinary world by bringing canned food. Now we could have spaghetti with canned sauce! This arrangement worked for several trips around the Four Corners, but it should have told us something that when we saw a McDonald's we ate there.
What pushed us over the precipice was a trip to Canyon de Chelley National Monument . We normally eschew campgrounds, but on the Navajo Nation your choices are limited. So we camped in their free campground. Right after we dumped out ramen noodles into a pot of boiling water, the aroma of steak grilling wafted through our campsite. We looked around, and saw our neighbors had steaks grilling on charcoal while lounging on camp chairs. We looked at each other, and one of us said, "There is a grocery store up the road, isn't there?" The ramen went in the trash, and we went to Basha's and bought steaks, salad, charcoal, and ice cream.
It was all over after that. We eat well on our trips now, while sitting in comfortable chairs. For years, we would freeze our meat, and pack it in the cooler along with our sodas. At some point we ended up taking two coolers because there was not enough room in one. We eventually spent several hundred dollars for a 12V refrigerator (almost as much as the one we bought for our kitchen in our house!), and it was worth every penny. If it broke or was stolen we would eat spaghetti for weeks to afford to buy a new one. With a dutch oven and a propane stove, dining has become one of the enjoyable parts of camping.
After these changes in our camping lifestyle, the number of nights camping each year increased dramatically. Originally we would camp 2 or 3 weekends a year, and today 40 nights is a slow year.
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