Summer 2016 EscaPODes

I will post a series of messages about this summer's travels in our EscaPOD.

Trip one: North Carolina to western New York State and return.

We prepared and left for New York State. Due to an appointment, we could not leave nearly as early as I would have liked. Despite trying to take all precautions, we seem to inevitably leave some things behind. However, nothing critical was left, so when we remembered, we just kept going. By that time, it would have meant a significant drive home to get the items and the cost in time and gas would have exceeded the replacement cost of the items.

Our usual route heading north is to go up US Highway 1 until we reach I85. From there, we go to Petersburg, VA, where we pick up I95. That is what we did this time also. Given our late start, we did not cover as many miles as originally planned. Our stop for the night was at a Walmart. This was the first time overnighting at one. The RVparky app on the phone lets us know what places are available. Since there were no truck stops near, the Walmart seemed like a good option for a free stay. It turned out to be a good place as it was farther off the highway than a truck stop would have been. Thus, it was quieter.

Since it was warm, I had opened a window on the end of the bed near our feet and had the vent fan running. During the night, a rainstorm came through. Neither my wife nor I noticed. In the morning, we shut the window, but did not notice that the foot of the bed area had gotten wet. We continued on, arriving at my sister's house and getting set up. When we went to bed, I noticed that my feet seemed to be damp. However, it was not until the morning that we realized that the rain the previous night had gotten not only the linens wet, but had gotten the foot end of the mattress damp also. The linens could be dried in my sister's drier. However, the mattress was a different matter. I propped it up for air circulation and ran a fan to also circulate air and help dry the mattress. Once that was done, everything could be put back together for our next night's rest.

The first few days were with my family. My mom wanted to get us all together. Since I wanted to contribute something, my contribution (with the use of my sister's kitchen and refrigerator space) was cheesecake. Now, this is not baked in an oven, but cooked in a pressure cooker. We had gotten an electric pressure cooker when our local Aldi store had them. I found Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough's The Great Big Pressure Cooker Book: 500 Easy Recipes for Every Machine, Both Stovetop and Electric. It had recipes for several types of cheesecake, including the two I made. One was a New York Style cheesecake. One was a Chocolate cheesecake. I had previously made these. I needed to get a 6" cheesecake pan. That was a "Fat Daddio's" 6" pan, purchased from Amazon. It was the size needed for our 6 quart pressure cooker. Since my sister did not have a kitchen scale (one of the items I had forgotten), I had to guess on the quantity of chocolate in the chocolate cheesecake recipe. I ended up melting about 4 extra ounces of chocolate. It was very a very stiff batter, but a little extra sour cream made it possible to get into the pan. It still kooked okay. The NYS cheesecake went much better as it did not require anything that was not on hand.

The results were that the NYS cheesecake turned out quite well and was well received. The chocolate one turned out so rich, people were splitting already small slices in half. It was more like a fudge cheesecake than a chocolate cheesecake. We ended up with extra, so we cut and wrapped it to fit in our refrigerator better. What we did with the extra will be part of the next installment.

Sorry to hear that, hope she is doing well!

Thank you. I'll relay the messages to her.

The next part of our first summer trip was to move the R-Pod from my sister's driveway to a campground in Newark, NY. The name of the campground is Whispering Winds Campground and Family Fun Center. It just opened this year. This campground is on the site of a former golf course. The owners are new. The prior owners filled in a swimming pool, so the campground currently lacks one. The owners told me that they plan to add one. The overall campground is nice, though it lacks shade. Since it was a former golf course, it is open. There is a lot of space for expansion and the property itself is attractive. The facilities were clean.

We did not intend this as a resort type stay. This was a convenient place to stay for the main purpose, which was to get together with friends from the Fidonet Cooking Echo (anyone old enough to remember computer BBS's should recognize this). This was a food-centered gathering. It involved visits to local dining establishments, a visit to the local ball park to see the local team get beat by a team from Victor, NY, and a day of serious cooking and eating. I demonstrated pressure cooker cheesecake by making another NY style cheesecake. There was enough of the chocolate left over for testing as well. This was the chocolate cheesecake with extra chocolate. When I explained that it was a goof that included extra chocolate, I was told that I should repeat that goof when I make it again. A very lactose intolerant friend who is also a musician and a supertaster said that it was "worth the pills" by which he meant lactase pills. That day concluded our participation in the "2016 echo picnic."
The final event for this trip was to attend my 45th high school class reunion. This was the first of my class reunions I have been able to attend. It was the right combination of timing and resources that made it possible. It was good to attend this reunion. However, time has changed the appearance of so many of them so much that I had a hard time recognizing them. I'm glad we had name tags with pictures from the yearbook. Some that I thought might be there weren't. Other classmates have since passed away.

The morning after the reunion, we finished packing and loading, hitched up the R-Pod, and hit the road back to North Carolina and home. The trip had one more surprise for us that was not so pleasant. There was a construction detour to exit I85 onto US1 South toward Raleigh. On it, I saw a place I wanted to stop at. We did so, and got home safely (or so I thought). After we had been home a few days, I was looking at the pod, and noticed a screw sticking out of the middle of the tire on the door side of the pod. I was looking at the tire, because the wear on it seemed to be excessive on the outside edges of the tread. I was able to remove the wheel and tire, which I took to our local Discount Tire, where it was patched. I appreciate that Discount Tire patches them (if possible) for free. It is one of the reasons I have also purchased tires there. The patched tire went back on the R-Pod.

This concludes our first trip of the summer.

Nice looking site!