Camping at the New River

Robert and the kids camped at the New River for the third year in a row. They joined the Ifjus, Cooleys, and Cranwells for five days in The Pit (officially - the River Room!) at the Junction campground from August 14-18. Cortney had a race weekend and then started work Monday so she was a bit of a drop in, doing a bit of meal and coffee delivery too.

There was a bit of rain each day, but that seemed not to dampen the spirits. I asked the kids to write up their thoughts on the trip.

Spencer

What I did on my new river camping trip.

• Build the whirlpool
• Iron Chef New River: Popcorn Cook off
• I played in the mud
• I went tubing
• I swam in the currents
• I made river roast
• I learned how to play volleyball correctly
• I went down the rapids
• Overall I had a great time

Of all the things I did at my camping trip, I have selected two to talk about.

The first event I would like to talk about was the Iron Chef New River: Popcorn. The competition consisted of three sub-events, the first of which was kettle corn. I mixed popcorn, sugar and olive oil together to make my popcorn. Before cooking it, the concoction smelled of sugary, sweet, kettle corn and tasted as if made by a professional. I made a tinfoil pan on with I cooked it. I let each kernel pop and let the others burn. BIG MISTAKE! Long story short, 5/5 on presentation, 5/5 on originality an 2/10 on taste. Round two: Original popcorn. I mixed salt and olive oil and put that on my popcorn: Result: FAILURE! As of stage three, I did well. I tied for first. I used butter, all purpose seasoning and sugar.

I also built on our whirlpool. Some people altered our design completely so we had to rebuild it. Basically, the entrance was blocked and the top was ruined. I learned how to pick up rocks correctly and where to put the rocks. The whirlpool was much enjoyed and on Monday night, we lit a fire out there.

Grant

I liked camping.
I had pork and turkey. We cooked it in the river.
We also had Iron chef Popcorn, I made movie mix popcorn.
The best was Daniella’s cheddar cheese popcorn…in my opinion!
We also continued the whirlpool “tradition”!
Someone blocked off the entrance of the whirlpool so we fixed that!

Marcella, Georgia, Keely, Grant, Daniella, and Spencer

The MIRV was Peter's idea. He can't camp without having some kind of project involved!! He's very creative and MIRV was this year's excitement! Here's what Peter had to say about it in an email prior to the trip:

I have this craving to roast huge chunks of meat. I made a poor man’s slow cooker out of a plywood box and a piece of metal roofing. I plan on cooking some beef ribs and other chunks for 8-10 hours starting on Sunday morning. John says he’s going to bring a pork loin. I may throw a small turkey in it also. The box will be lined with aluminum foil and the sheet metal acts as a lid. You just burn charcoal on top of the sheet metal lid and the heat radiates into the box. I built it last night and plan to calibrate it tonight to make sure the temp is in the right range and the new plywood smell gets cooked out. I think I’ll call it MIRV (mobile indigestion rendering vehicle). It has legs, so theoretically we can do the cooking out on the river.