Camping Essentials

If you find yourselves on the road for a few months, and hopefully you're not running from the law, here are some camping tools we've grown to love.

Sunglasses. Cause when you're cool, the sun shines 24 hours a day!


Fire starters fashioned from dryer lint pushed into a cardboad egg carton with candle wax to hold it together. This was a present from the Martha Stewart of camping, Claire's mom Martha Hagen. A good alternative to lighter fluid. And, we're sad to say we've run out of them at a random RV park along the Alaska Highway.


Bones borrowed from your favorite and perhaps only brother-in-law. Note the colorful oilcloth purchased from Casa Ramirez in H-Town. The fruit looks so real that the bees love it too.


Once again the crafty genius of Martha … Hagen … makes the list. This rug is crocheted from plastic newspaper bags and serves as our door mat. Es NICE!


The Dutch Oven! You know the one. Things we've cooked so far include: cornbread, kale and ham quiche, apple pie, and high mountain macaroni (a dish composed of tomato sauce, sausage, pasta, and whatever else you want to throw in it that's not growing anything, kind of like gumbo of the rockies).