Chupacabra Canoe

When packing for a weeklong trip, it can be hard to meal prep accordingly. After 12+ years of canoe trips, I offer my unsolicited advice on the key tips for packing food on the river.

The first thing your going to want to pack is alcohol. If your trips are anything like ours have been, your likely going to be wet, cold, uncomfortable, and in some cases have broken ribs and internal bleeding. Alcohol not only is fun to drink with your comrades on the river and around the fire, but also may be the only thing helping you get to sleep while a thunderstorm rips through the camp. Beer is great for the days, keep in mind the hardest part is keeping it cold. Try and space out your trip for restock points to add ice. Don’t go too heavy on the beer, it will take up valuable canoe space, and the ice thing, Try and limit yourself to a case per canoe at a time. Bottles of bourbon pack nicely, Bloody Mary’s are a great way to start the day as well.

Breakfast: Keep it simple, keep it quick. You don’t want to be the last person packing up camp in the morning. Coffee doesn’t take long, talk with your group – not every person needs to bring a coffee pot. You’ll want protien, so you can precook a pack or two of bacon, have that with a hardboiled egg, slice of cheese. All pack easy and require no heat up. If your feeling ambitious, oatmeal isnt a bad option. A bag of apples or clementines pack well, can get wet, and easy to dispose of – no cooler space needed. Bloody Mary once you launch, no need to get too crazy.

Lunch: We tend not always eat a full lunch, so again something quick and light, easy to get to on the river. Beef Jerky, trail mix, maybe a clementine. Beer has carbs so drink those as well, mix in a water here an there you’ll be alright. Don’t pack bagged chips, they take up room, get ruined if they get wet or smashed down. If you want something filling premake some basic sandwhiches, Id stay away from toppings and condiments unless you like 3 day old smush tomatoes and mayo ruining the bread.

Dinner: Go crazy, you earned it. Meat and potatoes is all you really need though. If you’re looking at the necessities, a diet of potatoes and dairy meet 93% of your dietary needs. So baked potato, a steak or sausage, stick of butter (dairy) you’re good to go. If you want to mix it up with a whole chicken or perhaps some goat, feel free – it will not cook as quickly and easily as you may think. Fish on fridays is a good tradition – historically we have only caught fresh fish once, so pack a can of tuna just in case.

The big thing to remember is you only have so much cooler space. Stick to foods that can get wet and wont need to stay cold as much as you can. I.e. potatoes, oranges. Dried meats and cheeses work great as well, and again don’t need to stay cold. Keep them dry in a separate container and you wont need more ice, and great source of protein. I’m tired of hearing people say you need to keep things like cured meats, cheeses, heck even eggs refridgerated. If the meat is cured, why would you need to keep it refridgerated? This is how people have stored food for thousands of years. Keeping a thing of salami in the fridge is more useless than Edwin Encarnacion’s stint with the Indians back in 2018. 32 homers sure he was a decent bat – but do you remember those games? Not a single one of those affected a game. We were either getting blown out or so far ahead that it made a 7-1 game an 8-1 game in the 9th. Great signing Dolans. They have a knack for adding washed up bats (no offense) as a way of showing their willing to spend some money. We don’t need Jason Giambi in his 20th year (although great lockerroom guy) or Nick Swisher to add a spark. The only one that really worked out was when Kenny Lofton came back for final hurah and even then it was more for morale. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a farewell season with Brantley or whenever Lindor is done losing with the Mets.

I mean we have a solid team but when it comes to hitting we just can’t string together enough bats in the play offs. I’m hoping this season the pitching will get back on track but it may end up being a waiting game until Bazzana gets the call up but I do like our young guys. Nice to see Santana back just because he’s solid at the plate – but if they want to move Jram to the 2 spot you’d want a little more punch with guys on right? Who knows, I say we make playoffs but Tigers might get the division – should be a good year.

Anyway the food.. yeah pack smart.

Paddles Up, Chupacabra ho!

Munitions Master

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