Day 84: Williwaw Back to Soldotna

07/07/14

It rained again most of the night last night. It rained most of the morning. By late morning it was mostly light rain. We really debated staying at Willowaw one more day but decided to go ahead and move south to Soldotna in hopes the weather would be better. It is better here. Completely cloudy, but no rain. We went to Girdwood to the Tesoro Station to purchase fuel for both vehicles - more than 20 cents less per gallon there than here in Soldotna - and to empty the holding tanks.  It was a little more difficult than we planned.  Their credit card pumps were not working so we had to estimate how much fuel we needed and go in and pre-pay.  Actually we needed to over-estimate so we could fill up and then they would credit back the overage.  That wasn't so bad.  We've done that before.  However, there were so many people trying to get fuel and they were being so rude to the cashiers - like they could fix the pumps.  Anyway, we got our fuel.  Unfortunately, they were also filling the station's fuel tanks and blocking the potable water fill and waste water dump station.  After about a 20 minute wait we were able to squeeze in between the fuel tankers and the curb to dump and fill and be on our way. The drive was uneventful and the scenery very pretty. We are at the Fred Meyer again and will be going in to resupply the pantry in a few minutes. No hiking, biking or bears today. Just a little cleaning and some driving.

On our driving days we like to prepare food that will cook while we drive so that generally means slow cooker or our thermos. We have found that some of the packaged soups that generally take about 30-60 min on the stove top can be prepared and let simmer in the thermos while we drive and then have hot soup when we arrive at our destination with minimal fuss/cleanup. Today with the damp rain was a soup day. For our RVing friends we have photos of how we do it. Today we did the split pea soup with some some smoked sauage that we grilled ahead and put in the freezer. All we do during our travel day is shake it up every couple of hours then just pour it up when we stop for the day. On dry camping days like today it's great because there is minimal cleanup.

Cook while you drive soup

We looked at thermal cookers, but they were very expensive, so we opted for this wide mouth stainless thermos from WalMart.

Just boil the water, add some to the thermos, dump the soup mix in..

... and stir it up.

It rides next to the filter pitcher in the sink

Piping hot soup at the end of the day.

Tomorrow we will be exploring some new areas – Road Trip!