Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River. These blog posts are part of the story.

The first morning on the river – Tuesday – we had pancakes, sausage, and the fruit for breakfast at our camp.  The pancakes weren’t plain pancakes, they had bananas and nuts in them. Some people said the nuts were walnuts, I don’t know. I just know they were crunchy. Great stuff.

Preparing Dinner One Evening

A big thanks to the Tour West crew. The camp food was excellent. They baked cakes, e.g., pineapple upside down cake one evening, brownies, and lasagna in cast iron dutch ovens (this link points to an example dutch oven). The photo here shows them preparing a meal. They never retrieved a bag of pre-sliced anything from an ice chest. Whole vegetables, fruits, and such came from the ice chest to be sliced and diced by hand on the cutting boards. (Click on this photo to see some of the Tour West crew – from left to right Karen, Scott, Colin, and Jake).

The food for the week was:

Breakfast:

• Pancakes (fruit always a side dish)
• French Toast
• Scrambled eggs with either ham or sausage
• Breakfast burrito
• English muffin with sausage, egg, and cheese

Dinner:

• Chicken fajitas
• Barbecue chicken
• Pork Chops
• Lasagna (with meat or without)
• Steak

Lunch:

• Sandwiches everyday – cold cuts three days, tuna salad one day, chicken salad one day

Now come the “problems.” Nephews #1 and #2 have a limited palette. Pancakes are great, i.e., plain pancakes. Why put nuts and bananas in them? French toast is great, plain french toast. Our french toast had almond slivers on top – great for me, not so much for Nephews #1 and #2. Chicken salad is great, but ours had grapes in it. I loved it, but, well you get the drift by now. Sigh.

Oh, one more note on the food – the mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks were great. There is nothing like a bite-sized Butterfinger to cut the appetite in the middle of the afternoon.

And one more note on the food. Each evening while awaiting dinner, the crew presented hors d’ouveres. Several nights these were chips and salsa. We had great guacamole one night. The best was shrimp cocktail sauce on cream cheese with chips.

My nephews? They survived the week of fancy food. They brought lots of their own groceries; good anticipation on their part.