I was beginning to wonder if summer was ever going to hit. I was down in Oklahoma the other day for the Professional Outdoor Media Assn Convention.
I got a text Thursday afternoon that I had to fly to Houston Monday night, take care of a problem at 9:30 on Tuesday, jump over to San Antonio as soon as problem #1 was taken care of and on Wednesday morning take care of problem #2 in San Antonio.
They didn’t say whether I needed to grab a plane, rental car or hitch hike from Houston to San Antonio, just be there.
On the way over to San Antonio it got HOT. I hit San Antonio and it was 107-degrees. I’ve been wanting summer to hit but couldn’t we transition slowly?
Well, I told myself one more day and then I’ll fly back to cold Idaho where Global Warming is only a fairy tale. But….. I got back to Idaho and it was/is hot here too. Maybe it’s not 107 and only 96 at the moment but that return was a shocker since it was 42 when I jumped on the plane to leave two days earlier.
This is my camp box. Notice that there are some runners on bottom so ground water doesn’t seep in.
I say all of the above to build up to this question? What’s a guy supposed to do? I’ll tell you what, go to the mountains and go camping, that’s what. At least it is cool in the evenings, nights and mornings.
If you’re new to Idaho or just new to camping, the first thing you need to do is to slap together a camp box. You see some little yuppies that use a big Tupperware box to hold their cook gear.
Don’t do that, it will mark you as a foreigner. Be a real outdoorsman and use a wood camp box.
Well, ok, I guess Tupperware boxes are waterproof. And oK, lighter. OK and cheaper but still, you can’t use a Tupper ware box! It’s just not right.
So, after that convincing argument, if you’re still interested let’s go over how to build a wood box. Mom and dad bought me my first camp cooking utensils when I was in high school which prompted me to build my first camp box.
If you don’t have a camp box to keep everything together then you’ll invariably leave some important item at home.
A can opener when the main course for dinner is a can of chili or the coffee pot when you wake up to a brisk 30-degree morning. You get my drift. So, with my first bull riding winnings if I remember correctly I bought a new cowboy hat and the wood to build a camp box.
The first box worked but it was bulky and heavy since it was made out of 1x6’s. After a process of evolving, I now have a camp box made out of ¼-inch plywood. It is lightweight and relatively durable.
You can see from the pictures that I split some 1x6’s down for the framing and built a silverware box in the upper corner. I then painted it with an exterior varnish so water wouldn’t hurt it and I was good to go.
You can see the silverware box in the right top corner. I put runners on the top to hold it in place.
You can spend your kid’s college fund buying elite cooking gear but here’s the thrifty way to outfit your box. Hit the garage sales and go hit Goodwill. You can probably stock it up for not much over $20. If you can find them, stackable coffee cups are awesome because they don’t take up much room.
Notice the plastic grocery bags in the picture. I put my coffee pots, pans and skillets in them so they don’t get black smoot on everything due to cooking with them over an open fire or on a Coleman gas cook stove.
There’s nothing magical about the dimensions of mine but it is 14-inches tall, 14-inches wide and 32 inches long. Figure out what you think you’ll need and build accordingly.
Well, slap together a camp box and maybe I’ll see you up in the mountains!
Tom Claycomb is a hunting enthusiast and writes a bi-monthly column for Great Basin Sun.