Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM

John's RV coffee, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM, January 29, 2008

John's RV coffee, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo, New Mexico, January 29, 2008

RV coffee John's way

Some time back I wrote a page in my Food section on How I Brew My Coffee. Traveling with LD I've been brewing my coffee a little differently.

I still brew coffee in my trusty Thermos Nissan 1.0 L /34 oz. Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Gourmet Coffee Press but I've modified the press to drip instead of press.

French press modified to drip

At home I always rinsed the used coffee grounds from the french press into the kitchen sink and flushed them down the drain where they were never heard from again. Now that I have a more intimate relationship with my waste products I've been reluctant to do that. I'm still new at this RVing thing and I'm not sure coffee grounds are a problem but I understand food scraps in the grey tank can be a smelly mess to deal with.

Cleaning coffee grounds out of the bottom of the french press and capturing them so they don't escape down the drain is awkward and messy so I modified my french press into a simple insulated pot - I took the plunger and screen guts out of the lid and stored them. At Wal-Mart I found a knockoff of this Swiss Gold Cone-Shape Coffee Filter meant to replace paper filters. The screen sits nicely atop the press but I don't put my coffee in it directly. I line it with the paper filter it is meant to replace and put my coffee in that. Voila! No mess, no fuss disposal.

All purpose cup

My favorite all purpose drinking cup, the Nissan 11-Ounce Stainless Steel Coffee and Tea Traveler, is still serving me well. I have yet to see anything on the market that would work better. It keeps drinks hot or cold for a couple of hours, has a driver's drinking lip, and best of all has a reliable sealing lid. It goes everywhere with me. Now it is sold, at least at Amazon.com, as the Nissan 12-Ounce Stainless-Steel Tea Tumbler with Infuser, but, really, it's still ok to put coffee in it.

Night camp

Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM

Verizon cell phone service - good signal
Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
Check the weather here

Crayfish Chimney

Late one afternoon I sat upon my camera case beside the path where it wound through the darkest part of the woods, down near the pond, and watched a crayfish building his "chimney," the land entrance to his underwater tunnel. He had just started to work above the ground when I first arrived. He came up through the moist black earth, carrying a ball of it between his two enormous fighting claws. Using the claws as hands, he spread the soil around the hole to form the base of the chimney. He then backed down the hole and after several minutes came up with another armful.

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