Bored Suburban Dad Cooks: Gen-X Lasagna!

cheeeeeeeese

I don't want people to think that Bored Suburban Dad is all about abandoning Less-Bored Suburban Mom to take the Bored Suburban Kids on camping and hiking trips or playing board games.

Bored Suburban Dad cooks too!

We're gonna do this the opposite way that most cooking blogs do: recipe first.

Bored Suburban Dad's Extra-Goopy Lasagna

Give yourself 2 hours, because this is a labor of love. 

Ingredients first:

• 1 big fucking onion. White. Not that purple shit.

• 1 green pepper

• How ever many cloves of garlic you like, but like 3 or 4 big-ass thumb-sized is good

• Olive oil, because this is Italian. Ish.

• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, pretentious or not

• 28 oz can tomato sauce, free-range or not

• 6 oz can of tomato paste

• A fat tablespoon of sugar

• Salt and pepper

• 2 pounds of ground Italian sausage (not links, but bulk ground). Mild, hot, sweet, whatever tickles you today

• Ricotta cheese. Big 32 oz thing of it.

• More garlic, like another 2 or 3 huge cloves

• Giant 1.5 pound bag of shredded mozzarella

• A whole 16 oz shaker container of crumbled parmesan cheese. Not shredded. That crumbly one. Yeah, that.

• Italian spices. There’s a thing in the spice aisle called “Italian Spices.” That. I mean, you can make your own tiny pile of oregano, basil, parsley, and thyme if you want, or just cheat and buy the one that says “Italian spices.” How much? Like...cup your palm. Fill the little divot that cupping your palm makes.

• Lasagna noodles

Now, there’s lots to do, and we’re gonna do it the way my brain thinks about it:

1. Dry the ricotta. You heard me. Ricotta actually has a ton of water, and if you don’t dry it out, your lasagna won’t be goopy. It’ll be wet. Spread a good 3/4 of that big container out on a plate, and gently pat down a paper towel over it. Leave it alone for a half hour or more. Put a new one on top of the old one at some point.

2. While the cheese dries, make the sauce:

1. Dice the green pepper. Chuck it in olive oil in a dutch oven

2. While the green pepper sautés, dice the giant onion. Then chuck that in there too. 

3. While those two sauté, dice the garlic. Then chuck that in there too.

4. Then dice up the “more garlic” from above, but really super teeny-tiny fine. Set it aside.

5. When it looks and smells like the veggies are done, add the 3 cans of tomato stuff. All of each.

6. Throw a fat tablespoon or so of sugar in there to cut the acidity

7. Salt and pepper to taste

8. Simmer for a while

3. While the sauce simmers, brown the sausage and mix it into the sauce. Keep simmering.

4. Oh, shit, right, the noodles. Boil water.

5. Oh crap, the oven. 375.

6. Back to the noodles: cook until al dente (7 or 8 minutes)

7. Yeah, the ricotta looks dry, or should I say, the paper towel looks wet. So throw out the towels and:

1. That garlic you cut up really fine? Fold that into the ricotta. 

2. Those Italian Spices I told you about? Do that cup-your-hand thing and fold that much into the ricotta too. If it looks like it’s not enough, sprinkle more. Whatever. Now you have a wad of garlicy spicy ricotta

8. Well that was intense.

Now the fun part. Get a 9x13 baking dish; greasing or Pam-ing the sides is up to you. Build:

1. Little bit of sauce to cover the bottom

2. Layer of noodles; cover those in sauce, cover that in mozzarella. Don’t skimp. Then sprinkle some of that crumbled parmesan over that. Like, half the shaker.

3. Another layer of noodles, then cover those with the ricotta mixture, and cover that with more mozzarella

4. Another layer of noodles, and cover that layer with sauce

5. DON’T put cheese on that layer yet! Be. Patient. 

6. Instead, cover it in foil, poke some vents in the foil, stick it in the oven for 30 minutes

7. Putz around, think about a side dish, have a beer

8. When the time is up, take the foil off and admire your handiwork.

9. Cover it in mozzarella and the rest of the parmesan in the shaker

10. Throw it back in the oven, uncovered, for 20-30 minutes

1. Like, check it in 20. If it’s not all brown and bubbly yet, give it a couple more minutes

11. Make a big fucking deal about bringing it to the table, and make people tell you like 5 or 6 times during the meal how much they just can’t get enough of this lasagna

12. Make someone else clean up. You worked hard and you’re tired, and besides, you’re like the best chef now and chefs make other people clean up

It's time-consuming, but it's worth it.

Your family tearfully gazes upon your work with awe

Now for the self-absorbed blogger stuff that everyone else puts at the top, making you slog your way through their self-indulgent bullshit before you get to the part that got you there:

I love cooking. I am a Gen X-er, and thus was blessed with being a latchkey kid because my parents worked and generally trusted us at outrageously young ages to just like let yourself in a house and do your chores and homework and be totally responsible for your younger sibling and start family dinners on a hot stove with no adults around. It's a point of pride for Gen-X: being bored and left the hell alone. We are a very small generation, fully capable of just...sitting. Thinking thoughts. Wrapped in boredom. We invented stuff and got in trouble and cleaned everything up and painted-on a Disaffected Face all before our parents got home from work. All's well, why are you bothering me. Our defining song lyric from our defining band (neither of which we wanted or asked for, thank you) is "oh well. Whatever. Never mind."

But all that boredom and completely unearned trust from our Boomer parents gave us all skills. We can build. We can fix. We can cook, especially, because like I said above, family dinners were in part kind of on us. We're a self-reliant generation because we had to be.**

Add to that: my mom comes from an Italian family. We literally have family recipes, and they're better than anyone else's family recipes, and if I didn't learn how to cook them, there would be family trouble. Maybe someday I'll share with you all the outline of my family recipe for spaghetti sauce. I can't be specific, because you're not blood. But I can speak in generalities.

So all of this is the perfect storm: bored, self-reliant Gen X-er likes to cook long, time-consuming dishes because they can be left alone.

My family loves this recipe. I hope you like it too.

**don't get defensive about this statement if you're not Gen-X. It's not to say your generation isn't all of these characteristics and more. It's just characteristic of us.

So You Wat to Go Hiking, Volume 4

Noah's Unofficial Guide to Not Dying in the Backcountry

Trash and Poo: Your Guide to Wilderness Waste

Hi.

Come, have a seat.

Take my hand. 

I care

Let's look each other in the eye so we know we're approaching this with the sincerity of sincere people being really sincere and forthcoming.

Let's talk about a...delicate topic. 

Let's talk about pooping in the woods.

At some point, you're going to have to "get rid" of all this food you've consumed. But we're not bears. We're not deer or rabbits. We don't just dump it anywhere we want. You see: we're civilized when we poop in the wild outdoors. 

...yes

One of the basic premises of backcountry camping - for humans, anyway - is "leave no trace." It means that, to the extent possible, work to minimize your footprint. Literally. You can't be ham-handed about how you recycle your ham. But here's the thing: nobody - no matter how tough, no matter how macho, no matter how "up hill both ways barefoot in the snow" - nobody wants to be the sad sucker who's got to haul around a trash bag of gut-butter. And I see all sorts of silly shit (pun mildly intended) like the "Luggable Loo," which is really just a 5-gallon bucket with a lid, or the PETT Portable Toilet, which I feel like wouldn't support a full-grown adult. And come on folks. Whose pack gets to haul a whole 5-gallon bucket in or on it? Who's gonna be the sucker to walk around holding that PETT briefcase-of-shame?

The answer is: no one.

What is one to do when one has to poo?

Dig a hole. I'm here to tell you: it's responsible, it's minimal, and really, when you think about it, you're giving back. To nature. 

The best, tried-and-true method is called a cathole. Not caththththole. Cat-hole. When you hear about "digging latrines," that's just a long cathole so a bunch of people can poop side-by-side, nearly touching, all uncomfortable-like. Anyway, before I get too far down the group-poo rabbit hole:

Noah's Advice on Sound Cathole Practices

1. You want to dig about 200 feet from trails and water. That's both for sanitation reasons as well as, frankly, privacy; nobody wants to actually watch that happen any more than you want to be seen. Parents with toddlers: AMIRITE??

   

   Don't just use any hole you see in the dirt
   

   
   
2. If you've arrived at where you're base-camping or camping for the night, find that spot and dig that hole a) downwind!; and 2) before you have to do the deed, cuz there's nothing in the world like fighting a peeping turtle while straining to dig a hole in rocky clay. N...not that I've...I mean...
3. An ideal spot, along with being downwind and 200-feet from trails and water and your site, includes a stout tree or even better, a fallen tree. So much easier to squat when you've got back support, no?
4. Pack one of these. All these websites talking about garden trowels or tent stakes. Pfft. Get you an e-tool. Bonus: good for fending-off curious mid-poop wildlife.
5. Dig a hole about 6-8 inches deep, and 4-6 inches wide. Like you're planting flowers.
6. ONE CATHOLE PER PERSON PER POOP. No sharing. Pooping is a stingy business. A few yards between catholes is fine, but no multi-use holes. 

7. 

   CRITICAL
   

   I cannot stress enough the importance of pooping like a samurai. It is critical to do the deed with pants around 1 ankle and off to the side. I will detail the reasons as to why and what happens with an off-target dump if you need me to. N...not that I've...I mean...
8. If you can, find and pack unscented, thinner-ply toilet paper. You want it to biodegrade. You don't want a badger thinking it smells like lovely flowers, digging-up your cathole, and spreading used toilet paper all over your camp. N...not that I've...I mean...
9. When you're done, bury your business with the dirt you dug up to make the hole. Pat it down.
10. A note on wipes and feminine hygiene products: pack those like you pack your food trash, as discussed in Volume 3. Human poo, even buried, can be both interesting but also a deterrent. But flowery-smelling things and bloody things? Irresistible.
11. A note on smells, especially if local regulations allow for poo-burial but not paper burial: triple-ziploc that waste, and pack some baking soda to sprinkle over it to mitigate...aromatics.
12. A note on pee: you don't need to dig a cathole to pee, boy or girl. Try to pee on dirt, and not on vegetation. Only reason: it protects plants. Animals want to chew on salty things. Take that as you will.

There. That wasn't so bad. I feel like we really covered a lot, got a lot done, came to understand how it's safe for us to talk about personal things together.

Now, the easier topic: trash!

You know the old commercial, with the silent tears

Here's where "leave no trace" really shines. Challenge yourself to pack trash-making things (like food; again, see Volume 3) that would be rather minimal in nature. You don't want to haul around a 20-gallon kitchen-sized trash bag because 1) that means you're packing stuff that's in some serious packaging; and ii) space! Your pack is finite. Like I said in a previous post, 4 of us over nearly 3 days produced 1 single gallon-sized ziploc of waste. Not bad. 

Osprey is good, but not THAT good

During the day, who cares if you and your pack smell like an open-air wedding reception buffet in a rose garden. Wildlife isn't just gonna walk up and be like "how are the chicken sate' bites and may I have a crab cake?" Instead, what these thieves and burglars do is  wait until you're asleep to ransack your packs and tents. So anything that smells - anything -  needs to get smell-proofed. Don't think that just cuz it's in a ziploc with the air all mushed-out and double-bagged that it's smell-proof. It's not. Animals really want to put their faces in your leftovers. And toothpaste. And deodorant. And bagged toilet paper for the can't-bury-it places. Animals are gross.

Noah's Advice on Sound Trash Practices

1. Buy a high-quality waterproof, scent-proof "dry bag" like this
2. Bag each smelly thing you own in different ziplocs: toiletries, trash, other scented stuff. Please don't pack your toothbrush in with the used tissue. If you're packing dehydrated hiker food you haven't opened yet, toss those in the dry bag; no need to bag those bags
3. Seal the dry bag. This is important. 
4. Make the dry bag hard to get to; i.e. hang it. Watch that video at the link. Read my Facebook Post about how I screwed this method up once. ONCE.
5. Not a possibility (like you can't hang a bag because there are no trees)? Buy a bear canister and repeat steps 1-3. As for step 4, put it about 100 - 200  feet from where you're sleeping. It defeats the purpose if you put a bear canister in your tent. Then you just have a pissed-off and hungry bear ransacking your stuff inside your tent while you're trying to sleep and bears take up a lot of room. 1/10, don't recommend.

Do this for places where bears aren't. Do this for places where bears are. Always look for state and federal guidance about bear-proofing, because in some places it's an absolute requirement (like in my lovely state, the Porcupine Mountains and Pictured Rocks require bear-proofing). But it's always good practice, because storing trash and smelly stuff in your packs and tents and hammocks is a good way, even in the total absence of bears, to get your packs ripped to shreds by mice, raccoons, chipmunks, and wandering space aliens looking for samples. Whodini was right: the freaks really do come out at night.

And don't be That Guy who sleeps with a sneaky midnight snack. Unless you like to share it with a hundred furry friends.

Look at you, almost ready to hit the trail!

Next up in Volume 5: FASHION!

So You Want to Go Hiking, Volume 3

 

Noah's Unofficial Guide to Not Dying in the Backcountry, Volume 3

Things to Put in Your Belly

We've got packs. We now understand how to sleep. We're on a roll! Here's the thing: as you carry you foldable/inflatable televisions and solar powered king-sized mattresses all over Zod's Creation, you're going to burn a lot of calories. Fitness disguised as a nature walk! But fitness...I mean...lovely and calm nature walks make one hungry. And so one wishes to eat.

But how does one eat on The Trail and without the Collapsible Flyweight Ultralight Minimalist Camp Oven and Microwave Duo? Must one subsist on nuts and berries and twigs and roadkill? What of your blueberry muffins enjoyed with hand-muddled Tibetan tea at that one Zen-like bend in the River Trail?

Pad Thai along the trail with a side of gently-fried rangoons? Lies.

Good news! You can have that muffin - probably - and that lovely tea - kinda - and not everything needs to be freeze-dried or an MRE! Basically, I look at food on overnight or long day-hikes in two categories: 1) meals on a break or a site; and b) snacks whilst you walk. But before we even get to the what-to-put-in-your-face part, we should talk about the how-to-make-it-edible part: 

A Cooker Thing and Things to Put Food On Instead of Your Hands

Some - and I stress some - land through which you hike allows for controlled fires, either in provided individual firepits or group firepits. Find dead wood (everywhere prohibits you from cutting your own wood, and besides, freshly-cut "green" wood doesn't like to catch on fire), pile it up, make fire (we will actually cover this in future episodes of the blog), heat dead thing or plant over it like caveman. But a lot of state and federal land doesn't allow fires, and when you're hiking not in the lovely old forests on my native Michigan but instead in a canyon in the desert, wood is hard to come by. Plus, trying to boil water in your bare hands is inadvisable, as is eating uncooked rice.

So, one needs a source of flame that's not a giant bonfire, and some pots and pans that aren't Gramma's cast iron.

This hiker may have overdone it...

My boys and I carry the MSR WhisperLite. It's small, light, collapsible, and relatively easy to use. It's not exactly wind-proof, but it comes with this bendy piece of metal you can wrap around it if it's windy, and it does just fine. Heats 1 Liter of water to boiling in like 3 minutes. Do yourself a favor: also get a couple 20-oz MSR fuel bottles and some SuperFuel (or "Coleman Gas"), or you'll have this lovely little stove-as-sculpture, that's not cooking your food. I'm telling you: my 12-year-olds can operate a WhisperLite. It's not hard.

As for pots and pans, my boys and I carry the MSR nesting pot set (2 pots, 2 stoves gets 4 people eating quickly), and when we want to get fancy, we have an MSR skillet that will nest under that pot set. Nesting stuff is very important; it makes packing easier and puts all the related things you need in one spot in your pack.

You're already dirty, so...

And finally: I don't suppose you want to eat with your hands. You can, and it's very caveman so to do. Ahhh, the satisfying mush of handling mac-n-cheese with your fingers... Uh, anyway, we carry these mess kits. We don't use the cups, but they are gradated on the inside to be measuring cups, like these hiking companies thought of everything or something. And this kitchen utensil kit is perfect, as it has a little cutting board, measuring spoons, and even some squeeze bottles if you're getting super fancy and want to carry cooking oil, and some dish soap. You are going to want to clean your dishes, after all.

Things to Put in Your Face

Equipped now with your Chef's Deluxe Cooking Set with Sautee and Omelet Pans, let's eat! The goal is

A gastronomic delight!

not only delightful, tasty food; it's also about calories, because you burn more than you think hauling around packs on uneven trails.

Freeze-Dried

The most expensive but the most convenient option is: freeze-dried hiker food. You can't beat this stuff for convenience: heat water, dump water into the package itself, reseal, and wait a few minutes. Voila: dinner is served. In general, one pouch feeds one person (even though it says two servings; nah). Now, not all freeze-dried food is created equal. Some is downright awful. Lucky for you, the Smith Boys have sampled a wide variety of freeze-dried creations, and offer unto you our recommended brands and selections:

• Packit Gourmet; yowza, some good stuff here. My boys would murder each other for the All-American Works Burger if we didn't bring enough for everyone (requires you to pack your own tortillas, which is brilliant), the Poblano Corn Chowder is outstanding, the Pasta Beef Bolognese is lovely, and the Burrito with Fajita Chicken was a great meal. Explore these guys; we haven't had a bad one yet. The Breakfast Tacos are also a big hit.
• Good To Go; some more just amazing meals, taste- and convenience-wise. Pad Thai was outstanding, and made so much that 1 pouch fed 2 of us. I loved the Mexican Quinoa Bowl. The boys loved the Smoked Chili and the Corn Chowder.
• Mary Jane's Farm; I mean, the name is...funny? If.. anyway. Lovely Garlic-Pesto Fry Bread, and the breakfast Bac'Un Scrambler (vegan, for the vegan cultists) were superb. Pack that frying pan I talked about for these.
• Backpackers Pantry. Haven't had a ton from this company, but the Three Sisters Stew was lovely and filling.
• Mountain House; is...fine. Not amazing, but for younger palates who normally subsist on chicken nuggets and Chef Boyardee, Mountain House hit the spot. Chili Mac was a hit and the Chicken Fried Rice was both enough for 2 people, and a nice supplement/side dish to other meals. The Scrambled Eggs with Bacon was actually pretty good.

The other benefit here is waste. Remember: you pack everything on trips in the backcountry, including your trash. When you're done with these, just mush that little packet flat! 2 days on the trail not-quite-filled 1 gallon-sized ziplock as our trash bag. Perfect. 

Home-Made

What you're trying to do here is replicate home-cooked meals, understanding you can't (well, you shouldn't anyway) pack a cooler. Eggs will actually keep a couple days - put them in hard plastic, though, because...EGGS - and cheese and sausages and apples even longer, like all those Lord of the Rings movies (I mean the food lasts as long as the movies...). That stuff just takes a little more room and weight than the freeze-dried stuff, but if it's a luxury you can handle, then luxuriate away.

I mean, I guess you can pretend...

How is one to satisfy their carnivorous cravings if one can't haul slabs of steak and ribs on the trail without all the flies and rot? Ah, the modern era provides us with plentiful pre-cooked options! WARNING: don't pre-cook your own chicken and put it in a ziploc. You will barf and die. I have not experienced this barf-and-death scenario, because I have a brain.

Canned chicken, beef, and fish if fine, but the cans are just a little clunky and have sharp edges when it comes to packing your trash. But the modern era has delivered unto us many lovely options of pouched, pre-cooked meats to add to your home-made/trail-made meals! This is handy because it saves you from having to hunt and/or fish it yourself, which will almost always lead to disappointment and starvation.

I have several homemade hiker recipes, which turn out to be pretty darn similar to this guy's stuff. Using various combinations of minute rice, dried beans, couscous, spices, and lovely meat-in-a-pouch, you can eat like an experienced trail king! Seriously, this dude has put some of the most common homemade hiker recipes all in one place, and carrying a box of minute rice and such is light and will cover several meals.

I really respect this blog's thoughtfulness on trail food ideas. They've really thought about calories and ease and weight, and anything I type - apart from prolonging this slog of a post already - would be repetitive. This is some amazing advice on "what the Hell should I carry??" Well, everything, that is, except item #41. That's some bullshit. Don't you dare "brew beer on the trail." I have a whole other blog about beer brewing I should reawaken. Anyway...

MREs

Don't.

Snacks

Can you walk and chew gum? At the same time? Then this is for you! 

Dried fruit, peanut butter cups (not the candy, but those little cups of actual peanut butter), trail mix, Cliff Bars, granola bars, granola. These are the staples of eating-and-walking. Honestly? Stay away

Actual mountain of Skittles

from the candy, and I don't just say that as a diabetic who gets jealous of all the people enjoying Skittles. Processed sugar offers empty calories that will give your energy peaks-and-valleys and no other nutrients that you're burning away as you haul your U-Haul of stuff through the woods.

A Note on Trash

What you carry in, you carry out. My boys and I carry gallon-sized Ziploc bags as trash bags for 2 reasons: 1) that forces us to stay minimal in what we bring that needs to be thrown away; and B) they close easily, which matters...because animals.

Animals like your smells. Everything from mice and moles to raccoons to bears, and maybe crocodiles. And while you'll probably be fine as you walk around in the daytime with your packs on and your tiny trash bag in it - and your uneaten food - it's what you do with your trash at night that counts.

This is so exciting: our next post, dear reader, and I just can't wait: Trash and Poo - Your Guide to Wilderness Waste! 

Good times. So, there be it: filling your face in the woods! As always, we hope this has been informative, and we wish you the best for not dying in the backcountry!

So You Want to Go Hiking, Volume 2

Noah's Unofficial Guide to Not Dying in the Backcountry, Volume 2

Things to Put in the Things

Congratulations! You bought your pack, and it probably fits! Now the fun part: look at all those gadgets and foldy things I can stuff in it! Foldable forks! Solar-powered flashlights! A foldable TV that runs on granola! Packable fire pits! HOW AM I GONNA FIT IT ALL?

You're not. I've broken your heart, and I'm mildly sorry for that. 

The goal here: cover some of the very basics of what you should carry in your back-thing-carrier if you're camping in, say, the Upper Mid-West in late Spring, Summer, or early Fall. If you want to add over-priced but really awesome extra-dimensional ultralight full-bake ovens, that's on you. Weight is weight, and it's your back.

Initial drafts of this post were meant to be all-inclusive. But you know what that reminded me of? Those recipe blogs that, like, go into great detail about some asshole's life, and after 26 paragraphs, you're like "WHERE'S THE RECIPE?" Let's not. Let's do this by themes. I think we'll start with one of the two most important things to a human being: 

At Some Point, You May Want to Sleep

Hammock Sleeping

Aesthetics over function

My boys and I use ENO DoubleNest hammocks, ENO Guardian bug nets, and Atlas suspension straps (to save the trees!). If it rains or rain is predicted, we pack light tarps to drape over the system, but we did just purchase the ENO rainfly and found it just as easy to set up, even preemptively. 

All you need for hammock sleeping from Nature: 2 trees, at least forearm-thick, about 10' apart. My 12-year-olds can hang their own hammocks, bug nets, and rain fly...that's how easy this is. Like, you cannot mess up hammocks. They're so easy, you can set them up in the dark for those rare circumstances where you're like "nah, just push one more mile, there'll be a better spot" and before you know it, the sun disappeared. Not that that's eeeever happened to me.

Let's get back to that "your ass is literally swinging in the breeze" bit:

Looks cozy!

Physics, entropy, wind: it can get chilly. We're in Michigan, so we all know the truth behind that "if ya don't like the weather wait a minute hurr hurr" joke; but it's a joke because it contains a kernel of truth. Even in the summer up North it can get a little chilly at night. For the most part, sleeping in a fleece blanket in the hammock is fine. But if it's going to get south of 60 degrees, a handy piece of survival gear does just the trick: my oldest and I carry the SOL Emergency Bivvy and the twins carry the NanoHeat Blanket. We don't actually get in them; you'd sweat like crazy! We line the hammock with them like it's a camp pad. Keeps the wind off, toasty warm! Only downside: they're a mild pain in the ass to re-pack into their tiny little carry sacks, but it's a small price to pay. And for Spring and Fall trips, then we actually do wrap them around us, in our light little fleece blankets for some comy-wumfy sleepy-time joy.

Our favorite brand of hammocks also happens to carry a brand new line of hammock insulation and blankets for hammock -sleeping in the dead of winter. I have not tried any of this. I am tempted, to the point of adding this stuff to my Christmas wish-list...hint-hint.

We'll get into "winter camping" in another post regarding "How Not to Freeze to Death." 

There you have it: everything you need for a great night's sleep! Small, packable, light, and efficient way to crash anywhere on the trail. No need to clear brush, sticks, rocks, or hammer (and thus bend...) stakes into solid bedrock. You're - literally - above it all! 

Join us in the next volume, wherein we talk about what to eat.

So You Want to Go Hiking

 Hi there!

Been a while, friends! It's been hard to be creative since, well, March. It's been hard enough to finish fun little fictional, breezy, poppy novels let alone intelligent and in-depth nonfiction works. If simply reading books has been a challenge, given "all this," then even simple acts of writing have been a wall the likes of, well:

Reading books is like...

We've all had some pretty grand plans about what we're certainly gonna do during our pandemic break, and for the most part - I'll venture a guess and say like 85% - they haven't gotten off the ground. And folks I get it: it's stress. It's fun to fantasize about that kitchen project or the hobby you've wanted to take up, but then it dawns on you that it's work. And then, speaking of work:

Work is like...

But there's one thing we have taken advantage of: the great outdoors. We all see glowing reports of how many of our neighbors whom we swore never actually existed out for walks with dogs we never knew about (but always heard for god sake). Our sidewalks and public parks are actually more full because good lord in a shoebox, if I have to look at my 4 walls for one more second I'm going to cry for a month.

Well don't cry, friends! I've received some wildly fun responses to the camping and hiking trips my boys and I take - the ultimate, really, in social distancing vacations - and one of the most common:

"I want to hike-and-camp like that! Sleeping in the dirt with no shower and eating freeze-dried food sounds amazing! Limited access to fresh water?? Where do I start?"

Welcome, interested friends, to:

Noah's Unofficial Guide to Probably Not Dying in the Backcountry!

You've taken walks in the park. Heck, you've taken longer walks in the wild, maybe even with a day-pack with water and snacks or a fun little pick-inick basket! But now you want to take the next step: you want to hike and eat and sleep in the woods! Oh, friends, what a rewarding way to see nature!

In the interest of keeping your attention, I won't write the single longest and most boring post ever** on the entire topic of "what gear do I need to sleep in the dirt and not die or barf or get killed by squirrels." Instead, my plan to keep you all barely engaged and to feed my ego is to write several much shorter, boring posts on topics around not dying by squirrel or tainted water and the like.

So let's start with the thing you fill with things to not die:

Packs!

The point: you're willing to walk several miles a day with lots of stuff on your back. You've agreed that sometimes you can leave the car behind, and comfort, and mattresses, and regular food, and stoves, and grills, and blankies, and styling products, and...you get the point.  All of what you are eating and sleeping-in and wearing and not-dying with needs to go in a vessel. And look, I served 8 years in our Glorious United States Marine Corps. Our packs, when I was enlisted a hundred years ago, and I mean just  the pack without all the stuff in it, was damn near heavier than a packed-pack for a week on the trail now-a-days. For water, we carried nearly-inaccessible canteens suspended on an uncomfortable web belts, the purpose of which was to slowly, over 20+ miles, dig and cut gashes in your hips. Everything about nature walks in the military was about misery and endurance (and I loved it). But good news, friends! Nature walks for you and I now are about enjoying your surroundings, not fighting them!

She has the wrong-sized pack for her

So you need a pack. A proper pack, with all the straps and hooks and zippers that looks very pack-y and hiker-ish. 

Now, I'm a total sucker for Osprey's products. I love their packs, I love how they pack, I love how they fit.The problem is there are so many great packs out there, like Granite Gear, REI, Arc'teryx, and on. But since you're coming here for advice, my advice is Osprey. All of their packs, from 20-liter day-packs to giant 70-liter heavy haulers are affordable, loaded with neat little this's and thats, durable as hell, and comfy. It's like...everything is just where it needs to be.

Their online store is great, but honestly, get to a good camping store like Moosejaw, because the staff will help you fit your pack. I can't say enough how critical it is to really have some help getting a pack set up just right for your body. And Osprey packs have adjustable hip belts, shoulder harnesses, and even a huge adjustable back-panel to stretch or shrink the harness system to custom-fit your torso so it can fit the whole range of body sizes, be you elf-shaped, half-orc-shaped, gnomish, or just regular old human.

Noah's Mildly-Accurate Guide to Pack Volume

Samwise Gamgee, modeling the Osprey Mordor 36

Packs in the 18 - 24-liter range: day packs. Just enough room for some food, water, jacket or rain gear, and even a small camp stove (we'll get into gear in another future episode) if you'll be out long enough to need a meal. Don't try to cram 2+ days'worth of crap in a 22-liter pack. Unless you want to learn all that "ultralight" stuff, which I don't. I was a Boy Scout, so I over-pack. My pack here: Osprey Talon 22. My boys all carry Talons on day hikes too.

Packs in the 30- to 40-liter range: light overnight pack. Maybe 1 night on the trail with light gear, or you're going from one cabin or shelter to another. Clothes for a couple days, food for a couple days, emergency junk, this pack works awesome. I don't have a pack in this range but my boys do, and here's a special note: women's packs in this range actually fit my pre-teen boys perfectly (shorter torso, narrower shoulders), and they haul Osprey Manta 36's. (link is to the Men's 34; Women's 36 is not online, but in stores)

Packs in the 50+ range: multiple-day backpacking (alone for a week or so, or with a group for 3 or 4 days), or backpacking with younger kids who can't carry as much weight so you have to be their Sherpa. My oldest (15 years old) hauls an Osprey Kestrel 48 (I rounded-up to 50); I haul an Osprey Aether 70.

And Finally...

A note on fit:

• 

  waist belt is way off
  

  
  your hip belt should be snug on your hip. Above it? No. Below it? Never. Like, right on it so part of the belt is above the bone and part of the belt is on the bone? Yeah. That. Work it it Wiggle around. Get a feel.
• Your shoulder straps are there to keep the pack on you. They should not be putting much weight on your shoulders, or you'll do terrible stuff to your back. Most of the weight should be on your

  

  Bad shoulder straps, and a bird, because hiking
  

  
  hips and legs.
• There's a little chest strap that connects the two shoulder straps across your chest. Use it. It magically relieves strain on your shoulders, by magic.
• Your shoulder straps have 2 sets of adjustment straps; this means your straps...also have straps.
• The lower ones make your shoulder straps tight to your shoulders and back. Snug...not tight. 
• The upper ones actually change the angle and weight of the top of your pack relative to your back and neck. Play with it over time
• You will never not fiddle with your straps. You will, for the entirety of your hike and the longevity of your pack be adjusting your hip belt, shoulder straps, magic chest belt, straps you don't know what they strap to but dammit they do something cuz you felt it for a moment and it was nice; all of it. And that's OK! That's why they're there! Your gear shifts, your body gets tired, the weight of the pack increases and decreases, so you need to custom-balance your pack every damn mile, but that's how you don't break.

And that's that. Next, we'll talk about what to cram in there, before we talk about footwear, dressing in layers, what to sleep in, and everything else.

**shit. I wrote the single longest and most boring post ever

We're Board, Quarantine Edition

So, you've all caught on to the fact that my family, friends, and I are big board gamers. I don't know what gave it away? Maybe all 536 recent FacePlace or InstaRegret posts or some such. 

On a whim we counted our board game collection, which has outgrown available shelf space in the basement: 208. And I'm pretty sure we missed a few that are sitting in a kid's room or on an end table in the living room. Some I've played once and set aside to play again some day. Most we've played multiple times. And one or two I Just Had to Have...and have yet to crack it open (there are reasons for that; we'll get to that in another post).

When the first Stay at Home order hit, the boys and I retreated immediately to the basement, and started our own little mini-COVID GenCon. COVIDCon? SmithCon? BasementCon? Whatever: we played the shit out of some board games.

While I don't get enough questions for a full-fledged FAQ, my most common question is "what games do you recommend?" This is, honestly, a tough question to answer, because the best answer depends on a lot of variables: is the asker a casual gamer? Serious gamer? Never heard of board games? Experienced gamer? Social gamer? Hates games? Party gamer? As such, it's tough to create a generic "here are the games I recommend" list. 

But I'm gonna try, because gaming is good for your brains. It can be an escape, a brain workout, or quality family or couple time. It's a block of time you're not thinking about...all of this, whatever this is, and instead, you're thinking about having fun with people you love.

Later, I'll do an update about "games one can play over Zoom," because there are a couple truly great ones. But what this is, is my best attempt at a "best-of" when it comes to giving various friends who've asked me on the Social Medias "what games do you recommend?" 

Cooperative Games

Sometimes, the best games to play when times are stressful and uncertain are cooperative games: players each with a special skill cooperate against a game board that gets exponentially worse. Some favorites include: (I’ll skip everyone’s favorite - Pandemic - because....a little to real right now!)

Mysterium

• Mysterium. Like clue; every player is a psychic trying to figure out who did it, with what, and where. One player is the ghost, desperately trying to tell them

• The Captain is Dead. It’s the last 10 minutes of every Star Trek episode: shit is falling apart. If only you could fix that warp drive in the face of breaking equipment and boarding aliens...

• Magic Maze: every player can move every pawn, but in only 1 direction! You must all cooperate to love all the pawns off a board that grows as you play...without talking

• Forbidden Island/Desert/Sky. The “Forbidden” games are really fun, and each progressively more difficult than its predecessor. Escape a gradually-sinking island, a storm-ravaged desert, or a terrible storm. Bonus: if you complete Forbidden Sky correctly, it lights up!

Between Two Cities

• Between Two Cities: this one is a hybrid. It’s cooperatively competitive. By selecting a rotating series of tiles and placing them in a grid, you are trying to build a “city” with the player on your left and on your right. Your score: your weakest city (to incentivize everyone to build smart)

Smart, Competitive Games

These games offer competition, but either in a light, funny way, or a way that's semi-cooperative. In other words, these games aren't the usual "someone gets pissed and flips the board" kind of games, because we all have enough stress right now:

Azul

• Terraforming Mars. Everyone is working to ultimately make Mars inhabitable; you’re just trying to do it faster and better than your competitors. Super complex strategy but easy to play. Downside: it’s a little lonely. Sure, 3, 4, or 5 people are playing, but everyone is wrapped up in all your projects and patents, trying to strategically win! It’s a personal favorite though.

• Red Dragon Inn. After the big adventure, everyone is back at the tavern. Every character has unique decks of cards, and you drink, fight, and gamble. Last man standing wins! It’s one of my wife’s favorites. The artwork and cards are just plain funny and special bonus: you can totally make it an actual drinking game!

• Azul. Beautiful, strategic, artsy, tile-laying game. You can burn through several games in an evening.

• Tsuro or Tsuro of the Seas: both are awesome. You lay tiles with paths on them on a board, and move a pawn along the path you’re making. The goal is to keep your pawn on the board and force everyone else’s off by being really clever with you tile/path placement. A unique variant on chess, really. Visually appealing, easy to learn.

In for the Weekend

We got nothin' but time right now. These games take all weekend. And maybe then some. But god, they're glorious.

...and together, we can rule the galaxy

• Star Wars Rebellion: Axis and Allies for Star Wars, with a little cat-and-mouse tossed in (the Empire is trying to find the secret Rebel base, the Rebels trying to make the Empire suffer the embarrassment of little defeats and changing alliances). The Empire can still blow up planets, which is fun.

• Rising Sun: it actually only takes about 90min - 2 hrs to play, but it’s just...so big and pretty and the miniatures are so detailed. As fun to look at as play. No die-rolling; everything is skill and strategy. 

CMON's beautiful Rising Sun

• I’d mention Twilight Imperium, but you have to be insane to play it. Minimum 8 hours. $150 game. Epic. My friend Joel and I got as far as playing 2 rounds of it just to learn how to play, and that was just to learn how to play the game before the "diplomatic phase" kicks in, which adds more...more-ness.

But I Like Euchre

You're a card player, and like the trick-taking games and pace of Euchre, and maybe you're afraid to learn all these complex multi-page rule sets. Well have I got a game for you. 

• Gorus Maximus. One of nicest-guys-on-the-planet is a Canadian game developer we ran into at GenCon about 5 years ago. This game, one of his finest is simple: it’s euchre, but the bower can change mid-hand. Clever and fun and you can play a bunch of hands in a night. 

Couples Night

Maybe there's only two of you, or like us, there's a point at which you've forced your kids to bed and want to spend a moment as a couple, remembering all the good times before...them. Try:

Tetris-y Patchwork

• Patchwork. Tetris and tile-drafting. Every round, you buy oddly-shaped "scraps" and build a contiguous "quilt." You're penalized in the end for blank spaces, and with the weird shapes you're dealt, even the best Tetris players are hard-pressed to sew perfection! My wife's favorite game by far.

• Onitama. Itty-bitty chess. Fascinating game. Everyone has a mere 5 pieces, and a series of 6 cards, drawn at random, form the entirety of how both players are allowed to move in a game. But every time you move according to a card, the cards shift around the players, changing your available moves round by round. Just wonderful.

Onitama

But I Like Monopoly

I can't help you.

Well, I can sort of. Try Machi Koro. Brilliant little take on buying, owning, and cashing-in on properties. 

I could go on. I didn't include some games I truly love for a few reasons (mostly on complexity), I forgot to include games I love because I have so many I forget some til I see them, and sicne the outbreak I have purchased and played some brand new games that are really wonderful...just don't know yet how or when or why to recommend.

Anyway, discuss, talk, ask away. And play more games.