I will be in Tustin for awhile
The life on the road has been both gratifying and exhausting, traveling, planning, dealing with snafus, maintaining a rig. The joy of being somewhere special gets dimmer when the effort of getting there seems more trouble than its worth.
That said, I have enjoyed being in some beautiful places, meeting some wonderful fellow travelers and camp hosts along the west coast. I will camp again, but this time I’ll be going lighter, more nimble, and in a vehicle that won’t stand out as an RV since camping is becoming more and more discouraged, trying to drive out the homeless folks.
I have sold the Coleman trailer to a nice family who will use it well. I have an apartment to move into in September and I’ll be setting up my office again. I will be able to see my daughter and grandson more, and my Irvine friends that I’ve been missing.
I need to find out what to do with my time as a retiree….a new profession perhaps?
I post mostly on Instagram @shutterscamp
I don’t typically post here, in fact I have been negligent on my blog www.shutterscamp.com too. I usually will take photographs and videos and post them on Instagram (www.instagram.com/shutterscamp) which also posts on Facebook (www.facebook.com/shutterscamp)
I post my images here on Photoshack when I am able to have 110 ac power and boot up my iMac which has all my hard drive backups and such, but that is far more infrequently. Yesterday I posted a bunch of images from the last 5 months and that’s what you see on my home page.
The new replacement for the 1984 Scamp, the 2025 Coleman Light has been performing ok, and I have been appropriately wearing it out. I had a mishap with my awning (it’s removed now), I still have problems with the slide out (workaround I leave about 8 inches inside the cabin and it seems to pull back in just fine) and I have replaced the water pump, thinking that would resolve my issues with it running constantly when powered on. It did not fix that problem, and the kitchen faucet still has about .30 gallons per minute…some kink somewhere.
But, I have been comfortable in my bed, have sorted out the rhythm of provisioning, traveling, setup, and decamping from all the places I’ve been. Have a look at Instagram for my daily content.
cheers,
Vin
New Trailer, new trips
I am sorting out my next few trips, and trying this out to see if I can get rid of the Wordpress site.
Hey guess what! I'm unemployed and on the road!
I am excited to embark on my journey to new places with new people. My new site is called https://www.shutterscamp.com and I'll be posting updates from my experience with a vintage 1984 Scamp camper, interviews and stories along the way.
Making Molasses Cookies, Vin Style
I have been asked for this one and I ate three just writing this recipe. This is adapted from another recipe which had some mistakes I've corrected, and simplified steps. Most recipes say room temp eggs and butter; I say don't fuss. Put the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, sugar) in a big bowl and whisk it all together well. In a mixer bowl put all the wet ingredients -butter cut into cubes, molasses, eggs- and cream until mostly butter is broken up, and then add the dry mix a cup at a time. Mix and push dry mix to the center occasionally but should be a wet ball. Using a small scoop (2 tablespoon) to put dough balls onto a parchment sheet. Press with a fork to flatten once. Leave 1.5 inch betweek cookies to spread. Don't over-bake. These are meant to be chewy but crispy, 2 dozen 3-4 inch cookies.
Preheat to 350 degrees
Wet Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups butter, salted, cut into cubes
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 large eggs (3 if small)
Dry Ingredients:
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cloves
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp ground ginger
2-1/4 cups white sugar
4-1/2 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- Mix wet ingredients together with a mixer and bowl.
- Mix dry ingredients together with a whisk in a bowl.
- In the wet mix bowl, pour in dry mixture a cup at a time until a wet ball forms.
- Scoop 2 tbs sized balls onto a parchment baking sheet, pressing once with a fork to flatten, leaving 1-1/2 inch between flattened dough.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes. Do not bake looking for "browned" edges, take them out at 14 minutes, putting the parchment off the pan.
- While cooling on the parchment, ready the next batch.
- Once the next batch is in the oven, transfer the cookies from the parchment to a rack to finish cooling.
- Cool completely before enclosing in air tight containers. Stores about 10 days. Refrigerator probably more.
I have not tried refrigerating the dough.
I have a https://a.co/d/1wj6zv4 Cuisinart stand mixer that does take the work out of beating eggs and cookie dough :-)