Monday: Hiking Hocking Hills, My Cooler Experiment & Dinner Insurance to the Rescue

Got up this morning and did a very quick breakfast for the kids because we had places to be.

I dropped a couple of the kids off at my parents’ house, and then we hit the road for Hocking Hills!

We’re taking a little bit of a fall break this week. We’ll still do some schoolwork, but we don’t have our regular Thursday co-op, so I thought it would be fun to take a couple of my kids on an adventure.

Hocking Hills is about two hours from us, which makes it a pretty fantastic day trip.

And today we went all in.

Three hikes!

We did Old Man’s Cave, explored another incredible rocky cave area, and did a hike along the cliffs.

I can’t remember all the trail names off the top of my head, but it was absolutely beautiful.

And before we left, of course, I packed food.

Lots of food.

My New Cooler Strategy

I tried something a little different today, and I have to tell you, it worked incredibly well.

Normally, when I talk about packing a cooler, I recommend using smaller containers or bins inside it.

That keeps everything organized and protects things like cut fruit and vegetables from getting crushed.

But today I had a different situation.

We were going to be hiking for hours, and I knew the car would get pretty warm in the afternoon.

I wanted to leave most of our food in the car and use the cooler as our home base. Then I’d carry a smaller insulated bag in my backpack with whatever we needed for each hike.

So I needed the main cooler to stay really cold.

I used a large soft-sided cooler I bought at Costco and packed it in layers.

Here’s How I Packed It

Bottom layer: My largest ice pack.

Next layer: A clean kitchen towel.

Middle layer: Bags of cut-up fruit and vegetables, plus a bag with our proteins and other lunch ingredients.

I packed things like:

• Homemade summer sausage
• Wraps
• Cheese and cheese sticks
• Individual hummus cups
• Cut-up fruit and vegetables
• Other little snacks and lunch ingredients

Next layer: Another clean kitchen towel.

Top layer: More ice packs.

So essentially, the food was surrounded by cold packs, with the towels separating and protecting everything.

I was trying to create a little portable refrigerator.

And it worked!

The car was definitely warm when we returned from hiking, but the food inside the cooler was still nice and chilled.

I didn’t want to leave the car windows cracked while we were out in the woods because I didn’t want bugs getting inside.

So this was a great solution.

I do think having plenty of ice packs makes a huge difference, especially if your cooler is going to sit in a warm car for hours. And for perishable foods, I always recommend using a cooler thermometer to make sure everything is staying at a safe temperature of 40°F or below.

The Cooler Was Our Home Base

I also brought a smaller insulated bag that fit into my backpack.

Before each longer hike, I could pull out whatever snacks or lunch items we wanted and pack those into the smaller bag.

That way I wasn’t carrying our entire day’s food around the trails.

We had plenty of food available, but I wasn’t hauling a giant cooler through Hocking Hills.

Because no thank you.

Hiking Lunch Doesn’t Have to Mean Sandwiches

Here’s another thing I wanted to share.

One of my girls doesn’t particularly love sandwiches or wraps.

And I think sometimes when we’re packing food for an outing, we get stuck thinking everyone needs to eat the same thing.

Sandwiches for everyone!

Except…why?

So today I brought some disposable cups and packed her a completely different lunch.

I had some cold sliced steak left over, olives, lettuce and avocado.

Basically, I made her a little deconstructed steak salad.

Except instead of a bowl, she ate it out of a cup.

And it worked perfectly.

She had food she actually wanted to eat, and I didn’t have to convince her to eat a sandwich she didn’t want.

I brought a little trash bag along so we could collect everything and pack it back out with us.

Meanwhile, my teenager was perfectly happy eating a regular wrap.

Same outing.

Different lunches.

Everybody fed.

The goal is to feed your family, not to make everybody eat the exact same thing in the exact same way.

I think that’s especially important when you’re traveling or doing something like hiking.

You don’t need to create a whole new menu of special hiking food.

Just think about what your family already enjoys eating and figure out how to pack it.

Also, Why Can’t I Keep My Eyes Open in Pictures?

A completely unrelated observation from today:

Apparently I am incapable of keeping my eyes open in a photograph.

Every time someone takes my picture, my eyes are closed.

Every. Single. Time.

Thankfully, we have Live Photos now.

So I can go back through the little video clip and hopefully find one frame where I look like a normal human being who understands how cameras work.

Technology is a gift.

We ate TONS of snacks while we took breaks on our hikes…these hummus cups are one of my faves!

Dinner Insurance After a Long Day

We got home after a full day of hiking and driving, and I was not interested in making an elaborate dinner.

Thankfully, I had Dinner Insurance.

I pulled out a package of cooked ground beef from the freezer.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you know how much I love keeping fully cooked ground beef frozen.

It makes meals like tonight almost effortless.

I put the frozen cooked beef into a pan with a splash of water and a little fat, covered it and let it gently reheat.

Then I removed some of the plain beef for one of my kids who didn’t want sauce.

Totally fine.

Once her portion was set aside, I added pasta sauce to the rest.

Meanwhile, I cooked pasta and threw together some side salads.

And that was dinner.

Pasta with meat sauce.

Plain ground beef for the child who wanted it that way.

Salads on the side.

No complicated cooking required.

This is exactly why I love having cooked protein in the freezer.

After a day like today, I don’t want to start from scratch with a frozen block of raw ground beef.

I want dinner on the table.

And Then I Had My Own Little Dinner

By the time everybody was fed and I got my four-year-old into bed, I was ready to sit down.

So I did.

By myself.

With my own dinner.

I pulled out some of the leftover apple-Dijon pork chops from last night, along with the gravy, rice and green beans.

Warmed everything up and finally sat down to eat.

And it was wonderful.

Sometimes after a day of driving, hiking, feeding kids, unpacking coolers and making dinner, the best thing is just sitting down quietly with a plate of food.

Especially when that food was already cooked.

Back to the Kitchen Tomorrow

Tomorrow we’re getting back to a more normal routine.

And I have quite a bit of cooking planned.

Remember all that meat I bought at Costco yesterday?

It’s waiting for me.

So tomorrow will probably be a big protein-prep day to get us stocked up for the rest of the week.

But today?

Today we got outside.

We hiked three trails.

We ate lunch in the woods.

We tested a new cooler system.

And everybody came home tired, happy and well fed.