All Things Geek: A solar oven experiment

The garden is going strong right now, and I decided to bake some rhubarb bread. Our meals tend to revolve around rhubarb and squash all summer, so I thought I would change it up a bit and bake my regular rhubarb bread in a solar oven. Conveniently, I had one lying around.

I used the Cook-it from Solar Cookers International. It's a panel cooker that folds up small from a company that promotes solar cooking in Kenya to decrease issues associated with deforestation and personal safety. The black pan helps to absorb heat. It's cover and oven safe bag help to retain heat. And, obviously, the reflective surface helps to collect and condense sunlight.

I cut some rhubarb, mixed my usual recipe, and set the cooker out for the day. The cooker was set at 9:20 a.m. I chose to put it on top of our popup camper to decreases any possible issues with shading. It was a really sunny and hot day with a high of 88 degrees.

I checked on the bread around 2:30 p.m., but the center appeared to be pretty moist, so I returned the cooker to its place. Around 4:30 p.m., the clouds began to roll in and my experiment had to end. The outside of the bread was thoroughly cooked, but the center still needed some work. With 10 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees, the bread was cooked.

I have two general observations. First of all, the bread itself still appears doughy, even though the toothpick came out clean and it appears to be cooked. I am thinking that the baking soda is the issue. I am guessing that the bread couldn't rise properly because it cooked at a low heat for a long time. I probably should include an oven thermometer, next time. I might also research some slow cooker bad recipes. Secondly, the bread has a strange sweet smell. It is a sweet bread, but the sugar smell is really pungent and a little irritating. The flavor is different, too. The sugar taste is almost stale. I have successfully cooked many chocolate chip cookies, but this bread is nauseating. I am glad that I didn't try making my coconut sweet bread or walnut maple syrup bread, because rhubarb is cheap and plentiful.

ER and Franti and Bears, Oh My!

We had planned to leave town for the Taos Solar Music Festival when the Waldo Canyon Fire was blazing in the Springs. We decided to go on with our journey, since there wasn't really anything that we could do, besides moving important stuff out of the house. With that complete, we headed to New Mexico for a bit of camping and music with Aspen, our camper, and a bunch of diapers in tow.

 Camping with a 2 year old is a great way to introduce Aspen to a life as an outdoor steward of the environment. She'll learn a deep appreciation for a variety of ecosystems and learn about the diversity of western wildlife, right? Eh, she'll more likely skip meals and naps, endo backwards off a picnic table after countless other falls and shovel a lot of dirt. I did good bringing a box of cute band aids, knowing that she'd fall a million times. Band aids seem to make every boo boo better.

The three hour drive was mostly fantastic, because we bought a minivan. Not just a minivan, mind you, but a minivan with a tow package for our popup camper and rooftop racks for our bikes. The best part, however, is the backseat DVD player complete with Bluetooth headphones so that Aspen can watch Winni the Pooh a million times while we listen to various podcasts and tunes. The only moment of discontent was during my effort to replace Pooh with another kids movie. Shame on me. Apparently, Pooh gets better every time.

Aspen didn't nap today, which made us feel like we were just killing time until we got a break with bedtime. She didn't eat, either, making her a complete joy to be around. I'm kidding, really, because we did have some fun around camp. She took some time playing by the lake, using a stick to pretend fish. Casting the stick back and forth, she shouted, "Fish! Fish!". She was terribly disturbed when I stopped doing the same.

We also took a hike around the lake. She's quite the little hiker, because Duane has been taking her since she's been able to walk. It was difficult to get her going, since she was so enthralled with fishing, but Duane convinced her that we were looking for a moose. She'll be looking for a moose on every hike for the next two weeks, now.

Getting her to sleep is getting easier every time. We have a camper that allows us to have a few beds. On our first night in the camper, sleeping in the driveway, we all tried to sleep in the same bed. This was a major fail. We put her to sleep, watched a movie on our iPad, and tried to discreetly creep into bed when the movie was finished.  She had been out, completely dead asleep, before we went to bed. With the three of us, it became a party of prying eyes, patting bellies and petting hair, with a constant chorus of "Momma? Momma?". After a couple hours, I gave up and brought her into the house.

 We tried again a few nights later, with complete success. We put her down in the other bed, with dividers drawn and our own quiet game of iPad backgammon. She woke up with a few hours of sleep left in the night, and I climbed in with her. A couple of nights later, we did the same before my triathlon and she and Duane slept in until 8. She fell asleep easily on the first night of camping with a little fussing, leaving some much deserved mommy and daddy camp chair wine and reading/writing time.

 Aspen began stirring at 630 a.m and I made the mistake of crawling into bed with her, waking her up completely and telling me, "Shhh, moose!".  We started the morning with a warm breakfast and headed out for a long hike. We chose a trail that claimed to have waterfalls and ample wildlife viewing opportunities. The trails in Cimmaron State Park are poorly marked, lacking any information about destination and distance. The hike began with a pretty beautiful log feature that we debated as to whether it was nature or man made. I think we settled on both. We continued with a couple of fun bridge crossings, and Aspen made her way through the trail confidently searching for a moose. We began hearing some loud rustling just off of the trail, and assumed that a hiker was finding a spot to pee. It isn't uncommon for Duane and I to out hike people, though it is strange with Aspen out of the pack. Duane and I discussed the noise as I continued on behind him, awaiting to see the brightly colored gear of a hiker. After a few steps, Duane confirmed that it was a bear. I scooped up Aspen, as he decided to stay and take some pictures. I rushed off and waited for him with Aspen in my arms. Duane returned, after taking a few decent shots and scarring the bear up a ridge. As we began hiking out, we encountered a group with a dog that decided to continue their hike. We decided to follow a ways after them with Aspen in the pack. We approached the original site and tried to look at what the bear was feeding upon, but heard some noise off to our right. Sure enough, the bear was hiding in some grass off of the trail. We backed up, sang songs, and gave up on the waterfall hike.

After that, we found another trail that summited Blackjack Peak. We tried summiting, but the trail was poorly marked and less travelled. The area was evidently affected by wildfire years ago, and the trails were rather washed out. We settled on turning around at a grassy field below the summit.

The remainder of our day centered on wrangling a two year old to sleep, which failed at nap time, but was finally a success at 830 pm. Also, a couple of downloaded movies on the iPad are essential for some downtime in the camper. I love Barney.

 We left camp for Taos on Saturday morning. Packing up camp was a two person job, one on the trailer and one on the baby. Once we were ready for the road, we popped in a DVD and ventured on our way. The drive between Cimmaron and Taos is beautiful. We wouldn't visit the same camping area, again, because it's great if you want to drink, party and fish...but not if you enjoy quiet time with scenic hikes. There was a ton of traffic through our site by adults and kids, alike.

In Taos, we had a few errands to run before heading to the music festival. After the errands, Aspen ended up falling asleep, and we were stoked. We delayed going to the concert to sit in a parking lot, pack our concert bags and gloat about nap time. Duane assumed that she was zonked, and tried to grab a few things from below her seat. This, of course, woke the sleeping dragon, so we drove to our favorite lunch spot where Aspen finally ate something. Afterwords, we headed to the festival, where we ran around with Aspen for awhile, then walked back to the hotel to check in, swim, and nap. We didn't have any luck on the napping portion. Back at the festival, she had a lot of ups and downs, so we returned early. We didn't see or miss any musicians that we were excited about today. Hopefully she behaves tomorrow for Franti.

Our second day of the festival was more successful. We roamed Taos in the early morning hours with Aspen in my Boba carrier, stopping for a juice along the way at a local coffee shop. We swam for a bit, but having gotten sunscreen in her eyes, Aspen wasn't much fun in the pool. It tired her out, nonetheless, so that she fell asleep in the carrier on the way to the concert. Luckily her ear plugs were already in place, because she slept through the first thirty minutes.

 Upon waking, we shared some lunch, played with the "water tree", danced, and kicked around a beach ball. This wore her out enough to fall asleep in the hotel room for an afternoon nap. After the nap, we walked to Eske's for a smothered burrito and local brew, then schlepped over to the concert. Matt Kearney was excellent. Aspen enjoyed dancing, playing and eating ice cream. She became a little restless before Franti, but I was able to put her in the Boba and dance the night away with her in my arms and Duane at my side.

We all slept in this morning. I woke up the earliest and enjoyed a bit of Mockingjay. Once everyone woke, we headed to breakfast and enjoyed a swim, before driving to the sand dunes. The dunes are awesome. There is no river, which wasn't much of a surprise with this drought, but Duane dug a hole and I built a sand castle, and Aspen found little jobs in both creations. I told Aspen that daddy was digging to China. If you still ask her, "Aspen, where is daddy digging to?". She'll exclaim, "China!"

 The camping here is much better for us, because you can hike into the Dunes and do a ton of other hikes straight from the campsite. The site is covered in red ants (encouraging us to get out and hike), and it has a lot of warnings about an active bear in the area. Each site is equipped with its own bear box for food, and the dumpsters are across the park, but with any luck, the bear will bug the yahoos down the hill and leave us alone.

This evening, we left for a quick pre-dinner hike into the Dunes. Aspen wanted to climb to the top. That is a pretty long hike for a 2 year old, and we had only planned on something short, because it was dinner and we hadn't brought water. We told her that we would hike to the top of the first big hill. I ran up, as her and Duane crawled. Once she saw me, she ran to me with opened arms. I'm so proud of her hiking abilities. We watched Duane roll down the steep side of the dune, a move he soon regretted, having lost the brain cells left in his head in the process. When we decided that it was time to leave, Aspen became upset pointing and shouting, "top, top!". She wasn't quite finished, and began running up the dunes. I chased her, grabbed her arm, and swept her up to head back to camp. She was unusually upset and grabbing her arm, when I realized that something wasn't right. I gave it some time, but she kept exclaiming, "boo boo!". She cried the whole way back, completely out of character even if she is tired. So, at camp, I asked her to give me a high five, put her hand in mine, put her arms up high and so on. She refused, so I began my inspection. Both arms are the same length, but I palpated and this caused her a lot of pain. I was sure it was nurse maids elbow, and couldn't for the life of me remember how to reset it. We headed in to Alamosa, because what is a vacation without an emergency room visit? The doctor set it in a second, and I'm sure we'll need to get a bank loan to pay for all of the excitement. It was a relief to see her pain subside so easily, as she exclaimed, "fixed it!". That has to feel good as a doctor. The adventure was a great excuse to visit the San Luis Brewery for dinner and an IPA. The food wasnt worth the price, but the beer was a nice end to the evening. It was good to be back at camp to view the stars and full moon shining upon the monstrous Dunes.

We had planned to hike on the next morning, then pack up camp.  Aspen, however, was not willing to hike and threw a major fit within the first 20 yards of the trail.  We decided to pack up early and head back.  She was really tired and fell asleep immediately in the van.  We drove straight for the Gator Farm in Alamosa, which was awesome.  She enjoyed holding a gator, petting a tortoise, and seeing a variety of strange animals that people once thought would make great pets.  Clearly, they were incorrect.

After the Gator Farm, we hit up some hot springs and headed back for Colorado Springs.  All in all, the trip was excellent, but I wouldn't consider traveling with a two year old much of a "vacation" at all.  We all had some amazing learning experiences, and I'm sure our week at Shoshoni will be just as fun.