They say necessity is the mother of invention. When there is a need that must be met or supplied, surely a solution will follow along riding on the back of ingenuity like a mighty knight to save the day. Over hill and dale, through snow or shine, atop rivers or lava. Our nighttime camping coffee routine was just like that.
What happens when the mother of four sons needs her coffee? Adventure and camping are great and all, but not when mama don't have her caffeine. You see, even that glorious white knight charging through the muck and mire can't stand up to a decaffeinated mother. They're basically like dragons…except prettier, of course.
As much as we like to go camping and travel on the open highway, the time had come for me to upgrade our personal travel situation to be a bit more comfortable. We recently made it possible to travel with cold drinks wherever we wanted by adding a SnoMaster refrigerator to our adventure mobile (aka ‘The Bear').
This required some ingenuity and something rarely seen in our class of truck. Solar panels. And the next logical step, of course, was The Original Donut Shop® Coffee and a Keurig® Coffee Maker.
Chelsea is obsessed with our Keurig® K475 Coffee Maker at home that makes about 8 cups of coffee throughout the day. One for me…and the rest for Chelsea. One time, I got in trouble because I failed to knock, and walked in on her sitting in her office changing out her coffee IV drip.
In all honesty, I tend to be a bit of a skeptic about any newfangled fanciness like this, but I was surprised to find myself really liking the convenience of the Keurig® Coffee Maker. With a flip, flop, and a little cup plop I'm just left to add my dose of syrup and cream.
I let Chelsea know that the time had come to pick out a more compact Keurig® Coffee Maker, the Keurig® K250 to take along on our adventures. She opted to go with a cute red one that went well with her personality. She stocked up on some of The Original Donut Shop® Coffee K-Cup® pods, which she tells me are the #1-selling K-Cup pod in the US. She's full of nerdy tidbits like that. I got to work modifying the truck and adding the necessary components. For the wrench-turners out there, this was accomplished with a 200-watt suitcase solar panel set made for camping, a 2000-watt inverter, and two Odyssey Extreme 31m-pc2150 batteries (plus wiring, etc).
With all components installed, we loaded up the gear and the boys and set off for a brand new spot we had never been to before. This was a maiden voyage for our new caffeinated aspect of camping, so I was excited to see how it would work out. We wound our way up through the hills and over the top of our nearby city, Escondido. In our typical adventure fashion, we pulled into a spot just a few hours before the sun set in the distance over the trees. We got to the usual tasks of setting the boys free, laying out the toys and prepping our little campsite.
Chelsea, of course, immediately set to work preparing her new anywhere anytime coffee oasis with The Original Donut Shop® Coffee K-Cup® Pods. We brought along a few jugs of purified water to be turned into jugs of good clean coffee.
With the sun slowly setting over the Pacific ocean, we gathered around the hot coals to enjoy the classic s'more or two…or sixteen. Chelsea touched her little Keurig® happy button and less than two minutes later, she was sitting with her steaming cup of black The Original Donut Shop® Coffee.
So that's it. Success! The Original Donut Shop® Coffee K-Cup® Pods is a great addition to our camp life and it's going to keep us going with more energy through those happy outdoor nights. That leaves more time to take in the stars, and more energy to tackle the morning. Oh yeah, we have a whole Keurig morning routine, too. More on that in a bit.
How do you get your coffee fix when you're on the road?