Prison Salad

After agreeing to go to Fargo to get my nephew Horus,   Extraction Part 1, there was much that could go wrong.

My nephew Horus is a bohemian.  He isn’t necessarily practical and wants this to be an adventure.  I called it an “extraction” to emphasize that my mission is to go to Fargo and return to Ohio with my client and his stuff.  No side trips, sight seeing, linking up with friends or other messing about.  Using pseudo-military terms  was a persuasive tactic.  The extraction would be a little grueling so Horus appreciates the experience.

Being responsible for a bohemian is like being a bodyguard for a celebrity.  Don’t expect the client to be helpful.  Horus is actually my grand-nephew.  His aunt is my cosmopolitan niece.  She should be part of the extraction, so she was given the role of “logistical support”.  Her job was to make our arrangements.

It would be easy to stay in hotels to get a good night’s sleep, but that seems inauthentic.  Niece Cosmo was asked to book campgrounds and investigate Walmarts or other alternatives for spending the night.

Cosmo booked an RV park outside Chicago for my first night.  That is only 300 miles along a 1000 mile trip, so I was a worried that she wasn’t thinking this through.  Also, I was late in researching my route, so she didn’t have much to go on.

Cosmo cancelled the reservation and found an RV park near Madison, Wisconsin.  Almost exactly half-way to Fargo.  She was having trouble finding RV parks that are open so late in the season.  In Fargo, she found an RV park that didn’t take reservations.  That is pretty shaky, so she is looking for alternatives.  On the way home, she booked two nights at Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin.  That looks really nice.  I asked for a free day to rest up and maybe hike around a bit in the Wisconsin Dells.

When I did start researching the trip, I found that temperatures in Fargo have been 20o F at night.  It’s been 70o F in Cleveland.  I winterized the camper so we won’t have any fresh water in the tank.

Each leg of the trip is 500 miles.  Google calls that 8 hours.  With the camper, driving speed won’t be above 65 mph and am planning on 10 mpg.  I will need to stop for gas every 2 1/2 hours, which is also good for Sparky getting a break.  More likely that each leg will take 10 hours.

I don’t want to waste time buying food when I stop for gas and four days of eating gas station food would be excruciating.

I will pack a cooler with grapes, picked eggs and honey-roasted peanuts, but that doesn’t seem sufficient.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona was once famous for giving prisoners what they needed, rather than what they wanted.  He used to serve “prison loaf”, a bread loaf with baked in vegetables, beans, a little meat and whatever else it took to make it nutritionally complete and convenient, but not necessarily tasty. 

I am making 6 pints of prison salad.  Ham and mozzarella balls for protein, broccoli and cherry tomatoes for fiber and ditalini pasta for carbs.  With Italian dressing, it tastes pretty good.