Post by cweston on Aug 8, 2022 8:05:59 GMT -8
We had a thread about this a while back, that started out as a rant about how ridiculously expensive high-end coolers like Yeti are, and drifted from there.
I recently did several days of car camping (they were supposed to be in preparation for a backpacking trip, but that’s another story). I tried a few tweaks to my cooler/ice strategy.
-I froze a block of ice, in the largest rubbermade-type container I could find that was smaller than the actual cooler (a basic Igloo 48 quart cooler, that would probably cost about $50 today). The volume of this container was about 2.5 gallons. With a little searching, I’m sure I could find a little larger container that would produce a larger block of ice that would fit more snuggly in the bottom of my cooler. (If you had an empty-enough chest freezer, you could freeze the ice block IN the cooler itself.)
-I also froze a case of 1-liter cheapie water bottles from the supermarket. (We never buy bottled water, except in situations like this.) Several of these bottles went over the ice block. The small amount of food that I brought from home went over the frozen bottles. I packed the maximum number of bottles possible, so that the cooler was very full. A couple of the food items I packed were pre-frozen. (The bottles create a structure that will keep items from falling into the melt-water.)
-I had an “overflow” cooler, a small, soft-sided zipper cooler bag. (Not a fancy expensive one.) The overflow (frozen) bottles went in there, in addition to some non-frozen water bottles, a couple cans of cold brew, soda, etc, for my drive (of around 10 hours).
-Local to my car campground, I bought additional food, beer, etc. Frozen water bottles could be removed from the main cooler and transferred to the secondary cooler as needed to create space. Also, non-critical items (like beer, cheese, etc—things that wouldn’t go bad if they got a *little* warmer than refrigerator temp) could transfer to the overflow cooler as needed.
-I wrapped the cooler inside a Walmart 40-degree rectangular synthetic sleeping bag for insulation. It was easy to access the cooler (which never left the back of the vehicle.)
I drove from baking-hot Kansas to central Colorado, stayed there three days (typical mountain summer weather), then drove back through even-hotter Kansas. When I unpacked the cooler the next morning, the main ice block was at least 65% of it’s initial size. Some of the frozen bottles even still had a bit of ice in them.
When I need to buy ice during a trip, I’ve always sought out blocks over cubes, but blocks seem very, very difficult to find these days. But I think that having a large block of ice pretty obviously makes a huge difference over cubes.
I recently did several days of car camping (they were supposed to be in preparation for a backpacking trip, but that’s another story). I tried a few tweaks to my cooler/ice strategy.
-I froze a block of ice, in the largest rubbermade-type container I could find that was smaller than the actual cooler (a basic Igloo 48 quart cooler, that would probably cost about $50 today). The volume of this container was about 2.5 gallons. With a little searching, I’m sure I could find a little larger container that would produce a larger block of ice that would fit more snuggly in the bottom of my cooler. (If you had an empty-enough chest freezer, you could freeze the ice block IN the cooler itself.)
-I also froze a case of 1-liter cheapie water bottles from the supermarket. (We never buy bottled water, except in situations like this.) Several of these bottles went over the ice block. The small amount of food that I brought from home went over the frozen bottles. I packed the maximum number of bottles possible, so that the cooler was very full. A couple of the food items I packed were pre-frozen. (The bottles create a structure that will keep items from falling into the melt-water.)
-I had an “overflow” cooler, a small, soft-sided zipper cooler bag. (Not a fancy expensive one.) The overflow (frozen) bottles went in there, in addition to some non-frozen water bottles, a couple cans of cold brew, soda, etc, for my drive (of around 10 hours).
-Local to my car campground, I bought additional food, beer, etc. Frozen water bottles could be removed from the main cooler and transferred to the secondary cooler as needed to create space. Also, non-critical items (like beer, cheese, etc—things that wouldn’t go bad if they got a *little* warmer than refrigerator temp) could transfer to the overflow cooler as needed.
-I wrapped the cooler inside a Walmart 40-degree rectangular synthetic sleeping bag for insulation. It was easy to access the cooler (which never left the back of the vehicle.)
I drove from baking-hot Kansas to central Colorado, stayed there three days (typical mountain summer weather), then drove back through even-hotter Kansas. When I unpacked the cooler the next morning, the main ice block was at least 65% of it’s initial size. Some of the frozen bottles even still had a bit of ice in them.
When I need to buy ice during a trip, I’ve always sought out blocks over cubes, but blocks seem very, very difficult to find these days. But I think that having a large block of ice pretty obviously makes a huge difference over cubes.
