Today’s tip is a very practical one: how to avoid the driving blindspot. You know that spot that always gets you into trouble? You check over your shoulder, but sometimes you still miss a tiny little car lurking there in the next lane.

Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, have come up with a great solution. It costs nothing and it’s really easy. All it takes is a little getting used to.

When I first heard them talking about it on the radio, it seemed too good to be true. But I set my mirrors and tried it. It seems strange at first, but it works. Since changing my mirrors, I have counted five times that they have kept me out of merging into a lane with a car already in it. I still look over my shoulder, but have eliminated the double look, shift in my seat, wrench my neck and then have someone else double check.

It’s simple, and worth at least a try. Click on this link:

Click and Clack, Features: Mirrors

Just like I love giant stuff, I love festivals also. Sometimes they’re cheesy or lame, but for the most part, they’re interesting, fun, and a good place to people watch. Recently, our town held it’s annual festival, the only thing we’re known for: The Watermelon Festival.

The parade starts at 10:30 sharp, usually. This year, it was slightly postponed due to an unknown parked car on the parade route. Any group or family can make a float, and there is a lot of participation. Even the nudist ranch down the road enters a float (clothed and decorated). There are awards for the most decorated horse and rider, best decorated car, best float, etc. At the end is the big flat-bed trailer with all of the watermelon entries. This year’s watermelons were not that spectacular in size, but we are locally famous for their flavor.

After the parade, everyone walks a few blocks down to the Watermelon Festival Grounds where the local barbecue vendors open up for barbecue sandwich lunch. Circling the perimeter of the grounds are dunking booths, a band stand, a country walk, bingo, and other games. All kinds of the hometown hokey goodness. But, it’s all about the watermelon.

So, after the barbecue dinner at 6, all of the watermelons are chopped up and passed out for a melon free-for-all. There are sanctioned (and non-sanctioned) seed spitting contests and everyone ends up with juice dripping off their chins, running down their elbows, and usually some amount of watermelon flesh in their hair.

Watermelons are great for summer because of their high water content, messy quotient, and general fun-ness. When I was a kid, we made sure that someone brought a watermelon when we went to the lake. It was usually too big to fit in the ice chests, so we rigged up a net and floated it in the lake itself. It never got ice cold, but it was cool. Before serving we usually played watermelon water soccer. The rules weren’t very clear, but basically you oiled the watermelon with whatever oil you have and try to swim the watermelon to whatever goal you have chosen, while your friends try to take it away from you or push it out of your grasp.

Now, because of research and varietal selection, some watermelons are small enough to fit in a trailer fridge. And if it won’t fit, you just have to keep eating it until it’s gone. You can pretty much cut them up right on an outdoor picnic table. Dice em up, throw em in a bowl, and you have breakfast – or dessert. Drizzle them with balsamic vinegar. Toss with cilantro, diced jalapenos, and lime juice. Put them in a spinach salad.

So before the weather starts changing, take a moment to cut up a watermelon and enjoy the taste of summer.

Do you yearn for the perfect highway? One that is spacious, not overly crowded, but not too remote? I’ve never found THE ONE, but I did find one that comes close. It’s actually two highways, but it’s one route, and the change from one to the other is…well, I don’t even know when I changed.

Highway 183 from Cedar Park, Texas to Lampasas, where it changes to 281 to Mineral Wells one road in the competition. I’ve driven this route several times, towing and not, and I was pleasantly surprised each time. A few weeks ago, the last time I drove it, there was even road construction in a couple of places, and it still wasn’t a problem.

183/281 is topped with smooth, flowing blacktop, sometimes 4 lanes, sometimes two. It was 11:30 am and the majority of the time I was the only car on the road. The landscape changes from scraggy hill country to the petite mountains on Parker County. While not technically mountains, the outcroppings on the North Central Texas Plains and actually plateau remnants that have withstood while the rest of the landscape eroded away. Wide shoulders line the highway, easing your mind as you worry about blow-outs or other mechanical mishaps - plenty of room to pull off to the side. And while we’re talking about it, remember Texas highway law is practically unique: if you’re driving slower than traffic and there is a wide shoulder, YOU ARE SUPPOSED to pull onto the shoulder and let the faster traffic pass. But yet another good thing about this 183/281 route is that every few miles, passing lanes were built into the highway, providing just enough passing space and time to get around that slow moving tractor.

But, the greatest thing about this route is that it has GIANT STUFF on it. I love oversized things. Big ‘ol, great big giant stuff. Outside of Morgan Mill is this huge rocking chair, a sign for a Texas cedar furniture maker and store.

Then a little further south is this giant spur. I’m not sure what it’s significance is. Best guess - an old dance hall?

What are things that are flat?

One of the things I love about camping is the challenge of putting the essential things into as tight a space as possible. I always love the challenge, and my winning strategy is to make sure everything is light, space-saving, or serves double-duty. New materials and innovative designs help me in this neverending quest. Here are a few flat things I have found recently at an Ace Hardware Store.

Oxo, Tupperware, and Chef’n all make a collapsible colander from silicone. They’re durable, flat, expandable, and holds up to high temperatures. Because of the extreme heat resistance, they can be used in or on stoves, oven or grills

Tupperware and Rubbermaid both have linew of flat storage containers. Well, flat and expandable. Like all things Tupperware, they come in different sizes and expand similarly to the old camping cups.

The brand Chef’n has taken silicone to giddy new extremes. A set of silicone collapsible measuring cups will run about $15. Their silicone vegetable steamer can double as a strainer or colander, and if you’re handy, you can configure it to work as a stabilizer jack.

And then I found some stuff that is not necessary in the least, but fun to consider nonetheless.  These egg poaching cups are cute, silicone, and make perfect little eggs. If you’re a fan of pancakes or want another methodof making perfectly shaped eggs, you can get these egg and pancake ‘rings’.

These silicone and metal utensil clips clip to the edge of a pan to hold a utensil cleanly and conveniently.  These would be perfect for Vince Saltaformaggio’s Jambalaya.

My last find was a package of stretch cooking bands.  They are also made of silicone, and look just like rubberbands.  But you can use them to truss a chicken for the grill or oven, keep asparagus bundled on the grill, or keep your broccoli bundled in the fridge or microwave.

So keep cooking, and let me know of any great kitchen tools that you have, find, or can’t live without.

My dad has a favorite joke, that he loves to tell, but it requires audience participation. More to the point, it requires audience initiation; someone has to set it up for him. It centers around him being the hardest person to buy gifts for. he doesn’t want a lot of things, and what he does want, he’ll go ahead and get for himself. His only hobby is going to the lake. The joke goes something like this:

Me: Dad, I didn’t know what to get you for Father’s Day (your birthday, Christmas, etc.)
Dad: Well, I’m not that hard to buy for.
Me: I couldn’t find anything that I thought you would want.
Dad: If you couldn’t find anything, that must mean you don’t know where to buy beer.
*bada-bing*

So it’s Father’s Day, and we went to the lake for some swimming, sunning, lunch, and of course, beer. Yes, I gave my dad beer for Father’s Day.

So here’s to dads everywhere, you do a great job.

P.S. On the way home we had to stop for a closer inspection of this Kozy Coach, complete with door (or side) knocker.

Today’s idle tip is something I use all the time.  It’s free, it’s fast, and it can really save a lot of time.  It’s Google’s SMS service.  Basically, you send a short text message to Google, and Google will send back the info you requested in another text message.  The way I use it is thus:  I know where our nearest Lowe’s is, but I need to call them to see if they have a particular item in stock.  On my phone, I create a new text message, the text of which is something like “Lowe’s Shoal Creek Austin Texas”.  Then I send it to Google (on the number pad), which correlates to 466453.  In about 30 seconds, I get the text message back with address and phone number.  Then, if I click through the message, I can highlight the phone number and call it with one move.

Here are some other commands that you can send to Google:

• set location _______ (insert zipcode) - this will set your locations so that, in my case, I don’t have to type in ‘Austin Texas’ all the time
• weather _________ (insert name of city, such as Boston) will give you the weather, and note, you don’t have to use capitals
•  define __________(insert unknown word) is pretty self-explanatory
• score __________(insert ball team, such as spurs)
• directions  ____________ use a city names, state and/or zipcode; example: austin, tx to 94043
• map ___________ (for example, map 5th avenue new york)
• flight __________(example: flight aa2111); will tell the status of the flight

I’m just now learning how to text message, so it takes me a little while.  But, I’m getting better at it.  If you just can’t bring yourself to text, or don’t know how, Google also has old fashioned 411 service, and it’s completely free.  Call 1-800-GOOG-411 (the GOOG part is 4664), then state your location and what you are looking for.  Google will connect you for free.  You can also say “text message” and Google will send you a text message with all the information.

There you have it.  Go out and be idle.

Ah, Cher,

The thing about writing magazine articles is that I write so far in advance that by the time the article is published, it is pushed way back into the nether regions of my memory. So I was again pleasantly surprised with the lagniappe I found in my mailbox today: the Summer issue of Airstream Life had arrived and I remembered the Cajun article I had written awhile back.

My good friend Jodi took several of the pictures published in the magazine. She claims that she had to take a picture of the “big lobster one” featured in the article, because he was so huge that he deserved to be honored in some way. Her instinct was pretty good, because it was about a year later that I was writing the article and she told me about the beaucoup photos she had taken. So the big guy was indeed honored. And I heard he was pretty tasty, too.

If you are interested learning more about Chef Emile, his Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Aurora Catering, or some of his famous recipes, visit his website at CustomCatering.net.

In the meantime, put on a pot of gumbo, go check out my Cajun glossary, and this is so painfully cliche that my fingers almost refuse to type it, “Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!”

C’est tout, it’s time for a Do Do.

Oh my gosh are you gonna want one of these.

When we ate dinner with the Luhrs the other night, Eric and Rich started all this talk about camers and lenses, “is that the blah-blah blah?” “no, it’s the blippity blip camera body with the doggety dog lens…..” It reminded me of the old line from Mr. Mom when Michael Keaton is trying to impress his wife’s boss with knowledge of things like guns and electrical wiring: “Yeah? Are you gonna make it all 220? (Michael Keaton) Yeah. 220… 221, whatever it takes. ” Except that they both knew what they were talking about.

I’ve been wanting to start taking some videos for a long time, and even though Eric said his camera was simple, he told me I still have to use a tape of some sort(a tape? really? in 2008?), all kinds of settings. Would I need to hook up a mic? That was well beyond my level of frustration, and I had already stopped listening, letting slip away my goal of filming stuff.

Then, I stumbled upon this little gem in a post from Vickie Howell. This was what I wanted. I mentioned it to Eric once (or thrice), and being the gadget guy that he is, he surprised me with it.*

It is perfect if you, like me, just want to shoot a non-complicated, whatever video. If you just want to capture your kid riding a bike, or a quick video from the next international rally, and you don’t want to submit your film to Sundance or Cannes, this will more than fill the bill.

It holds 60 minutes of video. It has a cute little flip out USB port to easily upload the video. And it has, literally, 4 buttons. That’s right, 4 buttons: a power button a big red record button, a play back button, and a trash can button. This thing is easier to use than my alarm clock. Here’s how I shoot a video: take it out of the little bag, turn it on, and press the red button. To stop, I press the red button again. Oh yeah, and it comes in cute (or very manly) colors. (Mine is pink and white.) They even include cables that allow you to plug it right into the t.v. and watch it on the big screen.

Alright, I just had to share this, but am up way later than is good for me, plus I have to concentrate in order to set that alarm. As soon as I take a video, I’ll post it so you can see how it works.

*No, he didn’t do anything wrong. I imagine, though, that he has some sort of gadget he wants to buy for himself in the next few months. It could quite possibly be the camera that Rich was showing him the other night. I’ll keep you posted.

We ate dinner with the Luhr’s the other night, and I was reminded of this little piece I had written a while back, before A Moveable Feast was even in existence. It is a topic he touched on in one of his recent posts as well. So here it is, out of season, but just as relevant.

There’s quiet camping, state parks, national forests. Places where one is cradled to sleep in the orchestra of frogs, insects, possibly some owls and the lonesome whippoorwill. Quiet camping is relaxing. One might sit around a campfire, watch the stars, admire the moon. And then there is urban camping. Urban camping is lively, bustling, and invigorating.

We’re at Pecan Grove in September. On a regular, average, nothing special weekend. It’s hot, but not Texas searing, dripping, wilting hot. This is the late fall, sticky sweet hot. It doesn’t get comfortably cool until well after sundown, and even then it’s still in the 80’s..

It’s loud. The thumping, chopped rumble of our neighbor’s Harley echoes among the trailers as he returns home. He lives here permanently. Music is drifting over from two opposite directions. Uncle Billy’s is featuring a band, that from a distance, and to my ear, sounds like old 80’s era Police. Then there is some twangy country floating in from another direction - maybe Romeo’s Italian Grill.

A neighbor is walking by with a red picnic basket, which judging from the heft is packed full of food to share. I think some of the neighbors are gathering to watch the UT game. The owners of the white trailer box next to us have opened a lower storage hold and swiveled out a 30 inch flat screen t.v. to watch the UT-Rice game. My evening will soon be peppered with “GO GO GO - NO NO - INTERCEPTION - HE’S GOT IT” and similar comments. The pizza delivery guy, in an apropos VW van circles around for the third time, looking for his delivery.

A drum solo, a touchdown, the faltering engine of the VW; the locusts are still here, but they are well in the background tonight. Urban camping is a night out on the town, but a night that you can still go back to the comfort of your Airstream.  It makes for a reviving change of pace, every once in a while.

“Whoa, he’s gone! That’s an amazing touchdown….”

In the Farmer’s Market article in the latest issue of Airstream Life, I mentioned that when you have really fresh ingredients, any dish you make will be unbelievably good. Fresh ingredients make it much easier to cook because you have to do so little to them; the flavor is already there. You just unleash it.

Tomatoes will soon start ripening where we are, and showing up in gardens and at farmer’s markets. Good, plump, red, ripe tomatoes. And while there is nothing better than an old fashioned BLT made with garden tomatoes, I suggest you buy, or beg, borrow, or steal, enough to make the following recipe.

I’ve used it for years; saving it for only garden tomatoes. If you use just regular store tomatoes, you will be sorely disappointed. The hardest part is cooking the pasta. So print this out, or commit it to memory, because you just don’t know when you’ll pass the next farm stand or when the first tomatoes will start to ripen wherever you are.

Fresh Tomatoes and Pasta

• 1 16 oz box of spaghetti or your favorite pasta
• fresh, garden tomatoes, estimate 1 per person or 4 to 6 medium-sized tomatoes
• a handful of fresh basil (or tbsp of dried)
• salt and pepper
• optional: 2 cloves garlic chopped, dash of dried red pepper flakes, grated Parmesan cheese

Directions: Chop the tomatoes into about 1/2 inch pieces. (Be sure to do this before you start cooking the pasta.) Put the chopped tomatoes into a colander; set that in the sink in preparation for draining the pasta. While the pasta cooks, take a smallish handful of fresh basil and tear into small pieces or snip with scissors into ribbons. Put half of the basil in the colander with the tomatoes. Add garlic if using.

When the pasta is done, drain it in the colander, pouring the boiling water over the tomatoes. Transfer to a large bowl and toss gently to distribute pasta and tomatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Serve immediately with a fresh salad, olives, or hot bread.