Cookbook Release Date & Official Photo Cover!

Hello Campers!

Cooking and Camping with Cass will officially be released on January 28th, 2008.

Visit www.kesslerenterprises.com/recipes.htm for pre-ordering info!

Happy Camping!
Cass :)

Greetings Campers!

Just a small update that the cover designs of my cookbook is now completed! I will be posting a preview soon…

No news on a release date, but hopefully not too much longer!!

Happy Travels!
Cass :)

For more about Cass or to arrange interviews, write a review, article: http://www.kesslerenterprises.com/press.htm

Upcoming cookbook Release -Cooking and Camping with Cass-

Hello Campers!

The official title of my cookbook will be "Cooking and Camping with Cass."

This book will be filled with camping tested original recipes and useful camping tips… a must have for all your camping trips and adventures!

More to come soon…

Cass :)

NEW Camping Review!

Evening Campers!

There is a brand new review up at CAMP KESSLER. Read all about Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground and Resort.

Hoping you safe travels!

Cass :)
www.kesslerenterprises.com/reviews.htm

Episode 1 of Cooking with Cass -Now Available!

Summer Greetings Campers!

“Cooking with Cass” Episode 1: CAMP KESSLER BAKED POTATOES is now available for viewing!

www.myspace.com/cookingwithcass
www.youtube.com/cookingwithcass
www.kesslerenterprises.com/recipes.htm

Be sure to watch it and let us know how much you enjoyed this special, easy camping recipe.

For future reference, only current episodes of the show will be posted on MySpace and the CAMP KESSLER website. All past shows will be available for viewing at: www.youtube.com/cookingwithcass

I hope that these recipes will bring a special taste of home to your camping experience.

Have a happy rest of summer!
Cass :)

Welcome to Cooking with Cass!

Hello Campers!

There is a brand new “welcome” video added to the Myspace page! www.myspace.com/cookingwithcass check it out now!

We also completed filming the first ‘Cooking with Cass’ episode and it will be posted shortly for your viewing –CAMP KESSLER BAKED POTATOES-

Hope you enjoy, and we would love to hear feedback!

Until next update, let’s go camping!

Cass :)

Fort Wilderness Adventure

Back on the road again! We spent five nights last week at Disney’s Fort Wilderness campground in Florida. This was about my seventh visit to the park. I will be posting a review soon on the main website.

We left home on Wednesday afternoon and had quite a drive to the campground. We had to divert off of I-75 due to both northbound/southbound lanes being closed, caused by a massive accident, sadly. To avoid the interstate we drove through the city of Ocala, on down to Belleview, where we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch and were able to catch the interstate again at this exit. I have stopped at this Cracker Barrel before, so not a new one to mark off of my Cracker Barrel map.

On the road… I am happy to report that I finally saw an interstate exit sign that said “RV Friendly”. I have been looking for these signs when traveling after reading that they were going to be placed on the main interstates. Good to know that they do exist!

We arrived at Fort Wilderness around five p.m., we stayed in the Possum Path loop (since we did not bring our animals, we did not have to stay in the pet loop) The regular camp sites at this park are much nicer than in the pet loop, which tend to be closer together and hard to maneuver into. Happy to report that we had no trouble backing the fifth wheel in… in about 15 minutes we were all settled; electricity on, slide out, out and decorative lights around the camper on. Two family members drove separately so we would have a small car to drive around instead of the truck. The sites were big enough to accommodate the camper, truck and extra car.

Not much going on the first night. We settled into the camper, ate dinner, watched a huge thunderstorm take place and walked around the campground a bit.

Thursday we headed out to a grocery store in Kissimmee to buy a few essentials for the weekend. Had an awful lunch at Applebee’s (never order the buffalo ranch sandwich). After this small morning necessary trip we headed back to the campground.

Upon our arrival back to the camper we headed to the petting zoo, one of the few “free” things available at Fort Wilderness. However, only to find no animals to pet… all animals have been transferred to Disney’s Animal Kingdom (we told by the barn keeper) except the Ponies, if you were less than 80 pounds you could get a free ride (I am assuming free!) After that disappointment, we headed to the bike barn looking for the canoes, just when one of those huge Florida afternoon storms hit again. So we headed back to camp and sat in the camper, waiting for it to pass, but that didn’t happen until around 8:00 p.m. Later that night my sister and I headed down to the Trail Ends Restaurant for a large buffet dinner. I try to stay clear of buffets, I feel they are just one big pile of germs, but in all fairness (maybe because this was Disney) this buffet was clean! There was quite a variety too: salad, chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes and some dessert –apple cobbler, cookies and brownies- the food was OK, nothing too special. The dessert was probably the worst part; not much flavor to any of it, kind of like eating cardboard. $17.99 for the entire buffet. After eating we decided to not take the campground buses back to our campsite, instead we walked. Along our walk we discovered the campfire movie area and headed down to see what was playing (another free rarity in the park). It was drizzling, but we sat out anyways on the wooden benches and watched a few minutes of Peter Pan. The movie screen was large…. I sat imagining that on a nice night (no rain) and all the stars out, this would make a beautiful spot to stop and watch a Disney movie, grab a snack at the snack wagon and enjoy. But after getting drenched by the drizzling rain, we moved on towards our camper. Before heading to bed it was time to check out the showers (which are beautiful and clean!!) outside the comfort station I found an ice machine and proceeded to take a bag to fill up (we needed ice for our cooler the next day) I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that $2.00 was needed to insert before receiving any ice. Well, I said it was hard to find anything free at Disney. I froze some water bottles instead in our freezer for the cooler.

We attended a three-day convention, over the weekend so not too much time was spent at Fort Wilderness during the day. Due to the limits on time we were not able to cook in the camper like I prefer to do. Next camping trip!

Friday night we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner. Went to the Rainforest Café and discovered on this visit it is quicker to be seated outside, and even though it was terribly hot, sitting by the water and air being circulated by the ceiling fans helped to actually make it really nice! We were greeted and amused by two swans and a bunch of ducks swimming in the water while we ate. The food was OK as it is always… this time I ate a few buffalo wings instead of an entire meal. If you are camping at Disney and don’t feel like cooking I recommend checking out this restaurant, especially, if you are traveling with children –they will love it!

After dinner we headed back to the campground, my sister and I changed from dress clothes to camp shorts and t-shirts, boarded the campground bus, to the main bus depot at the campground and headed back to Downtown Disney…. Believing it was going to rain again we thought we would check out “Disney Quest” a five story indoor simulated amusement park. Costing $36.00. While some things were fun, it was rather cheesy. We rode the simulated river rapids, which felt pretty silly sitting in inflated plastic water, and tubes pretending to paddle oars, after really white rafting on several occasions. But everyone around was having fun. We created our own roller coaster and stood in line for about 30 minutes waiting to ride it; in the end of it all we picked the slowest, non-enjoyable roller coaster ride, according to my sister. While I do agree it felt like we were not even moving, I kind of wish all roller coasters were like that. We stayed until around eleven and proceeded back down to marketplace to catch a bus back to Fort Wilderness. Along the way we stopped at Häagen-Dazs spent $12.00 for two yucky ice creams cones, and discovered that marketplace closes before midnight, so we had to board a different resort bus to be shuttled back to the west side to catch the Fort Wilderness bus.

Now this was an adventure!

Back on the west side we waited for more than thirty minutes for the wilderness bus, which also serviced Wilderness Lodge and the Grand Floridian resort. We boarded the bus and sat in hopes of returning to the campground before one a.m. with all the lights off we enjoyed the sounds of “The good, bad and ugly” and several other Ennio Morricone composed, Clint Eastwood film songs, and also some Native American singing. After riding on the bus for more than several minutes I looked out the window and saw that the bus completely passed Fort Wilderness! We soon realized that we had to stop at all the other resorts first! What a time, we would pull into one place and look at each other saying: “Is this Fort Wilderness”. Honestly, I thought we had been kidnapped and were never going to see our camper again. FINALLY, after two a.m. we arrived at Fort Wilderness, boarded another inside campground bus and arrived back at our camper. We were so happy to see it, while the family inside was not happy about our sudden missing, and driving around in a bus so early in the morning. What a night/morning! Disney’s bus service at one time was really superb, but now is lacking… maybe due to cutbacks. But when camping there, and riding the buses make sure to give yourself plenty of time to get to your destination.

Saturday afternoon we rented a canoe $11.00 for one hour. We boarded the canoe with a gallon of cold water. My sister oared, while I took the camera to take photographs along the way. The water was not too deep and we never saw any alligators (we were told that there were several there in the park) I would have preferred to pedal boat, but they no longer offer these types of boats at the Bike Barn. For most of the canoeing trip we floated along narrow waterways, and could see the campsites along the water banks. We saw some birds and turtles! While attempting to take a photo of a cute turtle, my sister got too eager to see it and oared a little too fast sending me (who was sitting in the front) head first into a series of trees drooping down into the water. I don’t even want to rehash the junk that was in those trees… while I was being attacked by the trees, I was able to find my oar and help turn around the canoe to save myself! Back to floating along… There were actually several areas along the water that were desolate and we didn’t see any campsites. Other than the heat, it was a nice little canoeing adventure. But again dark clouds were rolling in, so when we saw the “Bike Barn” sign I helped oar so we would move faster and get out of the water. For the rest of Saturday afternoon and evening there was a MAJOR storm. We ended up napping, waiting for it to pass. The thunder and lightening did, but not the rain.

It’s a Hoop-Dee-Do night! Saturday night we headed down to the Hoop-Dee-Do Revue dinner show, that my sister booked for us, located next to “Trails End” restaurant. We spent two hours inside, listening to six people put on a stage show of singing, dancing and some pretty lame jokes. It was a cute show, and worth going to once, but not something I would ever do again for $56.00. The food was from the restaurant next door, all you care to eat deal… the menu consisted of: fried chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, corn bread and strawberry shortcake. Macaroni and Cheese could be requested, after seeing a bunch of kids eating it below us, we ordered some –yuck, yuck! - Those poor kids. I never tasted anything so awful; really, I don’t think it was cheese! The show was definitely the attraction not the food. I heard some people say that Mickey’s Backyard BBQ was really good… that is something that is also offered at Fort Wilderness, maybe next time.

Sunday afternoon we headed back to Downtown Disney and this time to Wolfgang Pucks. I ordered the wood fire pizza, which was good. My mom and sister ordered a rotisserie chicken - for $18.99 you get an entire chicken, add $2.00 and they will cut it up four ways and even give each person garlic-mashed potatoes. There was actually a mix up in the kitchen, and instead of dividing it two ways; it was brought out on four plates. So there was a lot of food! My mom and I spent the rest of the evening walking around Downtown Disney, ordering ice cream (this time at Ghiradellis) it was a little better, but the wait was long. We ended up spending about two hours in the Virgin music store, which now has a café. Then back to the campground.

-Night of the roach-

Upon returning to our camper we were greeted by an ugly little acquaintance. My dad opened the door, and went inside first; I followed with my sister and mother trailing behind closely… when I saw something crawling by the couch, I yelled and my dad grabbed it bare handed, he came running at me, I proceeded to run out of the way, while my sister standing on the outside steps thought I was coming straight for her (I was trying to head for the kitchen) she then screamed, thinking I was going to crash into her, she went to run away outside, and while trying to avoid me (who was never coming near her) hit my mother right in the head, practically knocking her out, all the while my dad is throwing nasty roach out in the wild. Once all was calm, we investigated the camper for more roaches, and checked my mother over to make sure she was not too badly injured. Teeth brushed, faces washed, time for bed! My mom just had to get a small glass of water before going to sleep…. She crept down into the kitchen and while filling her glass with water by the sink, saw baby roach!!! The screaming started again and the hunt was on. I am now afraid we have been invaded by roaches in the camper… we will be cleaning throughouly, and setting traps. Yuck!

Another adventure over… the ride home was uneventful other than the $20.00 spent driving on the turnpike. Time to clean the camper and plan another adventure soon!

Hoping you wonderful summer travels!

Boiled Peanuts Adventure

FINALLY I have taken the time to write up one of many promised camping adventures! I hope you enjoy and in someway this will benefit you on one of your own camping adventures, even if it’s just avoiding an area that I mention… (sorry for any typos!)

Recently someone asked me about Boiled Peanuts… they wanted to know how they tasted, and how they were cooked. This made me think of all the wonderful boiled peanuts that I have had in my many trips to the North Georgia Mountains. I will probably be writing about Georgia quite a bit, as I have traveled there on SO many occasions… I have been to most of the state parks if not all in the North Georgia area. Traveling there from where we live was always a nice quick getaway, in summer, fall or winter. In the mountains every season is breathtaking! But that mention of peanuts took me back to all of our adventures and good times camping up there and visiting that small boiled peanut stand across from the Old Sautee store near Helen, GA (they sell the BEST peanuts!) I’m always disappointed when they are closed on a visit… if you are ever in the area buy a bag, you will enjoy them!

Right now though, I am thinking about a camping trip that I took with my Dad that led us to Tennessee and ended in the Helen, GA area. At that particular time we were camping in a 1989 22’ ft Coachmen Catalina. That RV was SMALL! The kitchen was very tiny; there were three beds, the couch, dinette and a loft bed above the van area. You are going to hear A LOT about that camper, the main reason it was purchased was because I loved the colors, it was not the usual chocolate brown interior and exterior of the 80’s, but what a pile of junk!! Surprising as it sounds, we kept it for several years! Another time I will tell you all about the HUGE ball of fires from the muffler and the pedal that used to fall off while driving!! I’m going to dig out a photo for posting, wait till you see it.

Back to this adventure! Bright, and not so early we set out on the road, making our first stop at the tag office to renew our tags before heading for Georgia. Passengers on this adventure were my dad, me and our camping pet a Siberian Husky who we bought while camping one year (more about her to come! Wait till you see photos, you are going to love her!)

We are on our way! After leaving Florida and listening to hours of “oldies” rock ‘n’ roll, we discussed heading up to Tennessee to visit some friends that moved a few years back to the Knoxville area. Initially our first destination was supposed to be North Georgia –Unicoi State Park. We stopped at a Wal-Mart and made a phone call (we were not into the cell phone craze like everyone else just then) to our friends and they gave us directions to their house, and were happy to hear that we were coming to visit… so we set back out on I-75, with a mission to make Rogersville, TN before nightfall. By the way, this was winter time and snow was forecasted.

Well, we didn’t make such good time that day… due to rain storms and road work; we did not enter Tennessee until early evening. We hit Knoxville around 7:00 p.m. that night and looked wearily for the Rogersville exit… what we didn’t know was that there were two zoo exits and we were supposed to take the second not the first, which in the spirit of the Griswold’s we took the first and ended up in downtown Knoxville! This is where I have to say that I have never seen streets SO SKINNY! As I previously noted we had a small RV, but we could not stay on the skinny roads through the city, I believe that we actually rode on the sidewalk for a good part of our city drive. Who had that bright idea? Well, someone had that bright idea of going to the local Krispy Kreme doughnut shop to ask for directions to Rogersville. I fearlessly exited the RV and headed inside, where I was greeted by two lovely enthused employees who laughed at me hysterically when I simply asked “How do I get to Rogersville?” simualtelosuly they replied “We ain’t never heard of Rogersville” HA HA… I returned to the RV with the disappointing news that Rogersville does not exist according to Krispy Kreme workers. So we headed back onto the tiny roads trying to find our way out of the city, hoping to get back onto the interstate to turn around and find a different exit, this just was not to be. Instead we headed down a HUGE incline that looked like we were diving into a large pit, instead with a swift turn of the wheel we ended up in front of the Knoxville police department, where a nice police officer was walking across the street, we stopped the RV rolled down the window, motioned him over and tiredly I said the famous words “We’re Lost!” opening our map he showed us how to leave Knoxville and get onto the right road to Rogersville (we’re not crazy it did exist!) even Smokey our husky was up front listening to the directions. Thanks to the nice officer we were back again heading down the small streets and exiting the city of Knoxville for the right road to the illusive Rogersville.

Now it would have been so simple to just make a turn here and there and be there… but it doesn’t happen that way. Instead we ended up on a four lane desolate road, it was now after 10:00 p.m. the sleet was coming down steadily and we drove and we drove and we drove… and there was always the occasional annoying “Daddy, I don’t think Rogersville exists!” and the reply “It better, because I’m TIRED!” but, what was is that? A gas station, the first in many miles!! We pulled in and I sent my dad in to the store to ask the famous question “Where is Rogersville?” GOOD news we passed the road but it was just a quick turn around back about a mile… yay! We were a little too tired to cheer, the clock now striking midnight. But I am happy to report we made it! We camped at our friends place for about two nights, enjoyed the snow falling and headed out back to our original destination Unicoi State Park in North Georgia.

I can still remember the Cracker Barrel that we stopped at on our way out of Tennessee (you are going to hear a lot about this chain of restaurants, as it’s my goal to eat at every one in the whole U.S.A. – HONESTLY! I have a map and am making marks, I should post my progress on that) Anyhow, we had to sit in the middle of the restaurant at those two seat tables… recently I have seen some that now have put partitions between these tables –EXCELLENT IDEA- but this one was right next to another two seat table. We were OK, but then a couple came and sat down… we were so close to them we could hear every word they said, and we kept hitting each other, when we tried to eat. I never ate SO fast and left. After that experience my Dad always requests that we sit at a four person table, even if we have to wait a little longer.

Back in Georgia, where we are familiar with most areas and roads, we headed down a very high, very long mountainous road, which actually was beautiful with all the ice in the trees, I’m happy that I took video, while I was trying to not think about the height of the road and all the slippery ice just waiting for the cars to slide over. But we did finally make Unicoi State Park… this is actually one of my favorite camping destinations, but this year it wasn’t so great as the state had leased the park out and it was not being ran by the normal rangers and staff, it has since gone back to being state owned. We pulled up to the office, checked in for a campsite and attempted to head out to the campsite when “KA BOOM and SSSSSSSS” noises took place from the back left tire… someone had left something very sharp beside the grass curbed turnaround!!!! By the time we got to the campsite the tire was flat. This is also a good time to mention that we were the only ones camping in the whole campground, except for a couple camping two sites from us. We hooked everything up and went to sleep for the night. The next morning we walked down to the pavilion (which now is the location of a camp/country store) to call our road help line to send someone to fix the tire. We spent the rest of the day at the campground and that evening someone arrived and changed the flat tire with the spare tire, which was just that a dried up old spare tire. On this thing I could hardly call a tire we were able to drive into Helen and buy some groceries and eat dinner.

NOW, this really is my favorite part of the story… at our campsite when departing for the short two hour trip around Helen, we left Smokey’s run tied to a tree, our spare tire cover that said “COACHMEN” on it, stool steps and a few other small items around the campsite. When we returned everything but Smokey’s run was gone! This was amazing to me… in all my years of camping I have always felt so safe, and have always left camp stuff at the site, this put an end to that. Around the campfire that night Dad and I tried to figure out who would have come along and taken these items… we were quite suspicious of the man and woman a few sites down, they had been very friendly when saying “Hello” while walking their dogs, but after the stolen items I kept a watch on them, and the next morning they packed up and left. We decided that it would have been too obvious (since they had dogs) to steal Smokey’s run, so they took everything else and left that. Well, campers it was them or the wanna be ranger and his imaginary friend Joe. So after another day of camping, camp food, fires and peaceful walking, and my first shower in three days… we decided it was time to head home… but first we stopped at the office to complain about the sharp object in the turnaround and the stolen items from our campsite… this is when we met Joe –at least we think we did. After mentioning the stolen items, the lady at the office called the park ranger up, (maybe the only ranger in the whole park at that time!) he entered the office surprisingly by himself. He commented that he patrolled the area with Joe, and they never saw anything being taken. (I think they did come around one time during the day and once at night) He then proceeded to ask Joe if he saw anything on the campsite while collecting garbage… well, Joe never answered. So we simply said that a better watch needs to be maintained on the campsites and got out of there! By the way if anyone reading this should now be the owner of our tire cover and steps, I hope they are bringing lots of joy to your camping experience… and campers lock those campers and tents!

Of course this isn’t the end; there is still one more adventure about to happen. On our way down to Atlanta to catch I-75, we realized the imitation of a tire would not last to Florida. So we stopped in Gainesville, GA asked around and found a tire shop… we safely made it to the shop without the dried up tire exploding. Our RV was lifted up and a new tire was put on and we made our way back down the road… it was nice this one time to see the “Welcome to Florida” sign that evening.


So maybe it wasn’t the BEST adventure I have had, or the funniest, and come to think of it I never got any boiled peanuts on that trip… just a few stops at Cracker Barrel and some German food.

What food might trigger a special camping memory for you?

Until next time, let’s go camping!

Updates!

Greetings Campers!

CAMP KESSLER has some new fun additions!

We added a weather feature to the main site, so you can always see what the current weather is where you are or headed… a map quest driving direction form is a new feature to the “Featured Travel Destination” page and something real cool, we now have a CAMP KESSLER store! There are a few cool camping items up there: including movies, music and cooking ware that will make your travels happier.

Hope you will enjoy the updates… more to come soon!

Welcome!

Hello Fellow Campers!

Welcome to the CAMP KESSLER Blog!

CAMP KESSLER is now online! I hope that you have enjoyed your visit to our new website, keep checking back frequently as there will be more updates to the site and lots of new things added.

We are currently preparing to film our very first internet camping cooking show “Cooking With Cass” which will feature recipes from my own camper kitchen, videos and recipes will be included on the website. If you are looking for easy, delicious, homemade camping meals you will definitely want to tune in!

Soon I will be posting one of my many camping adventures stories right here… so keep checking back. All site updates will be posted here too, so be sure to sign up to receive updates. If you haven’t already visited the CAMP KESSLER website, do so now and read my very first review of “Monte Sano” state park in Huntsville, AL. I will do my best to write in detail every aspect of the parks and campgrounds that I visit, and try to cover important attributes that you may be interested in when choosing a campground destination.

Lots of great things to come, thanks for checking in and let’s go camping!