This hot July Sunday morning called for all the breakfast fixins even though it was hotter than five guys fighting over a chicken nuggie in a minivan with no AC.

The thought of standing over any extra heat source sounded unbearable, but my husband was the grill master. He loves cooking on our Blackstone and doesn’t seem to mind cooking on it, no matter the temperature. It could be a blizzard or heat wave; he is always down to grill. Layer up if it’s cold and take clothes off if it’s hot. I do NOT mind him grilling with no shirt on. Nope. Absolutely not. Bring on the heat, baby!! Hubba! Hubba!

I was in our nice, cool camper mixing up pancake batter while Chris was out cooking up the two pounds of bacon we brought to share. Lindsay and Joe were up by the campfire doing their thing, getting started on their breakfast mountain pies. Things were looking good.

A little later on, I walked up to the campfire to check on things after handing over Chris the pancake batter.

Listen, I love to cook, but I am the first to admit I suck at making pancakes, and I am not allowed to get anywhere near a waffle maker. I guess there is such a thing as putting way too much batter in the waffle maker or something? Haha. I let my hubby take care of the pancakes and waffles, and I do everything else. We work really well together.

Anyway, I walked up to see how the breakfast mountain pies were coming along. Our bacon was done, and we went on to cook the pancakes and fried eggs. It wouldn’t be too long now, and we would be eating breakfast.

Linds looked a little distraught. As I soon found out, the eggs she had just made for her sandwiches fell onto the ground.

Now let me explain to you how a breakfast mountain pie works. First, you cook your meat in the mountain pie maker. Then, you cook your eggs in the mountain pie maker. Then you butter bread and put everything you just cooked into this bread inside a mountain pie maker and cook it yet again. It’s madness! Something I do not have the patience for. Honestly, I would rather overflow my waffle maker than screw with breakfast mountain pies. I want to eat today. Not tomorrow.

Now, I believe at this point, they gave in to us at least helping cook their eggs on the Blackstone for them. We felt so bad because we were ready to eat, and their sandwiches were nowhere near being ready.

We had made two pounds of bacon, a bunch of pancakes, and fried eggs in less time than them making two, TWO breakfast sandwiches.

We can laugh about this now, and I tease them about it, but in all honesty, it’s just downright dedication. Ain’t no way I’ll ever be that dedicated to camping. I need AC. I need a running fan. I need four walls around me that keep all the daddy long legs outdoors where they belong. I need a Blackstone to cook breakfast on and keep most of the items I own dry. I am a glamper folks, and proud of it.

I can’t cook over a fire at 90 degrees. I can’t sleep in a hot tent. I can’t put on a damp hoodie that got wet because it decided to rain, and I have no dry clothes to put back on. I can’t even sleep without a fan.

But I think it’s cool that one of my very best friends is so dedicated to camping that she will sacrifice being over a hot campfire just to bring back nostalgia from her childhood to get that taste of a breakfast sandwich that just doesn’t taste the same not being made over a campfire. I can appreciate this in more ways than one, I’m just making my breakfast sammies over our Blackstone.

There are still mornings when the Kangers do their thing over the fire and the McElroys cook over the Blackstone, but the McElroys just have to give the Kangers a little more of a head start. Always camping together, just a little different some days, and that’s OK.

Chris’s Homemade Waffles
Ingredients:
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 6 tsp. melted butter
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg, separated
• 2 tsp. vanilla
Directions:

Sift dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add egg yolk and milk to dry ingredients and beat together. Then add butter and vanilla. Pour 1/3 cup of butter onto heated waffle mold.

Makes about 6 waffles.