We love food! Whether you’re a skinny person, plus size, husky, health nut or a junk food addict, we can all admit it.. Openly. We all love food or at the least that it is required to sustain life. In my opinion one of the best parts of camping is having your own kitchen and the ability to cook your favorite meals anywhere. One of my least favorite task is unpacking that refrigerator. Sometimes we will have as many as 3-4 days between trips. I don’t want to unpack the refrigerator in the camper, take it to the sticks & bricks refrigerator, and 3 days later reverse the process. Last year we did this every trip. Now if it is more than 5 days I will unpack it regardless.

When we started shopping for storage units… I said “NO MORE”! One of my requirements was an electric hookup. Boom we found one! Yeah! The days of unpacking and repacking that refrigerator twice a week were over! Praise the lord! You can hook up your camper at your home also. You just need a dog bone (also known as an adapter) and a plug in at your home. (It is important to note you should NEVER use your A/C when it is attached to one of these adapters. I have a post coming soon about that.)  You can purchase the adapter HERE. Just check which version power cord you have.

But then something happened and I started to worry should I be doing this? During a storm, our storage facility lost power for about an hour or so. Now let me note.. Our facilities manager is AMAZING! We got a text within like 10 mins of the power failure and within minutes of the power going back on. The facility is about 20 minutes away from our home. This however made me think.. What if I did not know of a power failure? What if my propane is depleted and the A/C kicks the breaker?

Since on most of our trips we can spend nearly a complete day away from the camper, this is a real concern. Meat could thaw, re-freeze in that time frame and we could unknowingly eat contaminated food.

So I have started doing a simple hack that we used to do in our s&b while gone on vacation.

What you will need:

A small bowl

Water

A coin

Refrigerator freezer

Step 1:

Fill a small bowl with water and freeze solid.

Step 2 –

When the water is frozen, place a coin on top of the ice.

Step 3:

Move on with life.

Step 4:

When you return to your camper check the placement of the quarter. If it is still on top of the ice or just barely in the ice, you are good to go.

However….. if you return to find the coin in the bottom of the cup or submerged, it would be best to dispose of the food. Hat means the power was out long enough for the ice to melt completely or the coin to fall off floating ice.

So this would also go.. that if your freezer items are okay, then your refrigerator items should also be.

So simple right!

This is by no means fail safe, anything could happen. My Mamew would always tell me to “be on the safe side”, when it came to food safety she always said.. “When in doubt, pitch it out.”

This does give me some peace of mind, so I hope it is helpful to some of you! Happy Camping!