Category Archives: Valley Moments

Valley Moments: Salamander Hollow Healing Habitat – Warwick, MA – Wood Fire Pizza and S’mores

WARWICK, MA – My friend Gwendolyn recently invited me to do an overnight at a hipcamp location, called Salamander Hollow Healing Habitat. There were several sleeping arrangements one of which was a Tipi, since I’ve never done a tipi camp I decided to go for that one. I did have a good sleep but the weather kinda sucked. I had my winter sleeping bag, and a faux sherpa blanket and it was enough to fall asleep next to a fire.

I suggested we make use of the wood fire pizza oven. She had an allergy-free pizza and I used the premade dough and hunt’s tomato sauce with fresh mozzarella and basil from the aerogarden. We then had s’mores. The fire was the hardest part as the wood was only partially dry so it sputtered out when it hit the core. We had gathered birch bark so the pizza was actually cooked with that lol. And it was accompanied with white wine. Overall the meal was a success.

Valley Moments: Exploration – Naan Pizza Picnic in the Catskills of Upstate New York

Hey it’s been awhile! Due to covid I haven’t really been doing a lot of International travel but admire those who push through the regulations to make it happen. I feel like I’m too spontaneous to deal with the changes. Anyway, I’ve taken an interest in car camping and domestic travel to fulfill that need, last winter I bought a small trailer that I’m converting into a camper – for example. In the mean time I’ve been working on making my sedan more camper friendly, I got a car air mattress that actually works pretty well. I’ve designed a kitchen setup for the sedan that I’ve been dying to try that won’t break the bank. Regardless, I did my first over nighter last weekend in Catskills park in Upstate New York in a pull off. No one bothered me but I’m pretty sure there was someone who shown their lights through the car!

Thankfully with the car air mattress it fits in the back of the seat, so it was actually pretty stealth. Unfortunately after only four hours of sleep (which is actually a minimum for me), I woke up to rain at 1 am at night. It was pretty quiet and the rain came down hard. I made the executive decision to leave for home and good thing I did as it continued to rain throughout the morning. I wasn’t prepared for car camping as initially I wanted to do a wild tent camp from iOverlander coordinates but could NOT find two spots I had picked out in the Catskills! Dinner went swimmingly well, I had my famous naan pizza. I pre-made the dough and brought peppers, onions and garlic. Before dinner, I cleaned out the car and moved whatever was left over from my move to the trunk and blew up the air mattress. I was definitely under prepared as I didn’t bring a pillow and no heavy blanket, but still got some sleep.

I think my next trip might be local or to Westport, CT for some mussel and clam foraging! Whatever comes first, with these gas prices these days it makes it even more difficult to do domestic travel so I’m sticking to super local destinations for now. Check out my YouTube video of my adventure below: