Rabbit Trails and Tomato Soup

Once again, rabbit trail syndrome has struck. You know, you think of one thing, and that makes you think of something else. Then that makes you think of something else. And so on until you have to backtrack to remember what your original thought was!


Above, you see one of my winter staples - a cup of hot cocoa. As I was stirring some up this evening, for some reason it made me think of "cup-a-soup." You know, the little packets of instant soup - just add hot water. Usually chicken and noodle, but in this case I was remembering tomato soup.


And that, in turn, made me remember a very unusual camping trip!


My brother was in college in Colorado, and I was in junior high. For some reason, we got the plan to go out there to celebrate Thanksgiving with him. I remember my folks picked me up early out of school, with the camper already behind the car, and we took off for Colorado. Now get this, it's November, in Colorado, and we're camping in a little trailer at a KOA Campground! We just stayed a few days, but there were no typical summer activities to enjoy, so we just stayed in the trailer a lot ... and drank a lot of cup-a-soup. (Plus regular stuff to eat too, but the soup was nice to have hot, and to sip on through the day.) I particularly liked the tomato soup, so it definitely reminds me immediately of this little vacation.


I wonder if Mom thought it was a "vacation." I especially wonder this now that I'm a mom with kids. Back then, I just had a kid's perspective and thought it was pretty neat to be camping in the trailer in the winter. Even though I'm sure we were glad to visit my brother, I'll bet Mom and Dad may have been glad to get back home to a warm, real house.


And while we were camping out there in our trailer, some guy was also there, camping in his TENT! And it was COLD.


So here's to tomato cup-a-soup and some unusual but fond memories.