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GeoRock
Nomad
Posts: 329
Registered: 3-7-2003
Location: Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Mood: Always have one
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Ice Chests
FYI: Last week I bought a 50 quart Igloo ice chest at Walmart for $18. Stickers on it claimed it kept ice from melting up to 5 days in up to 90
degree temperatures.
We took 2 ice chest to Death Valley last weekend. One was an old standby, the other this new ice chest. Both were 50 quart ice chest. Two blocks of
ice and one and a half bags of cubes were placed in each chest.
The oldie let the ice melt faster than cold beer runs out of bottle and down your throat on a hot day.
The newbie still had 2 chunks of ice from an original block left on the 5th day. Temperatures during our 5 day trip ranged from 70 to 110 degrees F.
If you want a good deal on an ice chest, I'd recommend these Igloos. They come in 50 and 70 quart sizes, and I saw them at Walmart and Costco.
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4baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1339
Registered: 9-4-2003
Location: morro bay ca
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the only problem with them is they have such a large insulation layer that they dont have alot of room for beer and food. better to buy a fridge
freeze or a propane fridge, there alot more money but worth every penny.
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Mexray
Super Nomad
Posts: 1016
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: California Delta
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Mood: Baja Time
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We had one of each of those coolers with us at the Matomi outing in Feb. I think they are great for the money! The 50 qt one seems to work
better-ice lasts longer. The 70, with more internal room, allows for the ice to melt quicker, due to the larger 'air space'.
We put our drinks in the '50', with cubes - and - put our food stuff in the '70' with block ice. Works great!
I just wish they would sell those coolers WITHOUT the round indentions that are supposed to be used to hold drink cans...really now, does anyone use
those spaces??? They are just big dirt collectors, and it's difficult to get those spaces really clean. What's wrong with a nice smooth door cover,
thats easy to clean with a blast of water from a hose, and a quick wipe!
According to my clock...anytime is \'BAJA TIME\' & as Jimmy Buffett says,
\"It doesn\'t use numbers or moving hands It always just says now...\"
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bajalou
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4459
Registered: 3-11-2004
Location: South of the broder
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I have several of those Igloo Ultra 50's. They work great. Mine have smooth tops. Get block ice in town - almost full for 20 pesos and chip it as we
want it for drinks and put bottles/cans in beside it. Living in San Fellipe all the time, I can tell you propane fridges do NOT keep things really
cold in the summer. If you can get them to keep stuff 50-55 deg cooler than the air in the house you're doing good. So if you want cold drinks you
cool them with ice.
No Bad Days
\"Never argue with an idiot. People watching may not be able to tell the difference\"
\"The trouble with doing nothing is - how do I know when I\'m done?\"
Nomad Baja Interactive map
And in the San Felipe area - check out Valle Chico area |
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Packoderm
Super Nomad
Posts: 2116
Registered: 11-7-2002
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What would happen if you put a block of ice in a propane fridge and fill the rest with food and drink, would the ice keep the stuff cold longer than
in an ice chest?
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4baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1339
Registered: 9-4-2003
Location: morro bay ca
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packoderm, the key to useing these small propane fridges is to freeze all the meat and food beore leaving on your trip. your food will stay frozen
except for the top layer wich will thaw out slowly due to opening the lid. i have stayed in baja for up to a month and a half on the pacific side
surfing and was the hit of the camp because i was the only one with cold beer and foodthat didnt spoil. my next fridge will be a fridge freeze, they
are costly but they will freeze your food if you need.
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Taco de Baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1913
Registered: 4-14-2004
Location: Behind the Orange Curtain, CA
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Mood: Dreamin' of Baja
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Propane coolers
How do they hold up on the rough Baja roads?
I have heard they fragile, and am reluctant to $hell out the money if they will break on the first trip.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64589
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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You should see 4Baja's... It is a tough as nails... Has to be where he takes it. Runs a week on one small propane bottle, I think he told me. When
driving, uses cig. lighter/12v. When camping uses propane... He showed it to us at Camp Gecko 2 1/2 years ago and I bet it still is working.
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Bob H
Elite Nomad
Posts: 5867
Registered: 8-19-2003
Location: San Diego
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Traveling around the world, it is always amazing to me how different the importance of having ice is. Here, in the US, especially in Baja it seems,
the ability to constantly have enough quality ice is very high on the list, maybe just under "drinking water and beer". In Europe and South America
having enough ice does not mean much. So, I'm glad I'm over here most of the time!! 
Bob H
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trblmkr
Newbie
Posts: 23
Registered: 4-21-2004
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Almost free for you today only
We've got a Dometic propane cooler, not a fridge, that we will sell for cheap.
They suck.
It's the newer model than what 4baja owns. 4baja is correct, that if you camp on the Pacific side they work fine (in temps under 70 degrees. ) The
cooler the air temp. the better they work.
Bajalou hit the nail on the head when he said they only keep things 50 degrees cooler than the air outside.
If you freeze all your meat before leaving the States, where's the room for all your beer or sodas? Even if one were to rotate your beer stock, that
doens't work. Throwing warm drinks into the cooler draws the cold that's in the cooler into your beverages, thus making your cooler even warmer,
defrosting your meat.
Also, these coolers have very little space. It's cheaper to spend the money at Walmart and buy 3 of Georock's coolers (one for beer and sodas, one
for food, the third for ice) then to shell out the $350. on something that only works under certain conditions.
A friend of ours called Dometic, the maker of these coolers, and was told that they weren't designed for temps over 90 degrees.
Ice is the ticket if you don't have a pocket full of money to buy a 1k+ Fridge Freeze.
Thank you Georock for the R & D
Any Pacific siders interested in the Dometic, send us a U2U.
Paulina y Dern <*)))><
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bajabum
Nomad
Posts: 144
Registered: 9-29-2003
Location: San Diego, Ca
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The best cooler is the 70 Qt white Coleman marine cooler
I usually dont have to buy ice for up to 5 days and it freezes the top 5 inches solid every nite even in BOLA in July!
There are a few things that can improve the perfomance of any cooler.....
- Keep it out of the sunlight
- keep the lid shut tight
- keep it covered with a blanket for extra insulation
- dont drain the water as the ice melts, water is a better insulater than air is
- dont add warm drinks
I always take about a dozen frozen gatorades. They arent as bulky as block ice, they dont melt for about a week, and they are a perfect drink as they
thaw out slowly providing an ice cold drink to sip on for hours.
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cristobal
Nomad
Posts: 194
Registered: 12-16-2003
Location: california
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I like the 120 QT IGLOO coolers for long vacations in BAJA ..... In the right conditions ... ICE will still be in your cooler in a couple of weeks.
My favorite LARGE cooler ... I found in the paper for sale .... used. It was a GOTT 198 QT. I asked the lady selling it if it was really that BIG
.... and she told me .... she could get inside of it.    It
is a LARGE cooler.
 
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bajalou
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4459
Registered: 3-11-2004
Location: South of the broder
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All your hints are very importand for keeping coolers cold. The freezing of gatoraide or bottles of water is helpful also.
I am a bit lost by your statement " and it freezes the top 5 inches solid every nite even in BOLA in July! "
Can you explain that a bit. Thanks
No Bad Days
\"Never argue with an idiot. People watching may not be able to tell the difference\"
\"The trouble with doing nothing is - how do I know when I\'m done?\"
Nomad Baja Interactive map
And in the San Felipe area - check out Valle Chico area |
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Mexitron
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3397
Registered: 9-21-2003
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
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Mood: Happy!
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In regards to not draining the water out of the ice chests--the only downside is that it gets pretty sloshy in there on bad roads....one time Huddo
and I pulled up to camp, opened the ice chest for a cold one and found that a bottle of Mayonaisse, a dozen eggs, a bottle of mustard and about 15
bottles of corona had all broken and merged into.....well, a very yellow morass!! After that we kept everything in plastic bags and drank tecate
from cans!!!! But we still don't drain the water except on short trips.
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4baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1339
Registered: 9-4-2003
Location: morro bay ca
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rough roads and coolers dont get along, as david k said this fridge i have works awsome and no brocken bottles and no watered down food. ive owned it
over 8 years now and never have had a problem even in 100 degree temps(in the shade) while camping. i'll be bringing a bunch of fish back this july
and will gurentee that it will be 100% frozen when i get back. 250 bucks at the swap meet well spent.
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GeoRock
Nomad
Posts: 329
Registered: 3-7-2003
Location: Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Mood: Always have one
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The 50 qt chest I purchased has a smooth lid. The larger sizes did have built-in drink holders (stupid, and dirt collectible spots).
Jeans turned me onto the idea of cracking the eggs at home and putting them into, say, an empty Reese's peanut butter plastic jar. Works great. And
I "scrambled" the eggs by shaking the container.
Margarita mix, juices, milk, liquid coffee creamer, and other liquids: pour into 16 oz. water bottles. I used Figi and Dasani containers as I felt
the Arrowhead and Crystal Geyser were too thin. Leave a bit of airspace and freeze the bottles prior to leaving. Saves space and prevents leaks. As
each bottle is used, it leaves more free space in the cooler.
Jeans, or was it M? turned me onto the idea of a mechanic's blanket on top of the cooler. Worked great in 100 degree weather in Guadulupe Canyon.
I also separate food and drinks. One cooler each. Keeps the food colder as it only gets opened at mealtime. And I freeze everything I can prior to
the trip.
Another hint: This has worked extremely well the last 3 trips for me. I have a large rectangular tupperware container. It is about 6 in X 6 in and
14-inches high. Completely watertight. I can stuff a lot of food into it. Shredded/sliced cheese, my vege meats, etc. Anything I don't want to
become water logged. Then I place a couple frozen gel packs between some of the food.
The tupperware keeps the food inside totally dry the whole trip. The gel packs add extra coldness, and can be used on day hikes to keep a lunch/drink
cold.
Hint: tie a bottle opener to the drinks ice chest.
Hint: if you have enough room, leave beer bottles in the cardboard box they come in to help prevent breakage on rough roads.
Hint: we have a very serious rule: we keep 2-4 bottles/cans of each type of drink in the cooler. When you pull one out, you MUST replace it with the
same type drink. Violators will be strung out on the desert floor and have hot beer poured over them.
[Edited on 6-3-2004 by GeoRock]
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Taco de Baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1913
Registered: 4-14-2004
Location: Behind the Orange Curtain, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dreamin' of Baja
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refilling the ice chests
We only restock the drinks supply in the morning. This way the cans have been cooled by the night air and will not heat up the chest more that
necesssary.
In addition, on long trips we often taka a large ice chest an completely fill it with block ice. We then use it to restock the othet chestes with ice
as needed (also first thing in the morning). As the ice stock cooler not being constantly opened to get a beer, coke, or cold snack the ice lasts a
long time. We also cover all chests with a HD space blanket sewed onto a moving blanket to really retain the cold. We have still had ice left when
we get home after a 10 day trip on the Pacific in September.
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Big Al
Nomad
Posts: 184
Registered: 12-17-2002
Location: El Cajon
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My two cents
Before my recent Gonzaga trip, I was at Sports Authority bying more lures that I don't need when I saw the Coleman 100 Qt cooler on sale for $29. I
don't like th ebig coolers most of the time because there is limited places that I can pack them and they are too heavy to cary very far by myself.
However at that price I couldn't pass it up.
When going to baja, I freeze everything. Since there was only two of us, there was plenty of room for drinks in the cooler, especially since we were
going to live off of fish, not what we brought. I filled the chest with (2)1/2 gallon frozen water bottles, (2) frozen 1 litre bottles of iced T, (4)
frozen gatorade bottles, 6-pack diet coke, 6-pack Pacificos, small serving size frozen drinking water bottles, food and topped it off iwth cube ice.
I also kept a small drink size cooler with us for everyday opening and closing and to have in the boat. It too was topped off with ice. this small
cooler is very convenient but terrible on the ice. We made it 24 hours, and added 1 small bag of ice in the hand cooler and dumped the excess in the
large cooler. After 5 days we dumped ice out on the lawn at my house. The cooler stayed frozen the hole time. We even wasted a bit of the
coldness, as many of the drinks were too frozen to drink for the first couple of days. we had to leave them out of the cooler so we could drink them.
They keys are:
A good cooler
Large amounts of frozen fluids.
Freeze everything that won't explode.
Don't open and close the cooler often.
Keep the cooler in as cool a location as possible.
Freezing all of your drinks gives you a large cold bank to draw from and makes it last
[Edited on 6-4-2004 by Big Al]
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Mexitron
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3397
Registered: 9-21-2003
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
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Mood: Happy!
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Georock--that's a good idea for the eggs!
Reminded me of driving into Abreojos back in the 80's when the road was very washboard--the eggs we brought had actually scrambled in the shell!!
Don't know if it was because of the shaking or that we used lots of butter but those were the best eggs I've ever tasted.
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Debra
Super Nomad
Posts: 2101
Registered: 10-31-2002
Location: Port Orchard Wa./Bahia de Los Angeles BC
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Georock's eggs remind me of an old trick I've used for years.
The never ending problem of dirty clothes. (I don't like to take alot along, always space deprived)
Tip: Find a plastic container (size to what you have room for) with a good sealing lid, when you are moving from wherever throw your dirties in with
a bit of laundry soap and water (you won't need much) at your next stop squeeze out the water, add fresh, by the time you get to wherever, you will
have rinsed clothes ready to hang. I've done this for over 30yrs. and I have to tell you, it will clean your clothes even better than your home
machine. Bonus, you don't have to waste vacation time looking for, and hanging out at a laundry.
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