But you hate the cold...

I may not like the cold, but I like my drinks cold and my food fresh.  One of the odd things about us is our love for refrigeration.  In our house alone we have 3 refrigerators (down from 5!) and a large chest freezer.  One fridge in the garage for company and extra drinks, one regular fridge in the kitchen, another small one by the bar, and a chest freezer to store all of our meats and other frozen foods.

Camping is not much different, it is our smaller home away from home.  The trailer has two refrigerators one indoors and one outdoors.  We even supplement that with a large ice chest that we carry in the back of the truck to keep our food and drinks cold while we are traveling down the road.  We could leave the indoor fridge running on propane, but I don't like to have that on when we are moving.

Years ago we bought a large cooler, I'm guessing that it is 150 Qt but it could be larger, and we took that with us camping.  Back then we tented it quite often in a large three room cabin tent and lugged all of our gear in our old Ford Econoline conversion van.  That cooler has served us well, and will still keep doing it's job when we need to throw drinks out on the deck for large groups of company during the summer, but its getting old and won't stay closed because one of the clasps fell off a few years back.

I find it funny that I get excited over little things like a cooler!  Karen and I made a list of the things I wanted in a cooler and I shopped around until I found something that met most of those items.  Our list:

1. Must be large enough to fit our food/drinks for at least a few days.
2. Wheels.  The old cooler didn't have these and they make it easier for one person to move.
3. Cup holders.  We use it as a spare table outside of the camper sometimes.
4. Sturdy enough to act as a bench.  We sit on them sometimes.  Doesn't everyone?
5. Separate lid for drinks.  Our old cooler had this and it made it so you could just flip it open on one end and grab drinks if you put them all to one side.
6. Handles must not stick out from the sides.  It often sits in the truck bed and if it's banging against the sides with it's handles it won't be long until there are no handles.

I found one that I like that has most of these features.  All except #5.  It is the Coleman 100 Qt XTREME 5 day cooler with wheels. I can't wait to try it out, but I think I need some stickers or something for it.  It looks very...plain.