Mackerel Alfredo

The RRR relates an adventure of he and Youngest Son on a river float trip:

Our flat bottomed row boat, Sherman had faithfully floated us down the Des Moines River for over two weeks. On this day we had entered Saylorville resevoir behind Saylorville Dam. We had no motor, no sail, and no current. So Youngest Son rowed much of the day. On and on we creaked as the sky grew darker and more ominous. We started looking for a good place to camp long before dark, but nothing presented itself. Steep hills, far too steep to pitch camp on sloped straight into the water. Finally we spotted a fairly level spot 100 feet up from the shore on the port side.

The first rain drops began to fall as Youngest Son ran Sherman aground. I jumped out and jammed our Swiss Army entrenching tool into the mud and tied the boat off to it. The rain came down harder as we climbed, slipped, and slithered taking the gear up to the "level" spot. He rigged up our tarp to the walking stick and push poles as I got out the Coleman stove and pumped it into life. When I opened the chuck box, it was not a promising sight. Only two items still sloshed about in the grimy water at the bottom of the box. One was a rusty can of discount store Jack Makerel, the other a flaking, water logged pouch of noodles with Alfredo sauce. The only choice was obvious. I opened the can with my Swiss Army knife and poured the unappetizing mess into the skillet and put it on the stove. When the juice from the can started simmering I dropped in the sticky mess of noodles and started breaking up the caked sauce powder into it.

The rain was pounding now, running down the back of my neck under my poncho and soaking my shirt and pants as I sat on the upended bucket. Youngest Son had unrolled our bedrolls under the tarp and lit the candle lantern. After rowing most of the day he was famished, not to mention chilled from the soaking rain and needing something hot to eat. I divided the gray goo into two parts and after shutting down the stove crawled under the tarp. He looked at the disgusting food on his plate and asked, "what IS that?"

"Mackerel Alfredo!" I reported proudly.

He looked for a long time at his plate grimacing, then blew out the candle and ate every bite in the dark.

It really, really happened.