on stoves

It looks as though we are faced with a decision: slick and hip, or cheap and old school? Yes, there are more factors involved, but I think that's the basic essence. The Jetboils look pretty sweet. Half the comments mirror Eric's in that all the other campers were jealous and sent their stoves home. One guy on EMS.com said it was "the shiz." It looks to me like there are two main drawbacks: price and food flexibility. Online I saw the single unit going for $64, fuel for $3, single with coffee press for $72, and spare cups for $26. Of course you have to add shipping to all of those. I say if we did the Jetboil, get 2 units and 1 coffee press (aaah suddenly I like coffee, this is bad). If you can only cook w/ 2 cups at a time, there's no point paying $30 each for 2 more special ones (though I admit, it would be fun to eat out of a camo mug). I say if we want to have separate vessels, we can just bring 2 other lightweight mugs. And I s'pose, if you insist, I can do without pancakes.

If we wanna go cheap and old school, though, we could do the coke stoves. How much extra weight are we talking for pots n such? And though we can carry more fuel than the Jetboil at the same weight, it USES a lot more fuel, which the tree hugger in me doesn't like. So I guess we're back to "living eco" versus "living simply." Who wants to calculate the energy costs that went into producing the Jetboil??

ug. I don't know what I think...maybe we'll just decide to go simple on some things and fancy on others. I'm not sure how much God really cares what we use to boil our ramen. On that note, I think I'll go boil some ramen.