How Keep Your Daydream lights campsite charcoal on the Blue Ridge Parkway with BLOWZER
On a fall Airstream trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway, Keep Your Daydream's dad explains his two-tower way to light charcoal at a creekside campsite, then finishes it with a BLOWZER X6: the slow briquettes flare into flame, just before the steaks go on.
Keep Your Daydream received a BLOWZER X6 from us.
A family on the road to every national park
Keep Your Daydream is a family RV channel with a long goal: all 63 U.S. national parks, one Sunday episode at a time, with an Airstream travel trailer behind a pickup. In October they drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and filmed it twice. The first film, The Sounds of Fall Camping, has no talking at all. This one is what happened between those quiet shots: the banter, the bloopers, and the campfire cooking.
Down the Parkway in October
The trip starts at Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park, where the family hunts for a first-come site on a laminated board. Then come sandwiches from Overlook Produce, Amish donuts in the truck, a roadside chat with a Vietnam veteran, and the Parkway itself from Rockfish Gap, slow and winding in full fall color. By late afternoon they are at a campground with creekside sites, backing the Airstream in among the trees.
Two towers, then air
Dinner is steak on a portable charcoal grill, and the dad has a system. He builds two small towers of briquettes, each with a fire starter inside, and keeps the coals packed close so the heat moves through them. "You got the guys on the outside, it's not gonna work," he explains.
The towers get the fire going, but not every briquette catches. That's where the X6 comes in. Once the towers have burned a while, "I'll hit it with the Blowzer just to get all the guys who aren't lit lit," he says. Then he clumps the coals together, ready to cook.
Three seconds over the coals
The shot itself is short. A hand holds the black X6, standard nozzle fitted, above the grill and aims the air into the briquettes from the side. The coals answer at once: flames stand up across the grill and sparks rise into the trees. Soon after, two thick steaks hit the grate. It's the same Blue Ridge cookout that appears, without a word, in their quiet film; here you get the method behind it.
Why it matters at camp
Charcoal needs oxygen, and on a still evening at a campsite it rarely gets enough. Most campers kneel and fan with a paper plate. The dad's sequence is a good one to copy: build the towers, let them burn, then use moving air to catch the stragglers instead of waiting for them.
A cordless blower puts that air exactly where it's needed, with no cord across the site. The X6 has three modes, 40K, 80K and 130K RPM, and recharges over USB-C with auto-shutoff. Use it the careful way: stand to the side at arm's length, keep people and anything flammable clear of sparks and ash, and stop once the coals are going.
What they used
- BLOWZER X6: getblowzer.com/x6/
- Nozzle: standard; mode not shown
- MODs: none
Related
Questions readers ask
How do RVers light charcoal at a campsite?
Build two small towers of briquettes around fire starters, keep the coals close together, let them burn, then blow air into the ones that haven't caught and clump them together to cook.
When should you use a blower on charcoal?
Once the fire has started, not before. In the video he waits until the towers are burning, then uses the X6 to catch the stragglers.
Is it safe to blow air into a charcoal grill?
Sparks and ash will fly. Hold the blower to the side at arm's length, keep people and anything flammable clear, and stop once the coals are lit.
About the creator
Keep Your Daydream @KeepYourDaydream
Keep Your Daydream is a family RV channel towing an Airstream behind a pickup on the way to all 63 U.S. national parks, with a new episode every Sunday.
Keep Your Daydream received a BLOWZER X6 from us.