hmm yeah, I too have done my share of camping - Iceland in the winter, north Maine woods in the winter, whites, greens, Rockies and so on. Just because a sleeping bag could work doesn't mean I am going to make it work. It's car camping for starters, not the real "build a snow shelter and pitch a tent" style camping anyway. Which means I am going to make it comfortable!
Yeah, completely agree with you. To get through the sleeping hours stuffed in a sleeping bag is one thing, to get through the mornings before breaking camp when its cold/damp/frigid is entirely another. Waking up in the morning and sitting in the back of a very warm car with a warm coffee watching the sun rise is a simple pleasure.
As for food, the girlfriend is very good about prepping/pre-cooking the ingredients separately, and we use the microwave to warm everything up and throw em together. We do also do a fair bit of cooking on the fire itself, though we tend to stop doing that by late Sep / Oct.
Someone had asked where I setup the heater - I use one of the wheel wells to house the heater (its a simple walmart issue electric heater with 2 settings), Keurig, marine inverter and junction box / surge protector. The microwave sits right below.
The generator is the simple solution. No worrying about high gauge wiring, battery capacity, etc. etc. 2000W powers just about every camping convenience you can think of including a Keurig, which pulls a lot of juice. Yes, noise is a consideration (though the Honda units run pretty quiet). I usually run a 75 ft lead and stick the generator out in the woods away from camp site. My other overlanders / campers have never complained. If anyone does complain, I let my ferocious dog set them straight
Someone mentioned candles. I don't know, open flames in the car while sleeping sounds like a bad idea to me. I may be OK with a catalytic heater, but some of the guys I travel with will swear their life on the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and how easy it is to induce that, so I have tended to be skeptical of propane heaters in closed environments. No personal experience though.
