Eat Mor Chikin (EMC)

You're really NOT going to believe this website. It's run by Chick-fil-A, a Georgia-based family outfit that claims 57,000 employees working in something like 1700+ restaurants. Anyway, they made dairy cows famous for their message "eat mor chikin." Well, the company runs a webpage for their cows--it's totally outrageous, over the top nuts.

Here is the link: http://eatmorchikin.com Note that the bad spelling is correct. You will be challenged to dig pretty deep into this website--it's a graphical designer's and cartoon artist's dream all rolled into one. You simply won't believe that anyone in today's corporate America climate gave the green light for this comical mayhem.

The chain is opening an Idaho Falls franchise--their first in Idaho--hence my interest in them. Their cow website is totally awesome, pure and simple.  Check 'em out.

Cheers, jp

Tonight's Chicken

'Twas another Great Day.  Freddie put bone-in chicken breasts on sale today for 99 cents.  So, here's what a typical supermarket tray pack looks like after being ruthlessly trimmed of fat and then marinaded and recoated and, well SMOKED, too.  Pretty dressed up chicken.  Everybody knows we cain't cook beef--
But we sure can cook chicken.  Thank GAWD!

Diploma in hand!

WOW--it came right down to the wire but I managed to graduate from Cornbread Reform School this morning.  I feel so relieved, elated and just downright pleased to have my diploma in hand.  A cap and gown never felt better!  I can hear that graduation tune echoing in my head and here's a tip o' the cap to all those applauding in the bleacher seats here at Cornbread Reform School.  Whew, it was a long tough road this week but we stayed the course, hung in there and made it to the finish line.

Honestly, though, I thought I blew it this morning and would be denied my diploma.  I spaced out and forgot to buy some more sour cream yesterday.  I had the dry mix all put together, the jalapeno chopped, and all the rest ready to go. I had beat the eggs and oil and then went to the fridge to get my third cup of sour cream.  Opps....no sour cream to be had.  OH, NO!  How could this be?  What an airhead!  So, it was with a heavy heart that I sadly trudged forward substituting ordinary milk for the sour cream.  A pall hung over El Turco during the baking process and I was depressed.  The thought of being trapped in Cornbread Reform School really weighed on my psyche.

Finally, after the bread cooled, it came time to eat it.  I didn't even want to get it out of the oven.  Both of us dutifully picked our small 2x2 piece of cornbread and feared the worst.  Imagine our mutual abject surprise and delight when we suddenly realized the cornbread had vastly improved by NOT having the sour cream in it!  What a total shock for both of us.  WOW, it was really, really GOOD cornbread--the best we've ever baked.  Susun had so many great things to say about it and she even shook my hand and offered her heartfelt "congratulations."  I was so humbled by her praise.  We both had to tear ourselves away from the skillet lest we would eat too much of a good thing.  Who could have known that the lack of the sour cream was the missing link between me and my diploma?  Who could have guessed my airheadedness provided the catalyst to catapult over the finish line with class and style!  WOW!

Well, there you have it.  We're done with Cornbread Reform School and we can now re-enter polite society with our degree and a diploma to prove it: Johnny Montezuma, ChD.

Thanks for your support during these tense and trying times.  It came down to the wire but we're home free now!  WHA--WHOOO!

Cheers, jp

Sunday Greetings

Every day is filled with the bright promise of a new day.  Somehow Sundays always exude a wee little bit more bright promise than the other six days.  (Devotees of TGIF might dispute that assertion.)  I'm sure you've heard the phrase "Sunday Best" to describe getting all dressed up to go to church or a social or whatever.  There's "Sunday Drive," "Sunday Golf Game" and a whole host of other monikers that allude to Sunday's allure.  Sunday is just flat out a Great Day, I'm sure we would all agree on that.

After our Graduation Cornbread this morning, we'll have the distinct pleasure of enjoying a Sunday Bike Ride.  We haven't had one of those for what like seems FOREVER and we've both been longing to be back on the saddle cruising the Greenbelt and The Central Valley's pristine pathways. For us, this Sunday is filled with the bright promise of a wonderful morning pedal through a deserted downtown and a relaxing coast down by the riverside.

Yesterday's mass mayhem down by the riverside was quite fun.  It's just such a huge crush of humanity during the duck race.  There's a tangible excitement in the air and all the children are positively giddy with glee at the sight of thousands of colorful ducks slowly floating downstream to destiny.  We will post up some more photos and append them to the post below.  Last night I simply had to post up the photo of the ducks falling through the sky from that huge dumpster.  Ha, Ha, I got a laugh at my own expense this morning when I saw a late night typo.  I spelled "sky" as SLY.  That's often what happens when I try to compose a blog post at 10 pm.  I'm just glad that was the only typo of the evening.  LBRs know I'm much better off writing stuff in the morning rather than the evening, especially the late evening.

In conjunction with this week's Cornbread Craziness, we've also been working on chicken thighs and mashed potatoes.  Heaven only knows why but I've been almost raptured by the challenge of baking thighs "just right."  Ditto the potatoes.  Well, rest easy.  We definitely mastered both this week and last night we just flat out NAILED the chicken thighs--they were as good as they can get.  As some of our friends know, we started grilling thighs in January 2007 and worked for years trying to perfect the use of the Patio Caddie grill to serve up top notch thighs.  Frankly, I doubt I will ever bother to attempt to grill them that way again.  El Turco turns out a thigh that's far better than anything I could possibly grill.  Who knew?  We won't bother you here with the technical details of the thigh cooking process.  We're reactivated the "ifyoueat" blog and you can click here to read all about the thighs.

We'll talk potatoes another time but suffice to say the blue cheese really takes mashed potatoes to the next level.

Well, the morning is zipping right along and it's time for more java juice.  We'll come back and chatter more later.

Have a Superb Sunday doing whatever you love and enjoy many Sunday Cheers!  jp

Da Ducks

Soooo....this is a Big Gig.  They hoist up a full roll on dumpster high into the sky with a huge crane.  Then, somehow, they release the dumpster doors and the ducks pour forth.  It's a stirring sight indeed!

Inside Cornbread

We went to Harbor Freight and bought a Cornbread Cam.  We thought you'd like to see what the inside of the cornbread looks like when it's baking.  You can see it above.  Pretty spiff, huh?  The Cornbread Cam works with WIFI and it's a disposable camera--it can be ingested without danger, you swallow it just like a bacon bit.

Well, we're just kidding, of course, the photo above is of The Sun.  Yes, THE Sun, that one that comes up every morning.  It kinda reminds me of cornbread.  LBR Siegfried posted a tongue-in-cheek comment wondering whether we considered humidity and maybe sunspots, too, when preparing our cornbread.  Thanks, Siegfried, you made my day.  Well, anyway, after I read his comment, I thought, hum...that photo of hte solar disk sure looks like cornbread to me.  if I wuz to 'magine how it might look inside the cornbread--this is what I'd imagine.  Ah, simple pleasures for simple minds!

Cheers, jp

Next to Last Cornbread

Only one more cornbread until graduation tomorrow! We're still not quite "there" yet.  We forgot the adobo in this batch.  Susun sez it would help if I made up a written recipe.  What fun is that?  I need to have it tattooed on my synapses BEFORE I write up the final recipe card.  That way I know I got it, ya know what I mean?  I'm real close to "gittin' it" right now.  My trick this time is to withhold some of the milk.  The original recipe called for 1.25 cups of milk.  I'm down to 3/4 cup now and actually withholding maybe .125 or possibly .15 of a cup.  I mix in .50 of a cup with the rest of the wet mix and then see how the batter looks and feels, I then carefully add little bits of milk to get the batter to the "right" viscosity.  I'm guessing I'm only using .66 of a cup now.  Meanwhile, I've really got ET HOT.  It clocked out over 400 degrees this morning when I put in the skillet.  Having the oven really, truly HOT makes a big difference.  Technically, I should be pre-heating the skillet but I'm too lame for that and I got an Old Age Exemption at Reform School for handling a hot skillet so early in the morning.  Well, we'll take some photos of this batch when it comes out of the oven about 8:30 or thereabouts.

Here's what's close to the Graduation recipe: (As used 8/15/10)

DRY MIX

1.5 cups corn meal
.75 cups whole wheat unbleached flour
2 TBSP organic cane sugar
2 TBSP Wisconsin buttermilk powder
I TBSP baking powder
1 TSP Baking soda

1.25 TSP salt

WET MIX

3 medium eggs
.83 cup of 2% milk.
.25 cup canola oil

.66 cup raw frozen corn kernels (pre-heated)
.33 cup of fresh chopped jalapeno pepper
1 TBSP roasted garlic
1 TBSP adobo sauce


Beat the eggs first by themselves.  Add the oil and beat again.
Add the half cup milk and beat again.
Add the chopped pepper and corn kernels to wet mix and let it sit.

Don't bother sifting the flour--it won't make any difference.  Add all the dry mix ingredients and mix vigorously and thoroughly.  Make sure all the dry ingredients are truly mixed well.

Pour the wet mix into the dry mix and really beat it together.  Don't be shy here.  You may need to add a little bit of the reserved milk to get the viscosity right.  If it sheets off the spoon it's too wet.  If it won't drop easily off the spoon it's too dry.  It needs to be someplace in between--maybe a medium fast ooze off the spoon.

Meanwhile, let the final mix sit while you find your skillet and wipe it generously with some canola oil.
(NOTE:  You should have your oven totally pre-heated and and up running at the correct HOT baking temperature--at least 400 degrees.)

Pour the final mix into the skillet and level it with your spoon--don't let it dome up as the center won't cook nearly as well if it's domed.  Put it in the oven on two flame tenders and bake for 18-20 minutes.  When the cornbread passes a two-person "smell test," turn off the oven and let it sit inside at least 10 minutes, preferably 15 or more to assure the center is cooked without burning the bottom and/or sides.

Use a welder's glove to remove the skillet--that puppy will still be H-O-T, even after sitting for awhile.
Be sure to have a truly heat proof trivet in your kitchen so you can set down the skillet without destroying your countertop or table.

Cut in parallel lines (NOT pie shapes).  One small cast iron skillet makes 12 small 2" x 2"  pieces of cornbread and four little corner bits as well for a total of 16 pieces.  The baked bread weight is approx 18-20 ounces.

Serve with your favorite spread(s) and condiment(s).

Today's comments:  Susun sez it's not as good as Thursday's batch but she also said, "It's still good."  She detected a hint of taste of baking soda so I'm gonna cut back to one TSP tomorrow.  She wants more corn kernels and misses the adobo.  Also, I put some shredded medium cheddar in Thursday's batch and she misses that too.  So, we're coming down to the wire still slightly off target and only one more batch to go.  Geeze, can we handle the pressure?  Only time and another batch will tell.  I sure hope I get to graduate.

Mid-August

This weekend marks mid-August and pretty much the end of summer for school kids.  Everybody's either already back in school or going to be there this week.  Us Old Timers remember when school started only after Labor Day had passed.  That arcane holiday long ago ceased to matter to The Education Establishment.

It's a big weekend here in River City.  The annual Duck Race will take place at 4 pm today.  Over 20,000 ducks will be dumped into the Snake River and a few lucky people will receive major high dollar prizes.  The ducks cost $5 each or $25 for a "Six quack."  The Rotary runs the duck race and all net proceeds go directly to the Greenbelt.  Over the 20+ years the Rotary has run the fundraiser, hundreds of thousands of dollars of race profits have been poured into the Greenbelt.  Without the duck race, the Greenbelt as we know it simply wouldn't exist.  Clearly, when you buy a duck, you've won even before the race starts.   The Greenbelt is easily the city's most visible crown jewel and, as you know, I'm on the city's Parks & Recreation Commission's "Greenbelt Subcomittee" so all-things-Greenbelt matter a whole lot to me personally.  Thousands of people come to The Falls to watch the duck race.  It's actually quite exciting and we will be there elbow-to-elbow with everyone else.

There's a big battle of the bands going on for 7 hours today, too and although it's deafening to be in proximity, it's fun to partake for a wee little bit.  Meanwhile, scores of exhibits and vendors line the river's edge and all manner of various acts will be performed.  The whole thing is kind of the city's last hurrah of summer.

Tomorrow we begin packing for this week's Salmon trip. Nope, we're not going to be floating on the Salmon River.  We're going to be ensconced in The Stagecoach Motel in downtown Salmon City, Idaho, enjoying a cozy deck that looks out over the river.  We will be volunteering for RSVP Monday through our return Thursday.  It's a long story.  Yesterday we met with Debby D. and her assistant Don J. to make a Game Plan for this week's assignment.  We spent almost 3 hours at our old workplace downtown.  About 2/3rds of the visit was with Debby and Don and the other time was sharing smiles and stories with my former co-workers--they are all such great people.   It was a delightful interlude.  Well, anyway, we head off on what we call a "motel trip" early Monday morning.  No boat(s) or camping gear will accompany us.  We will be totally focused on the needs of RSVP up in Salmon City--so it's a 100% "program development" volunteer trip.  Last year, we started something called "Salmon Volunteers!"  You can click here to see the rudimentary products we created for the concept.  We want to keep at least some energy in this idea and let the volunteer managers of far distant Salmon know we all still really care about them.

It's going to be a lot of fun for us to stay in a real motel room--that's reward enough for clocking at least 24 hours on behalf of Program Development for RSVP.  We will get the same room we always get--the one we love.  It's a win-win situation for all of us involved.  We hope to keep our hand involved in Salmon City volunteerism for the foreseeable future.  THANKS, Debby!

This week has been the proverbial blur and we know next week and the weeks that follow will be more of the same ongoing blur.  It's a good thing we're writing this blog.  Honest, there's no way we'd remember anything about this year if we weren't chattering incessantly about our mundane meanderings.

Kris C. came for lunch with Susun yesterday.  They had a great time visiting.  Kris has faced some incredibly tall mountains to climb in her life this year and the challenges have been truly daunting and almost overwhelming.  Kris stood tall in the face of these past heart-wrenching months and we are so proud of her courage and tenacity and dedication.  She's a real inspiration to us.  I got to share a hug with Kris and tell her personally how I hoped I could have the same courage when my life tests come.  Thanks for visiting yesterday, Kris!  We are so proud of you!  We wish you Much Joy, Many Blessings and Total Cheers!

Kirsty enjoyed our post below on her Family's soon-to-be fifth child.  She left two great comments, one on the post about her Family and the other on Susun's plaque.  I know you will enjoy reading her comments.  THANKS, Kirsty, your endless supply of energy and positive spirit are such great gifts for everyone.

Well, we took a cornbread break yesterday because we had to be at Debby's at 9 am.  We have only two more cornbreads to bake before we receive our graduation diploma from Cornbread Reform School.  We have definitely accumulated enough credits for the graduation and we're confident the overseers of Cornbread Reform School will let us back out on the streets as of tomorrow.  We've enjoyed great success in our Cornbread reformation activities this week and it has been well worth the time and expense.

Not much else to report today.  Have a wonderful weekend and Carry On with Many Cheers!  jp

PS--Oops, I almost forgot to include today's Pickels cartoon.   Thought you'd enjoy it.  BTW, Nelson is bald because Earl goofed up giving him a haircut.  Sylvia is incensed with her father's buffoonery but life goes on in the household.

Congratulations Kirsty, Aaron, Gracie, Gabe, Benjamin and Finny!

Congratulations, Kirsty!  Congratulations, Aaron!  And Congratulations to Gracie, Gabe, Benjamin and Finny (Jonathan)!  We are very proud of you and we will follow your Family Story in every detail.  Thank you for sharing your Family Life so openly on your blog--you will always be an inspiration to me to "let the sun shine in" a little more brightly, a little more often and with a lot more brilliance.  Thank You, Kirsty, we are very proud of you and Your Family!

Susun receives some well deserved recognition

Last evening Susun went to a little ice cream social put on by the city's Horticultural Department.  The party is an annual affair staged to recognize those who volunteer to plant and tend the city's many colorful flower gardens.  Susun received a very nice plaque presented by the city's Horticulturalist, Delbert L.  Even though the plaque does not have her name on it, it was clearly designed specifically for her as it shows a picture of a snippet of "The Hilda Garden."  Susun was thrilled to carry home this plaque and show  it off to me.  She really deserves some recognition for what she's been doing with that Hilda Garden during the past 3 full growing seasons.  It's a wonderful place to go hang out and it sure gets a lot of attention from the tourons, especially the Japanese.

Since they've given her a plaque, I guess that also means she's a lock to be able to count on having the honor of planting and caring for The Hilda Garden again next year.

Congratulations, Susun, ya dun good!

A comment

As you know, all comments are moderated on this blog.  There's a reason for that.  We get major spam comments--sometimes very obscene stuff.  It's annoying.  If we didn't moderate the comments, such trash would automatically show up below a post.  It would be embarrassing and, well, obscene, too.  None of us want that.  This blog is totally G-rated and will continue to be so forever free of adult innuendos and politics as well.

Today we received a comment that wasn't blatantly obscene.  We rejected the comment and deleted it.  Before banishing the comment to oblivion, we did a screen capture so you can see the comment.  At first glance, it looks rather innocuous.  Let's dissect the comment.

The first two words, "Nice dispatch" raised the yellow flag for me.  Nobody I know calls a blog post a "dispatch."  I may have called a blog post a dispatch but I sure can't remember when I did.  It's just not common usage.  And....Soooo....my blog post supposedly helped someone in their college assignment, eh?  OK, which blog post was it?  It was the one entitled "Home Again" written after we had returned from the Salmon River.  Now, you tell me, what in the world could be in that blog post that would be relevant to anyone's "college assignment" anywhere on Planet Earth--or even beyond on planets elsewhere?    College assignment?  Yeah, right.

OK, now let's go to the last sentence:  "Gratefulness you on your information."  Clearly, this comment was written by someone in a foreign country.  Either they were using their own novice understanding of English or they were using an online translator program.

OK, what to do with this comment?  Some of you might be thinking, "What harm could come from approving this comment?"  My spin is slightly different as I assume the worst about unknown online sources.  To give the commenter positive feedback by posting their comment could simply be making this blog a target for someone someplace in some far distant land.  Who knows what their motives may be?  I say, "Nip this suspicious activity in the bud!"

With that in mind, we are making a major change to El Blog tonight--we are delisting it from the world's search engines to bring it back well under the radar level.  This blog is now going to fly "on the deck" and hug the ground so it can't be seen by by anyone other than our LBRs.  That means you will have to use your existing web address to find this blog.  You all know how to contact us via email if you somehow lose the address.  You are free and welcome to pass along the blog's address to your friends, family and associates.  We're simply eliminating this blog from the world's view.  Poof, gone.  Now you see it, now you don't.

For many months, I didn't want to put a "site meter" on the blog.  However, I had a change of heart a few weeks back and installed a monitoring and tracking device.  I really wanted to see where the spammers were coming from.  They are mostly in Eastern Europe and Africa.  Just their very presence makes me nervous and  kind of "creeps me out."  Hence the big change this evening.  We want this to be a positive experience for all of us, including me, the author.

We appreciate your understanding and patience with this change.  Thank you for your Loyal Blog Readership!  And than YOU for YOUR comments!  Google just yesterday actually changed the whole "comment" thingie on its internal control panel.  Now I can see all the comments that have ever been made since the blog started 01JAN10.  Believe it or not, we've received 153 legitimate comments since that time!
Amazing but true.  THANK YOU for taking time to comment.

Friday morning, the weekly statistical package for this blog was delivered to my inbox.  I installed the Site Meter on June 19 so you can see the traffic that has accumulated since then.  Pretty impressive!  Total length of time spent on the blog per visit took a huge jump last week, from 1:42 to 3:26.  That's about the highest it's ever been.  Wonder why?

The Daily News                        
                                          

                    -- Site Summary ---                     
          Visits

            Total .......................... 902            
            Average per Day ................. 20            
            Average Visit Length .......... 3:26            
            This Week ...................... 143            

          Page Views

            Total ........................ 1,663            
            Average per Day ................. 41            
            Average per Visit .............. 2.0            
            This Week ...................... 284 

Have a great day & Cheers!  jp

A Visit with Sue

Sue K. came to visit yesterday a little before 7 pm. She just left a little after noon Thursday. It was a memorable visit in every way and we were all three delighted to enjoy each other's company. As we've noted, some people change your lives--Sue is such a person. We wouldn't be here in Idaho if we'd never met Sue. That's a simple fact. Sue's great and it was awesome to renew our long-running friendship together.
We've told Sue in the recent past how much we would like to volunteer for her again. She's now stationed in Michigan along the shores of Lake Huron. So, it's a real stretch to figure out how to volunteer for Sue. We told her about Virtual Volunteering quite some time ago. Well, that concept clicked with Sue and last night she said she had an idea on how we could help her. One thing led to another and this morning I found the official Forest Service volunteer agreement online and filled it out and we're now signed up once again to volunteer for Sue. Both of us are so happy to be volunteering for Sue again. It's so exciting for us. The project itself is a real great one that will keep us both entertained for a long time. We expect it will take 6-8 months of work to complete the project, maybe more. You can click on the JPG of the agreement to read the terms of it. It's real self-explanatory. We deleted our names and her name and any identifying information to the prying eyes of the web can't really DO anything with the information on the form.

Meanwhile this morning we baked our best cornbread yet and then, for good measure, fired up a package of bacon and served eggs with mushrooms and orange juice, too, with a fruit bowl for desert--the whole Ritz thing.

We took Sue on a tour of the city and then spent a lot of time walking the Greenbelt. It was great--total quality time together in every way. We're so happy she came to visit. THANK YOU, SUE! It's great to be working with you again.  Cheers, jp

A real boatload

As promised here are some photos of our canoe at the wedding.  The children playing in the boat are the flower girl and ring bearer.  Young Oliver is Jana & Matt's son.

Chicken Cooker

Here it is--the photos pretty much tell the story.

This Utah Father & Son can do up to 90 chickens--this gig was only 36.  On July 4th each year in Myton, Utah, they do 90 chickens, a few pork butts and a whole lamb.  They think they've figured out to do 180 chickens. They invited us to come and participate.  AWESOME!  They say they only do this "for family."  Myton is 344 miles from Heise, Idaho.  They didn't even want gas money for their trip!

About Siegfried

One of our Dear Friends and LBRs uses the pseudonym "Siegfried" when he makes comments.  Those of you who check the comments undoubtedly have read notable comments from fellow LBR Siegfried.  This blog post is dedicated to Siegfried and we'll tell you why way down at the end of the post.

Neither Seigfried nor I can remember precisely when we met but we remember the place--it was in Chicago.  I think it was probably 1981 but might have been 1982.  Don't you hate it when you can't remember something to the nearest year?  Anyway, it was a really long time ago.  He and I were attending a gathering of financial analytical practitioners who used a variety of very esoteric and highly arcane tools to read the markets' tea leaves.  Siegfried and I hit it right off and became friends for life.  We've had a wide variety of adventures since then.  In 1983, for example, he and a family member of his came along on our famous Grand Canyon river trip.  We were the last trip they allowed to launch before they closed the river due to ridiculously high water.  We ran Crystal at the peak flow of 100,000 cfs.  It was a real epic trip.  Two other LBRs were on that trip, too.  Siegfried met my parents on that trip and has stayed in regular contact with my Mom ever since. 

Siegfried goes way back with river running.  He actually ran the San Juan with the Norm Nevills outfit and I think that was BEFORE Glen Canyon Dam.

Siegfried's always been a real adventurer--frequently hiking into places relatively few people go.  Just last year I think he hiked up the backside of Half Dome in Yosemite and not long ago he ventured again to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back.  He loves to get "out there" and he's been doing it all his life.  Way to go, Siegfried!

He came to visit our Straw House once down by Montezuma Well.  The most recent time we got together was out at Bowery Guard Station in 2006 or 2007, once again I can't remember.  I think it was 2006.  While waiting for him to drive in on that lonely road, I spied out a hint of a trail.  During his visit, the three of us followed that faint trace and "discovered" an old, long forgotten trail connecting Heather's Place to the route to get to the hot springs.  Heather always mentions how grateful she is to know about that trail.  We wouldn't even have a clue about that trail if not for Siegfried's visit.

Siegfried keeps us well supplied with insights and commentary on global climate patterns and other macro economic perspectives.  We so appreciate his sharing those things with us.

In a past life, Siegfried was a music teacher back in the Midwest.  Now he and his wife live on the West Coast and he ushers for the San Fransisco Symphony and maybe the opera, too, if memory serves me right.
We talk often on the phone and it's always a pleasure to hear his voice and find out what he's been doing. 

Monday, a mysterious box showed up on our doorstep.  It was a really HEAVY box--weighing 18 pounds!  There was no hint on the box about its contents, only a trace of a stamp that said it was a gift.  Susun and I didn't know what to make of the box so we thought we'd let it sit overnight before opening it Tuesday morning.  After coffee and cornbread, we hefted the box up on the table and sliced away.  Imagine our abject surprise, delight and amazement when we discovered it to be a gift from Siegfried--SIX bottle of California estate-bottled Merlot all safe in their custom foam clamshell!!!!  These bottles of merlot have been aged 11 years so we can only imagine the enjoyment that awaits when the corks are pulled.  We plan on using each bottle for a very special occasion.  We'll take a photo of each occasion and send six pictures to Siegfried so he can see how each bottle brought a special flair to special moments.

We don't have a clue as to why Siegfried all of a sudden sent six bottles of estate Merlot to 12th Street here in Idaho Falls.  Apparently, it's "just because."  Anyway, it's yet another intriguing and memorable chapter in our ongoing book of friendship.

Thanks, Dave!  May your Trails be Happy Always and All Ways!  May your spirit soar to ever new heights and may your heart sing forever with the joy of life and adventure.  We sure appreciate you.  Cheers from John & Susun.

Cornbread Deja Vu

Hey, here it is, just as we promised.  Susun sez it's not as good as yesterday.  It came out a uniform 2 inches thick and the bottom and sides were done just right.  it baked 19 minutes and sat in the oven an additional 9 so the middle was "almost" done.  I think it could have sat another five minutes maybe.

Here's today's recipe: We dropped the cornmeal from 1.5 cups to 1.33 cups.  We upped the flour component from .75 cups to 1.0 cups.  First, we put in 3 TBSP of buckwheat flour and then one TBSP of soy flour before filling the cup with whole wheat pastry flour.  We added 2 TBSP of Wisconsin buttermilk powder and then the normal one TSP of salt, 2 TBSP of organic cane sugar, one TBSP of baking powder and a half TSP of baking soda.

The wet mix was two eggs, .33 cup of sour cream, .25 cup of canola oil and a cup of 2% milk.  We cut back on the milk to compensate for the addition of the sour cream.  We didn't add any fresh corn kernels or bacon this time.

As expected, the dark buckwheat flour really changed the color of the mix, giving is a much more "country" looking tint.  The mix seemed to be a bit thicker than yesterday's and it poured more slowly into the skillet.
Tomorrow, we're going back to the "value added" stuff--bacon, maybe a finely chopped fresh jalapeno, corn kernels, maybe even chopped green chile, too.  Hey, we're gonna keep at this one until we "git 'er dun!"

Is this a cooking show on some foodie channel or what?

Gee, what's up with all these posts on food?  Ah, not much, we get OCD about cooking sometimes and become blinded to most other realities.  It's a fad, it will pass.  However, you can expect more cooking posts coming to your neighborhood blog soon.  Maybe we will rename the blog "y2eat!"

In spite of eating all this Sinner Food, as Low Carb Devotees call any food with high carbs, my weight is 3.5 pounds lower than on 01JAN10 and is also at its lowest of Year 2010 (AKA: Y2Ten).  That's good news.  I will go back on the Atkins Boot Camp diet when Susun goes to San Diego and maybe drop a few more pounds, too.  Eating copious amounts of sinner food this week certainly doesn't bode well for continued weight loss!

We spent a lot of time yesterday morning pecking away at the keyboard and then the afternoon was consumed by obsessive and repeated visited to thrift stores.  No kidding, we made SIX visits to the thrift stores.  Why?  Well, it started out innocently enough at the Idaho Youth Ranch.  For about 3 weeks, I have been looking for a backup 12 volt power unit to use to power the air pump to blow up The Lynx.  Our existing power unit is 4 years old and has a bad habit of quitting halfway through the boat-rigging process.
Hence, the need for a backup unit.  These units are otherwise known as "jump starters" for vehicles.  They sell anywhere from $60-$100 each, depending on their bells and whistles.  Lately, I've been willing to spend $75 on one of them but haven't been able to find a decent unit for that price.  It's been frustrating, of course.
Well, I found a unit exactly like our existing unit at the Youth Ranch for $4! After making sure they would accept it on return if it didn't work, I took it home.  Then the fun began.  The AC adapter was for an iOmega Zip drive, NOT a 12 volt portable power unit.  Opps.  So, I spent the afternoon pawing through piles of tangled AC adapters at the thrift stores--it really taxed my patience.  At one point, I even had two guys laugh out loud at me while I was on the floor wrassling a big pile of AC adapters.  I spent an additional $3 on various adapters and finally cut some wires and patched the correct polarity pin to the a correct charger and got the puppy to take a charge.  It only took a little over 3 hours but it shot the entire afternoon.  This morning, we will determine if it really HELD the charge.  If so, we're in tall clover once again and saved almost $70 to boot.

We're renaming The Turco to "El Turco."  It has a better ring to it and it makes a MUCH better acronym: ET.  How can you beat ET?  ET: The Little Oven That Could!  ET is easily the best camping acquisition of Y2Ten, no doubt about it.  Gone are the messy, hazardous days of charcoal and boat anchor dutch ovens.  Now we can bake almost anything, anywhere with ease, enjoyment and a smile on our face.

Yep, you guessed it, there's more cornbread on tap this morning.  I won't know what's in it until the mix gets poured into the skillet.  We'll do a cornbread deja vu post here later this morning.  Ah, that reminds me once again of my favorite quote from my favorite movie, "Groundhog Day."

Phil: Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?
Mrs. Lancaster: I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen.

Well, we'll check with our kitchen and get back with ya here real soon.  Cheers! jp

We're cookin'

Yeah, the phrase "we're cookin'" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.  In the context of this blog post it simply means this:  "We are cooking."  Very simple.  We cooked cornbread this morning and baked pork chops and an onion this evening.  So, we're cooking.  It's that simple  No hidden meanings.

Baking the pork chops was a real adventure that turned out just right.  First, I dredged them in whole wheat flour and then browned them on both sides in a great big 12 inch cast iron skillet on high heat with splattering oil.  Then I laid all six of them out in a 13 x 9 baking pan lined in foil.  Then I chopped up two yellow onions and laid out the chopped pieces all over the browned chops.  Then I chopped up four stalks of celery and spread those pieces over the onions and pork.  Finally, I set about making the "sauce."  Here's what it was:  a can of cream of celery soup; 1.5 cups of "no sugar added" apple sauce; 3 tbsp of sour cream; one quarter cup of minced garlic; salt and pepper; and some whole wheat flour--not much, just enough to thicken this sauce to spreadable consistency.  This thick sauce spread evenly over all six pork chops.  I covered the pan with foil and sealed tightly and baked 90 minutes, mostly on low heat--maybe in the 225-250 range.  I used the laser thermometer to monitor El Turco and make sure it wasn't pulling some hot rod stunt into the high 300's or maybe even the low 400's!

While the chops were cooling, I baked an onion flower.  No, we didn't fry this puppy in hot oil--we baked it.  I sprayed it with raspberry salad dressing and then coated it in a special mixture, as you can see.  It was a perfect al dente onion and a wonderful accompaniment to the chops.  Tomorrow, we will use some of these roasted onion leaves to add to our cornbread mix.  Me thinks they would be good in a Noon Time Salad tomorrow, too.

It's been a long day and there's been way too much happening to report in this blog post.  We will bring everything up to date tomorrow morning.  In the meantime, CHEERS!  jp

Cornbread Reform School

Johnny Montezuma wants to be Cornbread King!  Yep, shore 'nuf, pards, we is gonna go back to Cornbread Reform School--it's a little ol' one room cook shack down yonder along that shady lane by Ol' Man River. That's our big baking project this week--cornbread.

We're gonna bake it over and over until we get it right.  We're pretty danged close right now but there's a lot of work to do.  This morning's rendition is only the second batch we've baked in The Turco.  As you can see from the photo, it looks real good.  It smells real good, too.  In fact, we're using "the smell test" to determine it's doneness.  This batch needed a little more "doneness" in the middle but all the sides were perfect and it wasn't burned on the bottom--not even close.

We're using an old 1930's recipe that we keep modifying.  Today's mods were: use of organic pure cane sugar with no beet sugar; use of a whole ear of fresh Olathe bi-color sweet corn (uncooked); addition of 2 tbsp real bacon bits; and two tbsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers.  Also, I used an antique stainless steel hand beater to whip the eggs, milk, salt, sugar and adobo together.  The recipe calls for 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder but I rounded it up to a tablespoon.  I cut back on the milk to compensate for the moisture in the raw corn.  I'm using whole wheat flour instead of white flour. 

Susun loves this batch--she keeps saying it's the best I've ever done.  Well, when it comes to cornbread, there's ALWAYS room for improvement--there's no such thing as "perfect" cornbread.  We can strive for perfection but we will never attain it.  That's one of the great existential realities of cornbread--it's all about the process and the journey because we will never get to cornbread nirvana--we can only try--we can never truly succeed.  I guess that's why I love baking cornbread--it's such a feng shui, ying and yang thing to do.  Even though I have just finished this batch, I am already scheming how to improve the next batch.  V.3.0 will include some Wisconsin buttermilk powder and some sour cream.  I will probably put in a schooch of baking soda, too, to compensate for the inherent acidity in the buttermilk and sour cream.  The sweet corn kernels really didn't come through the way I hoped they would.  They look nice but they don't register well on the taste buds.  Perhaps I will add more.  The cane sugar really rox.  I'm glad I dissolved it in the liquid mixture--that's a Keeper Technique.  I might experiment with adding some corn grits and perhaps use a different flour--maybe pastry flour with some soy flour added for coloration.  The adobo sauce was a good idea--the flavor didn't come through but it acted as a colorant and gave the product a much nicer beige patina.  The next time around we're going to vary the baking technique, too.  When the "Smell Test" is at its peak, we will turn off the direct flame in The Turco and then let it bake an additional 5 minutes with residual heat from the cast iron skillet and the cast aluminum oven.  That way it will get done in the middle without burning the sides or bottom.  Well, as you might expect, I will be writing a lot about cornbread this week.  It's Little Johnny's HOT project of the week!  WHA--WHOO!

Some weather thoughts

As we morph from High Summer into hints of an early fall, our thoughts turn once again to weather patterns--both short and long term.  So, as the first trimester of August comes to a close, here's our periodic attempt to read some tea leaves and discern the prognostications shimmering in our crystal ball.

First, the short term:  It looks like t-storms will prevail during most of this week with a drying trend for our Salmon trip next week.  It also looks like that drying trend will continue and gain strength as the month draws to close.  So, we should have really great weather for our final summer camping trips.  Temperature will be mostly normal but probably somewhat below normal.  In other words, the days will be pleasantly delightful and the nights will be perfect "sleeping weather."  By the time our Jenny Lake trip rolls around, we're guessing overnight lows will be in the 30's there in the Tetons--definitely low 40's.

OK, now what about our upcoming winter in Arizona?  Well, odds favor a very dry winter.  Why?  Well, La Nina has returned and the gubmint computer models point to a pretty strong episode.  The La Nina phenomena almost always portends a dry winter in the Southwest.  La Nina winters are great hiking winters--the skies are generally blue, the humidity low and the only real concerns are dust and pollen-induced allergies.  La Nina winters are real good for cold season overnight camping, too.  It doesn't get as sharply cold as some Southwest winters.  We will definitely take at least a mini-camp rig when we head south.  The dry winter is also great for our weed situation down there--it means we won't have such a protracted chapter next spring in our ongoing Weed Wars Saga.  That's welcome news.

Back in January this year, the University of Arizona published a great little 3-page article on the Southwestern affects of El Nino and La Nina. You can click here to read it.

It's far too early to tell how next spring and summer are going to shape up or how La Nina will affect Idaho's winter weather but chances are it will be at least normal snowfall in the Northern Rockies, if not slightly higher than normal.  However, the three-month Climate Prediction Center forecast is for a warm dry fall here.  That means our leaves probably won't turn colors too early and will drop perhaps somewhat later than during a normal fall season.  Our departure to Arizona is contingent upon raking up and disposing of ALL of our leaves.  What with the current 3-month forecast, I'm guessing we won't be leaving River City until mid to late November this year.  Maybe we will get to spend Thanksgiving here in Idaho!

On another note, it's been raining its brains out down in Arizona this monsoon season.  Our friends there all have some very interesting tales of the storms and their affects.  Now, it's beginning to look like it might be drying out.  The latest 5-day QPF forecast is below.  Yes, it still shows some rainfall but nothing like the torrential stuff they have been experiencing lately.  Despite the copious water (13 inches of rainfall so far this year near our straw house) it doesn't appear the weeds are terribly out of control.  Perhaps the pre-emergent we sprayed in late April has done some good after-all.  We sure hope so.  Cheers!  jp

Blast from the past

LBR Gary W. sent along a great Denver Post webpage today that shows the legendary US Library of Congress (LOC) "Bound for Glory" slide show.  I think anyone would enjoy and be moved by these photos.  They are simply awesome-purely and simply awesome.  I first saw them back in 2008.  The "Bound for Glory" show was created in early 2005 and hit the streets in late 2005, so I was clearly a few years late in "discovering" these legendary photos. These photos are still making the rounds as if they are a new release.  No, they are simply timeless, that's all.  It doesn't matter when your life path intersects these photos, they will be etched forever in your brain.  That's a fact.

When I first saw the photos in early 2008, I realized there were 1600 color pictures and 160,000 black and white pictures.  What to do?  Well, right off the bat, I knew I couldn't possibly peruse 160,000 pictures.  But 1600 seemed like a "doable" objective.  Afterall, it was the depth of the 2007-2008 Idaho Winter.  What else are you going to do?  So I went through ALL 1,600 photos.  I decided to take a common theme and make a small slide show from what I found in those photos.  On March 22, 2008, I published it in our Google Picasa website. It's only about 3 dozen pictures out of 1,600! You can click here to see it.

When Gary sent along the Denver Post's presentation of "Bound For Glory," it re-excited my love for these photos.  It's a great way to see some of the best of the best of those 1600 photos.  I remember each of them well as I was going through that collection.  Like I said, they get etched in your brain and you can't forget them even if you tried.  Click here to see the Post's site.  The Post has done a much better job of making the show "Bound For Glory" available than did the LOC itself.  Back in 2008 it was much easier to gain access to all of the public domain photos.  Yeah, they are all still available but you have to jump more hoops to see them easily than I did back in 2008.  Go figure.  Anyway, click here for the LOC's webpage on the "Bound For Glory" show.  If you surf around from links on the above page, you might eventually find a portal to all 1600 color photos.  It's worth the effort and, if you have nothing better to do, I'd heartily recommend that you look at ALL 1,600 of them.  Each and every one of them is truly amazing.  There are no duds.  It's easily one of the finest photographic representations of America both during the pre-war, post-depression phase as well as during the early war mobilization phase.  Prepare to be amazed!

Thanks, Gary!

Cheers, jp

PS--Ironically, I picked out 2 of the 70 photos from "Bound For Glory" for my own slide show without knowing that were the LOC's top picks, too.  I've put one of my choices in common with the show at the top of this post.  My other 3 faves from the LOC's 70 top picks out of the 1600 photos are below.

Blog stuff

We had an inquiry from a new reader (Thanks, Teresa!).  I sent an email explaining a little bit about this blog.  It was interesting for me to attempt to explain this creature.  As I was at the WINCO Spa & Relaxation Center this evening, I pondered some of the realities of this blog.  Here's some trivia--maybe it's interesting and maybe it's not.

We've put up 369 posts, including this one.  That's 50.89 posts per month.  January was the busiest with 75 posts.  February and May were the next busiest months with 57 and 59 posts respectively.  July and March have been the least busiest with 38 and 37 posts.  The blog posts have been accompanied by a whopping total of 382 photos!

We probably have a core of 15 LBRs and perhaps sometimes as many as 20 readers.  The blog generally gets over 100 visits a week.  The average visitor spends only a minute and a half at the blog and generally views 2 pages.

Comments seem to run in "spurts."  We will go days and days without a comment and then we will get several comments within a short time period--only to return to what I like to call a "comment drought."  Lately, it seems we get almost as many comments via email as we do via the blog comment thingie.

The first paragraph of the first blog post January 1, 2010, said, "We both know that Y2Ten will be a genuine milestone year for us. We're certain that it will be filled with major changes in our lifestyle, finances and activity patterns. We have no clue how all of these changes will manifest themselves or begin to appear and evolve. However, we absolutely certain that they will."

And the last comment of that same post said, " I think you can probably see why I started this blog--it's going to be tough to keep track of how this year evolves. A blog is a great tool to track our personal history as it happens."


That's a remarkably apt assessment of what this blog has done for the past 369 posts.  If we would have not been writing this blog thing, I can't imagine how we could possibly remember what it was that we've done during this hectic and busy year so far.  The word "blog" was born by combining two words: "Web" and "log."  In the early days of the internet, geeky people would keep a running commentary on their activities, generally typing in pure ASCII letters using Windows Notepad.  These rudimentary "web logs" became increasingly more sophisticated and somewhere along the line, the word "blog" was born and the rest is history.


We really and truly appreciate our LBRs and their great comments.  Thank you for reading and THANK YOU for your comments.


Well, it's Half Past Happy Hour so 'tis time to press the "PUBLISH" button and see how the remainder of this fine evening unfolds.


Cheers!  jp

The DJ wore a tux

We've never seen a DJ in a tux.  Have you?  The wedding was spectacular--only Susun's daughter Sarah's wedding ranks above this event.  As a grand scale stage event, though, Jan & Matt's wedding was really "over the top" awesome.  WOW!  And to think I might have missed this wedding by going on the Middle Frok--what a loss that would have been.  I know this sounds like total heresy but the Middle Fork simply couldn't hold a candle to this wedding.  (Besides, there's a medium size wildland fire on that river now and six river camps have been closed so you know the corridor is full of smoke. UGH!)

Where to begin on the wedding?  Well, there's no way to tell the story in the manner it deserves.  We took a ba-zillion photos--I'm guessing maybe 200 pictures between the two of us.  It was totally superb in every way, right down to the most esoteric, finest minute detail.  The weather was perfect and that DJ?  Well, he really knew his stuff and he was as much of an artist as a DJ can be.

There were two highlights for me--one was our canoe.  Canoe?  Yes, our canoe--the 15-foot green coleman was pressed into service at the last minute yesterday and FILLED with beer!  I mean it was a genuine boatload of beer.  Now the canoe is a legend in its own time.  Not many canoes can boast being filled with beer and we have photos to prove it.

The other highlight was so totally far over the top that only photos will be able to tell the story.  Two of Jana's Father's cousins came all the way up from Duchesne, Utah, to roast 36 chickens.  Their roasting rig will forever rank as the most unique, creative, and truly odd roasting rig of ALL TIME.  It simply can't and never will ever be topped.  We have seen the ultimate chicken roasting rig and have photos to prove it. 

Our little mini-camp rig worked great--very slick, actually.  We were packed up and gone out of there (even after loading up the canoe well before 9 am this morning.  Susun's going out for a walk with her friend, Teresa, and I'm heading to Staples to buy a 50-pack of 8x10 photo paper for a buck.  We will process and post photos later--and maybe even provide some more narrative details, too.

Cheers, jp

On location

We've had some great comments on El Blog today--one via email, one via phone and one via the Blog Comment thingie.  Thanks Maggie, Stasea and Dave!  Siegfried is confused about our project location.  So, here's a blog post on that topic--"on location."

The Salmon River is odd and unique in many aspects.  First, it is said to be the longest undamned river remaining in the Lower 48 that is entirely with the boundaries of a single state.  Oddly, the Salmon had only one dam--Sunbeam--and it was dynamited by Idaho Fish and Game in the 1930's.  So, now there are no dams.

The technical tippy top head of the Salmon River is just a little ways north of Ketchum, Idaho.  If you look on your maps, you will see a landmark called Galenda Summit (and Galena Peak) perhaps 20-25 miles out of Ketchum.  The head of the Salmon River is just a schooch to the west of Galena Summit.

The Salmon then runs almost due north right through the heart of the Sawtooth Valley.  To the west are the jagged Sawtooth peaks for which are the icon for Idaho's mountains.  The Salmon gains considerable water flow as it passed by the Red Fish Lake outlet.  Then the Salmon reaches Stanley, Idaho, where it picks up the flow of Valley Creek.  This stream drains Stanley Lake which it a fairly large watershed in and of itself.  Here, the Salmon bend to the east and eventually appears as if it is running almost due east.  It picks up several substantial tributaries while making its easterly run.  The Yankee Fork and the East Fork are the two biggest of those tributaries.

When the Salmon has traveled about 60 miles, it reaches Round Valley and nearby Challis.  Here the river turns once more and begins to travel almost due north.  It slices through the heart of the Challis Volcanic Formation and knifes a few canyons along the way as well.  The Salmon River then brushes past a city named for the river (Salmon, Idaho) and continues northward toward Northfork, Idaho.  Here, the river picks up the flow of the Northfork and makes another sharp turn--this time almost due west.  About 40 miles downstream from Northfork, the Salmon enters the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, the largest wilderness area in the Lower 48.  It blasts through the some impressive ancient rocks collectively known as the Idaho Batholith while forcing its way over to the far western edge of Idaho.  Just for geographical grins, the Salmon makes one more turn to head almost due north again before finally bending westerly to finally join the Snake River not far south of Lewiston, Idaho.

We know of no other river that makes so many huge changes in direction.  Check it out on a map, you can easily see in large scale how dramatic these directional changes actually are.

Our project area is technically from Stanley to Corn Creek which is maybe 40-45 miles downstream from Northfork.  This past week, we narrowed the scope of the project from the east boundary of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to Northfork.  That whacked off a lot of river miles and I'd guess we're looking at maybe 120 miles for the project area.  Although we spent a day up in the Sawtooth Valley last week, our main focus on this last trip was the Challis to Salmon stretch.

Its hard to get a grasp of the project area without looking at a map.  It's a huge area of Idaho, actually and that's why we've been racking up so many billable miles.  Heck, on Monday alone I think we logged about 350+ miles!  (And that's not counting the mileage from Idaho Falls and back.)

Well, we hope that clarifies the location aspect of comments rec'd today.

Thanks Siegfried!  Cheers, jp

8-7-10

Don't forget, on Monday, it will be 8-9-10!  (See PS added about 30 minutes after prepping this post.)

Today is Jana & Matt's wedding day.  The ceremony is slated for 4:30 pm out along the Snake River near Heise, Idaho.  We're leaving here about 3 pm.  The weather forecast is better than yesterday but not terribly optimistic: "VERTICAL PROFILES SUGGEST THAT A FEW ISOLATED STRONG STORMS WITH SMALL HAIL AND STRONG OUTFLOW GUSTS TO 50 MPH ARE POSSIBLE THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING."  We will spend all day visualizing a perfect afternoon and evening for Jana, Matt and their families and many friends.  We're taking a mini-camp rig in the Nissan just in case we choose to enjoy an alcoholic beverage.  As most LBRs know, we don't get behind the wheel if we've had anything to drink.  Having the mini-camp will at least expand our evening options.  We're guessing there will be at least 100 people attending but we have a hunch it will be closer to 200.  Jana and Matt have a LOT of friends!  Today was the day I was supposed to be setting forth on a Middle Fork trip.  In hindsight, I'm sure glad I'm here and not there.

We're hoping to enjoy a typical Summer Saturday here in the city.  Farmers Markets, Ammon Days, feeding leftover bread to the geese.  Hey, speaking of geese, Roy Reynolds 3 Geese benches are going to be placed in the Hilda Garden.  We are real jazzed about that.

We're hoping to stay here for all of the upcoming week--hopefully, we won't be going anywhere until at least 16AUG10. However, we might have to go to either Yellowstone or the Tetons.  Our Mentor Sue K. is vacationing with her brother in both of those parks this week.  We've talked for months with Sue about the possibility of getting together this week.  We last talked perhaps 10 days ago.  We're waiting for a call from Sue as to how to get together.  Hopefully, she will drive her rental car over here but we shall see.  We wouldn't be living in Idaho and doing the things we do if our life path hadn't crossed Sue K's path.  Of that there is simply no doubt.  We definitely wouldn't have had a second career in volunteerism, either.  Some people change your lives.  Sue changed ours.

The summer is definitely past its peak.  We both remarked more than once this past week how we could feel a hint of fall in the air.  That's the way it happens here in Idaho.  You can actually FEEL some primal sensation of an impending change of seasons.  Hum...let's see, there's only 4 weekends left for our summer before Susun heads off on 11SEP10 for San Diego.  Susun returns 21SEP10 and I can guarantee you summer will be over by then because that is the first official day of fall.  Fall ALWAYS comes to Idaho well before the first official day of fall.  Sometimes fall comes in mid-August, sometimes late August, sometimes early September but it's definitely here on or before mid September.

So, OK, now that we have completed the first full week of August, what's the rest of the month looking like?  (NOTE: I am typing this to help myself  "think outloud," so to speak.)  OK, hopefully, we stay here all next week.  We "owe" two weeks already to other people--one to Debby and one to Jeff C.  That only leaves two open weeks--the ones before and after Labor Day.  Traditionally, we go to Jenny Lake during the week after Labor Day.  It's a sweet tradition and we consider it nearly mandatory--we're loathe to give it up.  So that actually leaves only ONE open week if we opt to continue our Jenny Lake tradition.  We're very inclined to schedule Debby's week next on our agenda--that would be leaving here August 16 and returning August 19.  There's a Bear Awareness thing in Island Park August 21 we'd like to attend and Susun has a dental appt on August 23rd so we probably won't be able to get out of Dodge until maybe late the 23rd or early the 24th.  We might have to stay out over the last weekend in August to complete the field work for the Salmon River Guide, returning perhaps on the last day of August.  That would give us a few 5-6 days here at home before heading over to Jenny Lake for the Grand Finale of the Summer Camping Season.  Susun will need some time to "rig" for her San Diego trip and we definitely will not leave the city over Labor Day weekend.
This year we had to be gone on Memorial Day but we stayed put on the July 4th weekend.  Hopefully, we can be here Labor Day to avoid the last great frenzy of outdoor recreation taking place then.  OK, enough thinking out loud, I think I have it figgered out.

OK, we'll close with a short story of "all in a day's karma."  This story starts back in 2004 and concludes this past week on Tuesday, August 3, 2010.  During our first season out at Bowery Guard Station, we realized we actually NEEDED a manual typewriter.  So, we put out the word to The HUB Ladies in Challis to find us a typewriter.  It didn't take them long and we had our typewriter--a Sears manual.  It's actually a Brother machine masquerading under the Sears brand.  We dutifully taped a Dennis The Menace cartoon inside the black case and began banging away at the old beater machine.  We sent out many memorable letters with it over the years.  When we left Bowery 3 years ago in 2007, we decided to give away all of our manual typewriters--by that time we had four of them.  During the last year or so, I developed a nostalgic longing to use a manual typewriter once again.  I lamented having dumped those machines and my great was my chagrin.  This past Tuesday morning we had to meet with Jeff C. in Challis before lunch.  During our meeting, Susun declared that she needed 15 minutes at The HUB.  Jeff nodded knowingly.  He understood.  So, while Jeff went home for lunch, we trotted off to The HUB.  Susun found four new outfits and, guess what?  There was my old Sear's machine sitting at The HUB.  Somehow it had come full circle and was waiting there on the shelf just for me!  I could hardly believe my luck.  I knew it was mine because of the Dennis The Menace cartoon taped on the inside of the lid.  I can't find the cartoon online.  Basically, Dennis is with his grandpa and they are looking at a manual typewriter.  Dennis says "Gee, this is the first keyboard I've seen that doesn't need a printer," or something to that affect.  Who else would have taped such a cartoon on the inside of an old Sears machine?  It was truly mine.  Luckily, the machine had a glitch that prevented a quick sale at The HUB.  People had clearly tested it out but half of the keys wouldn't strike the platen.  I knew this glitch and fixed it in about 3 seconds and the machine works perfectly once again.  I am so happy to have it back.  "All in A Day's Karma," eh?

Cheers!  jp

PS--The time stamp on this blog post is 8:04 am.  After I finished the post and pressed the "publish" button, I set about once more to find that Dennis The Menace cartoon.  I typed this phrase into Google: "dennis menace manual typewriter."  OK?  OK, so I typed in this phrase about 8:05 am.  Much to much total shock and COMPLETE amazement, my very own blog post popped up FIRST on the Google search results page!!!!! In other words, it had taken Google about one minute to recognize, catalog and present my own blog post right back at me when I asked for results to my search string.  That's totally amazing.  Totally.

Home Again

It's great to be home again.  We can wander far and wide but to be home is The Best!  You know you love your home when you love to be home.  Camping is cool and camping is fun but it's so great to be HOME AGAIN!  WHA--WHOOO!

We actually arrived at Home at 3 pm.  The derig for both vehicles took 2 hours.  Not bad.  Then the obligatory trip to WINCO.  Then Happy Hour.  Now it's a whisker past 7:30 pm and time to check email and post up to El Blog.  Not much happening in Ye Ol' Inbox. (PS--Added after completion of this post--gee, it's 8:10!)

We had a splendid trip--one of those "Dear Diary" trips.  We got in four days "on the river."  We paddled roughly 48 miles on those four days.  However, one of those days was a 21-mile day.  That one was tough.
We saw way too many bald eagles, ospreys, and six ba-zillion deer.  We got to within a paddle's touch of some fawns.  Fawns must not hear and see well to let us get that close.  Bambi ought to send her fawns to reform school!

We had a few anxious moments, ran some decent whitewater and covered a lot of spectacular country.   We logged over 1100 "billable" road miles on this trip, logged four official days of per diem and clocked over 50 official volunteer hours each on behalf of the gubmint.  That gives us me 110 hours and Susun 90 hours for a total of at least a combined 200 "recordable" hours on this project.  That's impressive, actually.

We learned how to "wrassle" a Trimble June SB down to "river level" and make it tap dance.  It was frustrating at times but we prevailed.  We dealt with the typical variety of bureaucratic ICO's (Issues, Challenges and Opportunities) and we prevailed on those, too.

We had a totally great camp set up.  One night, Susun said, "I prefer this over a motel room."  That's a very High Compliment.  I was humbled.  We did some awesome cooking, had some wonderful Happy Hours and enjoyed some great stuff.  We had superb neighbors and never had to go to the store ONCE during the entire trip.  We didn't spend a danged dime on anything from when we left Idaho Falls until we left the Salmon River!  Somehow, I figgered how to keep us "iced up" for days with fresh Happy Hour ice and cooler ice and all of that.  It was something I've never before accomplished.  It worked.

The Salmon River is a majestic place--far more majestic than either of us ever knew or imagined before.  We thought we knew the Salmon.  NOT!  The Salmon is a powerful place, too, filled with Deja Vu and karma, too.  Who knew is was as complete as it is?  No one ever told us.  No one prepared us.  Not ever our bosses.  We feel as if we have been turned loose in a wanderland where we can wonder and wander forever and never see, feel or experience the same things twice.  How can we possible describe that?  Well, we can't.

We don't intend to.  We will simply document the various "waypoints" of river life and make some laconic comments and move on.  Meriwether Lewis had such a phrase in his journals of the 1803-1806 Lewis & Clark Expedition.  He simply said, "We proceeded on."

That's what we did this week--we proceeded on.  It was a bumpy ride at times and filled with magical moments at other times.

One of the great things that happened is that we both became "one" with our boat.  We finally ironed out all the kinks and "got it together." From paddling to food prep to hydration to sun protection to working our way through worn out body parts to "whatever, " we got 'er dun.  It was a real inspirational experience for both of us.

During the 21-mile day, my left arm gave out about Mile 16.  It was very painful to even take a stroke.  Susun didn't miss a beat, she swapped paddles with me and powered us 5 miles to the take out. YOU GO, GIRL!
(I had an out of code thingie of Natrol MSM [expired 07/2007] and I rubbed it all over the left arm and was good to go for another 13 miles the next day!)

I had told Susun time and again my greatest fear on a river is a horizontal line.  Yesterday, I got to come face-to-face with my greatest fear.  We rounded a bend and, poof, there it was, a classic horizontal line ALL the way across the river.  According to my GPS, we were floating at 4.5 mph without taking a paddle stroke. So, we were approaching this line a fast clip.  Neither one of us flipped out.  I simply told Susun I would turn the boat sideways and scout it with a "read and run" approach.  Well, trust me, this bedrock ledge stretched ALL the way across the river!   Luckily, I spotted a tiny slot against the far left shoreline at about the last possible second to get there.

What was so sweet was I told Susun what we had to do and how quickly we had to do it and how there was no margin for error and, poof, we both paddled precisely to the slot and squeezed through two "wrap rocks" and it was a piece of cake.

When we were at Dugout Dick's, there are these huge giant rocks in the river.  A LOT of them--they are perhaps 20 feet tall and maybe 15-20 feet in diameter, maybe more. They are draped with giant logs and typical river flotsam.  At yesterday's level, the left route had this HUGE boil that would push you into a cushion and then into some well-aged strainers.  The right run was only accessible by eddy-hopping and then doing some rock dodging and then putting on a mean ferry angle across a squirrely current line only to hope you could navigate between two wrap rocks and then do a 180 turn to miss a boulder bar.   Yea, verily, it was a real test of tandem paddle skills!

So, Susun was rightfully concerned about this gig.  We scouted the whole thing from river left and she wanted to  line the rapid.  I simple said, "We can run this."  Then I described the run and pointed out the various current lines we had to hit and the various eddies and the various rocks and I told her, "We have the skills to do this together.  We can do this.  Are you up for it?" And she said "YES!"  That was such music to my ears.  Frankly, the whole script of moves was very complicated and you couldn't really miss one move and hope to make the next move--they all had to be successfully completed in sequence in order to work correctly.

I can't remember precisely how many moves were in the sequence but I am thinking it was a 10 Step gig.  we pretty much had to make 10 VERY successful moves all in the proper sequence to get through the rapid without wrapping The Lynx on one of numerous very capable Wrap Rocks.

Much to my joy, Susun was a Gem in paddling that rapid.  She did precisely what she had to do.  Her timing was superb and surgical.  She clearly understood the "cause & affect" action of her paddle and she applied her force and power at exactly the right second to help us navigate the dangerous obstacles.  I was so happy to see us navigate that rapid together.  I told her afterwards that we were within inches of where we needed to be for each of the moves we needed to make.  It was totally precise and it wasn't luck.  It was because we had both learned how the boat behaves and how each of us needed to behave to get the boat to do what needed to be done.  It was sweet!

Thanks, Sweetie, I am Proud of You!

Well, it's time to move along tonight.  We will have more tomorrow.   CHEERS!

(Added @ 9 pm: So, we're eating a great dinner Susun prepared tonight.  At the end of our repast, she says, "That was my favorite river trip of all time!  It was joyful, exciting, and wonderful in every way."  Bear in mind Susun has done a LOT of river trips, including paddling the Grand Canyon solo in a Riken inflatable.  I was quite delighted to hear her say this tonight.  Yea, verily, Sweetie, I am PROUD of YOU!)