The next morning we got started with...you guessed it breakfast. In the old black iron pot I sauteed down some onions in a spoon of bacon drippings from breakfast past.
As the onions browned and the coffee perked I chopped some peppers.
I added the peppers and some left over rice from our gumbo night.
While that heated through Peg beat up 6 eggs and we poured that in and stirred it up.
Turn off the fire slam on the lid 10 minutes later waa-laa:
WE just call it rice and eggs, but call it what you will we called it breakfast, lunch and delicious.
After breakfast with Bo buddy looking on, I set up the awning, strung out party lights, ran an extension cord and put up "pinky" our flamingo mascot.
Peggy laced up her hiking boots and helped me tacky the place up a bit.
We finally got it looking like "Our camp site" and settled down to enjoy a nice afternoon of camping and cooking. Tacky you may say and you would be right but that's the way we roll.
Sadly internet service sux and it took all morning to post this, but I'll try to keep up and share our adventure when I can.
Till then the happy camping adventure continues.
Later that afternoon I fired up the ole black iron pot, and in a spoon fill of bacon drippings I seared half a dozen chicken thighs seasoned with our Cajun seasoning.
When I took the chicken out I dumped some onion into the now well seasoned pot.
Once that cooked down some, I added some finely diced potato.
The potato cooks down and breaks up thickening the stew. Once cooked I put the chicken back in with some bell pepper and green onion and left it on a low simmer for a while.
Son, Joe came by for supper and bonded with his new fuzzy brother Bo.
Yes, we are still camping. Only thing is; I did a really silly thing....after taking many pictures, my camera battery finally pooped out and I discovered I had not packed the charger for the thing. Finally, we went in for supplies and I found a Radio Shack and bought a charger that almost cost as much as the camera. I now have the ability to charge almost any rechargeable with house voltage 12 volt or even usb. All the geeks at Radio "Shaft" owned was this "Swiss army knife" of chargers. At any rate, we are still camping and are still just as 'tacky' as ever.
Bo, our bratty Bichon camping buddy keeping "Pinky" our 4 foot tall lighted flamingo company while chillin' on the picnic table.
In keeping with Pinky for a theme, we set up our party lights to match.
We are having a ball at the wonderful Webster Park Campground, bringing our New Orleans "Saint's Pride" with us, and smelling up the whole neighborhood with Cajun cookin'.
I set up a slow-cooking crock of beans to simmer away while Bo and I walked the park enjoying all the wildlife. Geese could be heard circling around in preparation for their trip south, squirrels scurryied around with walnuts, acorns and such, stocking up for winter. We spotted several almost tame deer walking around stretching their necks up to snack on crab apples; lots of wonderful wildlife sights and me with my camera in my pocket enjoying the walk so much, that I forgot to snap any photos, or if I did manage to get the camera out of my pocket, Bo would suddenly jerk on his leash, thinking he is a hunting dog or something, ruining the shot. All in all, though, it was fun.
I did remember to take a few picture of the beans as I prepared them, no danger of Bo attacking them...until they were finished cooking anyway.
Of course by the time Bo and I returned from our walking trip around the park collecting chigger bites, Peg came back from her babysitting the grand-kids "gig", but once again
the camera was forgotten as we ate beans around the campfire on blue granite (or what Peggy calls) "cowboy plates". Oh well, Sorry it took so long for an update, but the adventure continues; 1500 miles of road trip and 2 weeks at base camp. More later.
LATER:
We had a hot time around the ole campfire that night.
Bo perked right up when the family started arriving.
Son, Joe brought the kids over.
Ashley, our consumate artist.
No matter how hard Grandpop tries to teach these Yankees how to slow roast marshmallows to a golden yumminess , they insist on burning them to a crisp, eating off the burnt part and burning them again and again. Here, Zach laments that he just may have taken it a little too far. Maybe not...he ate them off the prongs anyhow. And no matter how many demerits are given out for burnt weinies, it's the same thing...blackened till they are unrecognizable as anything looking like a hot dog anymore. But they all eat em anyway and seem to like em that way. Go figger. 
Grandson Robbie John, "RJ" and granddaughter, Destiny showed up with "RJ's" girlfriend, Georgia (on the left).
Destiny ("Desi") and her Uncle Joe got to catch up on how things are going.
"RJ" and Georgia on their second bowl of gumbo that Peg, his grandmother made. (All her grandchildren call her "Bubbie".)
Our beautiful Desi, who just graduated from high school plans on a career in fashion.
We had a ball around the camp fire with some picking and smore snacking. Would ya believe this was the first smore Peg had ever eaten in her life? I think she's hooked; only thing she didn't like it that her marshmallow wasn't burnt to a faretheewell. Next time she can make her own darned smore and burn the thing like she likes it. Personally, I'm not a sweet kinda guy...my dessert was another bowl of her gumbo.
Everybody seems to have had plenty enough to eat, but the gumbo was the first thing gone. What a wonderful night it was; me tryin' to teach them my slow roastin' techniques for hot dogs and marshmallows, but I don't think any of it "took", and everybody just havin' an old-fashioned good time around a smokey campfire at night.
And as for Bo, he got a lot of pieces of fallen weinies, marshmallows, a lot of lovin' and I am convinced that he, too now has a new girl friend.
On our last day at the beautiful Webster park campground Mr. Ed and his friend Carl came to spend the day with me. We had a wonderful time sitting around the camp fire and cooking and picking and grinning and enjoying another beautiful day. That morning I took some pork steaks.
Rubbed them with some Worcester sauce and crystal hot sauce and let them sit and think about it as we sat around visiting.
Once they had drank up the hot sauce I rubbed them with cane syrup and sprinkled on some of our Cajun spice.
Then I parked them on a smokey pit for an hour or so.
While they cooked we visited.
By the time I turned back around with my camera they were already half gone.
I guess that meant they were pretty good I hurried and scored me a half of a chop and Just in time too cause this is what was left when I grabbed it.
Later that evening we threw some chicken on the pit and I cooked a pot of smothered taters.
Right at dark that evening Peggy, Mrs. Jean and Mrs. Kathy showed up bearing trays of goodies to go with what we had cooked and we had a wonderful evening; the girls sitting inside in the warm camper and the guys sitting around the campfire. Us guys tried not to get too rowdy, but I guess we did. I quit taking pictures and the next morning the campers across the campground said they really enjoyed our picking and singing and such. It was a fine way to end this wonderful stage of our extended camping trip.
It was with a heavy heart indeed, that we packed up the next day to depart this wonderful park.
As always, we left our camp site a little better than we found it.
We passed by the campground office, and its friendly inviting feel, looking for our wonderful camp host, "Miss. Dee" to tell good-bye.
We thought we had missed her and were sad about it, but just as we were pulling out, she drove up. I guess we made a good impression, 'cause as we said our good-byes, she offered us a job working at the campground.
We actually thought about it; the place being so beautiful and all, but we are Cajuns and were a very long ways from home.
We both agreed however, that when I officially retire we would love that kind of job. Just maybe closer to home.
As we drove for the last time out of the campground, we stopped for awhile to enjoy the view that we saw every time we came out of the campground, of this beautiful home on Lake Ontario, with a direct view of the lake through the house with the huge ornate chandelier and the grand piano to the left on the bottom level. It felt like the owners had created this view for folks like us who were pulling out of the campground to enjoy, but Peg says she doubts those people had "folks like us" in mind when they had it built.
On the way out of the park, deer looked up as we drove off for the last time as we were onto the next leg of our Road Trip adventure. They looked either sad to see us leave or glad we didn't take them with us in the freezer.
No comments:
Post a Comment