Base Camp New York

We pulled into Webster park at 8:30 PM and since it was after dark we decided to set up camp tomorrow.  We just had a quick snack and called it a night.  Bo and I had Castle burgers we had scored on the road and Peg had a sandwich with her celiac safe bread.

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.

 I was having so much fun visiting, I forgot to take a "plated" picture of the bbq'd chicken, Cajun potatoes, and Peg's gumbo, so you just gonna hafta take my word on it.  It was so good you would swear it was cooked in the woods.
    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.

Kaitlyn,  

Zachary and 
Ashley, our consumate artist.

 Joe played his guitar for us; he's self-taught, so you know it was really good and so appropriate around a campfire, too. You aughta hear him play some of Clapton's songs; very nice...very nice!

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.

When they were done I took them up sat them on a plate and went for my camera.

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.  

If you ever find yourself in upstate New York you could do far worse than this wonderful park.  The sites are well laid out and tucked comfy into the woods.  $25 a day is very reasonable and hard to beat.  We are sorry it took so long to finish this long post but we were very busy and had limited internet access and mostly no internet service.    

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.

ROAD TRIP!!! 2014

It started with a phone call.  Right in the middle of saying Good-bye to my beloved Uncle LeRoy, son Dan calls asking that we come up to western NY, to help with the grandbabies while he undergoes surgery.  Bad timing to say the least, but right away, we started planning on hitching up the camper and heading north. 
   After a very stressful week culminating with the tear-filled funeral of our "Uncle Bird", we got home hurriedly, threw some gear in the camper, packed the fridge and cabinets, and set sail for New York.  NO travel plans, no schedule, no itinerary, we just went.  We left home at 5 p.m., and 11:30 p.m. found us a little east of Meridian Mississippi.  We rolled into a KOA campground, plugged in and went to sleep. 
     It was a struggle, but we were back on the road by 9 a.m. and then sailing along, we began to realize we had been full blast for a week now with precious little sleep and were fast 'hitting the wall'. Driving along that morning we decided that  we were not gonna drive late into the night again, but that we were gonna stop early and get a full night sleep.
    About 2:30 that afternoon we were driving through Tennessee when we heard a "pop" out side and Peggy said, "What was that?!" We both looked out our windows and saw that the camper tires looked okay from where we sat, so we kept going.  A mile or so down the road we stopped for gas, and while filling up, a friendly, bearded country-boy pointed out that we were getting a flat on one of the rear trailer tires.  We both looked closely and found what appeared to be a nail in the tire, so this nice local guy, told me that the place to get the tire repaired was 10 miles up the road. I thanked him and stuck a can of fix-a-flat in the tire, aired it up and we headed up the road to the next exit.
  The tire held and we pulled into a truck stop, hoping for a GOOD, permanent quick fix.  We do have a good spare tire but the jack was in the SUV, buried under a mountain of camping gear, so I figured no use changing it if I can get someone to plug it right on the trailer.  
   We found a truck stop with a repair shop for the place, so we headed there. The mechanic there at that truck stop said he couldn't do a car sized tire, so directed me to go back under the interstate, past the Shell gas station to Libby's.  He said, "She has a big sign. They'll take care of you; it's a big blue building; you can't miss it." 
   Well, we easily found Libby's big sign and a big blue building with a HUGE sign stating something akin to (but not) "NAKED DANCING GIRLS" and another sign with a painting of a woman with her bare backside showing. (WHAT?) 
   Back at that truck stop, where the guy recommended "Libby", there amongst the trucks and truckers, we had seen a very beautiful woman in shorts and long hair approach and flag down what appeared to be a trucker, who had gotten out of his truck, who was minding his own business, just sauntering along toward the truck stop restaurant. Peggy said,"Wow! She's beautiful!" Apparently the trucker did too, 'cuz he stopped dead in his tracks as she shoved her hands down into the back pockets of her tight blue jean cut-off shorts, stuck her extremely large chest out at him and gave him the biggest smile. Peggy said again that the woman was sure beautiful, but I just muttered, "No need to be impressed, Peg, she's a Truck Stop 'something-or-other'" and had to explain a few things to her about truck stops that she didn't know. 
   So, it was with that frame of mind, upon finding, "Libby's" and the huge "naked dancing girls" sign, on the big blue building, we were like, "We don't want a naked dancing girl, no matter how experienced she may be, blowing up our tire." Further back up the long driveway, we saw on the hill a big couple of  blue buildings, so up there we went averting our eyes as we passed our "original" Libby's, the gal with the bare butt in the painting still smiling over her shoulder at us.   
  The office lady in Libby's truck and trailor repair shop was very nice and sweet. We had a pleasant conversation. Now the young grissled, "old crab" changed the tire in less than 10 minutes. At first he growled, "Whadda ya want?" and it never got better, although, by now, you must know me; I tried joking with him and he only got more scowling and grumping around so I left him alone in his misery, doing his job. When he finished, I was so thankful I handed the man $2 and told him to have a beer on the way home on me.  He grabbed it, turned his back and stormed away, so I called after him...the poor guy needed a good word, "Thank you, and God Bless you, Dude." Nothing. We feel kinda sorry for folks like that. I hope he's not like that all the time and that he was just having a bad day. You just never know.  So with that and a ten dollar repair bill, we were back on the road.   The other local folks were very friendly and 2 old boys after 'ironing it out between themselves' decideded we should continue north a few miles and check out Henry Horton State Park.  
   We rolled into the park around 5 p.m. and the charming camp host got us checked in and parked in no time.  The man and his wife, who worked the office were so nice and so was the park, and we were so exhausted that we decided right then and there to stay 2 nights, in order to recuperate.  We were in bed asleep for before 8 p.m. and didn't get up till 7 this morning; it was then that we remembered the camera.  This is the trip so far.

We didn't start the map till we got up on the interstate, not wanting to show the trail to or from our front door.  We left out the trip through the beautiful swamps of South Louisiana .  This morning found me drinking coffee before 7 a.m., finally fully rested and able to enjoy the trip.

It wasn't long before I got the ole black iron pot going, and breakfast cooking.

Aint nuffin like a ole peculator full of coffee to wash down a bacon and egg breakfast.

Slap that on a slice of toast.

Camping breakfast at its best.

With the dishes done nothing, left but to rest, 'decompress' and get ready for the next leg of this 1,500 mile road trip.  In the mean time the park is beautiful and our new camping buddy Bo is having as much fun as we are.

Worse than a kid, but having a ball anyways.  This road trip is truly starting to be fun.  

9/12

While typing yesterday's post.

Deer peacefully walked by.

When I looked down after the deer walked by I saw an inch worm had inched his way along my key board.

While Peggy put together a coleslaw in the camper, Bo and I enjoyed the great outdoors.

Before we left home Peggy had made and canned a pot of smoked chicken, sausage and okra gumbo.  I put some heating and a pot of rice on.

To turn a wonderful evening into a perfect one our camp ground hosts, Kerry and Donald stopped by for a nice visit and a bowl of gumbo truly wonderful folks.

I typed this update in a Walmart parking lot as Peggy picked up a few supplies.  So it's back on the road with more later.  We drove to Wilmington Ohio, and stopped at Caesar's creak camp ground at 7 pm.  The weekend crowd was out in full force, but they didn't bother us any all 3 of us went right to sleep and wish we would have had the time to investigate the park.  The campground was plain and really just a grassy field with hook ups.  That is always a very good sign that the happy campers weren't there for the campground but the fishing.  I itched to join them but now fully rested we needed to get to our base camp..

9-13

We left Caeser's park at 9:30 having forgotten about the time change, and came rolling into Webster, NY camp ground at 8:30pm.  There a nice couple out on a moon light stroll helped us back up between the trees to our dark secluded spot.  With that done this ends the road trip to NY.  Here it it.

 Just like the beginning, I cut the end off a little short for some paranoid reason or such.  1533 miles from my house to here this ends the trip and begins the base camp adventure.  It was a great trip, sure some "bumps along the way"  but that's road tripping.

       

Our "Long Horn" Okra

This year's crop of long horn okra, got off to a late start, but are now off to the races.  We planted them late, after harvesting our Spring crop of snap beans.  Okra do well in the Summer heat, and give our little square foot garden something to do till it's time to plant our winter garden.  The okra has, in the past, continued making pods all the way to Christmas and beyond, as long as we get no frost.  

They are making around 5 to 10 okra a day, which gets cut up (sliced like thick pennies) and put in the freezer until we have enough to make something with it.

Growing in stages, some plants are already over my head, while others are still only 1 ft. or so tall.  Staggered like that insures a longer growing season.  

We leave 2 pods on the healthiest plant for our seeds for the next year and too, later, if anyone wants some seeds we will let more dry.  Over ten years ago I lost my beloved batch of seeds, so we put out some feelers out online here and an elderly Cajun man was nice enough to send us a small package of seeds in the mail.  I never met the man but thank him and say a lil prayer for him every time I walk out and see the beautiful okra flowers smiling at us.

The good news:  We currently have a gallon bag full in the freezer and I can hardly wait for the first batch of smothered okra. Keep smiling you long "horned" beauty; you are music to our eyes!  

 

Strawberry Figs

Well, while we were in a fig preserving mood we decided to try another of my mother's fig tricks and make some strawberry figs.  We dug another bag of frozen figs out of the freezer.

We poured them into a dishpan and rinsed them good.

After rinsing, we snipped the stems off them.

Placed them in a colander to drain then weighed them.

To seven pounds of figs we added 6 cups of sugar, and a splash of lemon juice.

While the figs were slowly thawing and warming, we put our jelly jars in a 212 degree oven. We also put the canning lids, rings, a soup ladle, a food funnel, and a pair of tongs into a pot of water that we brought to a boil. All THREE things need to be at the same (boiling) 212 degrees temperature for us to be able to can:

1. the jars in the oven, 2. the lids and utensils, 3. the figs. (or whatever we are fixin' to can)

After an hour or so of slowly warming the frost from them, the figs made their syrup and began cooking.

Once the figs were cooked, we took them out of the pot with a large wire mesh ladle, reserving the syrup.

Then we mashed them with a tater masher.

Since we had 9 cups of smashed figs, when we added them back to their syrup we added three 3 oz boxes of (dry, not dissolved) Wild Strawberry Jello.

  Stirring in the Jello, we let it come to a boil and cook for 7 minutes or so, then went to canning them.  Peggy has canned so many jars of things, she has become a well-oiled canning "machine". I do the lifting, stirring and mashing, but when it comes to canning I just stand back and watch my sweet wife do her thang.

Man, this stuff is good.  No joking, you would swear it's real strawberries right down to the small seeds. 

 A couple helpful tips: 

 1.  Use the Wild Strawberry Jello if you can find it because the strawberry flavor is stronger and more intense.  2: the recipe calls for One 3 oz. box of Jello for every 3 to 4 cups of figs.  After cooking and smashing our figs, they measured out at 9 cups, so we used 3 boxes which probably would have been good for 11 or so cups of figs, before adding any more Jello.  This stuff is well worth a try and we highly recommend it to those of you who have more figs than fig eaters.  It's a wonderful way to turn 1 fruit into 2 different jellies. Peggy, not knowing any better, this being the first time she's ever had this, she thinks it tastes just like strawberry jam, Bless her heart.

Believe it or not, though, it actually tastes as good as it looks.

Old-Fashioned Fig Preserve

Finally,  after struggling through hurricanes and hard freezes, our Celeste Fig tree began bearing enough figs for us to can them.  Last year it only yielded a handful a day, but those few handfuls of figs rarely made it into the house, because between us and the birds eating them as they ripened, they never stood a chance of us making any kinds of plans for storage of any kind.  This year, thanks to no major storms, and the tree finally growing big enough to survive a freeze, it began to bear enough fruit for us to begin saving some to can, using one of my family's (my Mama and grandmother's) traditional recipes.  In the last month or so, Peggy and I picked on average a quart of figs each day; sometimes more some days none at all. Day by day we stashed them in 2 gallon zip lock freezer bags till we had approximately 5 gallons. I had seen other folks use this technique and it worked great.  Pick the figs from the tree, put them in a big bag and store them in the freezer till you have enough to can. 
    When you take the bags out of the freezer, they will have frozen as individuals, and not in a solid clump. Since they are separate, the process of rinsing and snipping the stems off is an easy (and fun) task. 
  Stewing the figs using the original family recipe is very simple.  Weigh your figs and for every pound of figs add 1 cup of sugar.  Since our figs were frozen, I added a little water to start them steaming sooner, but it really wasn't needed.  I also added a splash of lemon juice 'cause I saw lots of folks on the internet do it and it aint like we don't have several gallons of our Meyer lemon juice still in the freezer.  At any rate, we started with this:

 And ended up with this below, in a few fun-filled hours. Of course we had to "taste test"...Oh Mmmm! It took me back to the days of my youth, sitting at the table with my elders who cooked everything with love.

Below is the video of how we did it.  This time honored Cajun treat deserves to be passed on for further generations to enjoy.  Please give it a try and let us know what you think.