Boo Chiefs. That did not end my weekend on a high note. But you know what did go well Sunday? My latest experiment, chorizo chili. I bought several pounds of chorizo at the butcher shop when it was on sale a while back, and thought it sounded pretty good in a pot of chili. Matter of fact, just chili in general sounds good lately, it’s getting cold out. Anyway, it wasn’t too hard to find a few recipes that sounded like what I wanted, so I whipped up a pot for the game. Came out well! The wife even liked it, and she generally does NOT like my chili creations. Matter of fact, we liked it so much we had it for dinner also. It will also go on some nachos this evening for a Monday Night Football meal. Glad I still have a few pounds of it in the freezer, it will be made again!

Speaking of recipes, I’ve been trying to get some organization to my collection. I decided on Mealie to put everything together. Well, I didn’t really so much decide on it, it was the only thing I found that was even close to what I was looking for. Things started off well, no real complaints. Since then though, it seems like every time they come out with new “features,” it just makes things harder. I have to think the plan is that it gets easier over time as you build up a database of ingredients, measurements, etc, but in the meantime there is way more typing involved than I care to do. I dunno. Still sticking to it so far. Not really what I am looking for, but I’m giving it a go. I don’t really like the format, although I can’t really say why. I don’t see that it lets you set a default sort either, which bothers me. (I want most recent to oldest.) If all else fails, there is a button in the lower right of each recipe that says “original URL.” Clicking that will take you the page where I found the original recipe. I guess it’s pretty much a way-overcomplicated bookmark system at that point. Anyway, a few examples of things I’ve made lately: Chorizo Chili, Hot Honey Chicken, and Beef Lo Mein.

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Random update. I might have given up on this thing. I’m retired, I don’t really have time for high-demand hobbies such as this site. Actually, in truth, I think it is really not ENOUGH demand. I used to enjoy messing around with it, making it work the way I wanted. Now it just kind of hums along, taking care of itself. (Well, except the actual entry part… Maybe I could make AI do that for me too?) Anyway. Thought I’d check in and see if everything was still working. (It is. Kind of disappointing, really.)

We’ve been keeping a very low profile. The weather is getting a little chilly, time to stay inside and cook. Heck, it’s even rained a few times. Watched a lot of sports, tried several new recipes, ignored my to-do list… Stuff like that. Side note, I would watch a lot MORE sports if YouTubeTV hadn’t nuked ESPN, ABC, and the SEC networks. What a crock. No Missouri basketball, no Monday night football, what’s a guy to do. Read a book? C’mon man.

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Time for a new post. That is not to say I have anything to blab about, just that it is time. Got to make some kind of effort, even if a half-hearted one. I am back at the house for a little stretch. I needed to take care of a few things, and wanted to check in on the house, so I came back here early last week. I guess it’s a good thing I did, because I came back to find out that the kitchen fridge had died some time ago. Gross. Not TOO long ago I guess, but there was definitely some cleaning involved. The good news is, we had taken most of our food with us in the RV. Mostly lost a bunch of condiments, many of which probably needed tossed anyway, and a little bit of meat. Not too major a tragedy, all in all. Other than that, things were generally in order. The garden is hopelessly overgrown, and much of the produce is well past picking time, but that was expected. Threw most of it in the yard for the deer, hopefully they appreciate it. Still dog-sitting our friend Renfield for a few more weeks. That was a factor in my return home also; 3 dogs in an RV is a LOT. We did, however, buy a nice big kennel to set up outside the RV. That is super nice, I wish we’d have done it years ago. We have always put them on a long cable, which usually lasts about 45 seconds until they are hopelessly tangled. More trouble than it’s worth. Where it really pays off is in the morning, when they jump out of bed at 5:00 AM for their pre-breakfast “business.” Yeah, that is no fun leashing them all up and heading out into the dark and cold every day. That alone is worth the price of the kennel.

Other than that, all quiet and blissfully boring. I’ve been watching the Royals a lot, and now the NFL games too. Which is to say, pretty much the same things I do at the campground, but with more room and a larger TV. I did cook a few slabs of ribs yesterday to eat during the games, which came out so well that I thought it bears a mention. I like to cook ribs, and I like to eat ribs, but they never come out too well for me. These, for once, I was happy with. They went on the smoker at 275 for two hours, then in foil with some spicy vinegar sauce for one hour, then opened the top of the foil and sauced them for about 20 minutes. I made sure to write it all down (for once,) so hopefully I can replicate them next time. If I make any tweaks, I’ll probably add some more wood to the smoker; I like my ribs smokey. Might tone down the vinegar sauce a little bit too, wow they were HOT. Overall definitely some of the better ones I’ve done though.

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Still at the campground in the RV. There is not a whole lot to do here, and hence, I do not have much to report. One fun thing we did was drive up to McCloud Falls for a short hike with the dogs. There are several falls to hike in the area, but this was one of the few that allowed dogs on the trails. I try to take them along when possible, so this park was our choice of the day. Definitely worth the hour drive. The hike was easy enough, (OK, we drove most of it,) and the falls were really nice. Only downside? Well, despite reading up extensively about the place before going, I completely forgot my swim suit. It was a hot day and I am sure a dip in the pools under the falls would have been great. Yeah, we could go back easy enough, but we’ve got other sights to see so I doubt we do. I also took the Jeep on some fun trails with the dogs. There are trails criss crossing all over the place behind the campground. I kind of like to know where I’m going before heading out, but I finally decided I wasn’t going to figure it out unless I just took off. I am typing this from back at the RV, so I guess I got back OK. We didn’t get too crazy; I sort of depend on my Jeep for transportation so I didn’t want to tear something up. We bumped along the path for 45 minutes or so, and if things got too sketchy, we turned around and went a different way.

Labor Day Weekend was flat out crazy at the campground. Wow, it was packed. I am pretty sure every spot was taken, and there were some huge groups. Huge groups equal huge noise. Geez, so much for my nice peaceful campsite. I tried counting all the little kids running around like rabid animals, but stopped when I got to 1,758,453. They were moving too quickly for an accurate census. All good, everybody got up and scattered this morning, and all is peaceful again. Hopefully they all had fun, even if it was at the expense of my sanity. (Uh oh, I hope the little gremlins didn’t eat all the ice cream, I better go check…)

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So we’re still out in the RV, living the life. At least I am, the missus spends the majority of her time working. Hey, my lifestyle choices don’t come cheap. Time really gets away from me up here. It’s been something of an issue I’ve noticed back at the house, but here it’s even worse. I had every intention of updating this thing last Monday, but it was Wednesday or Thursday before I noticed that I’d forgotten, and then I decided it was just too late. There are worse problems I guess.

Things are going just fantastic here. It is quite peaceful, it is so quiet in the evenings that it’s almost eerie. *Now, the holiday weekend may turn out to be a different story, we’ll see about that. Even so, they’ll all leave as soon as the 3-day weekend is over. I’m continuing my quest to complete the PCT while here, and it’s going just fabulous. I am pleased to report that I am up into the double-digit miles already! Still well over 2,600 miles to go, but hey, you got to start somewhere. I did hit a small snag though; I took the dogs 4 miles one day, and that proved to be a horrible idea. I wasn’t sure they were going to get back to the RV under their own power. I suppose I could carry them if need be, but I wasn’t too excited about that idea. They did make it though. Haven’t gone back out yet until I decide on a new plan. Maybe I’ll just leave them in the RV and head out by myself, but they typically don’t like that idea much. And… that’s about it. Continuing to cook all meals on the outdoor griddle or the grill over the firepit, which I feel I am getting a bit more adept at. We did go out twice also, once to pizza and once for Mexican. Both were great, but you’re looking at a 30 minute drive each way to get to any restaurant so I’d just as soon stay at the campground.

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