Last night was the homecoming football games. We had a good night with the band… the show is looking good and the prop setup / teardown is starting to come together.
This morning, I worked on some RV Repair… I went a purchased a bulb for my fridge and also replaced my propane hoses between the tank and the regulator.
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Philmont is a tough place to describe… you take some of it with you when you leave. For me it was an effort to get there and be able to go. Then each obstacle that you overcome on your trek makes you feel tired but satisfied that you have overcome something challenging. With each hill your sense of accomplishment grows.
Getting from 6,500 feet in elevation to 12,400 feet in elevation and covering 60 plus miles gives you that sense of accomplishment and confidence that you can overcome difficult tasks. Right after the trek, you just want to get back to "civilization" and old habits… but the more time that passes, the more you feel like "I want to go back to Philmont".
The views are amazing! This was the view from the departure point before we left for the airport on our last day.
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We went camping out at Codorus State Park this weekend and had a good time. It warmed up into the mid to upper 80’s this weekend during the day but was still kind of pleasant. We had some rain over night on Friday, but it was more of a sprinkle / shower that just went off and on in the early morning hours on Saturday. During the day, the girls went shopping and left me to my own devices during the day. I finished up work on three letterboxes and then went and put them out on the Mary Ann Furnace Trail as a series (I’m hungry when camping). This letterbox series contains: Campfire Cooking, Camp Coffee, and Turkey Day. The total loop that I walked to set these out was just over three miles.
I got back to camp and cooked up some Cajun Sausages on my Lodge Sportsman Grill and enjoyed sitting under the awning of the camper with one tiered Pug (that’s a long hike for those little legs). After lunch, I visited with the shoppers who had returned from their morning out and got to hear about their finds. Then like the dog, they took a nap after a tough morning of shopping.
I puttered around the campsite (quietly) and got prepped for dinner. We were having a roast cooked in my number 12 Dutch Oven. So I got busy cutting up potatoes, onions, garlic, and carrots. Then when they got up, I seared the meat in my Dutch Oven, then added the onion and garlic and cooked them up a bit and put some water and bullion cubes in and let it cook for a while. After a couple of hours of cooking on the colas, I added the carrots and potatoes.
I really did not like our fire ring (for making a campfire) due to it’s height. It’s hard to get your fire started in there; however, it did make an excellent holder for my coffee pot and other items needed for cooking my roast.
We had some friends show up and stayed the night with us on Saturday. We enjoyed a good campfire and shared the roast and in general had a nice time. His wife is not much the camper, but he wanted to take his daughter out so this was a good time to do that.
In the morning, we cooked a breakfast dish in my #10 Dutch Oven. It was a crescent roll crust (just line the bottom of the oven with the little triangles and pinch them together), put a package of hash browns that have been browned in on top of that, then add seven eggs (scrambled, but not cooked yet), and sausage that had been pre-cooked the day before. Then cover with cheese and bake. I used about 6 – 7 coals on the bottom of the oven and about 15 on top for 20 min. What you get is cheesy, eggy, crusty goodness for breakfast…. yum!
When we got home around noon on Sunday, I put up my new letterboxes on Atlasquest.com and Letterboxing.org. I was surprised to get two e-mails within about 20 min on the new boxes. One group (Beach Buddies) went out and found all three Sunday afternoon. I had an e-mail by 4:30 that they’d found them all and the directions were good for the most part. They noted some confusion around one box, but I need to find out which way they were running the loop before I can make the needed corrections to clear that up.
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Friday was one of those crazy nights… I was running late (or later than I wanted to be) to make it home so we could head off to our football game with the band trailer. On the way home, I ran out of gas about 4 miles from home. Only the second time in 30 years of driving…. dam gas gauge. It quit working about six months ago and I’ve been putting off replacing it and using the fuel consumption measure in my ’01 Bonneville, I guess I’m going to need to break down (no pun intended) and fix it. I’m assuming that they will need to drop the gas take to fix it and that will be $500 or so is my guess.
Once I got bailed out with some gas, we got off to school to get things hooked up with the trailer. We were not able to park next to the field in West York, so we dragged the prop over the baseball fields from the middle school. Below is a picture (not very good from the cell phone).
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Last night I pulled the camper out to Codorus State Park. I got a late start getting out there due to some issues at work… so I did not get out there until about 8:30 PM and it was already very dark outside. It was the kind of dark where it’s hard to see your hands right in front of you… so that made setup somewhat of a challenge, since my better half had the lantern inside. But, we got it all setup by 9 and we were settling in for the evening. I really love it when your one of only a few folks in the entire campground and you can just enjoy the quite!
I drove into work from the campsite this morning and had a nice trip in… no backups on the highway…. just miles of country road. I can’t wait to get back out there tonight.
We have an away football game tonight (in West York) so I’m pulling the band trailer and I’m guessing we won’t get back out to the camper until close to 11:30 PM tonight. But then it will be another enjoyable night I’m sure.
Tomorrow, I’ve got three letterboxes to put out. Right now, I’m thinking that I’ll put them out as a series within the park. The "I want to eat series" to be exact. The boxes are: Camp Coffee, Campfire Cooking, and Turkey Day.
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Anna has off from school on Friday; however, we have a football game on Friday night so the plan is that we will camp out at Codorus on Thursday night through the end of the weekend (Site 140). This is one of our favorite non-electric pet sites.
I’m hoping that I can enjoy some cooking on a fire and do some letterboxing while we are there this weekend. Some of the guys from the Venture Crew were talking about camping in some of the walk-in sites over the weekend, so while they did not have firm plans… it would be fun if they showed up.
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Today is Part II of the Cinnamon Roll Experiment. I’ve got the dough rising and the filling made. Once my dough is done rising, I’ll roll it out and set up the filling. I added more nuts today (a full cup of pecans) and I plan on added honey to the filling once I got the dough rolled out and the base filling put in place. I till be interesting to see how this batch turns out!
This is the dough making is first rise… and the waiting Dutch Ovens all oiled up.
Rolls in the ovens waiting on their second rise. I’ve put some of the filling on the bottom of the oven and then placed the rolls on top. This gives them a nice sweet crust as the brown sugar caramelizes on the bottom.
Rolls after they’ve been baked. The first batch (the darker ones) are in my #12 oven and the second ones are in the #14
The finished product… and I think that the honey adds that thing that was missing from the last batch.
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