Eatin' good on the trail

I love to cook. And I love to hike. So one of my goals was to have really yummy food out on the trail.

I've created a few recipes, and one of them recently was published in Backpacker magazine. Pretty cool.

But even better are the reviews that backpackers themselves have been giving my son's favorite recipe ... here's the latest:

I tested out your recipe that appeared in Backpacker , and after dehydrating it and tasting it at home, I was skeptical. I love hummus, but am not a big spaghetti fan.

The combination of tomatoes and hummus scared me!This past weekend, while in the Red River Gorge, I packed some of your hummus along with my usual chorizo and cheese.

Out on the trail, after a tough day of bushwacking, I tried your recipe......and I couldn't get enough. I ate three tortillas with your hummus and was craving more! The chorizo and cheese went untouched and probably won't be packed in the future, saving me 1/2 lb or more!

I don't know why, but I was craving the flavor of these torillas after my first few bites.Thanks for the recipe!

Jim

What a tremendous compliment! Thanks, Jim!!

All Things Gross

Gross thing #1:

Our family cat, River, was bitten by a venomous snake two weekends ago. He survived the bite, thanks in part to our ability to get onto LSU's campus during the LSU - Auburn game. The game took forever because it was televised, resulting in the roads onto campus being open longer than normal. Since then, he's about about 1/8 of the skin on his body and is currently at the vet for at least a 5-day stay, maybe longer.

We're trying to save his leg, and we're trying to save his life. The wound is huge and open, too big for a successful graft. He's at risk of sepsis and other infections.

Poor kitty.



Gross thing #2:

I forgot to toss my pumpkin today before I head out of town. It should be quite squishy & oozy by the time I get back home Sunday. Ick.



Gross thing #3:

This weekend, my son's 5th grade class is heading to an exhibit in Mobile called Grossology: the Impolite Science of the Human Body. While I'm sure all the 5th grade boys will love it - only one girl is going - well, I've really seen enough gross-ness in the past two weeks to last me a while.

I still haven't figured out how those nurses do all that wound care! Gross!!

Old friends at Pack & Paddle

Tonight I presented a dehydrating seminar at Pack & Paddle in Lafayette, Louisiana. It was a lot of fun to prepare things for the class, but I felt a bit disorganized in the presentation. I should have thought things through a bit more before talking to 35 or so people about how to prepare dehydrated foods for wilderness adventures (or for hurricane preparedness).

Too late now. The class is over, and I hope some folks learned some things they didn't know before tonight.

A new website has been created to help alumni from my high school get back in touch with each other. Through this website, I found an old friend, A.J., who lives near Lafayette with his wife, Lori. Knowing I was doing a class in Lafayette, they decided to wander over for a visit. Even though they don't really do too much in the way of outdoorsy things. We didn't get to visit much since I had this class to do, but it was good to see them anyway. Here's hoping that another 20 years won't go by before we have the chance to visit again.

Tae Kwon Do & Two O'Clock

This weekend was another busy one. Yesterday was a tae kwon do touranment at David Vincent's Martial Arts & Fitness ...

. . . then tailgating at LSU, which is always a good time . . .

. . . then a good night's sleep after a big win.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday was a leisurely day. I got up, walked the pooch, and loaded the kayak for an easy paddle at Two O'Clock Bayou. Simply loading the boat was the first adventure as there was a small black widow spider nesting in one of my tie-down straps. Shortly after getting in the boat, my foot peg broke off. But neither of these was fatal to the trip: I left the spider where he was (I wonder if he's still there!) and the foot peg could be fixed at home. And a-paddling I went.

Two O'Clock Bayou meanders through moss-laden cypress trees full of gigantic golden silk spiders, or so people know them as banana spiders around here. There were also lots of egrets, a couple of herons, and a few others birds I couldn't identify, all amongst the stunning metalic blue dragonflies. I only saw one snake, but - unfortunately - no alligators.

All in all, though, a pretty darn good weekend.

First post

Watched a little football over the weekend - NSU Demons won on a last second field goal in what turned to be a much more exciting game than the LSU / VT game. Walked the puppy & let her swim a little. Waiting for cooler weather so that the camping can begin again!