Now that something interesting has actually happened, I feel like I've got something to blog about.
I'll get to the main topic in a second, but first let me say that I had one of the worst scares in a long while last Thursday through Sunday. My cat, Calli has been getting a little more adventurous as she's gotten older (she's about a year and a half old now.) It used to be that she'd never go outside and then it was only if D or I were outside. Finally, she started going out on her own, but would always be close to the deck.
So, Wednesday night we left the door open a crack so she could come and go. We woke up Thurs. morning...no Calli. She usually wakes us up at some point during the night and then yowls her head off for food in the morning, but she was nowhere to be found.
D and I decided that, even if she didn't show up by Friday (when we were leaving to go camping) that we'd still go and ask his sister-in-law to keep an eye out for her. Well, she didn't show up. There's been coyote sightings around here for the past month or so and I figured that if she wasn't home when we got back that most likely she'd had a run-in with them. Honestly, I was worried sick, but tried to stay positive so as to still have fun camping.
Good news was, on the way home Sunday, I got a text message saying that the sis-in-law has spotted her on Saturday, but she'd run back into the woods. By the time we got back around 3pm Sun. our little critter was waiting for us on the deck. She was a little dirtier and quite a bit terrified, but all in one piece. I think she hid under the bed for about 5 hours that day, but it wasn't too long until she was back outside. :-)
Now, on to the main event. D and I took our first camping trip of the year last weekend. It was a blast to say the least.
We got to Citico Creek (think I've posted a couple pictures from there on my Flickr site) around 2:15pm Fri. It only took us about a half hour to unload the truck and set up the tent. We kinda lounged around for a little while and went off to collect more wood. We'd brought some with, but not near enough for the whole weekend since we've got to fit wood, supplies, and the puppy in the truck.
Our first meal that night was typical camping fare (hamburgers), but we'd also brought along a little something for the next day that was going to be a total experiment. What we brought for Saturday night was a whole 5lb. chicken. Yep...that's right. And I'm still kicking myself for forgetting my camera.
Picture two long sticks tied in crosses on either side of the fire with a long stick wedged on top. Basically a homemade camping rotisserie. We brought a box of stuffing mix and made it with a little less water than called for so it would be stickier and then we stuffed (no pun intended) the stuffing under the skin of the chicken and then sliced up onions to put in there also.
We realized after that we needed to have the fire hotter because we started it at about 3:20pm and it wasn't done until a little after 11pm. But my...oh...my was it tasty!!!
The grocery store here had the chickens on sale for around $2.50 a bird so we got 6-7 of them and have cooked 2 so far.
In thinking back on it, we really didn't do a whole lot except forage for wood, eat, and do a whole LOT of relaxing. It was very nice to get away from all the everyday stress.
Oh, I did however get to learn how to use a chainsaw. I can almost see my mom cringing at that thought. Saturday afternoon D and I went on another wood gathering trip and found a felled tree that he cut in 3-4ft long sections just to be able to haul it back to the camp site. When we got back, he pulled them out so they were hanging over the tailgate and then had me hold the end inside the truck while watching him cut it. He did two of the four logs and then...*gulp*...it was my turn. It was actually easier than I thought. And yes, mom, I still have all my limbs where they're supposed to be. hehe
As fun as it was, we were naturally exhausted when we got back. It's close to a 2 hour drive each way with most of it being busy highway (what we affectionately call the Alcoa Motor Speedway).
I think I slept for 10 hours Sunday night. Thankfully, the two jobs we've got going on right now weren't going to be ready until Tuesday so we got a day of recuperation.
We've got another trip tentatively planned for sometime next month with at least one, but possibly two other couples and D and those two guys might end up taking a boys only trip at some point this year.
I guess there's not a lot else to report besides our latest camping trip.
I'm missing my folks like crazy and wanting to make a short visit, but it's just not financially feasible right now...especially with the sucky economy.
I've gotten a couple applications out...one for the Knoxville Zoo so here's hopin'. *crosses fingers*
Until something else of note happens,
Ciao
