The Old Heads

We have some really fantastic neighbors at camp.

Ken, a climber, has been living in Nederland/boulder/Denver area for the past 30 years.  He's a 61 year old free climber with more muscle than me! He grew up in my hometown, Normandy, Misery. Good guy Ken is. We made lasagna last night and he was so sweet to throw down for the meal. He brought a can of Great Value white meat chicken. The meal was delicious and he raved over the results. It made me feel pretty good, as it was the first time I had ever attempted the nearly impossible meal of skillet lasagna via campfire! Ken sat up with us and chit chatted the old days like we'd know each other our entire lives. We had just met each other days ago when he had locked himself out of his truck, needed screwdriver, and I had offered him a cup of coffee upon the screwdrivers return.

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Tim, The Dude, is about 50, and has his name tattooed on on his arm. Makes it easy to remember Tim *Lebowski's* name. Everyone calls him The Dude, even though he was too stoned, and passed out while trying to view the movie ages ago. Very "Dude" like indeed. Tim is really more hair than man. He let his hair down by the fire and I wondered, as he blew on some coals to re-flame the fire, if that's he how he trims his hair. "It's like Janis Joplin's hair. I love Janis Joplin...", he said. After he said that I aggreed; and we sang 'Mercedes Benz together around the newly enlarged fire, ending with "That's all!" In unison and laughing. I sang a little of my/Janis' version of George Gershwin's 'Summertime and he really enjoyed that as well. Soon after, he graced us with a fer Beatles songs he had memorized to keep his sanity while marching for the Army; Rocky Raccoon being the most memorable.

About a week ago, on the way to Nederland from camp, we saw Tim walking down the gravel road and scooped him up, and gave him a lift to town. He was telling us about how he had felt sore because he was lazy the day before, that he should have worked out, and that his legs are just going to continue being sore, and he could really use a banana. Just after thinking that an old Buddy of his was driving towards him and stopped, asked him from his truck, "Want a banana Tim? I just gotta bunch in town!"; Tim had materialized what he needed just by thinking it. Crazy how the world works like that.

The night Tim came by for dinner I made sausage, potatoes, onion, and garlic skillet yum. He and his camp-mate Adam, a kid of 23, ate and enjoyed. It was a lovely night of new friends, once again, as though we had all known each other a lifetime.

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I hope I can snag a few photos of us and the "Old Heads". Great memories aren't created everyday, and great friends to share with them are getting harder and harder to find all the time.

The great lasagna skillet

I told you I would post a campfire meal. Well here it is!

Campfire Skillet Lasagna

8 in metal platter
8 in skillet and a lid that fits on it nicely
8 in sauce pan
Noodle pot big enough for lasagna noodle halves
5 cloves of garlic
6 oz onion
3/4 box of lasagna noodles, cooked
1 small can of cooked white chicken
1 big can of crushed tomatos
1 bag of Italian shredded cheeses
1 tub of ricotta
Lots of herbs and freshly ground pepper
Olive oil

Cheap aluminum pan for coals

Make a huge fire

Mix 3/4 bag of cheese with ricotta and add seasonings to taste.

Cook noodles.

Oil sauce pan and add minced garlic and chopped onion. Add Italian seasonings and black pepper. Simmer til brown. Add can of crushed tomatoes to onions and garlic, simmer til thick and delicious.

Use just enough sauce and a little oil to line bottom of skillet, and put a layer of noodles down. Add cheese mix in a smooth layer leaving just over half for another layer. Add another layer of noodles, add sauce and half the can of cooked and strained white meat chicken and half of the remaining shredded cheese. Add another layer of noodles. Add a layer of sauce, twhen more noodles. Add almost all the cheese mix, and another layer of noodles. Add more chicken, cheese mix, and sauce and a last layer of noodles. Top with the remainder of sauce, cover with more seasonings and the last of the shredded cheese. Smoosh the edges of the noodles down on the edges with a spatula, cover, and python red hot coals for about 30 mins. Replace lid with the platter, put coals in the cheapo aluminum disposable pan and put on ttop of the platter to broil the cheese on top. Clean up your mess while tthat broils for about 15 minutes. Take the llasagna off the heat for 5 minutes to rest (just enough time to toast some garlic bread or something).

Now that shit is ready to eat! Nom and enjoy!

If you have a full kitchen and can hunt deals like me, this meal should only cost about 10 bucks to make and it wiwill easily feed 5. Or 3 really stoned campers.

Gooseberries

We went for a walk around Nederland, Colorado today. After a good fill of coffee and a mountain burger, we meandered over to the smoke shop for cigarettes. On our way, we go along this lovely pedestrian bridge over one of the feeds to the barker reservoir, paused, finished up the coffees, and had a good stare at the rushing creek below. On the visitor center side of the bridge I found a gooseberry bush (red currants)!

We had to run trash, and the only place we can dump is at the visitor center; so I pulled my car in there. I found free internet in the parking lot thanks to lil place called New Moon. Dropped the trash, couldn't pass up getting a few shots of the freshly rained on, darkened, wooden covered pedestrian bridge for my mother, and grabbing some of those ripe, ready for the picking currants! I got my shots, got my gooseberries, and went to look through the pictures; and the rain picked up again. A beautiful double rainbow fell over the quaint, mountain town of Nederland. Ran out of my car and quickly snagged a few shots of thebridge and the rainbow.

Great day in town. Now back to the daily grind of finding wood to dry out so we can keep cooking up a storm with our trusty old skillet. I'll try to remember to snap a few pics of our up-and-coming meals. Hard to do when, sometimes, it takes about 3 hours to make said meal. SCARFING HAPPENS. I am not losing weight haha!

A week of bliss

I told you I would tell you about "him" didn't I? Well, if I am Tank Girl; then he, is Booga. Started out as my best bud, now so much more.  But thats eenough of that. This isn't a love story.

A week in bliss...

Where to begin!?!

We have already had camp set up for a while pasted off Haul, and we are living very comfortably. We have some pretty amazing neighbors, and so with that, acquired some great new friends. Lars even has a new friend named Drakaryus, he is a very well behaved 8 month Lab/retriever. Quick Silver and Jyrnie are fantastic souls encasing the spirit of the wild, and ancient trades; all while yearning for even more knowledge and skills. Jyrnie is a bright ball of never
ending energy. She has the drive to make almost anything a possibility, but only after a good bout of stress occurs. Her heart is very kin to mine indeed. Quicksilver is a scruffy, dirty-hands-on young man; his eyes gleam with an abundance of ideas. His hands blackened with earth and work, the type that could cause MacGuyver (and myself) to wonder, "How the hell did he do that?!?". The trainhopper and the sweetheart, and the pup, three young hearts equally balanced making a trifecta of awesome ability. Great. New. Friends. Road family. THEY JUST GOT A BABY SQUIRREL! I love new additions! :D

With our new friends, we have enjoyed many cups of camp coffee around the fire, busker the "mean" streets of Pearl, and cusumed some amazing meals. Conversations of past travels, learnings, and experiences; we've already become like old friends.

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Bliss, is not ignorance in my book.

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