Rain Rain GO AWAY!
It has been raining all day. Eventually it will have to stop. I dislike the non-stop rain that passes through this area. I miss the storms of the west where they drop the rain and blow away in an hour or so and then back to beautiful sunshine. Here we have to put up with DAYS of rain and the mud it leaves behind. I am so sick of the soggy muck in my yard, another reason why I can't get grass to grow, it gets washed away every time.
All this icky rain reminds me of the hiking trip we all took last year to the Shenandoah mountains. I feel a flashback coming on.........Rain wasn't going to get in our way, as perpetual optimists we believed it would let up by the time we made our journey to the mountains. And the rain did stop for a brief bit of time. We had just enough time to set up our canopy before the rain began again. The good part was that we had the picnic area to ourselves. No one but us was that crazy to hike in the cold and rain!
Unfortunately the table we chose was not as dry as we hoped. Since it was the closest one to the car we thought it to be a good choice. However it was sitting on a slight hill, which wouldn't under good weather conditions be a problem. As the rain continued the water began to run its way over the table causing a small river to wind its way across the table. Nothing like a wet surface to ruin a meal. To prevent the rain from trailing into the small bit of dry table area we used an umbrella to block the rain from dripping off the canopy on to the table. After a while that too was not working. We then used a beach towel to soak/dam up the water. Keith coined the phrase "substantially dry" as our goal. That was repeated quite frequently throughout the day.
Keith was in charge of cooking the food, this is his job every time we go near a BBQ. As he managed the food prep I worked on setting the eating area and getting us prepared to have a meal. I sorted through the bags of stuff when I realized a minor problem. No plates, no silverware, no cups. 'Ahhh. Perfect. That's planning ahead' I thought. I presumed that I may have left those items in the car. I went and checked. 'Nope. Not a darn thing. Brilliant! Sure go have a cookout in the mountains but don't bring necessary items.' Before I had mentioned this minor problem to my husband I began to tear apart the car, looking all over for any stash of plates, etc. After a few minutes I managed to locate 2 things that could be used as silverware. 1 mini-spoon from I believe a kid's dairy queen sundae cup and 1 KFC spork. Whoo-hoo! Since I had remembered seeing a Frisbee in the car at one time I kept on the lookout for it, turns out Hubby took it out last time we were at the park and it was at home. 'Drat. Anyhow we don't need no stinkin' plates, it's a cookout.' After my small victory I figured that I would tell the Cook that he will need to be creative with his food service.
I was met with much laughter. It was pretty funny, but also frustrating, how could I have been so stupid? The cook-husband came to the conclusion that since hotdogs really are a hand held food it wasn't going to be that big of a deal. The only problem was the beans. Hmmmm. Ahh, yes. We will have to eat them communal style. At least we had a large wooden spoon to share.
It wasn't until the hotdogs were done when we realized that there was a problem. You can't leave the dogs on the grill and the table is too icky to set them there. How were we going to hold 6 hotdogs? 2 people @ 2 hands each = 4 hands available for 6 hotdogs. (You cannot count the kids, they hardly eat 2 bites of bread let alone consider eating a hotdog. And they don't hold food to eat it, they mostly look at it and think about eating it.) OK. NOW there's a problem. After careful thought I came up with a solution: Coloring books! We had plenty of those. And that's what we ate off of, coloring books. And we managed to stay substantially dry.
All this icky rain reminds me of the hiking trip we all took last year to the Shenandoah mountains. I feel a flashback coming on.........Rain wasn't going to get in our way, as perpetual optimists we believed it would let up by the time we made our journey to the mountains. And the rain did stop for a brief bit of time. We had just enough time to set up our canopy before the rain began again. The good part was that we had the picnic area to ourselves. No one but us was that crazy to hike in the cold and rain!
Unfortunately the table we chose was not as dry as we hoped. Since it was the closest one to the car we thought it to be a good choice. However it was sitting on a slight hill, which wouldn't under good weather conditions be a problem. As the rain continued the water began to run its way over the table causing a small river to wind its way across the table. Nothing like a wet surface to ruin a meal. To prevent the rain from trailing into the small bit of dry table area we used an umbrella to block the rain from dripping off the canopy on to the table. After a while that too was not working. We then used a beach towel to soak/dam up the water. Keith coined the phrase "substantially dry" as our goal. That was repeated quite frequently throughout the day.
Keith was in charge of cooking the food, this is his job every time we go near a BBQ. As he managed the food prep I worked on setting the eating area and getting us prepared to have a meal. I sorted through the bags of stuff when I realized a minor problem. No plates, no silverware, no cups. 'Ahhh. Perfect. That's planning ahead' I thought. I presumed that I may have left those items in the car. I went and checked. 'Nope. Not a darn thing. Brilliant! Sure go have a cookout in the mountains but don't bring necessary items.' Before I had mentioned this minor problem to my husband I began to tear apart the car, looking all over for any stash of plates, etc. After a few minutes I managed to locate 2 things that could be used as silverware. 1 mini-spoon from I believe a kid's dairy queen sundae cup and 1 KFC spork. Whoo-hoo! Since I had remembered seeing a Frisbee in the car at one time I kept on the lookout for it, turns out Hubby took it out last time we were at the park and it was at home. 'Drat. Anyhow we don't need no stinkin' plates, it's a cookout.' After my small victory I figured that I would tell the Cook that he will need to be creative with his food service.
I was met with much laughter. It was pretty funny, but also frustrating, how could I have been so stupid? The cook-husband came to the conclusion that since hotdogs really are a hand held food it wasn't going to be that big of a deal. The only problem was the beans. Hmmmm. Ahh, yes. We will have to eat them communal style. At least we had a large wooden spoon to share.
It wasn't until the hotdogs were done when we realized that there was a problem. You can't leave the dogs on the grill and the table is too icky to set them there. How were we going to hold 6 hotdogs? 2 people @ 2 hands each = 4 hands available for 6 hotdogs. (You cannot count the kids, they hardly eat 2 bites of bread let alone consider eating a hotdog. And they don't hold food to eat it, they mostly look at it and think about eating it.) OK. NOW there's a problem. After careful thought I came up with a solution: Coloring books! We had plenty of those. And that's what we ate off of, coloring books. And we managed to stay substantially dry.
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