Chickens, Tents, and Opossums, OH MY!

Last Saturday on the 13th our small groups got together to have a BBQ instead of meeting that week. So I decided to try the beer can chicken recipe that I saw in the Red guard the other week. What they didn't tell me is that if your grill isn't the perfect temp you will either have bloody raw chicken or charred remains that are reminiscent of a nuclear holocaust. Luckily I had some back up chicken and Anne, as usual, made some amazing mixtures of food items of pleasure unknown to us mere humans. I think of Anne as the Enterprise of cooking to go boldly where no man, or woman in this case, has gone before. The turnout was great and included my neighbors, Ron and Sally Hunt, My parents Boarder Micheal, and the two small groups. Jeremy kicked all our butts with his mad poker skills late into the evening right outside Bryce's door where he most likely dreamed of lollipops and pink kittens jumping over blue clouds.

The cooking area and fire barrel


The Bar


The Chickens!


This last week on Thursday I decided to head out to the coast to try to clear my head and have some special Ian time. So I swaggered into the Drift Inn to catch a meal and a pitcher of Guinness. The waitress must have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic because she got reamed for serving me a pitcher. Which apparently is too much for one person. The ratatouille I think came from a Chef Boyardee can marked "Nasty Meat". And the chowder tasted like someone used the salmon as toilet paper before cooking it. I rolled out of the place and got back into my BMW to drive to my campsite. Arriving there I set up camp. What better way to have some special Ian time than to pack light so there will be no distractions. So all I had brought was a couple of books my sleeping bag and my bivy sack (waterproof sleeping bag). I settled down for the night into my bag like a baby kangaroo snuggling into his mommies silky soft pouch. After a half hour or so of being engrossed in a book I heard some rustling in the bushes behind me. So being aware of the Warning Bears!!! signs all over the place and the imminent danger of having my entrails strewn all over the other happy campers of the Cape Perpetua camp ground I shined my light over the the bushes and leveled the lawbringer ,my glock 19, just in time to see an opossum flying out of the underbrush at my face with deadly claws outstretched pointing at my eyeballs. Not having time to aim properly I pistol whipped the beast so hard that it changed course mid air and landed somewhere on the other side of me. At that point I decided that if even the small beasts of the forest were plotting to use my eye balls as appetizers that I should sleep in the car, and let them dine on other unsuspecting campers. Unfortunately the Germans didn't design the BMW to be a sleeper car so I spent most of the night attempting to create new contortionist positions in the back seat. After prying my kidney from under the passenger seat in the morning I went to a tall cliff over hanging the sea and spent a few hours thinking there. I decided that one night in the 5th ring of hell was enough so I headed home.

Arriving home midday Friday I decided to head out to central Oregon with my dad to go camping with the scout troop he works with. This seemed to be a much more relaxing choice than being accosted by small forest animals. We headed out to Fort Rock campground and had a great time running around with the scouts, and no one lost any vital body parts due to fire accidents. My dad had also just purchased a tent that rivaled the Taj Mahal. It had an interesting set of poles that made a rigid door that you could open and close easily and locked with velcro. This tent is most assuredly the Cadillac of tents with all the bells and whistle. Having survived the onslaught of pointless discussion about how the end times are upon us with the rents of these kids I am now back at home about to nestle into my pillow top bed to finish The Dresden Flies season1 and start Burn Notice season2.

GOODNIGHT!