Sun Meadows Latest Lawn Mowers

 

Sun Meadow’s Latest Lawn Mowers

Sunday Potluck

 

Each Sunday there is a potluck dinner here at the resort. If one brings something, the potluck dinner is free, if one is unable to bring anything then the dinner is $6.00 so one does not have to feel guilty.

This Sunday I made Hot Wings. My special homemade rub was applied Saturday night and the wings sat in the refrigerator overnight.

 Wings after sitting in refrigerator overnight

On Sunday, I smoked the wings with apple pellets for two hours at 180 degrees and then cooked them in the smoker at 350 degrees for forty minutes.

Cooked Wings

After the wings were cooked, I placed them in a crockpot set on warm and added the hot sauce. The wings are served directly from the crockpot.

Rub recipe:

2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1 tablespoon plus I teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons vinegar powder
1 & 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon tomato powder
1 teaspoon hickory smoke powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place four pounds of wings in a gallon Zip lock bag. Distribute about one half of the rub throughout the wings in the bag. Seal the bag and rotate the bag until the wings are evenly coated. Place the bag of wings in the refrigerator overnight and the next day until smoking / cooking time. Rotate the bag before retiring for the night and several times the next day.

Left over rub can be stored in a jar with a tight lid.

Hot Sauce recipe:

4 tablespoons butter (1/2 a stick)
1/2 cup Louisiana-style hot sauce. Hotness selected by your degree of hot.
1/4 cup of honey
1 to 2 tablespoons of Kirkland mince garlic in olive oil or similar brand / several garlic cloves

Heat the above in a sauce pan and bring to a slow boil.

Place the smoked / cooked wings in a crockpot and pour the sauce over the wings.

Set the crockpot on warm for at least 1/2 hour. The wings can be left in the crockpot on warm for up to an hour.   

 

 

Koko’s First Haircut

 

The folks here at the resort, were staying that Koko looked more like a bear club then a poodle. Both his and Strider’s coats were getting to be quite long and both were overdue for a grooming.

Koko did not get his first rabbi’s shot until two days before we left for the summer and since most groomers will not take a dog without a rabbi’s certificate, we had to put off his first grooming until after we got here.

Thursday we headed to St. Maries where he had Strider groomed last year. We were prepared for Strider to throw up as he does not take to traveling curvy roads very well whereas Koko has never thrown up when traveling. Well to our surprise Koko threw up first. I guess that the road to St. Maries is a little too much for either dog.

Anyway we made it there a little clean up and both pups got their summer haircuts.

Koko now looks like a poodle instead of a bear club

          

Strider’s summer hair cut

As you may remember from last year, St. Maries is a little short on barber shops, there is only one groomer but they do have two grocery stores and over the Fourth of July St. Maries boasts having the World’s largest topless bar.

At any rate while the pups were being groomed, we had lunch at Zips (a hamburger joint) and did our grocery shopping.

Returning from the ice run

The lady said that Koko behaved well while he was being groomed so as a reward, Friday Koko and I biked the Coeur D’Alene trail from the marina to Harrison for ice cream. I had my usual; huckleberry ice cream in a waffle cone and Koko had a half a scoop of vanilla.

 

Rainy & Chilly but better weather is promised

 

The last several days here, since Friday have been on the chilly side. It has rained steady since yesterday and has not gotten above 50. Up until now the weather has been great, mid-forties at night and high to mid-seventies in the afternoons. The forecast for Friday is sunny and the mid-seventies so hopefully Koko and I will be able to do the bike ride to Harrison for huckleberry ice cream.

For our anniversary Raija baked a huckleberry pie so all has not been lost on the huckleberry front.

Strider and Koko will be groomed this Thursday at the one and only groomer in St. Maries, ID. It will be Koko’s first grooming. It appears that Koko is finally house trained. It has been over a week now with no inside accidents. He has learned to go to the coach door when he needs to do his business.

Look for pictures of Strider and Koko after Thursday, once they are groomed.

I have my weather link up. You can view it at http://www.weatherlink.com/user/jimsalfaseeya. You may have to try several times as it will only be there if my computer is on. You can select "MAP" and then "Satellite". By zooming in you will see the coach and H3 at my RV site.

 

Settled in for the Summer

 

 

We arrived around 10:00 AM on Wednesday, May 21^st. We were pretty much settled in and setup in time for the Memorial Day Weekend. The resort had a very good turnout for the holiday weekend, tent campers, RVers like us, hotel guests and local day visitors. Monday mid-day most of the guest had left and by Wednesday we and one other RVer were the only ones left. School is still in cession and the weather is still a little iffy here in the north.

The holiday weekend was filled with clear skies, day temperatures in the mid-seventies and nights in the low forties. The clouds rolled in on Tuesday bringing rain showers and chilly day temperatures. Wednesday did not even get into fifties.

The clouds are breaking up today and the sun is starting to warm up the day. It is now 57. Just in time for unveiling to mark the anniversary of Chas’ passing, and to remember the other people that the resort has lost since the 4C’s took over. There will be a short ceremony at the new gazebo at 4 PM. Some of us will have a few things to say. Then the owners will unveil the “thing” they have been working on.

Between then and dinner, anybody who wants to enjoy a pot luck wine and cheese party to celebrate the good time we DID have with those dear ones will be welcome to do so followed by a free dinner for everybody at 6:30 PM.

 

Well it took me a little longer than expected to process the videos that I took on our way here. I tried to high light a couple of spots along the way that I did not cover before plus our arrival at the Garden of Eden in Paradise.

 

I will have to do a better job at keeping the windshield clean as we drive along.

This is our favorite stop for lunch

There was only 111 miles left to go to our destination and it was 11:30 AM when we arrived at the 50,000 Silver Dollar rest stop. The question was, should we have lunch, proceed on and arrive a day early or stay here in the free RV Park with 30 amp electricity, have lunch in the restaurant, have a relaxing afternoon and arrive early morning on our scheduled arrival day. It was quickly decided to do the latter as that would give us most of the day to settled in plus mow the grass if needed before pulling into our site. It was a good call as the grass needed mowing at our site.

Last Night Out

10: 00 AM, Wednesday May 21st Destination Arrival

Destination Arrival

The forecast for tomorrow is sunny and the mid-seventies. So the plan is for a bike ride on the Coeur D’Alene Trail for the huckleberry ice cream at the Creamery in Harrison, Idaho. Koko has been in training and is ready to go for his share of ice cream. Strider will remain in camp as he does not take to bike riding.

 

 

Start of the 2014 Summer

 

We are all off for the summer to Paradise and the Garden of Eden. Our route is one that we have traveled many times before so I will not be covering the route in detail this time as it has been documented many times before.

We did alter our overnight stays somewhat. Our first night out was at Munds RV Park, 234 miles. The second night was at our usual stop at Utah 20 and US 89, 308 miles, where the night time temperature dropped to 31. The next day we traveled 316 miles to Hot Springs Resort in Garland Utah. We spent two nights at Hot Springs in order to have a non-travel day. The resort was just opening up for the season so the pool and hot tubs were not open. It was a little on the cool side anyway so we did not mind missing out on pool and hot tubs.

Yesterday we traveled a bit more than usual, 364 miles, to Deer Lodge, Montana where we woke up this morning to 28 degrees F.

Today we topped off the coach with diesel for the summer just short of Missoula, Montana and then the propane tank at Bretz in Missoula. Bretz still has 98 cent per gallon propane.

We are spending the night at 50,000 Silver Dollar just 111 miles sly of Paradise. This way we should arrive in the Garden of Eden before lunch giving us plenty of time to setup for the summer.

Once we are settled in, I will process and post some video that I took along the way.

Today I had my first huckleberry ice cone of 2014. One has to love Montana for its huckleberries.