Terlingua Chili Cookoff

Terlingua is well known, in certain circles, for two things, Carrol Shelby's Terlingua Race Team and the Terlingua chili cookoffs. (You can find Terlingua Chili on the menu at Chili's Restaurants.). The latter started in 1967 and Carroll Shelby was part of both. For some reason there are now two cookoffs that happen the first weekend in November, The Original Terlingua Chili Cookoff and the Terlingua International Chili Cookoff. From what I've read, the original group broke off into three groups.

We've been curious about the types of vendors that are at an event that brings 10,000 people to a small section of a large county whose overall population is only about 9,000. We'd wondered if there might be a niche there we could fill, making and selling something at the event(s). Turns out, the answer is no. There were just a couple of token vendors, mainly selling food. We saw a couple of folks selling hats (a necessity out in the desert sun), a local guy selling jewelry and a tent of women's halter tops made from handkerchieves. That was it. The crowd was there to party. Folks came from all over in their RVs, pulling ATVs or golf carts behind them. We saw these rolling down Texas 118 for the past week and wondered why. Once we got to the grounds, we understood. There are acres of campers. It's a long walk to the cooking area or the beer tents, so people drive their ATVs from one end to the other.

As I understand it, there is music each night, but we didn't stay. The level of inebriation that was building made me want to be off the roads well before the party got rolling. I'm told that the police don't give any slack where moving violations are concerned and we saw two people pulled over as we drove home.

We got home to clouds, wind and a large thunderhead forming east of us. Within an hour, we had a nice rain, sans lightning, which the dogs and I appreciated. After dinner Dave and I watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie from the disk we have. It was a silent film, The Manxman. I'm really liking our movie nights, snuggled together with the computer with the desert outside.

 

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Grey

The day is very grey - and windy. Not just breezy like last evening, but windy. It's 60 degrees in the camper at 4:37 p.m. Dave and I are each buried under layers of covers, trying to stay warm. Don't I live in the desert?

Today we picked up two transportable tanks for water. We filled one with the non-potable water from the Ranch Office. We are going to flush out our grey water system with some of the water. We also need to test our plumbing repairs and see if there are any leaks in the system that are not readily visible. We thought we'd do that today, but it's just too cold outside.

Instead we crawled under the covers and read until we were ready for dinner. Then, we loaded the dogs into my car and headed down to Study Butte for food - cheeseburger for Dave and chicken fried steak for me.

Then to bed, bundled within sweatpants, socks, a t-shirt, a lined flannel shirt, a quilted flannel shirt, sheet, two quilts, sleeping bag and a wool blanket. It got down to 51 degrees in the camper overnight, but I stayed warm.

 

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To fry or not to fry

I keep going back and forth between feeling good and feeling blah.

I sleep well and have a good day one day and the next I have very broken sleep and have a blah day. It's tiresome.

Today we worked on the attachment for the solar panels and what the solar pantry would be. We decided we really can't afford much, so Dave's just going to build a 2' x 4' x 4' wafer board box for the components. Then we'll keep our eyes open for a used, and hopefully non-working, upright freezer to turn into the solar pantry.

Tomorrow we're going to Ft. Stockton to check it out. They have a Walmart. I can't believe I'm fantasizing about shopping at Walmart! Selection and lower prices, that's what's got me excited.

Most days we drive to the Terlingua Ranch Lodge to shower. Tonight we were driving back we saw a brilliant meteor! It burned yellow to green as it either skimmed or penetrated Earth's atmosphere. It was spectacular.

Today I learned that I should NOT try to deep fry in the camper, at least not with my current cookware. I was attempting Navajo Fry bread from a mix I purchased in Cheyenne. I'd always thought it was fied in a skillet. Nope, deep fried. i have a thin bottomed pan and the oil smoked terribly, quickly filling the place with an awful stench and thick smoke. Happily, opening the windows rapidly cleared the smoke, but the smell lingers...

I still haven't figured out photos with this app. I thought I'd gotten one in, but I don't know how and I can't do it again. Grrrr.

 

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Testing!

I have a single bar of cell signal tonight at home, so I'm trying a tiny post.

It's dusk and a cool breeze is blowing across the desert. The moon is a waxing gibbous. Out here, during a first quarter through full moon, I feel like I'm i. One of Remington's night paintings. The color of the landscape and the strong shadows. It's amazing out here.

Test Post with Ipad

I haven't posted much since the move because I always forget to bring my computer when I go to the internet and I haven't had a good program for the ipad. So, this is a test. If it works, I'll try to blog more at home and then just upload when I go find the wireless.

 

This photo is also a test. It's one of out lights in the trailer. We use the light portion of solar path lights (that have an on/off switch and then place a frosted cup over the LED bulb to act as a diffuser. It works quite nicely.

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Not Moving at the Speed of Crazy

I'm back from Brazil - or Brasil as they spell it.

We're moving along, slowly, on the homestead at El Rancho Cuca Mongrel.  We've (by we've, I mean Dave's) put tile onto the floor in the camper.  We got a phone hooked up at the ped, so while I was gone, Dave would walk up to the phone box with a chair and the dogs, plug in the phone and wait for me to call via Skype.  My wifi in the hotel was spotty, so our conversations were intermittent  but it's still amazing that I could talk with him from 5000 miles away.  He also repaired some of the plumbing in the trailer.  The cold water is done, but the hot water still needs to be completed.  Everything here can take awhile. Trips to the hardware store become at least a 1/2 day project, so we try to combine them with other errands.

The composting toilet has arrived.  We're in the process of putting that in.  I think we're going to move the camper first.  More on that another day.  We ran a phone extension line from the box to the camper.  Dave dug a trench in the road so we could bury the line.  When we finally get power, then the phone company will run a real line, but for now, at least we have a phone handy.  We had to run 250 feet of line. It's amazing we still have a dial tone after all that way!

Dave digging the trench for the phone line

We also ordered an office/solar closet.  A few miles from us there's a pre-built building dealer - Derksen Portable Buildings.  We're getting a small - 10' x 16' building that will house a small office for me, some storage and the solar electronics.  It should arrive in 3 weeks.  The company will place and level it for us.  Then we need to finish it - insulating, running power, wall sheathing and a floor treatment.  I'm excited for it.  It will be nice to have a place to work.  All I need now is internet.

Blogging, at least until we get internet, will probably be a weekly thing for me.  If I could easily blog from the ipad, I think I would do it more often, but there is not yet an Ipad app.  Go figure.  

We had rain for the past 36 hours or so.  Really, for almost all of those hours.  My rain gauge was listing, so I know it's not accurate, but it read 1.5"  I think we probably got more.  The night it started, Thursday, we'd come to the lodge area to shower and do laundry.  The rain started while we were here.  The drive home was through several areas of flooding on the road.  The deepest was only a foot, but many small boulders were washed onto the road.  It took me a few tries to get the Xterra lined up so that I ran the least chance of damaging my brand new tires or scraping something on the undercarriage if a rock spit out as I drove over it.  

Morning after the rain

Not Gone

Just gone. I'm currently in Sao Paulo. Brasil for work. Silly me, I thought I'd be blogging at night, but I'm just too darn busy and the hotel internet has been intermittent.

I miss home. Only there two weeks before I had to leave. I can't wait to get back, which I do on Sept. 22.