The Wok of Life

Several newsy things to cover today.

First, when we approached Pete about being head chef for the Saturday night meal, we told him he could get any new kitchen equipment he needed.  After giving it some thought, he said he could use a really big wok for the stir fry side dish.

"Really big" means different things to different people.  Here is what it means to the RRCC:

We're not taking the jon boat on this trip, so somebody's gonna have to paddle this thing down the river.   What it lacks in speed, it makes up for by turning on a dime.

Second, Vernon has been absolutely on the ball with advance trip support .  He's delivered both the canoe trailer and some really good scouting news.    After an on-site, bank-side visit earlier this week he reports that that the unnamed bridge we saw on the map has excellent access and truck and trailer parking. Here's a picture:

That makes everything fall into place nicely.  We'll have perfect paddling distances both days on a really pretty part of the Buffalo.   Please use only the french pronunciation of Vernon's name on this trip in honor of the true voyageur that he is.  

Now for some bad news.  

Myers unfortunately has had a very legitimate and important conflict come up on Friday afternoon (a funeral).   He'll still coming on the trip, but it means our chief BBQer is unavailable and Rob and Pete won't arrive until late afternoon either.

So we're going to have to adapt.  Here are our choices.

Option A.   We can still bring the big smoker and someone else can take the lead cooking all day.  I will happily pull it to the river Friday morning and I'm good at all the related grilling tasks previously mentioned (fishing, drinking, smoking).  But cooking is not in my contract and I have no idea how to operate those things anyway.  

Option B.  We could all arrive at the campground Friday afternoon or on whatever relaxed schedule we choose.   There's no point in changing the trip or the put-in...people are arriving at different times so we still need to car camp the first night.

Option C.    Those of us who were planning to come early on Friday could still come early, but instead of slaving in the kitchen all day we could do a bonus float on the section just above the campground.   We would start at the first bridge upstream and fish, drink and smoke our way down to the campground where everyone arriving by land or by sea will meet up.  A rendezvous with Vernón. In which case we'll just cook with Ol Smokey, or maybe feature the new wok on Friday instead of Saturday.

Think about what you want to do and we'll make a plan.  There are no wrong answers.