Path: jfwhome!jfwhome!not-for-mail From: jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com (John F. Woods) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Subject: MOUNT.BOB report #72D, EAT.MORE.CHILI Date: 8 Aug 1997 00:31:56 -0400 Organization: Misanthropes-R-Us Lines: 130 Message-ID: <5se7fs$hvk@jfwhome.funhouse.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: jfwhome.funhouse.com MOUNT.BOB report #72D, EAT.MORE.CHILI (8/3) Or, A Trip In The Gooleymobile "I'm not going to show this to Markian, he'll probably throw it away." -Sara Sunday had fewer activities (so many people having died of exhaustion on either the Trifecta or j.j's DeathMarch 2000), but we went rock-hounding with Gooley and Lilith. There have been many tales of Mark's driving, some fair, some unfair, so I'll not belabour it, but I do want to assure everyone that we all made it safely back and that the psychological scars will almost certainly yield to years of intensive therapy. Anyway, I forget the name of the place Mark drove us; it was somewhere along Gold Camp Road in Manitou Springs, and we got completely lost getting there because a bridge was out on Upper Gold Camp Road and we were supposed to find and alternate route via "Penrose Blvd". Needless to say, the sign telling us this did not even HINT where Penrose Blvd might be found, and the Forestry Service map Mark had was confusing at best and outright misleading at worst, since it had a distinct bias of only showing those roads of interest to the Forestry Service. Eventually we spotted a woman standing in the street in Colorado Springs who was giving directions to some tennis event going on at the time; she was able to give us concise directions to our own destination, and after a twisting and outright dangerous drive up a dirt road, we arrived at the hiking site. It turned into a bit of a deathmarch (oh so common that weekend) owing to the paucity of good rocks near the parking area (of course, what little there had been originally had long been picked clean). Babs, Sara and Lilith stopped (note: we were at around 9,700 feet altitude) but Mark and I pressed on. We passed an area which looked like water periodically coursed down from above, and Mark spotted an abandoned sluice, indicating that there must have been a mine some ways up the hill from that point. Unfortunately, "up" was not directly possible, owing to the steepness of the slope, so we followed on the very winding path. After a couple hundred yards of further hiking, as we were doubling back a second time, Gooley slipped ascending the slope, and plunged two thousand feet to his death. Well, not quite, but he did stumble and got a nasty gash on his hand, which convinced him that we were not up to further progress at that point, and we beat a hasty retreat to the Gooleymobile. (On the way back, I started noticing that some of the "random" rocks by the side of the path were, in fact, constructed walls shoring up the path. I realized that if we had spotted this earlier, we should have realized that (a) there was indeed something to go find, since someone had gone to the trouble of making it easy to get there again, and (b) we were nowhere near it yet; this could perhaps have enabled us to avoid the fruitless, time-wasting search at the start. Oh well.) We got back to the truck, Babs got out her first-aid kit and made Gooley endure great pain cleaning his injury before dispensing a bandage, then we set off back down the hill. This part of the drive was even scarier, since Mark was in a bit of a hurry; Lilith and Babs were perhaps a bit more concerned than was necessary, except perhaps when Lilith smelled overheated brakes (whoops!), but as I said we did make it back safely. A couple of days later, while waiting for laundry at the Woodland Park laundromat, I read a story in a local newspaper about a local woman who had been killed a few days before in a car accident. It seems that she went sideways off one of those winding dirt roads returning from a friend's house at night. The paper said it didn't appear that either excessive speed or alcohol were factors. Those mountain roads are simply dangerous even when you're used to them. Sunday night was the Chili Cookoff, which was a smashing success. Gooley and I did pretty traditional ground beef chilis[*] (important tip: do not attempt to brown six pounds of ground beef all at once on a camping stove. It will take forever.); Gary Heston cooked a big pot of Hormel "We Hate CyberPromo, Too" Chili; John Fitrakis made chile verde (chunks of pork, a number 10 can of green chiles, shredded, season to taste); Corp and pygmy made vegetarian chili dishes (one with Textured Vegetable Protein (I think Corp's), one without); and kludge prepared a chili which was, to the UNTUTORED eye, strikingly similar to Thai massaman curry. I was highly pleased that many people said my chili was the best; I actually liked Gooley's a bit better (despite his use of tomatoes which I hate) (I am never happy with the balance of flavors when I make chili, and will spend way too much time adjusting the seasoningly meaninglessly given the chance); the vegetarian chilis were rated excellent by grazers and hunters alike; the chile verde was absolutely divine; and Dorsey's curry, I mean alternative chili? j.j: "Scott, I'm about to make a mess in my pants!" kludge: "That's probably the only time I'll ever get you to say that." It was *that* *good*. In short, ALL of the chilis were excellent, and the winners were the campers who afterwards rolled on the ground completely unable to move after their repast; even the Hormel chili had its own virtue, in that there was enough of it to provide even for the foolish people who arrived too late for full portions of the other chilis, yet were still supplied with ample quantities of servicable chili. Once people regained mobility and the chili pots were cleaned (hey, I sometimes burn chili, too, and it just adds a pleasant smokey flavor), it was time for Bizarre Shakespeare, with The Twelfth Night. Of course, any play that starts out describing someone urinating is hardly in need of bizarrification, but the Talk.bizarre Troupe did a remarkable job of adding up-to-date touches EXACTLY where Wild Bill Shakespeare would have put them if he were alive today and seriously drunk. Unfortunately I left during the intermission (Sara was freezing and I was exhausted), but I want to congratulate the entire cast for a spirited and thoroughly enjoyable production; some of the added touches might have been a bit risque for Sara, but I think they sailed adequately over her head that she won't be scarred for life, and she found the play itself really, really entertaining. Bravo! [Yet to be posted: DISMOUNT.BOB, and Post-Bob Colorado notes.] [*] Babs and I brought "Top Hat Chili Mix" purchased from Penderey's, and I added a good portion of some locally-purchased powdered chiles (not "chili powder", a bag of ground chile peppers, indeed one specific variety of chile pepper which I don't recall), cayenne, a bit of cumin, some oregano, plenty of chopped garlic, and maybe two cups of chopped onion, cook appropriately, season to taste (adding water with the spices), thicken with blue corn meal in water. I forgot to obtain and add burgundy, as I usually do for chili, but it seems to have worked well without. It didn't turn out as hot as I usually make chili, but this was good, since it was a general audience chili rather than a masochist's chili. -- New and Improved Web Page: http://www.funhouse.com/~jfw/