The Green Striped Heirloom Tomatoes, and Back country Campcooking

Make it Bigger, Jimmie.  These are those skinny little Babies you grew from seeds.  They have flowers on the top now.  Trés Kewl!

Now for the camping trip.

DH and the kids wanted to get another back packing trip in before R went off to heavy duty studies at the local Uni.  Yes the big B. Yes, she made it, and with a scholarship. Yay4Gee!

Anyway back to the trip:

They were scrambling to get this put together before cut off dates; the emails, texts and such flew back and forth for days and days.  Since two of them are very experienced back packers, and the other two are pretty darn good at it, too, they made their lists for foods and bug stuff and got all their permits, etc, decided who carried the tents and that myriad of details.  Basically, they had to take care of hundreds of little details that must be remembered when you are going somewhere that doesn't have a handy REI or even a 7-11 for those last minute snack or fuel purchases.

Snow still on the ground in August of a very wet year

This was a very big patch of snow still left at the Lillian lake elevation.   This is mid- August, a very wet year and a billion mosquitoes.  There was lots and lots of snow, but the air was warm during the day.

So, the campfire was always a welcome necessity, though the wood had to be packed in and gathered from downed sticks, etc.  The smoke kept the mosquitoes away, somewhat.  I can't imagine what it would have been like for deer up there.

Cooking was done on two little stoves:

Bee made a Super Cat stove, getting the instructions off the web not exactly  HERE but it's close.  Hers has a shield of cement cloth wire it looks like.  This is the stove that heated water for soups and coffee, etc.  Incidentally, Starbucks has an excellent instant coffee product that is perfect for back packers.  It tastes great!

SuperCat Stove with Mods.  Both this and the Dragonfly are fueled with alcohol.

Gee cooked some of the main dishes on her Dragonfly stove.  Cooking duties were shared, as was wood gathering.  The black canisters are bear proof ones that back packers must carry if they don't want to end up doing the "lasso trees and hang food bags" maneuver which is a major PITA.  If you make the picture big, you will see that the white thing hanging in the air is a super illuminated mosquito that was seeking a photo op, and got it.  There are are chopped onions that will go into the cookpot with the noodles right behind Gee's hat.  There is a pan, on the log behind her, of vegan sausage ready for the stove.  Double Yum!

Yummy food!  The kids carried in lots of fresh foods which made it into the main pot.  All four of the campers ate from the same pot.  It's just tradition in our family.  heehee