A Smokin’ Good Day (And More Doggie Play)
So yesterday Paul happily hauled out our Weber smoker for a day of smokin’ in the boonies. This was exactly the kind of picture & place Paul had in mind when we bought the smoker several months ago in Oregon. What better way to spend the day than hanging out with a gorgeous view while your dinner is slowly cooking & deliciously soaking up hours worth of drool-inducing flavor in the desert? It also happened to be a day of football (the American version that is, where they don’t actually use their feet….yeah, don’t ask me). The second point being this was ALSO exactly what Paul envisioned last year when we wrote The Holey Story Part I -> Dreaming Of Football In The Boonies (and wherein the RV was caught lamenting “Oh, where art thou amperage?)
See, this entire scene was carefully planned months ahead of time….sometimes perfection is a matter of creation.
It started out as another near-ideal day in Borrego Springs. After a leisurely morning bike ride and breakfast, the smoker was ready and working its’ magic by 9:30AM.
We had planned a 6-hour rib smoke with a dry-rub and application of the 3-2-1 “Texas Crutch” method (which I admit is a controversial topic for ribs amongst BBQ idealists….but we like to live on the edge). Between watching football, messing around on the internet and keeping track of the smoker the day rolled on effortlessly by. Right around late afternoon the meat was ready and our buddies Sue & Dave (plus doggies) arrived to taste-test the results. Sue made a delicious side-dish of green beans plus totally sumptuous black bean brownies (gluten-free) for desert. So with Lewis and Polly stirring up a dirt tornado with play, the warm desert sun setting over the hills and a rum & coke in hand we shared a great dinner and several hours of chatting. Just the kind of day I love!
This AM our buddies moved on to San Diego where we’ll be joining them later this week. In the meantime we’ll be munching the remainder of our ribs, wandering down to have a few more chats with RV Sue and passing the time enjoying the desert and the views. A smokin’ good Sunday indeed!
P.S. In case you’re geeky like us and wondering if our holey story ever really worked, I’m happy to report it did. Yesterday we used the internet all morning, watched football for 3 hours, vacuumed the RV, warmed up our coffee in the microwave and still had fully-charged batteries by ~noon. Go solar geekiness!
I absolutely love you folks! My wife and I have been trying to figure out how to retire from the roofing business, and have been longing to rent out our home, divest ourselves of the vast majority of bills, and hit the road in our RV (we currently have a 30′ trailer which is not going to be big enough to live in, we’re shopping for a 36′-38′ fifth wheel and truck to pull it). Your information is very valuable to our plans, I’ve scoured your entire Wheelin It site repeatedly! We are very interested in exploring some of the Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVA) in Southern California and Arizona. “Boondocking” will be a must for us, as we will not be able to afford RV parks except on occasion (though I believe we could hole up at Sam’s Spa RV Park with the hot mineral pools for several months at a time at $520 month!). Will you two be checking out any of the LVTA’s any time soon? Slab City is also a place we could spend some time it sounds like. So, thank you for the detailed information, good luck, and keep the posts coming!! We really look forward to every one. Duncan and Rachelle Benney
We have not personally stayed at the LVTAs, but have many friends who do. Last time we went to Quartzite we stayed at the 14-day free camping area (Dome Rock) and drove over to check out the LVTA area. Lots of space there and I could easily see why people choose to spend the winter. In our case we just enjoy moving around too much. If you stay west there is plenty of BLM land for boondocking all across CA, AZ and UT even with the 14-day rule and I know some folks (bloggers like goodluckduck and RV Sue, for example) who do it almost 100% of the time. So, there are definitely means and ways to cut camping costs even if you like to explore and move around.
Hope you guys get to make it happen, and thanks for following along on our journey!
Nina
Oh boy, I am just drooling over those ribs, relaxing afternoons and good friends just hanging out. Sighhhh. Fortunately, we’ll be having some of that
ourselves just a few weeks from now in FL. Can’t wait!
FL should be lovely!! Hope you have a wonderful winter!
Nina
Amazing! I am so excited to get back to the desert to take part in these beautiful sunsets. I can just imagine how great the ribs were, yum!
They were deinitely most “yum”!!
Nina
Nice post…great photos….my kind of day…
Oh I KNOW you’d love this 🙂
Nina
PS forgot to mention…my kind of food too
I saw smoke over there the other morning, and wondered what was going on! I’ll try to stop by before you leave. I’m in the 5th wheel about a km north of you, and about 800 yds north of RV Sue!
That reminds me, my blog still thinks I am south of Barstow. Time to update, I guess!
Oh how fun! Definitely feel free to come by and say hi. In fact if you’re into happy hour, you’re welcome to attend…we usually enjoy a glass right before sunset.
Nina
Smells good from here. I’ll bet you could use that for a solar cooker too.
You might be right! The cooker was getting pretty toasty all by itself in the sun. I’ve always been intrigued by solar cooking, but never actually done it
Nina
Did you’all use some of that Rudy’s Rub? I’m going to smoke some salmon and pork shoulder this weekend. Happy and safe travels!
We sure did…and we most definitely thought of you guys when we got it out. Still haven’t smoked a salmon, but know we need to come to you for that special recipe when we do!
Nina
Its on “The Cookhouse” blog where the wife keeps all the secret recipes.
Sounds like a perfect day. 🙂
Hello Nina
I see it was 40° in your area this morning you must have though you were in Denmark when you got up this morning. We never got out of the 30’s here in TN today.
Murlene was out trying to find the cat leash and warming blanket that you mentioned with no luck.
Tak
It was definitely a bit chilly this AM, but not quite as cold as Denmark -> those folks are getting SNOW right now….brrrrrrr!
I have links for both the blanket and leash in the posts, but I’ll repost them here just in case:
Cat Thermal Blanket – Click HERE
Cat Walking Harness – Click HERE
Hope that helps!
Nina
Bobbie and I are both big football fan(aitcs)…. college and NFL. Got to have it, so if we don’t get it via antenna… we move. :))
Black bean Brownies???? Good???? Mmmmm… I don’t know about that.
Box Canyon Mark
Believe it or not the black bean brownies were really tasty. I would have had no idea they were made with beans if Sue hadn’t told us.
NIna
Though we’re loving our family time through Christmas, we can’t wait to return to our special place; the Anza Borrego Desert. That view has been the subject of many photos and blog postings over many years! Ahhhhh….
So totally with you. Everytime we come here we wish we were staying longer. It’s just soooo nice here.
Nina
This is our idea of perfection! We love our smoker too and will definitely be bringing it along! :-). Thanks for sharing!!
It’s a GREAT way to spend a day in the boonies!
Nina
I love your posts and pictures. We are looking fwd to full timing in a few years. We did 13 months on the road back in 2000 when our youngest was home schooling and hubby was traveling for his job. We were in a 20′ class C, so one thing I learned early was not to leave cabinet doors open when trying to find the item I apparently hid from myself. Ouch! on even my hard head.
We had a question about your solar power comment at the end of your post: What kind of microwave or inverter are you using that allows you to nuke it on solar power?
We have a 2000 watt Magnum inverter. It draws directly from the batteries. The key with using a microwave on an inverter is to
a) make sure your inverter is big enough to support it
and
b) use it in short bursts
The reason for both being the microwave sucks a ton of power (ours draws a honking 200 amps at full power). So, it’ll draw down your batteries pretty quick. But if you just use it a short while (a few mins) it’s not a big deal. Our solar will recharge those batteries easily on a good day even with that kind of discharge. So it’s not that our inverter is anything special or that our solar is set-up differently…it’s just that our inverter is large enough to handle the load and our solar is good enough to recharge the batteries when we do. Make sense?
Nina
I got my solar oven at Solar Bill’s in Quartzsite a few years back. Had to order it from his catalog. It works great in the Sun. It is FREE energy but it is too big for my tow vehicle and I didn’t use it all that much so I sold it. But you got mucho room to store it so go ahead and get one. It is SILENT and is so simple to use you will wonder why everybody doesn’t have one. Pot roast is so good you won’t believe it. I think Solar Mike at the Slabs makes them and his are probably less expensive. Mine had a big temperature gauge that you could see easily right through the clear window. You can watch the food cooking to see how you like it and use the temperature gauge too. With Global Warming the Suns rays are even hotter now days so cooking time should be short. Happy cooking.
How very cool. I may even look into making one myself. That’s the kind of project I really enjoy.
NIna
Nina, thanks for the info. We are definitely going to purchase solar when we go full time. We also prefer being out in the “boonies”, and don’t care for the fumes or noise of generators.
Mary,
I totally get you. Feel free to read my “solar” section on the blog. Hopefully that will give you some tips for your own installation. We LOVE our solar and are very happy we got it two years ago.
Nina
I liked your smoker idea so much… I bought my husband one for Christmas. We have a good time with it. Thanks
Oh excellent! We’ve had SO much joy out of that smoker. Glad you like it.
Nina