Chicken - Again??

Ok, I know what you're thinking...."don't these people EVER do anything besides eat??" Well, I admit, sometimes we do get involved with our planning and executing wonderful meals. So, sit back and enjoy the telling of another chicken tale...

A few years back, we were introduced to the art of cooking "beer-butt chicken". When we started fulltiming, of course we had to leave Jim's big grills behind. He figured out a way to extend the height of his little "Smokey Joe" grill so he could accommodate a standing-up-on-a-beer-can-chicken. Yesterday was the day to try out the new gizmo.

Here's Jim and the well-seasoned bird, all set to head to the cooking machine:


Beer in the chicken, beer in the hand...it all just goes together!


Is it done yet?


Let's see, one beer for the chicken, and how many for Mark and Jim? I doubt anyone was counting, but in 1 hour and 40 minutes, we sat down to a fine meal of tender, moist chicken, roasted corn on the cob, mixed greens and a salad. All that was topped off by a yummy apple cobbler provided by Dortha and Caden!

Walks were needed after all the dishes were cleaned up. After the walks we had to duck inside for a while to wait for a rainstorm to move through the area, then we took a drive back up into the hills in search of wildlife.

As we passed this intersection,

I remembered a geocache was located at the top of Cicero Peak. Mark backed up and headed up the road. It got a lot tougher going as we climbed; the "road" narrowed and got rockier and rougher the farther we went. I think we were all questioning the wisdom of our adventure, but Mark just kept on, slowly and carefully. At one point we came to a muddy spot in the road, so he put the jeep into 4-wheel drive. We got through that just fine and eventually found ourselves on top of the peak.

With Jim's great eye and my little GPS, we found the geocache and got rewarded by picking up a travel bug from it. We didn't spend much time up here, it was pretty chilly, and the sun was not far from setting.

So down we came:

Whew! Thank you, Mark, for getting us off the peak safe and sound! We continued on our little adventure on the main gravel road, which actually felt like the interstate after that rocky trail called Cicero Peak Road! Our quest for wildlife provided us glimpses of a lot of deer, a red-tailed hawk, a few rabbits, some turkeys, and of course, horses and cows. Oh, yes, and a cat. But we did not see any elk this time out. Maybe the next time....